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Archive for 2010

A One-Off On All Things Texan

Holy mothers of Cynthia Ann Parker and Sam Houston but do I love the Lone Star State. I don’t love everything about it [Sideways glances and middle finger salutes at the Texas State Board of Education--as the astronauts (Hello, NASA!) in Houston say, "Way to screw the pooch." Man, just when you think it is safe to once again admit to being a Texan, these guys show up. I swear, if the Board had any brains they'd play with them.] [Additional salutes to the heat and humidity--Really, Texas, is it necessary to be hotter than the surface of the sun? I just don't know why once the settlers got there in spring, "Oh, look at this land. It's beautiful. It's fertile. The weather is lovely," that they didn't pick up and say, "Screw this," once the summer (In the summer of 1980, high temperatures in Dallas/Fort Worth exceeded 100 °F  a total of 69 times, including a record 42 consecutive days from June 23 to August 3. D/FW reached an all-time high on June 26 and 27, when the temperature reached 113 °F on both days.)] hit. As my mom says, “Spring in Texas: One nice day in April. Fall in Texas: One nice day in October.” But I digress as I am wont to do but I do love it.

I was born in Baytown, Texas. I am a third generation Texan. I have lived in Texas, on and off, for most of my life. I tell everyone that no matter where I live, I will always be a Texan. Texans know that, “No, most of Texas isn’t a desert. There are the piney woods of East Texas, the flatlands of North Texas, the gorgeous hill country, the Gulf Coast, the tumbleweeds of West Texas, and the snows of the Panhandle.” I truly believe that “Don’t Mess With Texas” is absolute genius. Not only did it clean up our roads because Texans are a proud lot but it captured how we feel about our state. I mean, it’s like your family: YOU might be able to talk bad about it but don’t even let someone else start ’cause it’s ON at that point. I’ll defend Texas, and my family, until I die. Hell, you might even bicker with your fellow Texans about what’s happening in our state, but let someone from outside start in and we’ll beat your ass down, and then get back to our argument!

I love Giant. I’ve never read the book but the movie is near and dear to Texans’ hearts, even if the movie does get a lot of stuff wrong. What they got right, though, is this: The moment where Leslie’s father tells her, “You mustn’t speak that way to a Texan. They feel very strongly about their state.” Makes me laugh every time! And the cinematography is out of this world. If you ever have a chance to watch it at the theater, please do it.

And let’s not forget Lonesome Dove, just one of Larry McMurtry‘s books set in Texas. Please read the book and don’t forget to watch the miniseries. Both are fantastic.

I can’t even begin to tackle the food so here: Homesick Texan, kolaches, Kerbey Lane, Texas blood (aka Ro-Tel, Oh make sure you enter the Ro-Tel contest over here at Deep South Dish),  to die for, mother’s milk, combo platters, Gulf Coast, and even though chili is the official state food of Texas I believe it is actually this: The beautiful, indescribably delicious, perfect-in-all-ways chicken fried steak! Oh my God, are you kidding me with that? And bitch, please. Don’t EVEN call it country fried steak. Damn! I wish I were in Texas right now ’cause I hongry! Oh, oh, if anyone should feel so inclined and generous, I would love to have this (in the Texas-shaped bottle, if at all possible. Yes, please, and thank yew!).

Now, let’s talk about the State Fair of Texas. [And that was a perfect segue from food because I mean, come on, how do you not LOVE a state that comes up with these: Fried Coke (though I would've preferred fried Dr Pepper as DP is from Texas), Deep Fried Latte, Fried Cookie Dough, Fried Banana Split, and this, the holy grail of fried goodness: Chicken. Fried. Bacon! ] I have been to other state fairs and fairgrounds and they are sad. They are small little affairs on small little fairgrounds and they make me appreciate even more the spectacle and ritual that is the great state fair of Texas. I don’t know of another state that builds in a day off of school in each school district just so that the kids can go to the fair. “Fair Day” is right up there with Halloween and Christmas for kids in North Texas. We got the day off from school and a free ticket to the fair. Shit, school buses were reserved to give us a ride, and if you were old enough and could talk your parents into it they would drop you and a friend off in the morning with a couple of twenty-dollar bills and you would tear up that midway! And when your momma would pick y’all up in the afternoon you were sunburned, sick to your stomach from all the fried food, and if really, really lucky, carrying a bunch of stuffed animals that would stay in your bedroom until you graduated from high school and your momma redecorated your room after you took off to college.

I don’t have a segue for this so I’ll just jump in with one word: Manners. Y’all Texans know EXACTLY what I’m talking about but for those of you unfortunate enough to be born elsewhere I will now politely school you. There are manners and then there are Texas manners. Manners dictate that when asked if you’d like some tea, you say, “Please.” Texas manners dictate that you say, “Yes, ma’am, thank you.” Texas manners mean that you fellas take your damn hats off indoors, and that means your gimme caps, too. (This has sadly been declining in my time. My PaPa would’ve died before leaving his hat on indoors.) You “Yes, sir” and “No, ma’am” everyone, even those younger than you because it’s polite. You offer to get your visitors something before they’ve even sat down. Men stand when a lady walks into the room. (This can be dropped with your friends and family but please stand when a lady not of your acquaintance walks up.) If I have to keep explaining this then you will just have to look it up on your own. Googling “Texas Manners” pulls up tons of article from other Texans who have written about them; obviously it’s important to us.

