The New York Times has two blogs I've stumbled across and absolutely love:

Abstract City: Whimsical, graphical representations of (mostly) life in New York. Click on the link to see what I mean. Posts are fantastic, but not frequent - I'm always yearning for more. Two of my favorites are Coffee and The Boys and the Subway.

After Deadline: "...examines questions of grammar, usage, and style encountered by writers and editors of The Times." In other words, pornography for English teachers.

And a third blog addiction, not related to The Times, which most everyone has heard of by now, I think:

Go Fug Yourself: Hilarious snarky commentary on celebrity fashion. Which I don't really even care about, but I keep coming back for the writing. I've been following this blog for years, and it is consistently kick-ass awesome. Best writing on the internet, in my opinion.

In Cozumel, Mexico, we went snorkeling. (Kelly's Travel Tip of the Day: When in Cozumel for the first time, do not go snorkeling. Go to Tulum. It is amazing.) We had been to Tulum on our honeymoon, so this time we went snorkeling, which was incredible and definitely a trip highlight.

On the boat ride back to our cruise ship, after snorkeling, the crew was serving margaritas and rum punch. As much as we wanted, for free. Perhaps you already see where this is going. Remarkably, I did not.

Until this day, I had only ever been drunk once in my life. That was thanks to rum punch and severe dolphin despair. This time I avoided the rum punch. (Well okay, I had one but it wasn't very good and then they brought me another one even though I'd asked for a margarita and so I had to drink that one, too, because what was I going to do, dump it in the ocean?)

You should know that the margaritas were served in small cups. They were mini-margaritas, really. So small! And so good! And so free!

I think I had maybe 3 or 4 margaritas, plus the 2 rum punches. Honestly, I lost count but, again, they were small(ish). I was feeling good, but not impaired. We were on the sun roof and had to go down a little ladder to get to the restroom, and I could shimmy up and down it (while on a rocking boat) just fine. In fact, one of the other passengers commented on how fast I could do it.

So then the bartender comes up and asks if we want another margarita. I say no. We're almost back to the ship, and we'd each had more than enough. "Oh come on," he says with his charming Latino accent. "Just one more!"

"One more to share," I consent, gesturing to Rob.

"No, no! I'll bring one for each of you!" And he hops down the ladder before we can protest.

When he returns, he hands Rob a margarita first, and then turns to me with the other. "This one for you is special," he says, smiling.

(Kelly's Second Travel Tip of the Day: "Special" is Spanish for "date rape drug.")

I drank this final margarita because, again, what was I going to do, dump it in the ocean? That seems environmentally dubious, plus a waste of a perfectly good margarita. But that last one was the one that did it. It was, I suspect, almost entirely tequila. I can't say I detected that while I was drinking it, but that's probably because my tongue went numb after the first sip. As we were getting off the boat, the total sum of my consumption hit me. I made it to our stateroom, giggling uncontrollably the entire way. And then I plopped onto the bed and observed to Rob that the room was spinning. "Is it spinning for you?" I asked. No, it wasn't. I had trouble believing this because I generally hold my liquor better than Rob. And, dude, the room was definitely spinning. I was not making that up.

That was maybe 2:30? For awhile we entertained ourselves with a lovely conversation, among other things. And then suddenly I was waking up to Rob exclaiming, "Shit! It's 6:25!" We'd made plans to meet our friends for dinner at 6:30.

We met them at 6:33. In our dinner attire. I'm not sure how we did it. I'm sure we looked like shit. I felt like shit, although I no longer felt drunk. The spinning had stopped. Even though we hadn't eaten lunch, I was not a bit hungry. And when our waiter poured the wine, I nearly retched.

I survived the meal, although I couldn't eat anything and was surely a terrible dinner companion. Rob felt fine, but I was feeling worse and worse, so after dinner we went straight back to our room. I eased onto the bed, where I spent the next four hours awake and trying not to move. If I moved even an inch, I was overcome with a wave of intense nausea. Such misery. I assume this is what normal post-drunk feels like, but I had never experienced it before. The last time was definitely NOT like this. At one point I turned my head toward Rob half an inch, which was the limit of what I could bear, and whispered, "I think I am going to die from this." He assured me I would not. I remained unconvinced.

