Saturday, May 23, 2015

We Begin

Really it should read, 'we began' because we started out on Thursday and it's Saturday now, but if you are going to be hung up on those kinds of details, this might not be the most satisfying forum for you...

The first leg of our journey took us to Savannah, GA to visit our friend Matt at his super cool condo. I didn't even think about the fact that it was Memorial day weekendish and so it took us approximately as long to get to Savannah as the first trip to the moon. Traffic was at a dead stop on two separate interstates and we managed to get ourselves involved in both.

When we finally got into Savannah, Violet had a fever of 101. Pepe got her some tylenol at the pharmacy and by the morning she was largely better. I think it might be related to these two front teeth that are extremely loose but that refuse to take the final leap and come out of her mouth. One of them is sticking out at 90 degrees and the others are coming in behind them. It's a bit backwoods West Virginia looking if you ask me.

Matt made us a wonderful pasta dinner and a salad with toasted pecans that I could have eaten by the bucketful. The next day we sat outside most of the day on his balcony and looked at the shrimping boats on the intercostal waterway while I did my writing for 3dprint.com. Then we ate another fabulous lunch of linguini and fresh caught shrimp.

At about 3:30 we headed out for Tallahassee for our next stop with Pepe's brother Rafael and sister-in-law Berta. When we got here, the grill was already fired up and the guacamole ready. We've got good food timing...

Pepe has helped them with a lot of work on their house: a really cool bar and a wonderful outdoor kitchen. Tallahassee spring weather is so rewarding and after sufficiently lathering myself with bug spray, we had a great time talking and drinking and eating and eating again. I kept up until about 1:30 am and then I went off to sleep. When I woke up (late!) Pepe and Rafael had already gone off to Home Depot to get some stuff to work on tiles for the backsplash in their kitchen.

We were treated to a lunch of handmade tortillas hot off the comal, crispy on the outside and filled with grilled chicken and guacamole. After lunch, the guys started work and I took Violet to Lake Ella where Pepe and I used to walk around all the time when we first met and when Jack was just a baby. Violet and I decided to come up with terrible names for people's pets. Our best work was:

Mini Air Conditioning Unit
Rat Bladder
Dirt in My Eye
Frog Face
A Tree Fell on My Head
Squishy
Lizard Butt
I Picked Up a House with Weak Muscles
Dead Possum
I Got Squished by a  Pole
Gravel Head

We were laughing so hard that my stomach hurts. She is funny! I don't know where she got that from...

We also drove around Tallahassee to see some of the places I used to 'haunt' back in the day. The place has changed a lot. Some of the places don't exist any more...or possibly I couldn't find them because I have never been accused of having the most finely tuned directional sense. There has been a lot of construction downtown too, many taller buildings put up. There's still not really any place to walk and window shop though.

By the afternoon it was hot enough to remind me why Florida becomes unbearable in the summer. It's 5:30 now and I'm sitting in the shade sweating (I'm so pretty!)

Tonight we are going to eat Posole which is a fantastic hominy soup that Berta makes and that I love. This will add to the protective layer of fat I'm developing.

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