Before I finish my love letter to Texas, here are just a few more words for you: Football, big, boots, cowboy hats, Wurstfest, dance halls, C&W, Tito’s Vodka (feel free to send me some of that too), Hillshade RV Park (prettiest, friendliest little RV Park in the Hill Country) and finally, here are the Reivers, my most favorite band ever! Please, please check out their music.

So there you go. While I am driving along in the RV, looking forward to my next adventure, my heart is in Dallas. And in Austin. And in Houston.

Don’t mess with Texas. Y’all.

It’s Not You. It’s Me.

I ain’t gonna lie; I went in to the 2nd annual NuRV Gathering with high hopes and those hopes were dashed on the rocks on the first official day. Clubbed like baby seals, beaten like red-headed stepchildren, shall I go on? I was surrounded by the groovier-than-thou and I felt like I was in high school (Fuck you, DeSoto. I hated you then. I hate you now. Especially you, KURT. And you, MISSY.) all over again. I was thisclose to saying, “Fuck this noise. I’m outta here.” Seriously, here I was thinking that I was going to find kindred spirits and other outsiders and be able to be something awesome and what did I find? I found these teched out, dreaded out, hipped out (www.liveworkdream.com) way-better-than-Mes and I stepped right back into my head and died a little.

BUT, but here’s the thing: Those rocks my hopes were dashed on? Not real. The clubbing and beating? No one did that to me. I did it to myself. All that bullshit I’ve been carrying since grade school and high school, in particular, I’m still carrying. And it sucks. I swear to the universe that this, “No matter where you go, there you are,” is truth. I have been trying to leave ME somewhere else and damn it, I keep showing up.

So, to you, the NuRVers, my most humble apologies for not giving you the credit you deserve and for assigning you my issues. You were all, to a person, open and honest and forgiving and giving and sharing. Thank you for opening my eyes. Y’all rock.

Hah! Not dead yet.

Yeah, yeah, I know. No, really. I. KNOW.

Here’s the deal, and this is not an excuse, mind you, but the real reason why I don’t update the blog like I should: WordPress. I don’t really get it. I am missing the techy/l33t coding gene and just adding links and pictures takes me a couple of days and so “just” updating an event that only took a couple of hours in real life takes me about a week in computer life. I would LOVE to be able to add music and little videos and more links and pics. Just recently I saw a lady make a video, edit it, add music, add text, write a little something, edit that, and get it up and running on her website in just a few hours. Hell, it probably only took her an hour.

Maybe the free blog programs make this stuff easy, but WordPress can bite my sizable ass. Working in it takes all the fun out of this blog. I know everyone else seems to be able to manage it. Yay for everyone else. You may know this, and you may not but here’s how I work: I have to write the story (the fun part for me) and then resize any photos and upload them to WordPress, then research the links and code them [with this ridiculously specific and kind of long group of randomness (I know it's not random but for me it is because I don't GET it. Get it?) on both sides of the link], and then edit the whole thing, and then upload the story from wordpad and hope that it doesn’t get borked in the process. AND if it does since I don’t know enough about it I then have to figure out what went wrong, which could take me another day. I tried to add the WordPress Add-On that is supposed to put a google map on my blog and I can’t figure out how to size it properly. And I can’t figure out how to size the pictures properly. AND, and the Dude seems to think that I can just read the forums and know what happened and how to fix it, but that’s like handing a fallen souffle and a cookbook to someone who has never baked and telling them to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. Oh, and which kind of souffle it is and what’s in it! Riiiiigggghhhht. *wink and tsk and finger point*

So, if anyone knows some shortcuts, add-ons that fucking work, anything that will make this even a slightly easier process please feel free to lead me to them.

Oh, oh! And you have no idea how long it took me to realize that I can’t write and do all my editing in Word and then copy and paste to WordPress. The frustration I felt when I worked for hours and hours on a post only to have it implode on publishing. Here I had the perfect story, no typos, the photos were exactly where I wanted them, the links were relevant and funny, oh, it was beautiful. I copied and pasted into WordPress, hit “Publish,” and then ppffft. Total crap. Nothing looked like it should and the links? Looked exactly like I had typed them with their seemingly random characters before and after the linky http:whatever-the-hell. I don’t know about you, but my brain and good humor went fucking ballistic. (Please supply your favorite curses and perjoratives here. Me? I went with various forms of, “Please have intimate and carnal relations with your maternal parent.”)

So, my patient friends, this is why I am so bad about posting. Again, if you know of some magic, some life-changing work-around, some WordPress whozit that actually works, please let me know.

