For the longest time when I thought of Florida, family trips to Disneyworld came to mind -- namely the long car rides down all the way from Philly with three kids in tow. I have vague memories of exciting nights at Howard Johnsons (those clams!), my mother wearing her "fall" (frosted) on the car ride, and searching for the lite rock stations in each city while wedged on the hump of the back seat of the superb Grandville (8 miles per gallon). Nowadays when we go to Florida it's to visit Doug's 98-year-old Grandma. Grandma is a talker. She's also feisty and zesty. But she doesn't stop talking. She's extremely on-the-ball and opinionated and smart and I am wearing her diamond ring as my own and it's beautiful and gorgeous and big -- but still, she doesn't stop talking. Ever. We saw her this past weekend because as she put it, she "doesn't know when I'm going to die, so it would be good to see you before then."
The first time we visited her we stayed at the retirement village. The highlight of that trip was Saturday night at the Clubhouse. Seems a bunch of singing-people were coming by to sing showtunes (loudly and out of tune) whether we wanted them to or not. The show started at 8:00 and we got there 15 minutes before. Unfortunately there was a bottleneck in the aisle and when we got to our seats at one second past 8:00, the people in the row in back of us hissed and waved their arms frenetically in our direction. This, I learned was a major activity of the place (along with sending food back in restaurants.) As I sat through renditions from Godspell, Hair and Oklahoma I looked around and saw that most of the audience was catatonic, arms folded practically daring the singer-people to entertain them. I actually started crying and just leaned in to Doug and said "please don't let me end up here."
Sure, you work hard all your life and at some point you want to sit back and relax. But every day? Every single day? Personally, I think relaxing too much tends to be boring. Maybe it's just me but I like to work on things. That's how I relax. And that very well might come off very strange to people (in Florida). Don't get me wrong, there are many nights when I'm vegged out in front of the TV but that's not the highlight of my day. All I'm saying is that there is so much out there. So much to do and see. And while I am getting older and more tired every day, I don't think I will ever tire of learning new things and being active and meeting new people and cooking new things and writing weird stories and reading books and traveling and sitting at cafes and drinking coffee and sitting with Dawn and laughing and... you get it already. I say this out loud because I am traumatized -- traumatized from spending two days in Florida with its strip malls and gated buildings, its bagelries on every corner, too many Cheescake Factorys and Bennigans and bad Chinese food joints where people eat portions the size of a child's head (with encephalitis.) Please let me remember it all. PLEASE. This way I know that I will not ever, ever, ever end up there.
The first time we visited her we stayed at the retirement village. The highlight of that trip was Saturday night at the Clubhouse. Seems a bunch of singing-people were coming by to sing showtunes (loudly and out of tune) whether we wanted them to or not. The show started at 8:00 and we got there 15 minutes before. Unfortunately there was a bottleneck in the aisle and when we got to our seats at one second past 8:00, the people in the row in back of us hissed and waved their arms frenetically in our direction. This, I learned was a major activity of the place (along with sending food back in restaurants.) As I sat through renditions from Godspell, Hair and Oklahoma I looked around and saw that most of the audience was catatonic, arms folded practically daring the singer-people to entertain them. I actually started crying and just leaned in to Doug and said "please don't let me end up here."
Sure, you work hard all your life and at some point you want to sit back and relax. But every day? Every single day? Personally, I think relaxing too much tends to be boring. Maybe it's just me but I like to work on things. That's how I relax. And that very well might come off very strange to people (in Florida). Don't get me wrong, there are many nights when I'm vegged out in front of the TV but that's not the highlight of my day. All I'm saying is that there is so much out there. So much to do and see. And while I am getting older and more tired every day, I don't think I will ever tire of learning new things and being active and meeting new people and cooking new things and writing weird stories and reading books and traveling and sitting at cafes and drinking coffee and sitting with Dawn and laughing and... you get it already. I say this out loud because I am traumatized -- traumatized from spending two days in Florida with its strip malls and gated buildings, its bagelries on every corner, too many Cheescake Factorys and Bennigans and bad Chinese food joints where people eat portions the size of a child's head (with encephalitis.) Please let me remember it all. PLEASE. This way I know that I will not ever, ever, ever end up there.
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