announcing my new exciting talent

apparently i've inherited one of my dad's traits that i didn't know i had in me -- a propensity for fainting in restaurants.

that's right -- today, for the third time in my life -- i passed out. the first two times were in europe in the shower (lovely to think about right?)... budapest in 2002, prague this past summer... from not getting enough sleep and then turning the warm water a little too high up and making my blood pressure momentarily plumment.

today, i was not in europe or in the shower. brother thought it would be fun to check out mars 2112 for dinner since he's heard me talk about it a bit.

if you've not been there, it's a new york theme restaurant where you're supposedly dining on mars. to get to mars, you take a spaceship ride with 2 dozen other people. brother and i were first in line for the next ride, when suddenly my heart started beating fast and my vision started getting spotty. i told my brother to take my purse while i got rid of my coat and went to sit on the stairs across the room. when i stayed there for more than a minute he came over, as did a few of the restaurant people... they gave me water and asked if i wanted anything else. while they were getting the water, brother was trying to talk to me but all i could hear was ringing in my ears and i was getting suddenly very hot and sweaty.

conclusion already then? we'd walked something along the order of 6-7 miles around new york this afternoon and i'd barely drank anything. honestly, i didn't feel thirsty, but that much effort running around without keeping hydrated is not a good thing, even when it's not hot out.

anyhow, after i finished the water they gave me we decided ryan should go on through the space ride and i'd go through the "zip route" (i.e. walk through another door in the room and meet him on the exit side of the ride). i waited there for about 2 minutes, and just before he came out, the ringing in my ears and the spots were back. brother bee-lined to me and asked:
brother: "are you ok?"
me: "not really"
brother: "do we need to go?"
me: "we need to go sit at a table..."

then here's my version:
brother said ok, and since my vision was spotty i closed my eyes and leaned against him to walk to a restaurant table, then as i leaned in more next thing i know he's saying "lara! lara!"
me: "what?"
brother: "you just fainted, is your head ok?"
me: "i did?... oh, i guess that's why i'm on the floor, huh?"

brother's version more matches up with the "need to sit at a table" comment, then he says he was two people behind me walking into the restaurant, and pretty much immediately as i took a step i fell straight forward like a piece of wood and came within 2 inches of hitting my head hard on the wall. i was out for all of 2 seconds.

we made it to a table and after downing 4 gigantic glasses of water and a chicken pot pie i was in much better shape for moving around.

but dude... that was new.

i totally knew it was coming too right before it happened, but there were no warning signs of feeling bad until about a minute ahead of time.

dehydration -- definitely wouldn't recommend it...

in other news:

* pastor j was not only visiting my NJ church this morning - he was our guest preacher... totally surprise... it was fantastic to have him back for a week!

* brother and i checked out the intrepid museum in new york for most of the afternoon. it's pretty freakin cool and a really good use of the space. the intrepid is a gigantic air craft carrier boat that went into service in WWII and served for vietnam and korea too and as a NASA retrieval vessel as well before being decommissioned. when it was retired, they made it into one of the world's largest floating museums... right in the hudson river in manhattan. you get to learn about all these planes and about the gigantic boat itself while ON the boat... and quite a few of the exhibits are really interactive. i'd highly recommend it.

* wandered around a bit for fun... then to mars... i already told what happened there.... and now we're home again.

sounds like lots of fun, right?

all good if when i fainted i hadn't rebanged up my right knee which was finally just about back to normal after the incident of 2 weeks ago... oi.

the end... happy sunday?