The kids had a long weekend, this last one -- two staff days plus Indigenous People's Day -- so we took them to Wimauma, Florida, the census-designated place near Tampa where my in-laws live. It was my first time on a plane since Covid rules went into effect, and it was remarkably smooth. No problems with the flights and no asshole travelers. I spotted a few folks wearing their masks like chinstraps, but people were good about it for the most part. The guy sitting next to me on the flight to Tampa did have to be temporarily pulled off the flight by security because he was wearing a vented mask, which isn't allowed, and was keen to argue about it with the flight attendant. But he quickly came back on wearing a new mask the airline gave him and was chill the entire flight, so whatever the security officer said to him -- probably "Wear this mask or you aren't getting back on that plane" -- worked.
In fact, the most eventful part of our trip there came after we got off the plane. S's parents don't really drive on the highway anymore, so they sent a car to pick us up at the airport. I would have just as soon booked a Lyft (as would have S), but S's parents haven't really figure out ride sharing apps, and they are often overly helpful (which, of course, ends up being not helpful at all). So they asked this guy they know who drives old people around for extra money to pick us up, but he couldn't do it, so he sent another guy he knows to do it.
"So... we're getting picked up by some random dude who knows some other random dude who sometimes drives your parents around?" I asked S.
"Yes," she replied.
The guy's name was M, and he kinda resembled Al Michaels but with a bit of a mob-movie affect. Like, I don't remember if he was actually wearing a leisure suit with gaudy jewelry, but that's what I picture him in. To cap things off, he picked us up in a 1986 Lincoln Continental. This is not a joke -- he literally drives a 35-year-old boat of a car. To make things even less comfortable, he brought his buddy B along, so all four of us -- S, the kids, and me -- had to sit in the back. It's a pretty spacious backseat, but there are only two seat belts, which we used for the kids (we have these travel car seats for them), so S and I squeezed in between them and "free-waisted" it the entire 40-mile trip.
It sounds miserable, but it was weirdly interesting and kinda fun. Traffic was really bad almost the entire way, which I actually appreciated because it made me feel much safer (M was a very slow, cautious driver in general), and B -- the random friend of the random friend of the random guy who drives S's parents -- was a total chatterbox, but in a good-conversationalist type of way. He went on and on about his life and his family and he asked us all sorts of questions. Including, hilariously, asking S if she is a housewife.
"No, I'm a CFO for a major foundation," she replied. I'm not sure it landed with the impact it deserved because I don't think they know what a CFO is.
B came off as gay, like very gay, he spoke with the stereotypical gay accent, and he told us that, although now retired, he was a hairdresser when he worked, and since I'm stereotyping -- what's more gay than a male hair dresser? -- but he also told us about his ex-wife and kids, so I don't know. The most likely hypothesis is that he's one of those older gay guys who came of age at a time when it was very difficult to be openly gay, so he denied it, even to himself, and adopted a heteronormative lifestyle -- marriage, kids, military service, etc. -- but that didn't totally take (because he's not hetero), and so now he's divorced and out, but kinda on the DL, because it's difficult to totally overcome a lifetime of denial in your late sixties.
Furthermore, it seems likely to me that M is B's lover, as B mentioned that he was in Tampa visiting M as a "test run" to see if they could peacefully cohabitate. It's possible they are completely straight, platonic friends, just enjoying each others' company in their old age, but that is not the vibe I got. I'll probably never know for sure, as we took a Lyft on our way back to the airport. As weirdly enjoyable as it was to ride with M and B, it's also nice to have space and a seat belt and safety features mandated within the last three decades. Also, M played country music the entire drive, and I despise most country music.
A-l-l my ex's live in Texas...
There is not much to do in Wimauma, particularly in a gated community in which 80% of the residents are senior citizens. We also didn't want to do things in public indoors because of Covid concerns. I mean, we were in Florida after all. Although I was pleasantly surprised by the number of people wearing masks inside public establishments -- around half, I'd say. I was worried we were going to be pegged instantly as northern liberal elitists for wearing masks to pick up our mobile orders at Dunkin' Donuts. But that wasn't the case at all.
