Florida dreams... Well, finally found my way back to my blogspot! It has been a long time and much has happened. Right now I am sitting here sweating because air conditioning sucks, and considering our upcoming trip to Orlando August 18- for five days. The only bright spot is that Barry's friend has a Condo at the beach where I can go swimming. My friend Ernie and I were down in Florida as per usual for our post Ash Wednesday trip in February. For the first time we decided to rent a car near the airport. When we arrived at the "Hurricane," our SRO motel on the beach, we discovered that the owner, Savi, had passed away that week and the entire motel had been commandeered by an extended group of Hindis coming in from all points East. There was no room in the inn. (Ernie and I have performed that number at least 40 times in Christman Rappings but this was reality). Fortunately, we had the car, so we could drive out to the wake to schmooze with Jonney, Savi's husband. We oozed into the funeral home trying to look as amiable as possible, pressing our hands together and bobbing our heads to express our sorrow in a respectful way. Finally, a cousin with a motel on the A1A took pity on us for lodgings. The rooms were of a higher quality and had a fast internet connection, but blocked off from the beach by huge and mostly empty Condominiums. Having the combination of a car and internet made all the difference- I would go to the beach and then come back and surf the internet until finding the entertainment of the day. We found an all you can eat place called Bubba's Crawfish, and the last orange grove in South Florida, and checked out the Everglades Park where they kept wild peacocks and had a hidden trailer park out back behind a large hummock of grass. Ernie and his friend Frank patiently permitted me to explore at will. Finally, I found directions to a place mentioned by one of our Florida Friends which was recommended for it's tremendous smoked fish, "Jimbo's" on Virginia Key. After fits and starts, including a side trip out to Key Biscayne, we finally found the place behind Miami's Solid Waste Disposal Plant. Driving into the littered weedy parking lot, I immediately recognized the tribe from my squatter attorney history. Imagine a squat located in a dirty corner of paradise by a beach, and you have the picture. We parked the car at a slight distance, closer to the solid waste disposal plant, and walked through the back area by the beach through the Sawgrass, ragged Palm trees, Palmettos, serious garbage , and burned out VW 's that had been painted and decorated. We should have known that this was not a place buy something to eat. Maybe something to smoke, but not anything to put in your mouth as food. After parrying an old hippie's attempt to get us to watch his entire video about the place, and admiring the more creative piles of junk trailers and dead boats along the beach, we found, or rather smelled the smoked fish shack. Inside was a hard bitten woman in a string halter who probably does all the work around the place. She sized us up as "outsiders" and grunting "salmon or white fish" she opened up a vast Styrofoam tub filled with blocks of wood. She whipped out a rectangle, and we realized it was smoked fish. Ernie asked how much and she answered eight dollars, hesitating, he asked "how much is that- a pound?" and she raised the price of the rectangle on the spot to 10 dollars! For us. For the heroine squatter attorney of New York! Well, after coming all that way we bought it as sort of the "price of admission", it was getting dark then and coming out of the shed, a couple of guys suggested we leave now, because we were not their type. The drive back to the Motel was redolent with the smell of fish, but we did interface with it for a late supper with salad. It stayed in my fridge after that, well wrapped, and I left it as a small gift for the Hindi cousin rather than inflict it on fellow passengers during the flight back to NYC.