Since I last posted here’s some of what I have done:

1. Flew out of Ft. Myers, FL to Dallas, TX so that my mom and I could go to the opening ceremony of the Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver.
2. Tried to fly out of Dallas, TX to Vancouver during the worst snow storm in Dallas in the history of ever. (No, really. Worst snowstorm/most snow in a 24-hour period in Dallas in RECORDED history. After being trapped on a plane on the tarmac for five hours you just don’t care anymore. Either get this plane in the air or go back to the gate. One or the other, bubba.)
3. Managed to get to Vancouver in plenty of time for an awesome, once-in-a-lifetime (hopefully not–look out London, I’mma figure out how to get there for your games) experience. I’ll show you my souvenirs if you ask.
4. Flew back to Dallas and decided to stay for a month so I could visit friends and family aaaaannnnddd promptly got so sick that I didn’t get to see anyone except my mom, brother, and nephew. I was sick for about three weeks.
5. Flew back to Florida to catch up with the Dude and furry friends, finally hit the road. (“Traveling” since October actually means sitting out the horrible winter in the Keys. Not a bad deal.)
6. Went to GA to see the Dude’s old stomping grounds.
7. Coca-Cola plant in Atlanta. Fun in a touristy way with the payoff being that you can try every Coke product manufactured in the world. Massive sugar rush, many children bouncing off walls.
8. Tupelo and the birthplace of Elvis.
9. Graceland and the deathplace of Elvis. Also Memphis BBQ, which is mainly pork ribs and a sweet sauce. I don’t really like pork and I don’t like BBQ so my world was not rocked nor was my mindset changed by the experience.
10. New Orleans and the French Quarter Fest’. Way, way fun and I got to see my cousin, Marcia and her hubby, Jerry, for a little while. Smoochies!
11. Houston and Shawn and Raji. More smoochies!
12. Bryan/College Station so I could have my own tour of my old stomping grounds. Also saw the Bonfire memorial and it is way sadder than I thought it would be. I have much unexplainable love for Texas A&M (“From the outside looking in you can’t understand it. And from the inside looking out, you can’t explain it.”)
13. Austin and Cyn, Jame, Dane, Katie, and much Rock Band. The amount of love I have for y’all and your indulgence of my love of Rock Band (and your indulgence with the fact that I am teh suck at it)  is boundless. I truly love y’all. Also got to see some Houston-family cousins who moved to Austin and some that just happened to be there that weekend. Dena, Toni, Natalie, Lindsey, and the littles, Evie, Lily, and Jess? Y’all are some beautiful and kind and generous ladies and holy crap! Are y’all funny! Many laughs and I wish I had more time with y’all. I love ya! More smoochies.
14. And today? I am in Gonzales, TX, at a gathering of the NuRVers, a group of amazing people who are doing amazing things who I am in absolute awe of and feel unworthy of being around. The level of awesome is beyond anything I could have conceived of. The place is made of win and I feel like I am made of fail.

And there you have it. I would put up a metric shit-tonne of photos and links but I’m tired now and when I hit “Publish” this god-damned thing will probably eat a dick and I’ll have to start all over…

And publishing in three, two, o…

Enfermedad de Key West, Parte Dos

The third time is supposed to be the charm, right?

Our plan was to ride the trolley around Key West, getting off at the touristy spots, already conveniently marked as stops. The only place not an actual stop on the tour was the Key West cemetery, but considering that Key West is only four miles long and two miles wide walking to the cemetery wasn’t a big deal.

 

We got on the trolley around 12:30 and rode one stop to Duval Street. We were headed to Salsa Loca, the restaurant owned by Nancy who is the women the Dude met on the plane out of Key West. We walked a couple of blocks to where google maps said it should be, but no, no Salsa Loca. I looked it up on my POS phone (The Dude got rid of our Blackberries so I was back to using a primitive form of communication. You know, no QWERTY, no aps, priiiimmmmiiitttiivvve, might as well be using a tin can and a piece of string or drums or smoke signals or a public phone.) and finally found the real address, 10 blocks away from where were. So, we turned around and walked right past our first trolley stop and then right past the next stop and down to the next stop, which was right at the corner we needed and had we stayed on the trolley we wouldn’t be almost an hour behind already. Oh well, it was a nice day.

I’m just going to tell you now that we never got back on the trolley so we spent over $70.00 to ride one stop. Just one. Makes our Universal Studios fiasco look like a goddamn bargain, don’t it?

We went in and looked for a place to sit and I almost stopped right by the door but rethought it and walked farther in. We started to sit down, noticed the pack of ferals, oops, children, so we moved back to the original table. A cute little dog strolled over and as I was petting her and trying to find an owner, the woman next to me asked if the dog was bothering me. I told her that no, the dog wasn’t bothering me. The dog’s name was Roxie and she belonged to the lady. Roxie wandered off and a few seconds later it occurred to me that the dog was so comfortable there probably because she spent a lot of time there and therefore the lady next to me was probably the owner. “Oh, excuse me. Are you the owner?” “Yes, Ah am.” Excellent!

I introduced myself and told her how I’d heard about her and her restaurant and then the Dude wandered up and they started visiting. Nancy is from Alabama and I don’t know how long she has been in Key West but her accent is still there. Always nice to hear someone who sounds familiar. Nancy is a real force of nature. Tiny with the energy of 10, she treats you like you’re a relative she hasn’t seen in 20 years. The kind of person you just instantly like and wish you could be friends with. Or at least go to her parties. Should you find yourself in the Keys, stop by Salsa Loca. Lots of vegetarian options, good salsa, cool owner. Margarita was pretty good too.

After lunch we walked a few blocks to the Hemingway Home.

I am ashamed to admit it but I’ve never read any Hemingway. I very familiar with his works and his legacy and his history but somehow actually reading one of his works? Hasn’t happened yet. I know, I know. Shame on me. Bad English major. No Master’s degree for you.

