Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Alligators are terrifying.


If you do not agree with me, there is something legitimately wrong with you.  I sincerely think that these critters scare the bajeezus out of me more than anything else alive on this planet.  People ask me all the time “aren’t you scared of getting attacked by a great white shark while you are surfing??”  No.  Fact:  alligators are far more terrifying than great whites.  

A shark is likely only going to grab you by accident, and just rip a limb off or occasionally chomp somebody in half by accident because they mistook you for a sea lion.  How many gator-attack survivors do you hear of????  Exactly.  None.  Well, that may be an exaggeration, but few.  Why?  Because gators come out of nowhere, grab a hold of you and drag you to the depths of their watery habitat with the pure intent of eating you.  Translation:  you are screwed from the beginning. 

Why the tangent on gators?  Because I just came back from Florida, where I got to go see my boyfriend for the first time in a few months.  And I’m genuinely concerned that he doesn’t share my same respect for these creatures.  I worry that he is going to do something stupid like go water skiing in a lake down there.  My solution?  I saw every lake/pond/puddle that we walked by/drove by/passed in his new area of residence (Lakeland, most unfortunately….) as an opportunity to try to instill my irrational fear into him.  I don’t think that I have been successful yet, but I trust that time will work in my favor and I will come out on top as the rational thinker in the end J

Regardless, I was able to get a Friday off work, and Landon managed to get a weekend where he wasn’t traveling for his new job, so I went down to visit him in his new home this weekend.  Two days isn’t much, but when you live 3,000 some miles away from the one you love and you haven’t seen them in almost 3 months, you welcome any time you can get with open arms.  And we absolutely made the most of it!  We spent a lot of time just organizing his new apartment (which is quite spiffy!) and unpacking things, laying out at the pool, and just enjoying the simple pleasures that you lucky couples who see each other daily or weekly take advantage of (like seeing a smile in person instead of hearing it over the phone, having a cup of coffee together, having a date night, and my favorite:  getting to go to church together). 

We did have a spectacular date night on Saturday night.  We ate at Harry’s Seafood Bar and Grille, which is an absolutely FANTASTIC Creole and seafood restaurant in down town Lakeland.  I highly recommend it if you are in the area.  It is seriously the best Creole food that I have ever eaten outside of New Orleans.  Landon and I both agreed that it was the best place we have ever eaten at together, which is quite the bold statement, as we both love to eat and have put away our fair share of delicious food across the country together.

We had amazing fried green tomatoes for an appetizer, (and some amazing bread, and some even more amazing shrimp and scallop fondue.  Don’t judge.  There were too many amazing appetizers to choose from to pick just one), Landon got a pecan-crusted trout dish, and I had the best shrimp ‘n grits that I have ever had in my life (again….a bold statement, as this is one of my all-time favorite southern dishes, and I run a tight ship on what kind of shrimp ‘n grits I consume, as my standards are quite high).  Seriously, the food was so good that I dreamt about it that night.  I’m not kidding.  I may or may not have woken up in a puddle of drool (I’ll let you hang on to that lovely mental picture for a moment…ha).  Seriously though, I did dream about it.

We got to go check out a local bar and just walk around on a beautiful southern evening in Lakeland’s lovely down town park area (near a lake…darn you Lakeland!...).  Words can’t describe how nice it was to just enjoy an evening together.

It was so nice, in fact, that I completely forgot to take any pictures of anything.  So here is one of a baby horse instead:




Happy Tuesday!
AP

Food for thought:
Love really is a blessing...especially when it lasts long and is adorable like this!


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