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walkingshadow) wrote2005-05-07 01:51 am
walkingshadow) wrote2005-05-07 01:51 am
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the turtle has, of course, been executed
I remembered the good bits about living in South Florida today. I've been doing a whole lot of nothing all week: sleeping in, staying up late reading fic and books, unpacking a box or hanging up clothes when the space makes itself available. On Wednesday I took myself over to my mother's school and brought my digital camera to take pictures of her kids for a school scrapbook, and to let all my old teachers and my mum's new colleagues kvell over me, exclaiming over how good I looked, wishing me luck, inquiring as to MY PLANS (of which, just to keep you updated, I still have none).
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gjstruthseeker made the drive down to Miami to have dinner with her father Wednesday night, and crashed afterward at my place, with the plan that Thursday morning she would drive over to our old high school to say hello to her favorite teachers, and then meet S. and me for lunch. Those plans were somewhat stymied when she got into her car to drive off to school and looked up to discover that during the night someone had thrown beer bottles at her car and smashed her windshield. Insert your omgwtf right here. Drunken hooligans in my neighborhood! Bewildering and embarrassing in addition to horrible for her and her poor car. She called her insurance company and my dad directed her to the closest Ford dealership and then woke me up to let me know what was going on. Ford was going to fix it by that afternoon or the next day at the latest. I showered and dressed myself and picked her up to meet S. and hopefully start turning the day around.
We started out with a long lunch at Sweet Tomatoes in the Fountains; from there we popped into Marshall's around the corner where I bought a wallet for my mum for Mother's Day (a hundred-dollar wallet for forty bucks, because it's Mother's Day and she's my mother and it's just what she wanted): I paid with a credit card, and just as my transaction was complete and I was stuffing my receipt into the bag, the thunderstorm that had been menacing outside suddenly exploded with a forked flash of lightning and an especially loud crack of thunder and all the power in the store went out. Ooh, timing. The lights came back on a few seconds later, but we didn't stick around to see what kind of coming-back-online noises the computers were going to make. It was pouring, pouring, pouring outside, but it's South Florida, so we just waited a few minutes for it to let up. Onward we went then to Best Buy on Broward and Flamingo where I picked up a DVD player that is tiny and inexpensive and will fit right above the television in the kitchen. It's for my parents' thirty-second anniversary in three weeks; I also picked up Field of Dreams to help them start converting their VHS collection.
We started flagging then, but still we pushed on to Sawgrass, where S. was looking for a plain gold brooch for her mother (totally unsuccessfully; she's been everywhere and I think has finally given up) and I didn't have money but half-heartedly flipped through some skirts and shirts. I did buy panties at half-price. Eventually we all lost the will to live and split a bag of chocolate-covered gummi bears on the slow shuffle out. Jules picked up her car on the way back, shiny new windshield in place, and we had grand plans to head up to Las Olas for dinner, but couldn't seem to get up again once we'd gotten home and collapsed all over the living room. Instead we had Italian take-out with my parents and watched Sweet Home Alabama on the teevee. I remember what I didn't like about this movie: Melanie. Rather, the way she really was a snob and a jerk and didn't bother listening to people; and the way Andrew got hung out to dry, after doing everything right and being, generally, a prince of a guy. Especially at the end, in the face of his humiliation and losing the woman he obviously adored, he was gracious and compassionate and classy. He's on Grey's Anatomy now, a show I watched last Sunday with my mother and liked enough to look forward to again this week.
We made it a relatively early night last night with the idea of getting up early and going to the beach for breakfast today. Jules had said nine a.m., but we didn't make it out the door until a little before eleven and had parked the car by 11:15. I never regret coming to the beach: the problem is getting up at eight or nine, which is when my parents always plan to go for breakfast. Breakfast at lunchtime is more my speed. We sat in one of our usual places on the broadwalk, in the shade and between two fans, both of us facing out toward the ocean. We had constantly-refilled cups of coffee and ate our breakfast and people-watched, and then these models and camera people came by to shoot a commercial right in front of us. It was in Spanish and we have absolutely no idea what it was for, but it involved skinny girls in tiny outfits who could not stop playing with their hair plus a girl pushing a baby in a stroller. In the background, pretty young people in bikinis and board shorts tossed around a volleyball. After we'd sat for a while and had our anthropological thrills, we got cones of Häagen-Dazs next door and ate them as we slogged our way through the wet sand at the water's edge for a few minutes, before slogging and splashing back the other way. It was warm and bright but not hot and a good breeze blew; the water was cool. Life, we kept exclaiming, was amazingly good. We rinsed the sand off our feet at the spigot and got back to the car five minutes before our meter expired.
Doing nothing in the sunshine really takes it out of you. At home Jules flipped through my music collection and we made her a CD before she reluctantly said her goodbyes and headed back to her mother for a couple of days; she'll be driving back to Gainesville on Sunday for the start of the first summer term. I sat around uselessly for a while, read some, and then took a dozing nap before dinner. My parents and I watched Zorro, the Gay Blade and I was entertained. Just parody enough, just over-the-top enough, great jokes. After sitting through Viva Zapata!, it was doubly hilarious.