Our tour guide sailed to Key West with his wife a few years ago for a vacation and just never left. (That’s his story and he’s sticking with it whether it’s true or not. Adds to the charm, I reckon.) He had a dangly earring, wore a captain’s hat, and carried a flask that he dipped into regularly. A peg leg would not have looked out of place.

He told us the story of the Hemingway Home and how the pool and the penny

came to be and how the polydactyly cats came to live there. I, of course, had to pet as many of the kitties as possible. The ticket taker told me that I couldn’t pick up a cat but whatever else might happen between the cat and me was up to the cat. Pft, like that’s any different from any other cat. “Hi, kitty. Can I pet you?” “Uhm, mebbe. Let’s wait and see, shall we?” But I, being the cat whisper, found kitties everywhere and only one was indifferent to my charms. Fucker.

Oh, just because I found it amusing, here is how the Hemingway Home got chandeliers. Seems that the second (He would have four.) Mrs. Hemingway, Pauline, was from a very rich family and was quite accustomed to the niceties of upper crust living and couldn’t handle the heinous monstrosities and assaults on her precious senses that were ceiling fans. She therefore had every ceiling fan removed and replaced with custom-made, hand-finished, blown-glass chandeliers. In a place that sees 90% humidity and 92 degree weather and in a house without central air. (Our tour guide hopes that Mrs. Hemingway is enjoying her time in Hades right now since he has to deal with her custom-made, hand-blown hell every summer.)

We finished up there and walked to Kermit’s Key Lime store so that I could get some of their lotion. (It is lovely. It smells great and doesn’t degrade into that weird rancid smell that most lotions do after an hour. You smell like lime zest all day. Yummy.)

We decided it was time to head to the cemetery and since the trolley didn’t stop there we had to hoof it. No biggie, little island. We passed by a wine shop on the way that I will get back to before we leave from our little slice of heaven in the ocean. They had, what, 30 different fruit wines and I got to sample a few of them and they are tasty. (Back off, wine snobs. You weren’t there. I worked in the liquor and wine business and you can trust me when I tell you that these weren’t Mogen David or Boone’s.)

It is now 5:00 and the cemetery is a few blocks away. Cool. The Dude had read about the cemetery and there were supposed to be some really beautiful headstones and a few funny epitaphs, like this: “I Told You I Was Sick.” The cemetery was one of the Musts for the Dude so I was happy to oblige. I get a kick out of cemeteries anyway.

We reached the gate at 5:15 and the sign said that it closed at 6:00. Awesome. Plenty of time to wander around. We go off in separate directions, looking for the funny and obscure but mostly found hard to read things. I did notice that many of the headstones had photos in them and I’d never seen that before. They don’t hold up well. They fade.

The Dude calls me at 5:30 and he walks to where I am, which is at the other end of the cemetery. We ask two guys if there is another way out and one says that there are gates along all sides. Great. We walk to one and it’s locked. We walk to another and it’s locked. We walk as far down the side as we can and all gates. Are. Locked. Nice, anonymous guy. Yeah, there were gates and I guess it was our fault for not specifying that we were looking for an open one.

Obviously we are going to have to leave from where we entered. We were walking that way anyway. We wander over to the gate. And it. Is. Locked. It’s only 5:45 but it’s locked. Shit. That can’t be good.

Well, what to do? Can I crawl under the gate? There is some space but alas, no. We already know that the other gates are locked. Can we go over the fence? Uhm, hell no. Eight feet tall and filled with pointy suicide. Or splatty suicide should the pointy fail at its task.

We climb up on a few of the, I don’t know, tombs (lots of above ground crypt things, like in New Orleans), looking for some way out of this predicament. Some people ride by on bikes. The Dude hollers to them that we’re locked in. Some people on bikes keep riding by. While laughing. Some people on bikes are assholes.

At this point you should know that I have very bad balance. I am completely deaf in my left ear and my balance is borked so the idea of climbing up and onto and over an 8-foot tall fence that could impale me or toss me off the other side is about as appealing as performing my own dentistry. Tell you what, why I don’t I just let you beat me with a stick and we’ll call it a day.

I’m about ready to cry because I don’t see any alternative than one or both of us having to scale that fence and even if his balance is fine the Dude isn’t exactly 20 years old anymore when suddenly? Our saviors appear out of nowhere. This handsome couple comes strolling up and offers assistance. They are appropriately amused at our situation but realize that we are really and truly stuck. (In case you should be in need of Saviors, here’s how you can recognize them: They are about 40 years old. He is about 6’4”, supremely confident, and wears khakis and a lightly pressed pink shirt with an unironic sweater thrown over his shoulders. Not kidding. He pulled off this look with ease. She is about 5’10”, super fit and super friendly, wears black shorts and a zippered black sweat shirt. It should be obvious but I’ll tell you anyway that they are fantastic looking.)

Male Savior (MS) coolly assesses the situation, walks to the fence, finds the lowest and most stable point and begins to instruct the Dude on what is about to go down. Let me point out that MS was not in the least bit pushy or bossy. He just seemed to know exactly what he was doing and that he had it covered and let’s do this and we didn’t question him at all. Female Savior (FS) was there to lend the moral support and back up MS and his actions. FS also told me that I would be fine (I was starting to cry.) and that MS really knew what he was doing. She sounded like he had experience at these kinds of situations but when and where would someone need rescuing from behind a fence?

