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A couple of weeks ago, with Ooma on my arm, I attended the Sunday afternoon blues jam at the Buckingham Blues Bar in (no surprise) Buckingham FL, not far from my RV resort. This joint is Ooma’s go-to place for mellow music. She has been attending these (free!) concerts for years and knows most of the musicians who play there.
We got there early, before the 3pm start of the concert, and stayed until the end (normally 6pm, but 6:30 on this occasion). I have to say that this was the best live music concert that I have attended in years. That isn’t saying much as I haven’t been to many live concerts lately, but this was really good. These guys know blues. It is not a band, per se, but a group of guys from other bands who regularly meet on Sunday afternoons to play blues. The bar is owned by Tommy Lee Cook who is pretty famous in his own right, but that could be said of nearly every musician who plays or sings in this jam. Perhaps most famous is Bobby Capps, keyboardist for .38 Special, who seems to make semi-regular appearances at “The Buck.”
Anyway, it was an afternoon of fine music in the company of a fine woman. How could it get any better?
Well, the beers were just $5. That made it just a bit better.
First, the usual disclaimer: David Benjamin is one of my oldest and best friends. Also, this book is nominated for a “best comedy book” award by the Independent Book Publishers Association and, if it wins, I will be accepting the award in his place. So, yes, I am biased. But I also know a good book when I read it and this is a good book.
Like several other Benjamin books, this one is semi-autobiographical. The protagonist in this book is a 12-year-old altar boy named – drum roll please – David Benjamin. He is in 7th grade and is acquainted with a 14-year-old eighth grader named Vinny. Because Vinny is morbidly obese, smelly and generally disgusting, everyone calls him “Fat Vinny”. But Vinny has some social skills, is a bit of an entrepreneur and seems to always have more money than any other kid at St Mary’s. Partly because he is physically intimidating and partly because he has funds to buy temporary loyalty, Fat Vinny is able to get David involved in his schemes. And in the eighth grade Fat Vinny’s main scheme is winning the love of a young novice nun named Sister Patrice.
Forbidden love, indeed.
As an example of Vinny’s approach to courting, consider this “pome” that he wrote for her:
Your body is a temple.
I want to wurship there.
I'll tear away you wemple.
And stroke your golden hair.
Yeah, I had to look up “wemple” too. He meant “wimple” – a medieval head covering for a nun. Some of his other “pomes” are more salacious but because I don’t want to become R-rated I will not include them here.
This is a coming-of-age book, but, surprisingly, is more about the coming of age of David Benjamin than Fat Vinny. Some of his observations about the unexpected “snot-like” emissions from his penis after seeing a girl’s bare butt are hilarious.
I attended the last Red Sox spring training game in Ft Myers in this truncated spring training season. It was the most unusual spring training game that I have experienced. First, I got the day wrong, thinking the game was Monday, March 28. But when I texted George, my friend who was buying the tickets, he told me that it was actually for Tuesday, April 5. The opponent was the Minnesota Twins, at their park, also in Ft Myers.
So as we (me, George and Bob, all friends from high school) were on our way to the Twins stadium, George was unable to access the tickets on his phone. He then discovered that HE got the date wrong too and the tickets were for Monday, April 4. We had missed the game! But a quick check of the Red Sox schedule showed that the two teams were playing again, but at JetBlue Park, home of the Red Sox. We decided to head there to see if we could get in. I didn’t think there was much chance of that as every spring training game I have ever attended had been 100% sold out.
But this is a most unusual spring training season. Not only did we get seats, we got some terrific ones, on the first base side, in the shade, front row behind the main walkway around the park. Totally unobstructed view with no one seated in front of us. Probably the best seats I have ever had at JetBlue. How did we manage to get so lucky? Well, the fact that most of the seats were unsold helped. Apparently because the entire spring training schedule had to be thrown out by the contract dispute between players and owners (millionaires fighting billionaires), all advance ticket sales were refunded. All tickets were sold either online or at the park, pretty much at the last moment. Very unusual.
The game was pretty good. The Red Sox, with their high-priced starting lineup, fell behind 6-1 after 5 innings, getting only 2 hits. Then they started replacing the starters with the rookies and they knocked the ball all over the park. The Red Sox won, 10-6.
That isn’t her real name, but that’s the way we roll here; are you surprised to hear that Sparky is not my real name either?
