Vacationed in New Orleans the first week of June ’14. Loved it. Want to move there some day.
In the meantime, I took copious pix which have been uploaded into two galleries (right-hand nav). Pix are typical vaca pix; things that I thought were interesting; tattoo process shots; cats of NOLA; and lots of food porn. Skip what’s uninteresting; enjoy that which is.
k.
Or rather, “The” Bieber, as it is known to us locals and former locals. It’s the only bus line that goes directly between NYC and Reading, PA, where I grew up, Where my parents still live (well, In nearby West Lawn). Where I’m heading now. Quite frequently. Every weekend. I’m doing a show, Sweeney Todd, at the theatre where I grew up. Genesius Theater.
This theatre saved my life – more ’bout that in another post.
So, after an absense of nearly thirty years, I’m back on the old stage that made me into who I am today. Or rather, I will be back, once this 3 hour bus ride is over. Every week now for the last month. Up and down.
What we do for love? We do this.
And now, I’ve taxed my thumbs and iPhone enough for one day.
See you soon.
k.
That’s her, Jamie’s mom, Pat, otherwise known as MomFLa – pronounced “Mom-fla”. As opposed to my mom, MomPA – pronounced “Mom-P-A”.
This was all mentioned previously, in the last post, as a matter of fact. But I thought I’d refresh the memory.
So then, part two of J & my Florida weekend.
Saturday we got up, not too early due to the drinking mentioned in the previous post, and afterall, it was a vacation. Had coffee and some treats from the continental breakfast downstairs. Off to the checkout desk we went. There we discovered that, although we had pre-paid the hotel in advance, there was an additional “resort fee”.
“What is the ‘resort fee'”, queried Jamie, “What did it pay for?”
The reception clerk, looking a bit uncomfortable, said, “The soaps and shampoo, the towels…”
We let it drop. There is a price to be paid for staying on the Disney property. That price is the “resort fee”, a fee which entitles you to the amenities other hotels, even the low-end ones, supply for free. Ah well, it won’t stop me staying there. It’s really a fee for the convenience, the nearness, the shuttle buses; of being part of the Disney Universe. And it really is a Universe that I love.
We headed to Tampa, really Sun City Center, where the golf cart as vehicle rules.
Lots of hugs and kisses. Lots of catching up, because even though Jamie talks to his mom every Saturday morning on the phone, there’s nothing like a face to face.
Pat had a few choices of activities for the day. The first, Sunken Gardens in St. Pete, seemed to be her favorite choice, but Jamie was unconvinced as it was a bit late to head over there. The second choice, El Festival del Sabor, in Ybor City (a Tamp suburb), seemed more do-able. And so we headed out to Centennial Park in Ybor City.
It was great. A lovely celebration of Hispanic culture featuring great music and great food. We walked around the vendors, danced a bit by the stage and had some excellent pork and plantains. Bought some delicious pepper spread from Uncle Paul’s Peppers (not really a Hispanic business, but spicy nontheless). MomFLa went for the extreme, the Habinero spread, while we went for the less-hot, deliciously smoky Poblano. Of course, we later remembered that we couldn’t take it on the plane without checking our bags, and who wants to do that?, so we left it with Pat and ordered some online when we got back home.
Ybor city has revived its streetcar system and they were giving rides at 5 cents a pop that day, so we decided to tour Ybor by streetcar. They’ve got two types, a more enclosed model and the open, Rice-a-Roni, style. We went for Rice-a-Roni. Oddly, they were giving out yellow rice from Vigo (who sponsor the street-car system), not R-a-R. It was a nice ride on a hottish day.
After that, we headed back to mom’s place. We dropped her off for the night and headed to the Holiday Inn Express in Bradenton.
We usually stay in Tampa, or Apollo Beach, but this time Jamie wanted to try some place new. He’s better at picking restaurants than hotels. 😉 No really, it was fine. Really. The only problem was, on our first night there, there happened to be a travelling little league team also in residence. They seemed to have no adult supervision whatsoever. None. From the moment we got into our room at about 8PM until 2AMish, they ran though the halls screaming and careening off the walls.
Early on, Jamie popped his head out of the door and asked them to “Hold it down a bit.” The oldest of the group, 15ish perhaps, sneered and said, “What does that mean?” Showing perhaps why 15 years of teaching had been enough, Jamie replied, “It means ‘Shut the fuck up'” and slammed the door. It was a bit less unruly in our hallway for a bit, but not too long. About 1AM Jamie called the front desk and was told they were doing their best to control the situation.
Next morning, J went down to reception and said, “I checked in yesterday for a two day stay,…”. That’s as far as he got before the Reception clerk said, “They are checking out today.” Clearly we weren’t the only ones to have complained. And they did check out and the second night was quite peaceful.