As I am pondering rescue scenarios and just as the Dude was about to step on top of the fence, our third Savior rolled up. No, really, she was driving a Jeep. We’ll call her JS. I think you know why. JS pulled up, asked if there was anything she could do, and within a few seconds MS had reevaluated his options, had JS back the Jeep up to the fence and the Dude was up and over, courtesy of JS’s spare tire. Ta da!

But wait, now it’s my turn. Oh shit. I don’t think I can do this. I really don’t. Visions of impalement and broken limbs and shattered skulls are racing through my still intact brain, which is the way I’d like to keep it. But MS insists I can do this and that he won’t let me fall and the Dude is there to help also and FS assures me that this is a piece of cake and that MS really knows what he’s doing so I put my left foot on the top of the fence like MS says to and he holds it like he said he would and he’s holding my hand to keep my balance and I grab the Dude’s hand and put my right foot up on the fence and the Dude holds that and MS says to move my left foot while he’s still holding it to the top of the tire and even though I can’t see where I’m going MS guides my foot to the tire and holds my waist while the Dude helps me move my right foot to the Jeep’s bumper and then I’m on solid ground on solid footing outside the fence. Hmm, I’ll be damned.

We thank our Saviors profusely and I give JS a hug and she drives off in the night to rescue other people. (She was actually headed to her bartending job but hey, bartenders rescue people in a sense so I’m still right.) We visit with MS and FS for a few minutes and find out the reason MS was/is so awesome and knew what to do and kept a level head and was so confident: He’s a retired Federal Marshal. No shit. It’s true. We were rescued by the motherfuckin’ Feds and it didn’t involve handcuffs or jail time and for that I am extremely grateful.

Random Post

Just to let you know the reason it takes me so long to get any posts up is that I’m still learning WordPress. It is heavily linky/formatty/characters I don’t how to use, and I don’t know how to write all of those linky things and how to format those linky things and how to format and how to post pictures, and figuring out “why the fuck isn’t that linking properly when it worked fine the other day?” takes me a while.

Thanks for sticking with me.

Keys Disease

We are almost caught up.

At this point in the story it is now December 4, 2009, and it is time to leave Sunshine Holiday Resort for Sunshine Key, located near Big Pine Key, about 30 miles from Key West. (It is actually on a privately-owned island.)

We were only supposed to stay at Sunshine Key for one week, leaving on the 11th but like I said before we had missed our travel window, and the weather in the Keys was so completely fabulous that we decided to stay through the winter. I mean, really, the best places to be in the contiguous US are San Diego and the Keys, with Key West having no frost or snow in recorded history.

Our trip from Fort Lauderdale to Big Pine Key should only have taken about four hours but due to some fuse issue between the Chieftain and the CR-V that caused us to have to pull over every 45 minutes or so to change out another fuse our trip took almost eight hours. Ugh. Thank godtopus that I had a computer and DVDs to watch.

We checked out of Sunshine Holiday Resort at noon and didn’t leave the mainland until after 7:00, which meant that we were driving on US 1 aka Overseas Highway in the dark. And Overseas Highway is not a place you want to drive on in the dark since you have to drive on a lot of bridges and the lanes are not very wide and for a lot of the time there was construction. With like, those moveable construction pylon thingies. Basically, our lane was only barely wider than our Winnebago. It was a few hours of white-knuckling it coming out of Key Largo. *shudder* Actually, I had the white knuckles. The Dude had a tight sphincter and was concerned that it would never unpucker thus making the rest of his life quite uncomfortable.

We finally arrived at Sunshine Key, found our spot, and got everything set up pretty quickly. (We’re getting better at our tear-down and put-up times. Tear-down takes about an hour, and put-up takes about 30 minutes.)

We decided pretty quickly to stay at Sunshine Key for a while, and that turned out to be the best thing because we would find out a day later that the Dude would have to fly to Dallas to take care of some business.

The Dude took a puddle-jumper out of Key West International Airport on December 10 and my birthday was a few days later on the 13th. During this flight the Dude met a lady who owns a Mexican restaurant in Key West, and one of the pilots was this huge black man who has had three major careers, all of them superhero kinds of jobs: schoolteacher then fire fighter and now pilot. Good on ya, huge black man whose name I don’t know.

Now the Dude would be gone for my birthday but being stuck on a private beach, surrounded by partying retirees for your birthday really…doesn’t suck. My birthday started out shitty because no one had even put a Facebook shout out much less called and I was feeling really down. Luckily, my friend from Philly, Royal, called me and that made the day better, and then my bestest friends from Austin called (Cyn, Jame, Katie, and Dane) and played pass the phone and wished me a happy day (love!) one of the neighbors invited me to their cookout and let me pretend it was my party, and then the Dude called and told me that my presents were in the CR-V and I had been driving around with them the whole time! That was fun! (He got me two beach chairs.) So the day turned out to be great even if the Dude was in Dallas.

Not much happened between my birthday and Christmas. The Dude got back on the 16th and we mostly spent the next week and a half working and enjoying the weather, i.e., sitting in the sun in a beach chair, reading my birthday books from my mom, and getting a tan.

