Johanna and I spent the Christmas holidays in Florida this year, and so the year previous. The big difference between '06 and '07 is that we bought a digital camera last November.
Obviously, our presence in south Florida was enveloped in the fake "click" sound our Nikon makes every time we focused and shot.
Here's a few of my favorite photos.
I found it odd that, amidst the drought which has engulfed the Southeast, Floridians seem happily inefficient in their water use.
Perhaps the heavy tourist dollars rolling through highway rest-stops require local officials to discount certain realities: the liquid gold splashed and wasted beneath Yankee tennis shoes in the bathrooms; the Karstian sinkholes under their feet.
It's not quite good old water, I know, but a sure depression fell on me as I watched windshield wash fall on the impermeable concrete and run into storm drains as memories of my parched and dead garden back home returned.
If only a complete outdoor watering ban didn't include tasty best boy tomatoes.
There's my old man on the right, the French-Canadian snowbird to whom we pay our south Florida visits.We took a day-trip to Miami's South Beach, including a leisurely walk up and down Lincoln Road. We ran into the super famous comedy stylings of Jackie Mason.
My pop's a big fan of Jackie.
Mr. Mason asked what I do for a living as I snapped this photo.
"I'm a carpenter," I said.
"Are you Jewish?" To which I said no.
"Then you should live a long, happy life," he said. Or something like that.
Funny guy. Just two hours earlier, cruising towards Miami on I-95, we saw a Jackie Mason billboard advertising his performance at a casino. And then, blammo, there he is right in front of our eyes eating a salad and more than willing to pose for a candid shot.
That old saying is true: celebrities are people too. They eat daily and are not translucent in photographic form.
For dinner in Miami, we were recommended the restaurant La Carreta on Calle Ocho.
La Carreta is a chain of Cuban restaurants found all over Miami. But with the giant chicken outside and the 1970s diner interior, this location felt nothing like a chain
While I can't speak to the authenticity of its cuisine, the vast majority of the restaurant's clientele were of Cuban descent, our waiter said, which is usually a good sign in my book.
An even better sign, in that same book of mine which I referred to just above, is when the food is fantastic and reasonably priced.
Certainly, one can't cross the Miami-Dade county line without one perfect cup of Cuban coffee.
I cherish my time with its rich creams and its the only type of coffee to which I'll add a bit of sugar.
Here, here to holidays. There memories are rich even in late February.
Giant chickens, Jewish comics and the sound of the great perpetual toilet flush so common in the nether regions of Florida.
Hooray to it all.
