Going away

I head to Chicago tomorrow morning and won't be back in home sweet Florida until very late Wednesday night. I have been nervous about this trip because I don't want to freak Emerson out by disappearing for such a long time. He is more sensitive than usual to my whereabouts these days, understandably, and he still doesn't quite understand when I explain to him that I will be back soon. He will be in good hands with his dad and his Gama while I am gone, so I know I don't really need to worry, but I probably still will.

Our car is not stolen

Against all the odds, Roy arrived tonight.

Eric got the call around 5:30pm from the pair who have been transporting him across the country saying that they were about 3 hours away. He got another call at 10pm saying they were just up the street. We went out to meet them.

I was excited to see the huge car carrier trailer, but I was actually even more excited to see that they had left it a mile away at a shopping center, unloaded Roy and another car, and drove just the cars to the little condo driveway on a narrow road with a number of very tight turns.

The young-ish hispanic woman jumped out of Roy and the older black man hopped out of the other car and you would have thought they just got off of a theme park roller coaster: they were giddy and both talking a mile a minute. It seems they have had quite an adventure coming to Florida.

"I had 18 blow-outs on this trip," the guy told me.*

"We got stuck in this little town in New Mexico. It didn't even have a Wal-mart!" explained the lady.

"I got one guy, he's got a silver Chrysler 300**, and he threatened to call the police on me!" shared the guy.

"Wow," Eric said. "Some people!***"

They gave us $50 off for being a week late.

Eric pulled Roy into a parking spot and observed that he smelled different than when we last saw him almost two weeks ago.

"He's been sleeping with someone else," he commented sadly.

It's good to have him back!


*I had to go back up to get the cash from the condo so I missed the story, but Eric explained to me later that it had been the same wheel that blew out 18 times because there was something wrong with how it was attached. I'm not sure if this is more or less likely than every single wheel blowing out on the 18 wheel trailer.
**It was definitely silver. Not sure about the rest of it, though.
***We thought about calling the police but never actually picked up a phone to do it.

Observations from inside the Florida housing market

If I had to explain the Florida residential housing market to a "non real estate" person I would say that it is like a party with a lot of men and a small number of homely women.*

Here's what that adds up to: a lot of dumpy, poorly dressed, awkwardly built or just plain ugly women are walking around looking for someone to talk to, dance with, just stand near - anything! And they are getting no attention whatsoever.

Then a moderately pretty woman arrives at the party and while this woman is really, truly nothing special, she suddenly has men elbowing each other out the way to buy her a drink. She ends up with multiple drinks and will definitely go home with someone above her true attractiveness level.

If a truly lovely woman were to arrive at the party, she would probably be mauled and torn limb from limb by over-desperate admirers.

It is starting to feel like we might be leaving this party without a date.


*Some would describe this as "business school."

Friday night showdown

Now that my mother is here with us in Florida, Eric and I have had the chance to get out in the evenings, which feels like quite a luxury.

Tonight we explored the Friday night scene on Anna Maria Island. We wandered down the city pier watching way more people that I would have expected fishing and even catching things. We got an ice cream cone at "Two Scoops," an average ice creameria. We watched this sunset:


Then the real fun began. And by real fun, I mean mini-golf.

The mini-golf course we stumbled upon was fish-themed (each hole was named after a Florida fish) and its most distinctive feature was the mist machines behind hard-blowing fans which created a moist, hurricane-like environment in the tightly arranged holes. Every time I took a breath the word "biofilm" echoed through my head, and occasionally Eric would comment on which mist machines likely had the highest concentration of legionella. (This is what you get when you marry a microbiologist.)

We jockeyed back and forth for the lead the first nine. Starting the back nine I fell a few strokes behind and got worried. So I changed the rules: each hole required a different physical challenge, and we would alternate choosing the challenge.

First one (12th hole) was standing only on your left leg. Pretty tame. Second one was one-handed.

Third one: behind the back. Eric ended up shooting from behind the back through his legs and did pretty well in spite of a giggling fit right before his second shot.

Fourth one: holding the putter between your knees with you hands above your head ("roller coaster arms"). We had an audience for this one and while they were a little skeptical of my practice swings, they changed their tune after I knocked the ball cleanly down the green toward the hole with a satisfying click. Eric had a solid knee knock as well but the audience wasn't quite as impressed, maybe because he wasn't wearing a skirt.

Fifth one: billiards style. Down on your knees and elbows using the putter like a pool cue. I was the one with the giggling problem on this hole.

Sixth one: blind. Face away from the hole, close eyes, then turn around, place your ball and take your best shot. Do not open those eyes just yet! Your partner leads you with your eyes closed to your ball and places your hand on the ball, then the hole. I sunk it in 2 strokes total. Eric needed 4. This was where things really started to change for me.

18th hole: using the heel of the putter only. This hole had a stream running through the middle of it and required a soft touch that was simply not possible with the heel. Even better, there were three very old men sitting in rocking chairs watching us play the 18th hole. I have no idea what they were doing there. I can only imagine how silly they thought we were, hitting the balls with the wrong side of the club and landing them in the drink again and again and again (5 times for me, 7 for Eric). We did, finally, manage to get the balls into the hole, and my victory was sealed.

Then Eric won the "plinko" to get a free game. So I guess in the end it was kind of a tie.

At the beach

I like it here.

Emerson had a great time playing in the pool and the Gulf today; he made happy, excited noises pretty much constantly all day except when he got the occasional taste of Gulf water and then he scrunched up his face and stuck his tongue way out. But mostly, he had a ball.

I got my work done and still had time to go for a swim with Eric and Emerson and a short walk along the beach. Eric saw a ray with a white under-side jump out of the water, or so he says. I saw a big splash but it could have been a small meteorite or something, you never know.

