The view from where I blog....

Lets see if I can start something new. Here I sit at the tip of Key Largo, sun, mangrove muck smell in the air, my laptop...well on my lap...this is what I have to say about my first three hours.

I’ve just arrived in Ocean Reef, the pseudo-paradise for old wealthy republicans…mainly from the mid-west. As a child I thought heaven was Ocean Reef and that one day I would live here too. I think not, nor will I ever have the cash flow.

Regardless I am happy to be here and to enjoy my grandfather’s company. His wife informed me that they will be attending a costume party tonight and my grandfather will be a cheerleader. I made his pom-pom shortly after having unpacked.

To make life easier on ‘the reef’, everyone is assigned a membership card and just has their entire life billed to them at the end of each month. Convenient, but I don’t ever want to see one with my name on it. Anyway, my grandfather wanted to get one for me and my sister so that we may be free to do what we want while we are here (yes, I am completely aware of how unbelievably fortunate I am).

So we had to drive, in a golf cart, to the hotel and get one. A fairly routine and ordinary experience, my grandfather, Papa as we call him, will be 88 next month so I filled out the form on his behalf and just showed him where to sign. As we are waiting for the desk agent to process the card my sister and I inquired about friends of his that we had grown to know and wanted to see if they were here. To my great sadness the husband of the duo in question had died. I didn’t even know he was ill. Papa remarked that really at his age people go all of the time. I smiled and said ‘well thank goodness you have good strong genetics’ He replied…’well not so much my eyes and my ears are going, but at least I have good teeth’ as he flashes an ear-to-ear grin showing off his brand new dentures he told us about earlier.

The desk clerk returns, cards in hand we are off. As we are exiting the hotel there is a small step down an my sister points this out to Papa, he as been know to take a tumble or two I witnessed one, not pretty. He says ‘I know, I know I can see that, everyone thinks I can’t see anything’ funny you just mentioned your eyes were going, anyway maybe he forgot. When we return home Jane, Papa’s wife, has the small television on in the kitchen. As I pass through, Papa is watching with his face literally 3 inches from the screen.

My sister just snickered as I read her this passage aloud and questioned “what do you think”. She said, it’s good, I was even there and I listened.

I hope the next few days have many more ironic moments, not all by my grandfather either. I'm sure I'll pitch a few self stumbling mishaps and maybe if we're lucky Aimee will have something to add.