We had Christmas Eve dinner, curried tofu over brown rice on a bed of arugula. (I know, I know. But I told you. I like tofu and the next day was Christmas and I figured that the menu at the brunch was going to be pretty heavy on the carnivore side, and I was right.) (See those trees? Gulf o’ Mexico right behind.)

I volunteered to work at the Christmas Day brunch at the park so I could get to know some of the regulars here and eat for free. I had my first corned beef hash. (Not really too bad for being, you know, meat. Of some sort.) Karen, the activities director, whipped up a batch of Bellinis for the volunteers so I was drinking before noon but it was Christmas and it was brunch and that’s what you do at brunch, and what do you drink if there are no Bloody Marys to be had? You drink yummy good Bellinis. It was delightful. Not as delightful as having Bellinis at Harry’s Bar, possibly sitting on the same chair that Hemingway sat in while writing, but still pretty nice. (Speaking of Hemingway, well, that’s the next chapter.)

Anyway, Christmas came and went. (I got my first BBQ grill as a present but it hadn’t arrived yet so I really got a picture of the grill I would be getting.) We were back at the regular life for another week, working, playing occasionally, and still working on that tan.

We did go fishing (I went fishing. The Dude took pictures.),

way out in the big ocean with Captain “Jersey” Bob. Cap’n Bob spends every winter at Sunshine Key, running fishing charters out of the marina. The day was super windy and the waters were really choppy, but luckily, even though neither of us has ever been seasick, we had the presence of mind to take preemptive Dramamine. We didn’t get sick and I caught a bunch of fish just in time for the grill that had arrived that morning! It was cold and windy that night but I grilled that fish anyway. It cost me $120.00 to catch that fish so I was by god going to grill it and eat it.

The one other time I went fishing in Florida was crap because the captain and first mate did everything for you. All you did was take the pole and try to reel the fish in. Well that’s boring. That’s about as much fun as buying the fish at the store. I know how to bait a damn hook. I know how to cast. I’m not all that great at recognizing when a fish has hit but let me learn. They way those other guys did it, with us just grabbing the pole after the mate hooked the fish, is right up there with “hunting” by sitting up in a blind and waiting for the deer to wander up to the salt lick. Yeah. There’s a sport that takes effort. Want to hunt? Get a fucking bow and arrow and track the sucker down.

Ah ha, now it’s New Year’s Eve: There will be a party in the RV park as the clubhouse and we have tickets. The Dude and I get “dressed up” with me wearing a sundress, showing off the sunburn

I got earlier that day and he was in shorts and a tee-shirt. (It’s the Keys. It’s the Keys lifestyle. It’s the “Keys Disease.”  Everything is so laid back that “formal” means wearing socks with your sandals and time is a nebulous concept, which, I mean, of course it is, but for the sake of convenience, we, meaning society, have agreed on what 10:15 am or 6:00 pm/1800 hours means, and if you say something closes at 6:00 pm, society understands what you are saying and everyone agrees that “it” closes at 6:00. Unless you’re in the Keys. (*cue ominous music that will resonate with the next installment*)

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, New Year’s Eve. We got to the party around 8:00 and everyone was already pretty looped and I danced a lot, even the line dances, which I don’t know and can never pick up but I try, and I drank a lot but surprisingly I didn’t get really lit. Maybe it was all of the activity. We counted down with the rest. I kissed everyone and then we went home. Not a bad start at all.

To move the story along I’m just going to bypass the fight the Dude and I got into where he made me cry and I wished we hadn’t gotten rid of the hand cannon we had in Philly. (What? I wasn’t going to actually use it. I’m too pretty for prison. And I don’t really want the Dude dead forever just temporarily. When we were in Philly I wished he’d get hit by a bus but buses are few and far between on the island so I think of guns or that he’ll fall off the pier into a school of sharks.) We can just not talk about the other horrible fight that the Dude and I got into wherein I hummed an eyeglasses case at him (broke the shit out of it too; luckily the glasses weren’t in it) (especially since it was HIS case).

Just a couple of words on our first two shots at Key West. The first time was right after we got here when we thought we were only going to stay a week. We went to Bo’s Fish Wagon and then walked around a little bit, looking at all the feral chickens and roosters (They are everywhere. It’s all, “Chicken. Rooster. Chicken. Chicken. Rooster. And no, Dude, that rooster? Isn’t “killing” that chicken. Yes, I know he’s on top of her and she’s yelling but what he’s doing? Ain’t killing.), and feral cats (only called feral in that they have no home but you can pet them), went to Mallory Square and saw a busker who had taught his dogs to take the tips (way cute).

The second time we went to lunch at Hog’s Breath and it started to rain. And rain. And it kept raining. And the drains filled because it was raining so fast and so much. I had to wade through calf-deep water to get to the ladies’ room and all I could think was, ‘Oh please, oh please don’t let the bathrooms be flooded where I’m walking in pee water.” (The bathrooms were flooded but the toilets weren’t overflowed. I still wasn’t happy about it and was convinced that I was going to get a social disease but I had to go.) And the streets flooded.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the first time since I sold my Prelude I was glad I wasn’t in that little car because it would have had water half-way up the door and my seat and the CR-V was fine. Because of the flooding we had to stay in Key West a little longer so we went to see “Avatar,” which is really pretty and probably out of this world (no pun intended) in 3-D but is really just “Dances with Aliens.”

