Sea and sky

[sienamystic]

My sister visited, and we had a lovely time adventure cooking, which is her term for those recipes you save up because they look particularly delicious or difficult to do and so you save them up for a special moment where you can just plunge ahead and buy all the stuff you need and experiment and frequently turn out awesome food. We also ate diner eggs, cookies from Sasquatch Bakery, and giant burritos, so we covered all the bases.

Then I went back to work for one day to go to a staff retreat and have a student shadow me, and then I went to bed early so I could be up at four-thirty to fly out to Fort Lauderdale.

It was a business trip, but I extended it two days so I could spend time with a dear friend who I haven't seen in too many years (I'm resolutely not trying to figure it out) because she moved to Florida and I moved out here and then all her family moved up North. She doesn't go back to the old stomping grounds as often as we do, so we've only met up intermittently. It was fabulous to just be able to hang out and talk and be silly together. Also she has met a dude and they are serious and I wanted to meet him on a day that wasn't, like, their wedding day. And I did, and he was quite nice.

The weather was gorgeous, which was incredible to bask in because I had left Polar Vortex temps behind and then the East Coast got hit by big snow and my FB page was all about people shivering while I poked around on the beach and pedaled a bike around in 73 degrees and lovely light breezes. I'm sure all Floridians would be more insufferable if the rank humid Julys didn't melt it out of them, because ahh, it was glorious. We did a lot of walking through various fun neighborhoods, including the ritzy areas after dark when we could windowshop and pretend we weren't grungy peasants, and we ate a lot of empanadas and tres leches cake (see above, re: Cuban food) and talked each other's heads off in a very delightful way. With certain friends, it doesn't matter if you don't see them every day because you can pick up right where you left off.



Finally, since it was my first time in Fort Lauderdale, I had to make a literary pilgrimage to the marina where one of my favorite fictional characters resided. Sadly the plaque is not outside anymore and has been relegated to the dockmaster's office, but I was still really tickled to see it.



I don't know how much McGee would recognize of his old stomping grounds, but I'd love to hear his take on it, particularly on the weird speculation that has resulted in beautiful buildings right on the beach that have failed before their doors have opened.