Fort Lauderdale and the Lack of $3 Lunches - 07.25.23
Here’s some slightly erratic prose from my week long layover in Florida as I reluctantly removed myself from the beautiful Ecuador. South Florida has many miles of strip malls, a particular image heavy vibration, it is hot and humid… and expensive on a jaw-dropping level.
I mean, immensely expensive… like California times 2… There’s a fee for everything… State Park beach access parking $35, park in a restaurant with a valet parking lot that you’re going to eat at $5 (plus tip). Coffee/juice/smoothie $47, horrible wildlife sanctuary $21… what hell?!? Fee to breath air and look at lizards? Fee for everything! My travel budget was all blowed up just after the first 72 hours in the area.
I am so missing the $3 lunches with my cutie chica de Ecuador, OtraVerónica… that we had on the daily in Quito, Mindo and Baños.
I was held up longer over the weekend trying to get my $15 flight out of Miami. Spend $10,000 to save $75 on airfare… I don’t even have ANY degrees in business… can you believe that?!?
I had a couple of hours to kill one day so I went to the highly recommended wildlife sanctuary on the outskirts of Fort Lauderdale. Caged animals… it smelled of despair, decay and poop. I felt uncomfortable being there and it reminded me of a moment at the Ecological Parque in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia - also with sad caged beings. There was nothing adventurous about it… and I hope that it is the last of that type of experience I have in this life and the next. A few shots of flamingos, and some wild birds and I left… and the smell tracked with me for the balance of the day.
I did swim in the ocean daily and thoroughly enjoyed that and will hold a fond memory of those moments. The mild bronzing of my pale Northern skin is dotted with various bug bites - and they itch something awful and at precarious moments. Itchy tans… swell… sounds like the name of a punk band.
I was walking the shoreline after a swim to get back to my car before the thunderstorm hit (I didn’t make it) and as I was kicking through the waves and sand I was thinking about how much better the Northern Pacific Coast is (for me)… and the South Florida waters are stinky and only good for… and then… and then whoooshhh… at the moment of that thought… a gust of wind kicked up and blew sand in my face and then whipped my San Francisco Giants hat clean off my head into the drink, and a wave crashed over completely submersing it in the sea. First, totally true story. Second, what hell?!? I can’t even think about shit without karma giving me a kick in the ass?
I suppose… try thinking… just thinking about calling your ex back when you’re sitting with new girlfriend. She’ll knock the hat clean off your head in 2 seconds with just her thoughts… just for that thought.
Another example: OtraVerónica was upset with me one morning in Baños because she had a dream that I was mean to her and told her to take the bus home alone. It was only a dream friends… And it was a couple hours later before she was done being upset. Yep folks, you’re responsible for your thoughts… your words… your actions… and even the shit you pull in other’s dreams.
Speaking of dreams… a middle-aged Hemingway showed up in my dream and wanted me to fight him. He was giving me shit about my typewriter table… (I have a cool vintage typewriter table I left in San Francisco) - he went on about something like… it was only for lowly reporters that sit in dark corners and never smell the light of the sun… I said, “I just use it for painting… not writing” He growled, “That’s even more lamentable!”
And after I looked up the word “lamentable” in the dictionary I replied, “Ok dude… now we gonna have a fight!” So… I’ll paint with words then. I figured he was just an amalgam of all the grumpy voices in my head from the past and present that push for validation… but in my daylight hours I believe that outside validation holds little importance - so I carry on doing what I do because it suits me and brings much to my blessed existence…
So… to tie this all together… along with my vintage typewriter table, that I love… I need to liberate my beautiful 2-1/2 foot tall Buddha from the bondage of a storage unit in the city of San Francisco. Plus, a crate of my favorite books and some misc gear I left behind… maybe some shoes. I don’t know… I only work here.
I had all in a spare room in Hayes Valley which I had intended to return to. Also, there had been some noise of digging up a crystal skull in the crawl space of the same house, that was left behind by an elderly tenant when he was a kid and wrote a note describing it’s whereabouts. I was brought in because I know how to use tools and I have watched all of the Indiana Jones movies.
This is a totally true story friends…. zero kids… buried treasure and all. Anyways, my San Fran room is needed to store bicycles and a piano and such… so my gear is in storage and I will rescue those things by the end of August and I will reluctantly give up on the crystal skull adventure for the moment.
I woke up in Denver this morning after my very uncomfortable $15 red-eye flight from Miami… with the conclusion that my Frontier AirPass sucks and in the future, the only other visit to Florida for me will be to KeyWest to visit Hemingway’s house to kick over his writing desk… (I mean, he came to me in a dream to start a fight and so it’s on! You’re responsible for your shit in other’s dreams, Ernie!) and then from KeyWest, catch a boat to Cuba to spend some adventurous moments with the lovely people there. Coolio comrades!