We spent a lot of time at the pool, which is just about the only reason the kids don't go totally crazy from boredom when we stay with S's parents. We are so close to the point where we can toss the kids in the water and relax on a pool lounger without having to monitor them every second. But Lil' S2 still needs some help in the deeper water. He can get to the wall by himself now, but things can get dicey if he gets a little tired or is goofing off or what have you. All it takes is a lapse of, like, a minute for a kid to drown, which is so scary, and it's why I still insist on an adult being in the pool with Lil' S1, especially when there are no lifeguards on duty.
One night we walked to my in-laws' friends' house for dinner. (They have a bunch of friends in their community which is part of the reason they moved.) It was a good Indian feast. Event like this always decompose into a group of women in one room, a group of children in another room, and a group of men in a third room. I usually fluctuate between the kids and dudes. That's one thing children are good for -- if I get tired of gabbing politics with a bunch of "uncles," I can go check on the kids, which actually means hiding away for a few minutes by myself.
Sunday afternoon we met S's cousin and his family in Orlando for lunch (outdoors) and then we went to an outlet mall. I hate shopping, but it's a necessity, so I figured I might as well get a few items. I bought some nice V-neck sweaters, a polo shirt, and a thin rain jacket. It was all so cheap compared to DC prices, and then things were on sale even more. Nevertheless, I got bored pretty quickly and sat in the car for a long time watching football on my phone while everybody else finished shopping.
Afterward we went to a little cafe selling rolled ice cream and boba tea. I had never had rolled ice cream before -- it tastes a lot like normal ice cream, but it takes three times as long to prepare. It was fine as a novelty. There are all these ice cream variants -- rolled ice cream, fried ice cream, vegan ice cream, dipping dots -- but for my money you can't beat normal ice cream. Two scoops in a cone, a hot fudge sundae, a chocolate milkshake* -- there are no better desserts.
*It has to be vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup though. Sometimes you get places that make chocolate milkshakes with chocolate ice cream, but that results in a far inferior (though still good) product.
It was a pretty quick trip -- Thursday to Monday -- and on the flight back we randomly ran into our neighbors who also went to Tampa for the long weekend. It was a weird coincidence, but I wish we didn't see them because they told us of our school's quarantine guidelines, and apparently kids who leave the DC-area are supposed to quarantine for ten days or for three days followed by a negative Covid test. They said that they were going to keep their kids out of school for one day (Tuesday) and get a rapid test and then say they came back Saturday if the school asked any questions. So then S wanted to do that too. I said we should just send them to school on Tuesday without a test, because we were pretty safe, and they weren't showing any symptoms. I mean, if we are going to lie about when we got back, then why don't we just lie and say we didn't know the guidelines, if need be?
Ultimately we did the same thing as our neighbors, though, because S cared more about it than I did. (Both the kids' tests were negative, as expected.) I talked to a few other parents about this, and every one of them, literally, had traveled out of the DC-area and fudged the school's quarantine guidelines in some way upon their return. That's the danger in having overly cautious rules -- people will lie to get around them and that will cause more problems than if you just had more realistic guidelines in the first place. (My friend is an administrator at a middle school in Connecticut, and he was bemoaning this very thing last time I saw him.) I mean, if a family drives to New York for a long weekend and stays with vaccinated family members and doesn't do anything riskier than what they would do in DC and aren't showing any symptoms, it's not realistic to tell them they have to stay out of school, solely as a precaution, for a week or two.
Well, hopefully this will all be over soon. As I said in a previous post, cases have quietly been dropping, slowly but surely, across the nation, and the trend has continued. The vaccine being approved for children can only help. I talked to a scientist who's really on point with a lot of Covid stuff, and he's convinced the kids vaccine will be readily available to any parents who want it by the end of November. From his lips to the FDA's ears -- if we could get it before our Xmas trip to the PNW that would be awesome.
Until next time...
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