Something Like a Beginning

North Easter Island Circle, Polynesian Village, Englewood, Florida

I'm not sure today was the best way to begin a vacation, especially our first real vacation in a few years--and the first time in many years that the four of us will be together. But you work with what you have.

What went wrong? In the end, nothing; in the end, everything. Today, Nancy attended the funeral of a favorite student of hers, a kid who had killed himself last week. The shock of that death is hard enough, but when coupled with the reality of an emotional funeral it probably became even a bit harder today. (And by "today" I mean "yesterday." I just haven't made it to bed yet.) I left the office at the last possible moment myself, held up by some problems I had to deal with at the last minute. The last time I had a deadline at the end of the day, the same thing happened. Amazing.

Once Nancy, Tim, and I made it home, we did some last-minute packing (stuffing toiletries in the suitcase, nothing much), filled bowls throughout the house with cat food and water, and prepared to leave.

Before I mention the next part of the story, let me just say that I'm the person in the family who always loses things. The other night, I lost my wedding ring. I went searching for it "everywhere," but it didn't turn up. Not that it really matters, since this is a replacement wedding ring. I lost the real one on a train trip from Albany to New York City one summer in the 90s. But it's nice to have one. I found the ring last night, after having given up the search. So all was well, and I simply waited to see what I would lose next.

But it wasn't me who lost something. It was Nancy, the person who almost never loses anything. And she had lost her wallet. This was a big issue, since we needed a government i.d. card to move Nancy through airport security, so we tore up the house, and searched "everywhere." We never found it. She thinks she left the wallet on the diningroom table, but the table was bare. Maybe she had put it in her backpack, but the wallet wasn't there. Finally, I said that we couldn't wait any longer, that we had to leave. I had Nancy get the only other picture i.d. she had, her school i.d. (technically governmental), and we left the house not knowing if we would make it through security and onto the plane.

We worried about that for naught (by which I mean we worried in the normal manner). Apparently, the absence of a high-quality identification card merely forces you to go through mildly more rigorous security--actually a bit less rigorous than I've had to endure. So Nancy made it through security, and we made it onto the plane.

The flights were uninteresting. We flew from Albany to Baltimore, where we had a 105-minute layover, enough time to allow us to sit down for an unimaginative but adequate dinner. Then we flew to Orlando, which was a surprise. I could find nowhere on my itinerary where it said we'd be stopping in Orlando, no place even where it indicated the flight was "direct" instead of "non-stop." So we discovered the Orlando leg of our trip while standing in line to board the plane.

All our flights were on time until the last leg, but in Orlando we had to wait for connecting flights, so we landed in Fort Myers forty minutes late. Not so great when we still had eighty miles to drive. My father-in-law drove us to Polynesian Village, a retirement community consisting of streets in concentric circles. Though completely benign, these streets always cause me to imagine the Dantean circles of Hell.

The other good news is that the temperatures are dropping around here (though the weather is still moist and warm to me), and rain is expected for the next three days. So I'm not sure this is the best way to begin a vacation.

volveremos a las tortugas