In addition to planning a non-wedding wedding (which, honestly, isn’t much work at all — our wedding to-do list looks like this: 1. get marriage license), Ben and I are planning a staycation honeymoon.¹ Our staycation honeymoon will involve taking the week after our non-wedding wedding off work, dropping Soren off at daycare on his usual three days, and puttering around Denver doing whatever random stuff we feel like doing.

That probably sounds pretty lame, but I’m looking forward to it like crazy.

Aside from driving to and from Chicago to visit family (the last time was 2007), Ben and I haven’t had a vacation since 2003. If you’re doing the math, that’s a long-ass freaking time without a vacation. (I did take a 12-week maternity leave after Soren was born, but that arguably does not count as vacation even though it was time off work.)

Considering that all our money and then some goes to child care, even though we won’t have any travel or lodging expenses, we’re still trying to do things on the mad-crazy cheap. So, you know, maybe we’ll get some seitan wings at City O City, hit up a few local breweries, go on a hike, sit in a hotel lobby and pretend to be tourists, and try to scoop up some free/cheap Avs tickets (I’m on the verge of starting to really watch hockey as a result of the NBA lockout, although it seems like quite a commitment because I know next to nothing about hockey; for example, I just googled “crease”).

As you can see, my staycation honeymoon goals are, as you’d expect, pretty modest. There is one thing I’d like to get a little fancy about, though. It would be awesome if we could spend at least a couple hours lounging by a nice pool somewhere. Now that it’s no longer summer, I’m not sure how easy that will be.

photo: MGM Mirage

My gym has a pretty nice pool, but it seems kind of silly to lounge by a gym pool in gigantic sunglasses and a cleavagetacular swimsuit like you’re, well, somewhere other than the gym. I once read a novel where the main character spent most of her time sneaking into unoccupied hotel rooms and using hotel pools, but I’m not sure how well that works in practice. I’m also a little wary of this sort of endeavor because the one time in my life I was ever arrested (although, full disclosure, it wasn’t bad-ass enough arrested to result in being taken to jail) related to late-night escapades in a hotel in a sort of trespassy fashion (that was fun to explain on the character and fitness portion of my Bar application; yes, they do allow you to be admitted to practice law if you did stupid shit when you were in college).

Pools are kind of a thing for me for two reasons. One is that I’m at a point in my life where I’m not too embarrassed to wear a swimsuit in public. The other is that they’re pretty much symbolic of complete and utter relaxation, at least for someone like me who doesn’t live near a beach or like to fly. (Side note: I really, really, really want to go to Las Vegas someday just for the pools.)

So whether it’s by unauthorized crashing or more legitimate means, I hope to spend at least a little leisure time by a pool in the near future.
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Note
1. Yes, it does kind of pain me to use the word “staycation,” but what are you gonna do, staycations gonna staycation.