It's Heating Up Around Here, Yowser!

Another busy ten days of retirement, says E, with several new adventures bundled in. In the neighborhood, we played MahJongg twice, teaching another newbie (permanent resident--good for summer fun!) in the process; attended an "Appetizer Party" at Billye's, where we met Mel Robbins, life coach extraordinare (watch for her new TV show this summer); and S painted the fence and the front doors--bringing us to new levels of respectability (oh, that sardonic E!). And best of all, we finalized the refinancing of the joint, which might stand to save us some money one day, far away, when all is finally square.

Henry's Logo

On the Adventures in Eating front, we celebrated said refinancing at Cafe Tango, a fine dining establishment just down the road. E liked her steak a lot, S not so much, but we don't rule out Doing Again. A not-so-quick lunch at the Steamboat Bar & Grill served S w/a flying-saucer-sized bowl of beef dumpling soup that was slurpy savory marvelous, unlike anything S has ever tasted before. E was not so keen on her wonton-wrapped shrimp, bc they were not deveined, but the menu is varied, there is much to sample, so we may Do Again from time to time. We're eager to eat at our tai chi teacher's new resto, but the locals in Grayton Beach are hassling the poor guy, so it may be a while yet before we get to see what counts with Henry as "perceived value."

Steamboat Ambiance

Garden woes! Some of our tomato plants seem to be suffering from yellow leaf curl virus, a nasty little disease that is apparently rampant in big hot houses, so we have been looking for locally grown plants (so far to no avail), but in this quest, drove off to Panama City Beach on Friday, and took in the sights along the Front Beach Road. Since it is currently hosting neither spring breakers nor summer people, PCB has a lazy, seedy old Florida look about it (especially the west side of town), until you arrive at Pier Park (an "open-air regional lifestyle center"), which is like an up-scale circus plunked down in the middle of a lot of asphalt. The town is also full of Christian Retreats--odd. The drive certainly added to our growing sense of the larger "neighborhood," and because E did some advance homework, we also got the bonus of a terrific lunch at Liza's Kitchen, which we wish we could move 30 miles to the west so we could eat there once a week. We met a guy who might eat there many times a week, but we're not sure he would be able to remember, as he seems to have done some serious damage to his brain with chemicals in his youth. A very sweet man, he of course latched immediately onto S (as all wackos inevitably do), and discoursed a while on guitar design and tattoos. LK--a definite Do Again!

A Girl Named Toni--at the weekly Seaside Market

Another drive took us east on Rte 20 out of Freeport--towards Bruce, country we'd not heretofore seen. But it turns out we should have been going west (bad website directions) in order to find the Old Freeport Post Office, site of this month's ACT Walton meeting. Where we met Luke Langford, a local farmer and entrepreneur as well as other farmers and folk hungry for real food. In other cultural news, we joined in an Earth Day celebration at Topsail Park up the road--where we learned that the story about Sunrise Beach having been built on a filled-in coastal dune lake might be less than true. More on this as we do further research. Other highlights included many puppies to be adopted, kids getting their pictures taken with a corn snake around their necks, and S winning a native lantana plant by naming three endangered species. Otherwise it seemed like the same booth repeating itself over and over. We later learned that it's against the law to sell anything in the park, so people handed out flyers about their stuff: many trees were sacrificed on this score!

This one's for you, Wendy...

Hula Hoops are Good for the Environment

This morning we attended another cooking class--but it wasn't really. Instead it was a brunch at which 5 or 6 champagnes were sampled with accompanying courses. Unfortunately, bc Kitchenique is in the process of moving shop, the event was held al fresco at another facility where music was blaring and the unshaded parts of our bodies roasted to a crisp. The champers was great, but we have, at last, sobered up.