Okay, we're easing into vacation a little. I slept almost until noon, giving myself a little less than nine hours sleep. That sounds like vacation. Almost immediately after waking, I went outside to experience the weather. The air was thick with the sweet scent of honeysuckle, but there was no honeysuckle. Instead, the scent was coming from numerous small white grapefruit blossoms on a tree in the backyard. A strange sight, actually, since also on the tree were a few tiny blackened grapefruit, which had held onto the tree past their ripeness and shriveled into tiny dark fists of fruit. This opening to the day heralded life itself, the grapefruit encompassing both birth and death.
We actually relaxed today, which is something I rarely do. I read the paper slowly. I enjoyed the warmth, because it's amazing how warm a sunny 72-degree day can be. Aunt Joan, Mrs Mike's sister, came to talk for a while, and she told us that she couldn't find the statue of St Joseph she buried in her front yard (to ensure the sale of her house).
Later, I rode a bike around the circles here until I finally found her place. It wasn't hard to find St Joseph. Tim could tell where he was buried immediately and just tugged him out of the ground. A week from today, Aunt Joan is moving back to the Rochester, New York, area for good, so she was busy packing. She gave us some foodstuffs from her pantry, which I used later to make a tuna-tomato bowtie pasta dish for dinner.
Nancy had the most fun today. She spent her time cancelling credit cards, and trying (ultimately, unsuccessfully) to get through to the Department of Motor Vehicles back in New York. But now we have a replacement credit card arriving here tomorrow, just in time for our trip to Key West on Monday. And all our other credit cards (well, whichever ones were in her wallet) are being replaced.
Nancy wasn't the only person to lose something. Tim left behind the power cord to his cellphone. He wanted to buy a new power cord, but I thought the better option was to replace his entire phone (which is quite cracked and worn out) for free at the local Cingular store. So we drove out to Cingular, which wasn't nearby, since nothing except the beach is near Englewood. Amazingly, that Cingular couldn't access our account, because they don't have access to accounts in all regions of the country. (Is this not a national company?) We could buy a phone for full price, but I thought free was the better choice, so we drove back to PV (Polynesian Village) and ordered a phone over the phone. It will be here by Tuesday or Wednesday, and we won't be back until Wednesday night. Tim is now trying to conserve the power on his phone, so he can keep it working until we return here.
At eight o'clock at night, the three men (Mr Mike, Tim, and I) headed out by car to Tampa to pick up the last member of our vacation team: Erin, who flew in from La Guardia tonight. This three-hour trip allowed us a chance to travel across the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, to sit in a cellphone waiting area at an airport and read the arrival notices on a screen as if we were at a drive-in theater, and to park for a few minutes in an "immediate loading" area as an attendant tried to encourage us on our way.
I forgot to take pictures during the day today, so all I have is pictures of our nighttime trip back from Tampa:
volveremos a las tortugas
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