And that’s that for tonight’s installment of Jamie & Kirk in FL a week ago.
One of these days, I’ll get through the entire weekend and move on to other things of little or no import. Until then…
Nite,
k.
And relaxing. And wonderful. And sorely needed.
That’s what our weekend get-away was. We didn’t realize how desperately we needed to stop our lives and leave town for a breather.
We left Thursday, later than expected; our flight was delayed about two hours. Well first one hour, at which point we called the restaurant at which we had a 9PM reservation. We moved it to 10:30, the latest we could make it. After the next hour delay, we called and cancelled the reservation. Ah well, disappointing, but what are you going to do?
We finally made it to Orlando at 10:30. We grabbed our rental car and drove to the hotel, The Royal Plaza. Very nice. On the Disney property and all. We found a place to eat right around the corner, nothing to write home about, the food was decent, they had a huge beer selection. Lots of beer and drink specials. In the end, it was a far more relaxed dinner than we had planned. Everything works out the way it should.
Got up the next morning and took the first Disney shuttle (8AM) to EPCOT. Got our tickets and stood in line for the opening of the gates. Countdown – 10, 9, 8… Got into the greeting area. Forgot to look for our pic and note on the slabs. At the entrance to EPCOT they have this lovely money-making gimmick, you get your pic taken and/or write some note to go with the pic and then they photo process them onto metal sheets about 1 1/2 inch by 1 inch and affix them to these monoliths, for future generations to marvel at. Last year, we fell prey to the vanity of it and had our pic taken, together of course, and wrote “Kirk and Jamie, Honeymoon January, 2000”. Somewhere on those slabs we are indeed immortalized. We just forgot to find out where. On o’ these days…
So then we went to the entrance to the main park area, where we stood waiting for the next countdown as Mickey, Minnie, Chip ‘n Dale and Goofy, paraded and shook hands from the other side of the red rope. Countdown, 10, 9, 8… And we were off into the park proper.
First things first, got to ride the fav staples, Test Track, Ellen’s Energy Adventure (Ellen Degeneres and Bill Nye – The Sciene Guy – Jeopardy and travel through time. Who’d miss that?!), Figment’s Imagination ride (Eric Idle and a purple dinosaur thing that is definitely not Barney). The big sphere thing was closed so we had to miss that this time. Oh, and how could I forget, “Listen to the Land”, a lovely boat ride through the Disney experimental greenhouses?
By this time, we were mighty hungry. So we crossed over to the World Showcase area to do what we had really come for: eat. And eat we did. We love the EPCOT Food and Wine Expo. All the different countries represented, plus some others that just set up for this event, have tasting plates of their native foods – $2 – $4/plate. With wine pairings. There were so many great things. Jamie, who has a much better memory for the food specifics, will hopefully detail more on his page. Suffice it to say that by 5:30 we needed a food break before our evening’s major event.
And so we paused to hear Starship, yes, Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, and for years now, just Starship. Honestly, I thought this was going to be a joke. I was not expecting it to be anything I would want to see. I was wrong. Mickey Thomas still has an amazing voice. They did all hits, of course. They even did a retrospective journey though the band’s permutations starting off with a lovely female singer doing, yes, at a Disney park, White Rabbit. Brilliant. They had the place rockin’. I was amazed at how much fun it was. And then it was over, and just in time, as we had to hurry on over to the aforementioned main event of our day, the South African Wine Tasting (with food).
Inside the EPCOT exhibition space, there was a band beating out a jazzy South African beat, there was delicious food, and wine, lots of wine. There were four kiosks around the room. Each kiosk had four sides and on each of those four sides was a different winery. Each winery had several different representations of their product. We tasted a lot. I have notes on the wines we really liked. At some point when I find those notes, I’ll post a list here. So from 6 to 8:50 we ate and drank.
Then we decided that we’d had enough and we should go watch the fireworks. As we paused outside the space, we started chatting with two women, Wendy and Connie, who were also at the tasting. They told us about a fun piano bar on the property and told us to join them after the fireworks. Sure, why not?
So we ohhh-ed and ahhhh-ed at the glorious fireworks display. And then headed on over to Jellyroll’s.
There’s always been this path in EPCOT that we’ve never travelled. We thought that it just led to the resort hotels in Disney proper. Well, it does do that, but it also leads to the Boardwalk, a cool little area with shops and bars. Yes, bars, Jellyroll’s being one of them.
Jellyroll’s. It’s a sizeable but still intimate space. A bar on each side of the room. A stage at the head of the room. Two grand pianos on the stage. And all night, two guys, well four actually, they switch off, playing and singing just about any song you request. They were great. We had a blast, although they never did play Jamie’s request, The Cure’s Just Like Heaven, but we survived; they played a hell of a lot of wonderful music.