Please stay tuned for the next installment of the Keys Disease.

Keep these words in mind: Federal. Marshal.

It’s a Small World Where the Boys Are

Hey, welcome back! When last we met I said I’d tell you about what has happened since we left LazyDays. So, buckle up and get ready, ‘cause here we go.

Our first stop after finally leaving LazyDays was at Thousand Trails Orlando (TTO), which is actually located in Clermont, FL, and is about 30 minutes from DisneyWorld, Epcot, Universal Studios, etc.

Now, TTO was alright. We were there for about two weeks and during that time I shopped at the nicest Target you will ever see, got glasses, picked limes and lemons, played host to a turtle the size of a 15″ laptop for a few minutes,and saw Jesus. (Scary plastic Jesus, not the real Jesus I met at Sigel’s in Dallas. Ask nicely and I’ll tell you about her.)

We also went to Universal Studios and saw The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in its beginning stages. From the little that I could see, that is going to be amazing. I hope we come back through Orlando, just so I can see the finished product.

I didn’t really want to go to DisneyWorld or Epcot because I hated DisneyLAND (hated it as an adult but loved that shit as a child. “It’s a small world after all…”) and the whole Disney “fun” park thing doesn’t sound fun when you really look at it because it is overwhelmingly too, too much. And, jeebus. Have you tried to buy tickets to go there? It’s not like Six Flags where you just, you know, buy a ticket and walk in the gate. It’s option after option after option that makes you say either, “Fuck it. We’re not going,” or “Fuck it, Mickey. Here’s my card. Just tell me when to bend over so I’m a little prepared.”

About Universal Studios: I had been to the original version in LA two times and loved it. I think it was because I was on an actual studio set where we couldn’t go down certain “streets” because Desperate Housewives was filming or a movie was at a critical shot. I saw the town square where Back to the Future was filmed and the “London” streets where Austin Powers danced and the Psycho house. I was in a live version of “Fear Factor” (for about 5 minutes as I was the first to let go of the bar, plummeting to the ground).

Also, unlike other “amusement” parks, you can buy an adult beverage.  I cannot tell you how surprised I was to learn that not only could I buy a beer but I could buy a Guinness! A real Guinness! “And I don’t mean just like in no paper cup, I’m talking about a glass of beer.” At Six Fl…Universal Studios! Go Scientologists! Or atheists. Or whatever power decided alcohol was good at an amusement park.

Unfortunately, if Universal Studios Orlando is a working studio, they don’t tell you about it. It was all just rides based on movies. The rides were fun but I had to ride them all alone because? The Dude rode two rides, got motion sickness and had to go home. (One of the rides was the  Jimmy Neutron’s Nicktoon Blast!, which is the Universal Studios name for “the ride that makes your boyfriend yell out loud in front of children that his balls are bouncing off the seat.”

Well, whee. Wasn’t THAT fun? $69.00 per person = $34.50 per ride. I hardly think that was worth it. Although seeing the looks on the kids’ faces when the Dude hollered about his nuts was pretty funny.

Come to think of it, though, because he went home I was able to be a single rider and bypass all of the lines. Should you go to any theme parks that offer this option, take it. No, really. You can’t talk on rides anyway and unless you want to buy the overpriced, stupid “AHHHHHHHHHHHHH, JESUS CHRIST,*breathe*, AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!” picture of your screaming face next to another family member’s screaming face, it’s worth pretending you and everyone in your party is a single rider. Trust me. It is very satisfying to wave at all the sheeple, standing in line, as you are walking past them, get on the ride, have a great time, and wave at the same exact sheeple, still standing in line, on the way out. Peace out, bitches.

And peace out, Orlando aka Clermont. Off to Fort Lauderdale.

Our trip to Fort Lauderdale was pretty uneventful. Actually, I don’t really remember going there it was that calm. We stayed at Sunshine Holiday Resort about six miles from the beach. I looked around for anything resembling Where the Boys Are [A fabulous movie, BTW, and years ahead of its time as far as Merritt’s (Dolores Hart who twice starred with Elvis and then went on to become a nun) take on sex.] but that was a long time ago and although those beaches are still there that view is gone. Pity. Although a bunch of the motels are probably the same. They’ve been renovated but you cannot change the late 50s/early 60s architecture unless you tear it down. I’m glad no one did because I love that shit. Florida motels are the epitome of “motel.” Love!

Sunshine Holiday is wildly popular with the Quebecois. As you go along and look at the plates, it’s all, “Quebec, Quebec, Quebec, Quebec, Florida. Quebec, Quebec, Quebec, New York.” They all smoked Gauloises (for real), played petanque, sunbathed without sunblock, carried good wine to their parties, and dressed up just to walk the dogs or do the laundry. I wished we had stayed there longer than a week because I would’ve gone to every park party. “But, Her, you don’t speak French. You wouldn’t have understood them.” You’re right. Don’t give a shit. They were cool. Cooler than you. Cooler than me. Even their dogs were cool.

So, while in Fort Lauderdale, we discussed where to go next and when. While we were still in Philly, the Dude talked about how he really, really wanted to spend the winter in the Keys. I really wanted to spend the winter in Texas with my friends and family. But because of our late start getting out of LazyDays we missed our window of opportunity to drive to Texas before the winter set in so it was off to the Florida Keys!

