Overheard at... the pool in Mexico

"Would you like another sangria senora?"
... No, I want my Starbucks!

Okay, so I admit it.... two weeks of travel paradise, first to italy and now to a perfect tropical local, and all I can think about is a grande, nonfat latte in my spot at Starbucks. I know it is ungrateful, I have been unaccountably fortunate to have had the summer I am having, and yet... there is something about the routine of home, the perfectly familiar places and activities, that feels very compelling after two weeks of moving at a different pace.

Antsy, I sat by the pool yesterday trying to figure out what i should be doing. When the answer was nothing it seemed far too lazy. When Miguel, a very nice man who has been our poolside server wandered over I felt somehow relieved to have to at least provide an answer for something, even if it was only to the question, what would you like to drink. I watched him perform a card trick for my daughter (he had already made her two balloon animals and four smoothies) and wondered if, in a world struggling with recession, famine, and war we are lucky or just terribly naive.

So, perhaps I am not really doing "nothing" after all. Because, here in paradise, without the demands of routine and schedule, (and probably after having imbibed too many sangrias) bigger questions float through my brain than usually get much coverage at home. I may not have an answer for them, but I know they are some of the more important souvenirs which will follow me home.