I still don’t know quite what to make of having a birthday on Easter. It happened when I turned 40 which seemed prophetic. But that was a while ago when my kids still lived at home and my mom still lived. There were many jokes about being resurrected (and which parts of me would never be. My family is very funny.)

This year was very different though. First, there was only Frank there to carry the “make San feel special” burden. He did a fabulous job – I should say he does because he makes me feel special every day. And my birthday gift was a little over the top.  I asked for a counter top herb garden. I got a diamond necklace.  Okay, I guess that will do.

Easter service is always one of my favorites – I get my Alleluia’s back after a long 40 days without them.  But I felt a bit cheated because our church always goes out of the way to give birthday blessings on Sundays – it’s one of the things that drew us to the quirky little congregation:  the priest calls up everyone who has a birthday that week and the whole congregation prays for them (usually prayer 50 on page 830 of the Book of Common Prayer – feel free to look it up.  I’ll wait.) But of course with this being Easter and the most important day in the liturgical calendar, we didn’t do that part of the service. The egotistical me did have a little bit of a hard time not being the center of attention. Funny, but apparently it’s not always all about me.  Hmm.

I got lots of birthday wishes on FB and by email and text and for those I am grateful.  It’s nice to be reminded that you have connected with other human beings in such a way that they feel compelled to acknowledge a special day in your life.  My kids and brother have phoned and texted and I have been given carte blanche to make this my day as well as Easter at home. So we had champagne and Peeps for lunch.  And watched as the weather cleared from snow and sleet in the morning to cool sunshine in the afternoon.  Frank baked birthday cupcakes to have as dessert after the Easter-themed birthday dinner of lamb chops.  A hot bath tonight a few hands of cribbage (which I should win if there is to be marital harmony) and we’ll call celebration of the resurrection(s) complete.

I did have a very hoppy birthday – thanks for all the good wishes.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one:  A girl walks into the airport with luggage and a boarding pass and NO PHOTO ID.  Welcome to my Tuesday.  Let’s back up a bit.

I am in Dallas (Grapevine actually) at a big IT consulting summit where I will be one of four use case presentations among a sea of consulting advice.  It’s not really nerve wracking necessarily but this trip has been quite the challenge to put together.  First there was the challenges with getting my slides to the organizers – apparently Powerpoint attachments from the Fed get consistently caught in their spam filters.  I don’t know that we ever got a useable slide deck transmitted properly.  So I had to prepare to bring the slides on a memory stick. Except that we can’t just use any old memory sticks in Bank equipment.  So I need to track down the special encrypted kind that we are allowed to use.  We have a loaner one in the office so yesterday I grabbed that and prepare to upload the files. Except it doesn’t work.  The firmware is out of date. Okay.  Let’s try again.  I borrow another one marked quite clearly that it has a particular purpose and is NOT FOR BORROWING in capital letters.  The firmware for this one is up-to-date so I carefully type in the password written on the bottom of the box – great security! – and get a nasty pop up that says “Incorrect Password.  You have 0 more attempts before device self-destructs” or something like that.  Since I apparently wasn’t supposed to be borrowing it in the first place, I was taking NO chances.  That one gets returned and my awesome IT colleagues run around finding one that works.  I left the office yesterday with multiple copies stored on a relatively new encrypted device (and the password written on a piece of paper in my wallet.  Sssh.)

So now I’m ready.  Today was my mandatory “work from home for business continuity purposes” which was fine with me.  I had a quick doctor’s appointment (dermatologist says all is well), voted in the primary (and got to see what the Baptist church up the street looks like inside) and then settled in to get some work done before the car to the airport picks me up at 2:15 for my 4pm flight. (Yup- there are some benefits to being in the middle of the country with a small, navigable airport).  So I am plugging away working in my kitchen when it occurs to me that there’s a lunchtime spin class on Tuesdays at my gym.  I could spend my “lunch hour” getting some exercise before getting packed into the flying sardine can for the trip south.  So I get changed, grab my keys, gym card and driver’s license (foreshadowing here) and head to spin.  And nearly died spending 45 minutes “climbing mountains like we don’t have in Kansas City”.  Ugh.  But I kinda made it through.  Grabbed a protein shake to actually have for my lunch and then headed home for a quick shower, a short conference call, and then off to the airport.

Quick shower:  check.  Short conference call:  not so much.  I was first on the agenda and the participants were most interested in what I was saying so my 10 minute discussion lasted nearly 30 minutes.  So now I have 15 minutes to wrap everything up before heading to the airport.  Logged off the laptop and got that smushed into my “personal item” with my purse and my plane reading.  Closed up the suitcase and got that sorted.  Left the checkbook for Frank since I won’t need it in Dallas.  Left the car keys at home since I won’t need them in Dallas.  The car is now waiting and I rush out the door – remembering to leave the spare key in the mailbox for the cleaners who are coming tomorrow (which is why Frank needs the checkbook.)

