A Writer's Angst

It had to happen sooner or later. At 10 years old, my son no longer believes in Santa. I think he took it better than I did! He still insisted in going online to write a letter to Santa, and afterward, he was reading the other letters to Santa from kids on the site. As he scrolled through, reading about how Timmy wanted a bike and Sarah wanted some Barbies, he said, "These poor suckers, still thinking Santa is real!"

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We went up to Maggie Valley, N.C., for a few days to have Thanksgiving with my brother and sister and their families. We rented a wonderful home up in the mountains and had dinner there. As always, my son loved being with his cousins, even if only for a few days. And we were treated to snow on the day we left.

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Davy Jones and Captain "Butch" Sparrow.

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It seems I don't have much time these days for my blog, but this is important. A friend of a friend of an online friend recently got some bad news on a rare type of breast cancer. She wants everyone to get the word out:

Inflammatory Breast Cancer

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Putting him in this getup was my son's idea -- I swear!!

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We got back from Costa Rica on Saturday. Honestly, it felt like we were in paradise. It is a lush, beautiful country -- except for the horrible roads -- and its people love Americans. We stayed at the base of an active volcano, Arenal, and toured rain forests and cloud forests, spying howler monkeys, sloths, red dart frogs, basilisks, coatis and lots of other creatures. The resort, Tabacon, also had fabulous hot springs that we used every day. We took a boat tour of the Tarcoles River, where we saw too many crocodiles. Our comfort level plunged when the boat driver jumped out of the boat and started feeding the 12-foot crocs dead fish. They were no more than a foot from him ... it was unbelieveably dangerous. When he got back in the boat, he backed up and ran over something, and the boat started rocking wildly. We were stuck in shallow water, and the crocs started surrounding the boat. I could have easily touched one of these huge crocs; that's how close they were! On another trip, we were driving up a mountain and a snake leapt onto our windshield. And on yet another trip, there had been a landslide on a road we were on and we had to navigate across it, all the while hoping the rest of the road didn't crumble away.

So. Not exactly the relaxing vacation I had intended, but it sure was memorable.

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