It is H-O-T here but I am enjoying it. I have made the unreasonable demand that the air conditioning at the condo be set to 85 degrees and so far Eric is going along with it. He might just think it is funny to see me working on my laptop in my bathing suit all day. I think it is very pleasant and will help us acclimatize well to our steamy new home state.

My mother arrives late tomorrow evening. Eric and I are looking forward to seeing her and spending time together here (and having the chance to leave the condo together after 6pm).

Day 2

Today we secured that hotel-ish short-term furnished apartment. I made the lease guy sit in the car with me to review and sign the papers because Emerson had fallen asleep in the car on the drive to meet him. Eric, meanwhile, was picking up his new work computer and scoping out his new office. He reported that the computer is "gorgeous" (goes without saying: it's a Mac) and that his office overlooks a dome.

The other big development of the day is that we put in an offer on our favorite house from yesterday. We went back to see the house again today and it was still great so we decided to give it a whirl. This new realtor is a crafty negotiator and during our second walk-through today she was already laying some groundwork for our offer. ("I was looking up comps and couldn't find anything in this area to support your list price. Could you send me some of the comps that you used to come up with this price?" to which the reply was "We know the house is currently overpriced...") So we put together an offer at the realtor's office while Emerson ran around and the realtor sent it over. Let's see what happens! We should hear something back by end of day Thursday. I feel like we should buy a lotto ticket too just to see.

It continues to be about 98 degrees during the day, and it has become clear that Emerson has my complexion: he and I both get quite flushed in this heat. Eric has taken to calling us his "pinks," as in "Just sitting here eating lunch with my pinks," which he said today at Crazy Ray's Deli.

After all this action, we hot-footed it to the beach! Some friends who have a condo on Anna Maria Island are letting us stay there for the price of the air conditioning (thank you!!). We arrived around 6pm after getting groceries on the way. It feels great to be in a relaxing spot, though I am actually back at work tomorrow so it won't really be a vacation, even though I hope it feels like one, at least some of the time.

All of it is happening

I am proud to say I went to the gym this morning. It is a particularly easy thing to do when all it requires is a short elevator ride, plus I am reading Bossypants on my kindle and it was really just an excuse to go read.

When I got back to the room Eric had called Joe, the guy who loaded Roy onto his big car-carrying truck almost a week ago.

"I'm not gonna make it," Joe told Eric by phone this morning.

"Wha-what?" Eric responded.*

"Air bag blew out on me. I'm in New Mexico waiting on replacement parts. I'll let you know when I expect to be getting to Florida."

And that was that. Our car may or may not actually be stolen. If it was, at least we have a video of it happening.

From there, we went to tour some day care centers in Tampa that we are thinking about sending Emerson to until I wrap up at work in the next few months. None of them were bad, they were just so day care-y. I'm sure a 1:6 teacher to 18 month old ratio makes sense when one is regulating this sort of thing, but I don't think I am quite ready for Emerson to be competing for affection and attention with five other children for most of his waking life starting in two weeks. I know there would be good things for him in a program like this and one option could be to do a half-day program so he can have some fun with the other little ones every day, but also still get cuddled plenty at home.

Then we did some house-hunting. We spent a few hours with a new realtor** looking at eight places up for sale. Unexpectedly, we feel a lot less pressure now to find something good than I think we did when we were here before. Which is good, because most of these places were not so great. However, one of them was great and a couple of others were potentially good runners-up. We are thinking about making an offer on the one we liked which is pretty exciting and, in a sign that either I have more fully accepted our move to Tampa or my crazy pregnancy hormones have stabilized somewhat, doesn't make me want to sob uncontrollably.

We also looked at two rentals - one short-term furnished joint that reminded me of the Sheraton in Key West (in case we want to buy), and an unfurnished place which I would suggest to a location scout is perfect for a miniseries about a tropical flop-house (in case we strike out).

I need to get to bed soon but there were a few other highlights from the day as well:

• As we were driving away from the hotel this morning, having driven in this rental SUV for approximately 10 miles coming in from the airport last night, Eric said, "Wow, we've already gone through half a gas tank." I was halfway through saying "Are you happy with your choice?" when I realized what a funny joke he was making. In my defense, I was really hungry.
  
• The highlight of Emerson's day was clear: we stopped at Publix to get a few supplies and they have these special carts for kids where the kid faces away from you and there's a little steering wheel for them to "drive" the cart as you push it around. The only time I have seen him happier is poking at Sarah and Rob's poor, tolerant cats.
  
• We also took him to a park for a little while from 3:30 to 4:30 in the afternoon. It was an adorable park in a family-oriented neighborhood and we were the only people there the whole time. Where was everyone? It might have been the thunderheads and the occasional actual thunder but it wasn't actually raining and in fact the air was noticeably cooler for a little while there.
  
• We went back to the Mexican restaurant where we ate our first Tampa meal ever last time we were here and it was as delicious and salty and greasy as we remembered it. Emerson, who eats no added salt in his food, gulped water after every bite I gave him.
• We needed to get some milk for Emerson on the way home from dinner because the milk we had been driving around in the hot car all day had lost its appeal. Eric's idea: the Krispy Kreme drive through, because apparently they sell milk. ("They have to!" Eric explained to me.) And of course, you can't go through the drive through just for milk, so we got one hot freshly made donut which, I will admit, was incredible. I was one with Homer Simpson for about 15 minutes there.
  

*I don't know for sure how this part of the conversation went because I was at the gym, but I suspect I am pretty close.
**The woman we worked with back in May was a nitwit. This new woman is a lot better.