Anyway, I have been keeping company with a lovely lady who will be known as Ooma here. She is older than I – by about 10 days – and is also widowed, having lost her husband of 37 years in 2016. I happened across her on a dating site to which I had been paying scant attention because there was never anyone there that interested me. But a week ago, on a whim, I took a peek and there, smacking me in the face, was a photo of this beautiful woman. Well, we exchanged some email messages, chatted on the phone, had dinner and, honestly, I am totally smitten. It has been only 6 days since we met but it feels like I have known her forever.
Another strong-willed Irish woman. My Kryptonite.
Things can change quickly in the dating game, but this feels like it could last.
I will skip the long ode to foggy mornings. I will simply say that a foggy morning in a tropical climate can be downright spooky. This is a color photo, not black-and-white.
This is not so much of a review as a rant. WTF is wrong with James Patterson? Why is he a popular author? If you recall I characterized his “Sunday at Tiffany’s” as “dreck.” This, too, is dreck. But this time he can’t shift the blame to a co-author; it all falls on him.
I didn’t finish the book – I tossed it about a third of the way through. While it is possible that it would have gotten better, I doubt it. Dreck just doesn’t improve.
This is the 7th in his very popular series of books featuring Alex Cross, a criminal psychologist and widowed father who in this case gets called in to consult on a series of gruesome murders in which the perps seem to be vampires. Corpses left hanging from their ankles, drained of blood like a deer about to be gutted. A lot of corpses. A third of the way through and I think the body count was in double digits.
My dislike of this book has very little to do with the gruesome deaths; I am ok with that. But it seemed to me that Patterson was running up the body count because he enjoyed it and had to reach his quota of pages. None of the murders moved the plot to a conclusion; it was all just gratuitous gore. And the perps were being stupid. Any half-witted detective would have gotten some good clues in these cases. For example, one of the murders is the pilot of a skyjump plane. Yes, the perps murder her, suck her blood and then jump before the plane crashes. Um… when was the last time you went up in a skyjump plane without showing ID and signing a release? The jumpers all have to pack their own parachutes, too, I believe. Did that happen in this case? Nope, they just handed over $20, were given pre-packed parachutes and off they went. Nobody saw two men parachuting from a plane that was spiraling into the ground? And they didn’t plan the landing spot – they could have come down in the middle of a desert or in front of a police station. Patterson wants us to believe that they could get away without leaving a clue from this outrageous and poorly planned homicide. Ridiculous. Patterson didn’t care about making the scene realistic; he just wanted to get straight to the gore. Lazy. Sloppy.
I should give this book an “incomplete” since I didn’t finish it. But I feel comfortable giving it a 2 out of 10. Dreck.
I have mulled over a lot of different options for what to do this coming summer, including the option of staying in Ft Myers all summer. I think the plans are taking shape. Here is the brief synopsis:
I will go north, to Massachusetts, but only for about a month.
I will attend my 55th high school reunion in Wisconsin after Labor Day.
I will not haul the RV north. This will be a long road trip in the Toyota.
The decision to not take the RV north was driven primarily by the lack of a place to stay. Based on my experience last year, if you want an RV site for the season in New England you had better book early. I certainly didn’t want to return to the miserable Quabbin Pines campground. My brother-in-law Ray offered me his house in Worcester and that made the car trip option more appealing. The fact that diesel prices have gone through the roof solidified the decision.
So I will leave Ft Myers early in July, will arrive in Worcester in late July (with a stop in Virginia to visit Jett’s sons), will leave for Wisconsin around Labor Day and will return to Ft Myers by early October. The exact routes and stops are still evolving, but it is a lot easier finding a place for a single man with a dog to stay overnight than it is to find a site for a 42-foot fifth wheel.
The challenge will be to pack for this trip. I have not had to pack for a long road trip in 10 years. The closest would be the 28-day transatlantic cruise.
Because I am leaving the RV in Florida during hurricane season I will have to contract with a company to move it if and when a hurricane approaches. I will also have to make sure that my refrigerator/freezer are pretty empty because if the RV is moved anything in the refrigerator will be lost.
I will be blogging my travel experiences, even though it will not be in an RV. The trip north will be designated TN8 (8th trip north) and the trip south via Wisconsin will be designated TS8 (8th trip south).
One other trip will be required by this plan: a short RV trip. I don’t want to let the RV sit idle for a year – the brakes might rust and I generally need to keep the RV in trip-worthy shape. So I think I will take a short RV trip within Florida in April. Maybe just a weekend trip to Cape Canaveral, where I have never been. This will be a “quick trip” so I will designate it QTF – Quick Trip in Florida.
