We are at the beach! We are at the beach! (you have to say it in a singsong kinda 'nyah nyah nyah' to really get the full effect as if I were there, saying it to you, but I'm not because we are at the beach!)

Saturday evening was the party for my friend Michelle's birthday, which her husband Bill threw at this trendy restaurant in Midtown called Mitra. The food was excellent - cold cucumber soup, tasty hors d'ouevres, steak and deep-fried lobster tails...YUM. I saw a number of people I hadn't seen in quite a long time and met a few people that I'd only heard about through Michelle. It was nice putting faces to names.

There is a person Michelle and I used to work with and let's just say there's no love lost in that quarter. Several other people at the party either worked with her, knew her professionally, knew her personally or had had some sort of dealings with her. Well, whenever this person's name was mentioned, anyone within earshot had a horror story to tell and each one was worse than the last - we're not talking malicious gossip here, I mean one chick had even filed a lawsuit against said person. And won. So afterwards Alan was saying to me, "There was not one person who had anything nice to say about her. Out of like 50 people, everyone had a horrible experience. It would be one thing if it was just you, or just you and a couple of other people, that would be just conflicting personalities or you didn't appreciate her business style or something - but not one. single. person., not nobody had the slightest nice thing to say about her whatsoever. That's just...AMAZING. I mean, truly AMAZING."

Aside from that (which was funny) Michelle's party was fabulous. She has quite a circle of friends from various associations - work, kids, neighbors, etc. - but it was a great mix. Everyone was friendly and even though I don't like trying to make small talk with someone when I know nothing about them (and therefore don't know what to say or what might interest them), that night wasn't uncomfortable at all. Also, the food was amazing at this restaurant and I hope we can go back sometime for dinner.

The next day, Sunday, we finished packing and left for the beach. We are staying at the aforementioned Michelle's beach house, which is gorgeous. She was generous enough to offer it to us for vacation last year, which although we'd been dating over a year at that point was the first trip we'd had together - so it was kinda sentimental and we leapt at the chance to stay here for our honeymoon. She and her husband are so wonderful to let us use the place; we only pay for cleaning it upon our departure. She's done a great job decorating, it's huge, there's a big screen porch overlooking this small lake, a great kitchen if we want to cook fresh seafood one night, every amenity and the boardwalk/beach is about 20 steps away.

Sunday was basically a travel day - get the car loaded, get here, get unloaded and unpacked, chill out. This morning we were up early for a Publix run to stock up on Cokes, snacks and miscellaneous supplies. Oh, and you might be wondering why I'm blogging when I'm on my honeymoon. Well, it's because we had the most fabulous pizza for lunch (Jordano's, recommended by Michelle, and if you can't trust an Italian girl from Chicago to know her pizza, I don't know who you can) and Mr. Bossy Husband there is refusing to let me anywhere near the pools and the ocean until at least thirty minutes after I've eaten, because he says I can't be trusted to stay out of the water. Hmpf. Alan's obviously spent way too much time listening to my mother.