So now we’ve caught up with our heroine who has just been dropped off at KCI with the boarding pass and belongings but whose driver’s license is home with the car keys. [Insert favorite swear word here.  Repeat 23 times.]  I tried to call Frank to see if he could run home and get it for me since there was about an hour before my flight left.  Two texts, two voicemails and 10 missed calls and it was obvious that wasn’t going to work.  So I checked with the airline to see if I could get on the next flight so I would have time to get my ID before boarding.  The gate agent told me that I could get on the plane without photo ID.  What?  No.  Really?  Do the presidential candidates know?  I can’t believe that.

So off I go to the TSA line and plead my tale of woe.  I have nothing on me with a photo.  Didn’t bring the work ID either since I wouldn’t need it.  (Had I gone to the office…. grrr…) The TSA agents are very nice and understanding but seem dubious that I have 3 credit cards, 2 ATM cards, insurance cards, etc but nothing with my photo and not even a checkbook with my name and address.  But wait!  I have my voter card cuz I voted!  The poll workers didn’t want to see it but I could show it to the TSA!  I got the most thorough search I have ever seen – every article of clothing I brought got swabbed and you have never actually seen such a pat down.  But I passed. And I got on the plane.

And then had to figure out what to do without ID once I got off.  What’s the first thing they say at the hotel registration desk?  Credit card and photo ID please.  So the tale of woe begins again.  But they have my credit card on file and I know my hotel rewards number so maybe I’m okay.  They also have a FedEx office in the conference center so Frank will be able to FedEx my driver’s license to me!  Yippee!  And while most days, I don’t even think about my driver’s license because it just sits languishing in my wallet, today I feel naked and everyone wants to know who I am.  I stopped by the hotel shop to get some wine and treats and handed over my credit card and was asked “Do you have photo ID?” Really?  How many times do I buy things with my credit card and no one gives a monkey’s rump if I can prove it’s my card.  Yet here, I need to because I can’t.  So my tale of woe told once again and my room key and my Facebook profile shown on my phone (no lie) are sufficient to prove that I am worthy of buying some local wine and Cherry Garcia.  So now to consume both and put this day behind me.  I’m ordering room service – they can’t possibly want to see my ID for that!

We awoke on our last full day to the sound of rain pounding down on the roof of the cottage. {sigh} So we were not destined to frollick in the sun. Okay, we’ll manage. I hit the gym for a run while Frank slept in. We staggered down to breakfast late and as we sat slumped over our coffee bemoaning our bad luck with the weather, we noticed that the rain had stopped. A few minutes later, the sky began to brighten. Could it be? Were we really going to get a decent last day in paradise?

YES! The sky cleared, we slathered untold layers of sunscreen on and tried to squeeze as much sun soaked activities into one day as possible. We walked on he beach, played pool volleyball, did shots with the bar tender at the swim up bar, and generally had the kind of day we had hoped for during our stay. I finished another book and got all the vitamin D and sun burn I could stand before we wandered off to see he sunset (there wasn’t one – too cloudy) and then showered and changed for the manager’s cocktail party. We had lovely conversations with folks from northern England we had met during the disastrous Gala Dinner and then headed to the beach bar for more conversations with lovely English strangers before having our final dinner on the beach. We stayed through most of the “cultural event” before heading back to the cottage to pack.

And so today is the lost travel day. Two hours by bus to the airport where I get “randomly selected” for secondary screening which turned out to be nothing but still scared the poo out of me. We did get to hang out in the VIP lounge (we bought passes in advance) so we had plenty of snacks and an open bar to help us while away the time. Both flights boarded promptly and took off and landed early (love Southwest Airlines) and now we are back to our cold reality.

All in all, it was a good trip. We managed to try curried conch and jerk chicken; we had fresh snapper nearly every day. We tasted just about every cocktail on the bar list, and some that weren’t on the list. We met most of Michigan and a large portion of England. We didn’t get in any good snorkeling but did relax and get plenty of sleep.

We weren’t particularly enamoured of the north coast or this particular resort – too laid back, too old (we were definitely in the younger tail of the age distribution), too  many naked people (the au natural beach was the most popular part of the resort and had the nicest beach), and not enough variety in clothed activities for our taste.

So we will head back to Negril next time – probably late next year. We’re thinking of ringing in 2018 in the islands. Want to join us?