Spring Sprang Sprung

We sit down to write the blog thinking it's been a nothing-much week, and yet, as we list out the days, every one of them had an event (by Retirement Central standards, granted). S's winning streak at bingo continued on Monday (x 2!)--and on the way home we sampled the pulled pork at Pig Alley, as well as their entire offering of sides (including the unexpected corn salad), plus also their meringue-topped banana pudding. The baked beans are too sweet and the potato salad too mushy, but everything else, dee-lish. Another do-again!

Tuesday we had Phil and Karen from next door and Lynn and Hank (who rented B-A-R last winter for 6 weeks and had been pals with P & K) over for steaks. It was great for us to finally meet the latter, for S and Lynn have had an amiable ongoing e-mail relationship. The food (including Bobby Flay's Onion and Sage Gratin whomped up by S and Mrs. Lincoln's Pecan Pie baked by E) was good and the conversation lively--fun all around. And we learned an arresting factoid about Sunrise Beach: parts of it are built on land created by filling in a coastal dune lake! AIIIIYYYYYYYYYYYY! Ah, this community is progressive on so many counts . . .

The rest of the week included routine shopping and tai chi excursions, another visit from a Mediacom technician (this one with new ideas and strategies: fingers crossed), three-handed mahjongg with Joyce (Susan was waylaid at a doctor's office), many many many hands of Spite & Malice, the arrival of Shepherd Fairey's Obama HOPE poster (S keeps flashing back to the photos of JFK in her neighbors' homes when she was a kid and she is compelled to OBEY this yearning to emulate them), and voila:

First Things First

It was a week of many firsts: 1) we played Mahjongg for money with the local ladies (and, teehee, took most of theirs for our piggy bank); 2) we ate at Dynasty, which, according to some local rag, is the "best" Chinese joint in the area, but frankly we liked P. F. Chang's better: Dynasty's version of General Tso's Chicken was a syrupy mess and our vegetable dish didn't arrive at the table until the chicken was nearly gone 3) we tried the "best" pizza, and lo and behold, it might actually be up there with the best pizza we've ever eaten: Pizza by the Sea is definitely a do again! 4) in search of the South Ferry geocache, we tooled around Point Washington on the eastern edge of SoWal and extended our sense of the lay of the land 5) drumroll . . . we finally bought a paella pan (Scotty? oh Scotty . . .) and 6) we started our little truck garden in the back yard.

Dizzying decor at Pizza by the Sea

Almost as good when we reheated it for supper

We got within 3 feet of the damn geocache, but have to come back with sturdy shoes & gloves.

An arm of the intracoastal waterway, where the South Ferry used to cross

A concrete plant at the end of Old Ferry Road

Finally! The sign we've been waiting for!

Choctawhatchee Bay at Point Washington

Check out the Spanish Moss

Home of Brigadier General William Miller CSA--who was awarded the property for his service during the Mexican-American war

Look at those cute dimples

Lettuce, parsley and chives coming up! (we hope)

Big Day

The two highlights of the week for E involved games: 1) Marcia and we taught three newbies how to play Mahjongg--and it "took" with Susan and Joyce, who have already played twice since their lesson. Hurrah! It would be so nice to have a local game! Mind you, the experience more than once put S in mind of The Golden Girls, but that just seems to be how we roll here at Retirement Central 2) Wendy came for a visit after the Pensacola Double Bridge Run (a torture she may never repeat) and we played lots of 3-handed Spite & Malice and, natch, Rummy-O!

at least she got a cool shirt for her trouble

Otherwise, it was a week full of doctors for S and taxes for E and moving her litter zone to Phil and Karen's side yard for the other S: we're waiting for the neighborly shoe to drop on that matter. The visit with Wendy was sweet: E baked a cake (which S decorated with conversation hearts -- damn, no pix!) to celebrate W's imminent birthday; S cooked a cannelloni dish of Jamie Oliver's; E roasted some gorgeous shrimp; and all the food was served up on cool Italian map placemats courtesy of Dee & Scott. In addition to the games and lots of talk, W hit the outlet mall for some one-more-month-of-winter duds, so we got a fashion show.

Rome, Venice & Florence at a glance...

coolest iPhone skin award

Tonight we're hunkering down in front of the tv with a couple glasses of gin to celebrate our 20th Anniversary by watching President Obama's first Prime Time News Conference. Cheers!

Cache-A-Rama!

Don't you think it was mostly an organizational and transitional week, asks E? Haircuts (we love Julie and Deena at the oh-so-downscale Headstart), meeting a new dentist (she's kinda scary), enduring a new mammogram facility (very efficient), working on taxes (the last year as a rental biz: hoorah!), accumulating supplies for the little kitchen garden (damn, forgot the gravel), playing Wii Sports (trying not to throw our backs out on the tennis court), keeping tabs on the Australian Open (go Serena! go Rafa!), and organizing a mahjongg game amongst the locals (next Wednesday with Susan, Marcia, Jeanie & Joyce)--that's what we've been up to. During Tai Chi class, Henry made two commercial announcements: 1) that Ed, "with my blessing" is opening a dojo on his apparently very cool property in Point Washington, and 2) that Henry himself is on the verge of opening his own restaurant, but in order not to jinx the deal, he was coy about the details. Stay tuned.

Saturday we fired up the GPS receiver and headed to Panama City, for our stock of bagels was zilch. In addition to our usual bingo/bagel routine, we decided to try our hand again at finding a geocache (thus the GPS). As is de rigeur with this piece of equipment, the most direct route is not always on the tip of the guiding tongue, with the result that we made a lovely scenic detour along St. Andrew bay, and in doing so, passed this historic marker. Reading about that marker led us to read about this one. And thus we know two things about Florida that we didn't know before.

Miraculously, we found the micro-cache. Or S did. E says that all she found was a slew of used condoms. S marvels that as she wandered the none-too-scenic-or-romantic parking lot holding the GPS receiver like a Geiger counter, at least 4 orbiting satellites were trained on the machine. Or vice versa. Regardless, pretty cool. E won a bingo and this morning we ate salt bagels for breakfast, so a good trip all around.

Cache--rhymes with . . .