ON TO FLORIDA

Putting some more miles on the Acura we drove back to Long Beach just in time for me to head to Florida for the about 4 months. While in Florida I signed up for a kickboxing/resistance band exercise class that I go to 6 days a week and jog 3 days a week as well. Mom even got to try on the gloves a few times. The trick is that I go early in the morning at 6:30, before the sun starts to really cook and before my Mom wakes up. I wrote a BIG note with a thick black marker pen that says “Mom, I’ll be back soon”, I put it by her door each morning so if she wakes up she’ll be able to remember where I’ve gone. A few times she already had keys in hand and once even backed out of the driveway by the time I got back, convinced that I must have gotten lost or gotten into some predicament. I enjoyed my time there, sometimes it was a little crazy making for me but overall is was a good time spent with my family.

My mom may not remember what she just said a few minutes ago but she has many stories from her early years, which I’m so glad I had the opportunity to hear. She told me that when she was a kid, one of 10 kids, she used to watch her mom sew, always from a distance because her mom would always tell the kids to scram. Anyway… when my mom was about 11 or 12 her aunt asked her if she thought she could so sew a dress for her. My mom figured she’d give it a try, so equipped with one of her aunt’s dresses to use as a pattern, she made her aunt a dress. When the dress was finished her aunt very pleased with the dress, paid her niece 10 cents. That was my mom’s first sewing job. Years later she worked as a seamstress in New York. Over the years my mother made me many beautiful dresses. I remember going to bed while she was still at the sewing machine and in the morning when I awoke there was a brand new dress hanging on the back of my bedroom door. My Mom, she’s one in a million and I love her very much.

In addition to my Mom there‘s my entire family to spend time with in Florida and that I did. We got to go have Italian ices a few times, took a walk across the lake on the elevated wooden walkway, that only a few weeks earlier was totally underwater, thanks to hurricane Fay, and had a few great barbecues. The kids, Mom and I went to a few cheap matinee movies to get out of the heat a couple of times. I even took a pottery class with my nephew Joe and his daughter Katie. Sandra, my sister-in-law tried out a few new recipes and I have now added them to my 1001 chicken dishes. Thanks to my family for sharing their simmering summer with me.

Midway through my stay in Florida I took the train out of the quaint Winter Park station to Fort Lauderdale, then onto Hutchinson Island to spend a with Janet, her family, Cathie and Melissa, all of whom I hadn’t seen in over 20 years. We didn’t get much sun at the beach, again thanks to Fay but we had a good time together laughing and catching up. I learned how to play Rubicube. Thanks again to Janet for being such a wonderful hostess.