But, I did not die! I was allowed to live so that I might warn others: Beware the Mexican margarita. It will mess you up.

At the stop light, I pull up behind a car that is brandishing a large amount of brightly colored bumper stickers promoting various causes and preaching on numerous issues, including the reminder: DON'T DRIVE DISTRACTED.

One thing we noticed during our trip was how commonly people depend on plants for medicinal purposes. This is not news, obviously, but I had never really met someone who so thoroughly depended on natural remedies. In both Honduras and Belize, our tour guides repeatedly pointed out which plants were used to treat what. Hypertension and diabetes seemed to be the two major health concerns, and each guide pointed out multiple plants to address these conditions. And each had personal stories to accompany them. "My father have diabetes so he boil this plant to drink every day for 3 months, and now the diabetes is gone." Insulin, beta blockers, and other drug therapies were never mentioned, seemingly not on the radar at all. They have (in some cases limited) access to doctors, but I detected a distrust - perhaps even a disdain - for clinical medicine. Not to mention the expense.

I cannot tell you how many times we heard "hypertension and diabetes" mentioned by our guides. Both guides in both countries mentioned these two conditions over and over. I was surprised that these seemed to be the most common complaints, and found this really interesting because of what it suggests about health care and health education in these countries. And yet, these conditions are also so prevalent in our own country. In many cases, hypertension and (type II, by far the most common) diabetes can be managed and even prevented with proper diet and exercise, and yet neither us nor them seem to have effectively communicated that to the public.

In Belize, we were visiting the site of Altun Ha, a Mayan ruin. After the tour, our guide gave us some time to roam around on our own. She told us we could climb the temples if we wanted, and then warned, "But if you have hypertension, you should maybe not do that. Not good idea." I had to agree with her. And then she added, "Also not good idea if you have diabetes." Cracked my shit up.

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Someone in our tour group at Altun Ha, wanting some local tea to take back home, asked our guide for advice on selecting one.

"Can you recommend a good tea from your country?"

"For what?"

"Just a nice soothing tea."

"Okay, well...one tea is called [didn't catch the name]. It has some cinnamon and is good for digestion. Also, there is a Red Rose Tea and the Chinese like to take that for...[searching for the word]....um..."

"Relaxing?"

"...resistance. For to increase resistance."

It just struck me how first world our needs are, you know? These people are drinking tea for a reason - hypertension, diabetes, to ease digestion or improve the immune system. And we're all, "I need to be soothed. I need to relax." At home in the evening I'll put on a pot of tea because I'm "freezing cold!" "Freezing cold" in my heated home. My god, will we ever realize how fortunate we are?

This is the ultimate reward of travel. We go for the scenery and the culture, because we're curious about the world and, yes, because we want to relax. But somewhere along the way, there is a small moment that significantly changes our perspective, that chips away at our insular isolation from the rest of the world. We return with a better appreciation for home and, more importantly, a better appreciation for the people and places beyond home. And I believe that viewing even small things, like a cup of tea, differently begins to influence the way we conduct our lives.

Great Green Macaw (and first published photo of the bifocals)

We're back from our trip. We were invited to go on a Caribbean cruise with one of Rob's co-workers and his wife, a couple that we've become friends with. It was a much-needed escape to warmer weather. I've always said that February is the longest month of the year.

One of the ports was in Honduras, where we went to a nature park. In addition to plants and an aviary, this park had monkeys. The rest of our park tour had been very organized, but the area with the monkeys was complete chaos. Which makes sense, I suppose, considering they're monkeys. Monkeys were running up people's legs, dropping onto people's shoulders from the branches above, and hanging and swinging and scampering all over the place. It was crazy, and kinda awesome. One monkey reached his hand into a woman's pocket, snatched a ballpoint pen, and then quickly climbed up into a tree to examine it. Monkeys were grabbing all sorts of things, including my boob.

White-faced Monkey (and one of my Michelle Obama-inspired J. Crew tops)

In sharp contrast to the monkeys were the alligators in the Florida Everglades, which could barely muster the will to glare at us as we passed by on boat. They just laid around motionless, soaking in the sun. Not unlike my fellow cruise passengers. I'm thinking the gators would have perked up a bit if someone had only brought them a margarita.