And then we wound down and, unusual for us when we get going, left before the bar closed and headed back to the hotel. We had to get up relatively early the next day to drive to Sun City Center (outside Tampa) to visit Jamie’s mom, or MomFLA, as we call her, as opposed to my mom, MomPA. We settled in our very very comfy bed and realized with great amazement that we felt so very far from our daily NYC lives. I mean that in a very good way. In one day, we felt a week away from NYC. It was great and relaxing and wonderful.
And now, I’m up too bloody late writing this and I’ll have to finish the rest of the weekend tomorrow ’cause I’ve gotta get up early and go to my hideous job.
Oh, yeah, did I mention that calm, that relaxing “Ahhhhh”, that giddy smile, lasted about two hours into my return to work today. Gone, all gone.
That is, until I started writing about it tonight. I felt relaxed and happy all over again. Maybe I can make it three hours tomorrow before it fades.
Nite,
k.
Well, just when you are in need of it, more often than not, a happy little giggle moment of surprise comes along.
It’s been a rough week, well, three or so weeks. Work has been tough; too much to do, not enough hours in the day even when I’m pulling 9 or more hours a pop. Sometime it not the thing, it’s the time it takes to do the thing that’s daunting. Sometimes things seem to be designed in the most convoluted way possible, as if, in giving directions to exit a room to get to the office next to you, you said, “First, knock a hole in that wall and then scale down the outside of the building, then go around the block. Come in the street level door, take the stairs, not the elevator, never the elevator, to your floor, then go to the office.” “But,” you might say, “there’s a door right there? Couldn’t I use that?” “Not our way,” you’d be told. “Not our way.”
I believe in simplicity. I suspect, if you read me rather than know me, you might find that hard to believe. I suppose I should restate: I believe in cutting through the bull. There, that’s better. I think it has something to do with nearly dying. (How’s that for a teaser?) Here’s a problem, lets find the best way of solving it. Perhaps it’s a Virgo thing. I believe in straight lines; they get you to your destination much more quickly.
Of course, that only holds true for my work life. In my “real” life, I like curves, I like the found paths, the little-used byways. They are far more interesting and fun. But at work, I don’t like to waste time; I don’t like my time wasted. Most of the time, I feel I’m doing extremely trivial things and putting out fires. I don’t feel like I’m actually accomplishing anything…worthwhile.
Ok, it’s work. Work is work. But work can be, and sometimes still is, rewarding. But not as rewarding as it has been with past jobs. I suppose that’s why I started writing again. Writing here. Not that I have anything earth-shattering to impart, I think that much is clear, but rather that I do indeed have something to impart. It gives me some small creative outlet, and, after all, the subtitle of the site is: “Built to amuse…myself”. And it does.
So tonight, I go outside to have my evening’s perambulation and upon exiting the building, I discover happy halloween decorations lining our little dead end street. A flickering pumpkin, a couple of those big, baloon-y things with lights in them, a pumpkin, a pumkin with a cat on it, etc. Stupid things. But really quite charming. Lovely that our building does that. It made me smile. And writing about it, I’m still smiling.
I suppose that’s what gets me through life, finding and treasuring those small moments that somehow move you in a positive way. I love those kinds of gifts from the cosmos. Difficult to believe if you saw me, walking down the street with my NYC, “don’t bother me” face on, but I love to smile, and laugh. It really feels good, and generally, no one does it enough.
So tomorrow, as you’re going through your day, look around and find your blow-up pumpkin. And smile.
Oh that seems a lovely way to end this, doesn’t it? But ramble on I will. One more thing to say.
J & I are off tomorrow to visit his mom in FL. It will be a nice trip, we haven’t seen her since last December.
And it will be nice to have a getaway. We’ve been so busy with the apartment this summer that we didn’t really do much else. I’m not at all complaining. I love what we did this summer. I’m proud of the work we did on the new place and even more, I’m more proud that we did the bulk of it ourselves, quite successfully and beautifully, I must add. But it will be nice to get away for a long weekend.
And we’re giving ourselves a mini-vacation within the vacation. We’re taking Friday all to ourselves. We’re spending it at EPCOT. We love Disney. We love EPCOT. So sue us; it’s great fun. And this month is the EPCOT Food and Wine Festival. All the little faux countries around International Lake (or whatever it’s called) have tastings of their native foods. There are food events and wine tastings.
And taste we will. Friday night, we’ll be at the South African wine tasting dinner. It should be wet and tasty. And a very nice way to transition between NYC and Sun City Center, where Jamie’s mom lives. SCC is the kind of place where you are just as likely to see people driving a golf cart down the road (yes, the roads have golf cart lanes) as driving a car.
But, as I said, it will be really nice to see Jamie’s mom. It’s been too long.
And there’s a damned good BBQ rib joint just down the street from where she lives. Gotta love that.
Nite,
k.