Next: The Holiday Season–Keys Style

Oh, hello Tampa. ‘Bout time.

October 11, 2009…

Woo hoo! Looks like we were finally going to make it to Florida. We cleared out of the cut-rate Holiday Inn Express and had Daytona as our destination for that day. It was a totally uneventful trip that saw us making a short jaunt through Savannah, GA. (Seriously short. We were there for all of 30 minutes, winding around of the squares, which made the Dude sick and then driving over the historic cobblestone street on the edge of the water and that made the Dude even more ill.) Oh, the bridge connecting SC to Savannah is absolutely gorgeous.

We were on the road for about five hours and got into Daytona and found our last hotel of the trip. We stayed at the La Quinta (kinda jinky on their pet policy) and had a beautiful view of the Atlantic. Pity we were only there one night.

We walked on the beach a little bit and then went to dinner.

Biketoberfest was to start on the 14^th so there were already a ton of bikers and their old ladies in town, which meant old biker chicks and their tittays. By the time you’ve reached 45+ you really need to wear a bra and if you think you don’t need to wear a bra you have bolt-ons or you’re just altogether wrong. (OK, I will say that there are a few women who due to their good genes don’t have to wear a bra ’cause their boobs are still where nature and not gravity intended. Lucky them.)

Anyway, the next day was the final push to Tampa to pick up the Winnebago. Thank god.

There’s not much to say about Tampa because we really didn’t do anything there except hang out at LazyDays RV dealership for six weeks. Oh sure, we sold the truck and bought a tow car (2003 Honda CR-V. Go Honda! Shonda’s Honda yet again. And an absolutely immaculate car. I am not kidding. Two tiny door dings that you can’t see unless you are looking at just the right angle and in the right light, flawless interior, no sign of wear at all. I mean shit, the engine, the freaking engine was clean. And shiny.) and learned how to boondock (see next paragraph) but other than a few trips to La Teresita we really didn’t do anything other than get the Winnebago ready to roll. We had wanted to spend maybe two weeks at the dealership but that didn’t happen. We were there for Halloween and while we didn’t have any trick-or-treaters at our door, we did have a nice lady dressed as a witch riding around on a golf cart, passing out candy. That was sweet, in more ways than one.

Because we had many things to do to the Winnebago and the Honda we boondocked in the make-ready section of the dealership. (I suppose it wasn’t full boondocking because we did have electricity instead of running the generator, but still.) The spots all had electricity but no water or sewage hook up. Why? Because most people would only be there to either transfer their stuff from one RV to another or just picking up their RV, both scenarios only take a day or two, maybe a week maximum. We were there for six weeks, which meant that every fourth day or so we had to unhook, pull in the slides, strap down anything that might fall over, and drive to the dump station and then stop and fill the water tank. It was not a far trip, about 50 yards or so but still a production that would take about 45 minutes. On the bright side, we did learn a lot about what our Winnebago could do if we actually had to boondock for a while.

The moving pod was delivered with no problems and we got most everything we wanted to keep in the RV. I had to say “see you later” to a bunch of books as they were way too heavy to keep with us. I didn’t get rid of them. They’re just in storage.

LazyDays was very good to us and went above and beyond and really the only issue with them was the mistake they made in installing our tow system on the Honda.

Now you have to know right now that the Dude doesn’t do anything, ANYTHING without having researched it and every possible iteration of what “it” is or can be. I do believe that if we aged backward that instead of just letting nature do its thing, the man would research the digestive process to see if there was a better, more efficient way of dropping a deuce. The point is that the tow system he decided on was absolutely THE best one because of aesthetics, durability, and ease of installation. The company, Blue Ox, has fool-proof instructions that are specific to each car model so we had the instructions for installing on a 2003 Honda CR-V. Where other towing systems require drilling and alterations to the tow car, this system was made to make use of existing grill openings so that there would be no damage to the vehicle. Please note this again: The system utilizes existing grill openings. You must see exactly where this is going. Yes, the mechanic who was assigned to our gorgeous tow car did not read the instructions and just, I don’t know, did what he was used to doing. When he took the bumper off he laid it on its face so it got all scratched up. He put the base plate on upside down, which meant he had to CUT HUGE HOLES in the bumper, something he wouldn’t have had to do if he had…read the instructions! (Normally the tow bar attachment points of the base plate go through the existing openings in the grill for a nice clean install.) *head shake*

To give LazyDays credit, as soon as they were aware of what happened they fixed it within a matter of days (with a different mechanic) and with, of course, no charge to us but that just added to the time we stayed there. I will say this about them: If you ever plan to buy an RV of any type, it is worth your while to go to LazyDays.

After our six weeks of LazyDay goodness we were finally ready to actually go somewhere. We were equipped with a brand-new satellite system, a subscription to Dish Network (Screw you. I love TV. I won’t apologize. I still read a shitload of books so get over your holier-than-thou self.) and a reservation at Thousand Trails Orlando.

So there you go. The story of leaving Philly and getting to Florida.

Next up: What has happened since we finally hit the road. Universal Studios, Quebecois, Mile Marker 0, Christmas, New Year’s, amazing neighbors, conch horns, “It’s always 5:00 somewhere.”