Bed soon, yeah? There are books in for me at the library which I shall pick up tomorrow.
gjstruthseeker made the drive down to Miami to have dinner with her father Wednesday night, and crashed afterward at my place, with the plan that Thursday morning she would drive over to our old high school to say hello to her favorite teachers, and then meet S. and me for lunch. Those plans were somewhat stymied when she got into her car to drive off to school and looked up to discover that during the night someone had thrown beer bottles at her car and smashed her windshield. Insert your omgwtf right here. Drunken hooligans in my neighborhood! Bewildering and embarrassing in addition to horrible for her and her poor car. She called her insurance company and my dad directed her to the closest Ford dealership and then woke me up to let me know what was going on. Ford was going to fix it by that afternoon or the next day at the latest. I showered and dressed myself and picked her up to meet S. and hopefully start turning the day around.We started out with a long lunch at Sweet Tomatoes in the Fountains; from there we popped into Marshall's around the corner where I bought a wallet for my mum for Mother's Day (a hundred-dollar wallet for forty bucks, because it's Mother's Day and she's my mother and it's just what she wanted): I paid with a credit card, and just as my transaction was complete and I was stuffing my receipt into the bag, the thunderstorm that had been menacing outside suddenly exploded with a forked flash of lightning and an especially loud crack of thunder and all the power in the store went out. Ooh, timing. The lights came back on a few seconds later, but we didn't stick around to see what kind of coming-back-online noises the computers were going to make. It was pouring, pouring, pouring outside, but it's South Florida, so we just waited a few minutes for it to let up. Onward we went then to Best Buy on Broward and Flamingo where I picked up a DVD player that is tiny and inexpensive and will fit right above the television in the kitchen. It's for my parents' thirty-second anniversary in three weeks; I also picked up Field of Dreams to help them start converting their VHS collection.
We started flagging then, but still we pushed on to Sawgrass, where S. was looking for a plain gold brooch for her mother (totally unsuccessfully; she's been everywhere and I think has finally given up) and I didn't have money but half-heartedly flipped through some skirts and shirts. I did buy panties at half-price. Eventually we all lost the will to live and split a bag of chocolate-covered gummi bears on the slow shuffle out. Jules picked up her car on the way back, shiny new windshield in place, and we had grand plans to head up to Las Olas for dinner, but couldn't seem to get up again once we'd gotten home and collapsed all over the living room. Instead we had Italian take-out with my parents and watched Sweet Home Alabama on the teevee. I remember what I didn't like about this movie: Melanie. Rather, the way she really was a snob and a jerk and didn't bother listening to people; and the way Andrew got hung out to dry, after doing everything right and being, generally, a prince of a guy. Especially at the end, in the face of his humiliation and losing the woman he obviously adored, he was gracious and compassionate and classy. He's on Grey's Anatomy now, a show I watched last Sunday with my mother and liked enough to look forward to again this week.
We made it a relatively early night last night with the idea of getting up early and going to the beach for breakfast today. Jules had said nine a.m., but we didn't make it out the door until a little before eleven and had parked the car by 11:15. I never regret coming to the beach: the problem is getting up at eight or nine, which is when my parents always plan to go for breakfast. Breakfast at lunchtime is more my speed. We sat in one of our usual places on the broadwalk, in the shade and between two fans, both of us facing out toward the ocean. We had constantly-refilled cups of coffee and ate our breakfast and people-watched, and then these models and camera people came by to shoot a commercial right in front of us. It was in Spanish and we have absolutely no idea what it was for, but it involved skinny girls in tiny outfits who could not stop playing with their hair plus a girl pushing a baby in a stroller. In the background, pretty young people in bikinis and board shorts tossed around a volleyball. After we'd sat for a while and had our anthropological thrills, we got cones of Häagen-Dazs next door and ate them as we slogged our way through the wet sand at the water's edge for a few minutes, before slogging and splashing back the other way. It was warm and bright but not hot and a good breeze blew; the water was cool. Life, we kept exclaiming, was amazingly good. We rinsed the sand off our feet at the spigot and got back to the car five minutes before our meter expired.
Doing nothing in the sunshine really takes it out of you. At home Jules flipped through my music collection and we made her a CD before she reluctantly said her goodbyes and headed back to her mother for a couple of days; she'll be driving back to Gainesville on Sunday for the start of the first summer term. I sat around uselessly for a while, read some, and then took a dozing nap before dinner. My parents and I watched Zorro, the Gay Blade and I was entertained. Just parody enough, just over-the-top enough, great jokes. After sitting through Viva Zapata!, it was doubly hilarious.
Bed soon, yeah? There are books in for me at the library which I shall pick up tomorrow.
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Sounds like it!
Wish I could come and spend a lazy South Floridian day with you. Speaking of summer reading, have you tried "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro?
British public school, the ethics of organ harvesting and love triangles!
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I haven't heard of "Never Let Me Go" but I've just now requested it from the library, as it sounds fantastic!
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Denial is strong in this one. =P
P.S. I advocate restaurant work, like woah. Really can't beat the money. *nodnod* Plus? Is fun. Tho that may be me being insane again.
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I know the money is awesome in restaurant work (okay not really, I've always been under the impression that the money was absolute shit in restaurant work, but I'm learning otherwise). One of my friends is thinking of bartending, which is even better, and she'll be fabulous at it and make millions in tips. It's just really, really not for me. Not really a question of who is or isn't insane, just a matter of personal preference and one of us having a default run away screaming reaction to customer service and, you know, people in general.
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Oh dear, that made me snerk my morning soda all over myself. *grin* [See, today? I agree with you. People suck. This is going to make the fifteen hour work day interesting....]