I just noticed that I have passed the 1,000 mark in the number of posts that I have made in this blog. I believe this is 1,009. Not a big deal, but worth noting. I suppose I should have a drink to celebrate. Maybe several.
Robert Crais spins some good yarns. His most popular books are those featuring Elvis Cole, the self-proclaimed “world’s greatest detective” and Joe Pike who defies a simple description. Maybe “mysterious mercenary?” He is an iconoclast, for sure, and has amazing skills at tracking people.
Cole and Pike team up in this one to track Amy Breslyn, a woman who has apparently stolen over $400,000 and is making explosives to sell to Al Qaeda. Or is she? As becomes apparent, she is not the only mysterious woman in this story as the woman who hired Cole to find Breslyn is more than a bit mysterious herself.
Without going into details, Cole and Pike find themselves getting involved in a DHS investigation and a K-9 officer who is also embroiled in the whole thing is nearly canned for helping Cole and Pike. And nearly killed too. But it all comes out well in the end.
It is an entertaining story and it has those short chapters that I like. The chapters are written from the perspective of one of the main characters – Cole, Pike, James (the K-9) officer and the main evildoer. But there are also a few chapters written from the perspective of the dog. Yes, folks, you can finally learn what a dog is thinking.
If you have been paying attention, you will remember that I had a very good time on my second Princess cruise (PCL2) in December, due in no small part to my congenial cabinmate, Carl, and the friendships we formed with two lovely ladies from Ft Lauderdale, Bobbi and Patricia. When the cruise ended we agreed that we would meet again, but busy lives and a continuing pandemic made that somewhat difficult. But we finally managed to make it happen last week. Bobbi and Patricia made the trek from Lauderdale via I-75 and Carl hosted us in his very nice condo in Naples.
Yes, for the first time since Jett’s passing, I cohabitated with a woman. Or, to be precise, two women. But lest that sound more salacious than it was, let me explain that Bobbi and Patricia shared one bedroom, I had the bed in the office and Carl had the master bedroom. All very proper and above board.
Fileting a grouper
So what did we do for three days? Well, there was a lot of Trivial Pursuit (1981 edition – thanks Patricia!). We played teams, without the board, just going 5 rounds with each team answering all 6 questions on the card. Patricia also brought Pente, a game I have never played before and proved it by losing badly in 5 quick games.
We did a road trip to Tin City in Naples the first night and dined at Pinchers, a popular seafood restaurant chain in the area. The restaurant was on the pier in Naples and while waiting for a table we watched the gutting and fileting of the day’s catch. The meal was quite good.
There were three main events on Friday, the first of two full days. First, Bobbi, Patricia and I visited the Naples Zoo, a place which I have passed many times but had never gone inside. I was impressed. It is a very nice small zoo. Besides the live animals – gibbons, giraffes and many others, there were also many Lego animals. Some were small (such as the one that I posed near) and other were HUGE, consisting of hundreds of thousands of Lego pieces and weighing more than a ton. Very interesting, very artistic.
Huge Lego creature
Gibbon
Giraffe
Me with small Lego creature
Patricia at the zoo
Carl stayed home and rested, then came with us on the second big event of the day: sunset on Vanderbilt Beach. We got there about 15 minutes before the sunset and I got some good shots of the sun sinking over the Gulf of Mexico.
The third big event was dinner. We dined at AZN, an “Asian fusion” restaurant in the Mercado shopping area of Naples. The area was hopping on this Friday night. If you need any proof that the pandemic is winding down, hang out at Mercado on a Friday evening. Thousands of people and not a mask in sight.
Sunset at Vanderbilt Beach
The selection of AZN was the result of them offering us a table first. We had put our name in at several other restaurants and took the first one that responded. None of us knew anything about the restaurant but it turned out to be a lucky pick. Everyone loved their entrees.
The four of us after a fine AZN dinner
The weather was poor on Saturday with an intense thunderstorm and a dramatic drop in temperature. We decided to make it a movie-and-dine-in day. Scrambled eggs for breakfast, pasta and salad for dinner. Also snacked on the antipasto and pastries that Bobbi and Patricia had brought and the sangria that I contributed. No, we didn’t starve.
The movies were House of Gucci and King Richard. Neither was a comedy but both were sufficiently interesting to keep most of us awake.
Sunday breakfast was french toast (thanks, Bobbi!) then we left Carl before noon. Bobbi and Patricia went back to Ft Lauderdale via Ft Myers, stopping at my RV for the custom 5-minute tour of the RV and the 20-minute tour of the resort. It was a comedown after Carl’s condo, but at least they know now what an RV life looks like.
