Monday, March 14, 2005

The world can be a cruel place

An apparition? A mirage? Both? Neither?

She was wearing a gossamer-thin blouse and jeans and came floating across the parking lot like an apparition. I was sitting at an outdoor table, drinking coffee from a paper cup. As she headed straight toward me I figured I was in for an adventure, and quietly wondered what kind.

“Do you have a cell phone?” she asked, her blue eyes barely visible behind her sunglasses. The strong Florida breeze was whipping around her blond hair.

Yes, I told her, and she asked if she could make a phone call on it. “What kind of phone call?” was all I could think to ask. And that started her going.

Her husband had driven off with all their possessions, she said. They had been doing their laundry in a Laundromat when he stormed off. They had been married a year and nothing like this had ever happened to them, she said.

She started crying. “Nothing is working out right now,” she said, through her tears. “We just lost our new house. My catering business is really hurting and Josh can’t find a publisher for his books.”

Her first husband had been killed in a roadside accident two years ago, she said. “I watched the whole thing. He stopped to help someone change a tire and another car came along and killed him. Josh and I were writing a book about the incident when he asked me to marry him. I didn’t know what to think.”

Now they had no home, no money, and no prospects. “What’s wrong with people today?” she cried. “Everyone is so cruel, so uncaring. We haven’t had a place to stay for three days and the motels are all full. Those that aren’t want $100 a night and we can’t afford that.”

She got on my cell phone and called Josh, but was quickly transferred into voice mail. “Josh, honey, where are you? What’s wrong, sweetheart? Whatever it is, we can work it out. We’ve worked out bigger problems before. I love you, honey. Please come back to me. I’m sitting here at Panera’s with a nice man who’s lending me his cell phone. Please come back to me.”

The tears were rolling down her face. She handed me the cell phone back and left with a “Thank you.” The last I saw of her she was walking across the mall parking lot, the tails on her blouse blowing in the breeze, the sun reflecting off her yellow hair. I never learned her name. When you’re broke the world can be a cruel place.

A troubadour comes to town with his guitar on his back

In a way, Chris the troubadour is still trying to fulfill his father’s dream. Chris was playing his guitar at the Old Salty Dog last night and, outside the noise and hubbub of the bar, talked about his family. There were a fair amount of people in the place-nothing extraordinary, but the crowd seemed into it. He played old Neil Young songs, making me recall Young’s originality and freshness. He also played tunes by such performers as Simon and Garfunkle and other “classic” musicians of the pop genre.

As a testament to the vagaries of his career, he had a box in front of him that said “Chris’s Tips.” It was empty.

Chris came to Florida this winter from his home in Warrensville, Ohio, and said he was glad he did. “We live in the snow belt,” he said, in between sets. “We got 90 inches this winter - a new record.”

The snow mass was enough to cause him financial damage, as part of the roof on a greenhouse he owns collapsed and was awaiting him back in Warrensville. He was anticipating the neighbors’ complaints about the mess.

Chris’s father owned the greenhouse and he was trying to make a go of it, but “it’s tough to make a buck in the nursery business,” he said, so he’s not about to give up his singing/playing career. Besides, he seemed to enjoy it too much and was looking forward to next year, when he already had several gigs lined up.

Back in Warrensville he also has a girlfriend waiting for him: his wife divorced him years ago and he doesn’t get enough time to visit with his son. "I lost my son,” he said, then quickly rephrases it. “I mean, I gave up living with him when the divorce came through.”

Chris has a friendly face and is eager to talk to customers. He asks everyone for requests. Barbara requested “Hotel California.”

“Wow, that one stretches my vocal cords,” he says. “I can’t figure out what key they’re playing in, or how they have their strings tuned.” After a moment he says, “I’ll play it anyway, sometime in the first 10 minutes of the second set.”

Instead, though, he starts the set with it. His voice strains to hit the higher notes. As I listen I’m reminded how the words are something of a metaphor for the troubadour life he has set for himself:

“You can check out any time you want,”
“But you can never leave…”

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Want a scan? Meet me in the Flamingo Room

Let's say you needed a scan - a CT scan or one of the others. Where would you expect to go to get this scan? A hospital, right? Or a walk-in clinic.

Would you expect to go to a motel? Yesterday, I was reading the Herald-Tribune when a yellow flyer fell out of it onto my lap. It was advertising various scans "at below-market prices." For example, you could get a "deep leg vein scan" for only $60 and a "pancreas scan" for another $60

This is how Florida is different from Rhode Island, where we lived the past 25 years. You would never see this kind of thing advertised up there, let alone in a Sunday newspaper flyer. Even though getting an "aorta artery scan" is only $45 I doubt that any of the people I know would rush to this company, UltraLife, for a scan. New Englanders prefer to be conservative; stick with their own physicians.

These scans, by the way, were being administered for one day only at a nearby Comfort Inn, not exactly a confidence builder there. And if you didn't like that, they were being offered in nearby Bradenton at a Quality Inn (the Flamingo Room, to be exact).

I think I'll pass.

Tuesday, March 08, 2005


After looking around for a month - and vacillating between buying or renting a house - we settled on renting and ended up with what’s called a Spanish/Mediterranean style house, owned by an engineer from upstate New York. We'’ll move in June 1 and live here for about a year, which should give us enough time to figure out where we want to live and what our priorities are.

Who knows? We may end up renters for the rest of our lives. Posted by Hello

Sunday, March 06, 2005

A young man's thoughts turn to ....

By using her inate tool of curiousity Barbara discovers a unique event: the Cincinnati Reds, who play their spring training games here in Sarasota, are due to play the Boston Red Sox for the only time this year on Saturday, a mere 24 hours away. Both Jordan and Lesley (two of our children) are extremely excited about this coincidental juxtaposition of timing and baseball, so we call the box office to ask for tickets.

“All sold out,” says the saleslady. “Have been since January 21, when the tickets first went on sale.”

Rats. But wait! Now she comes out with a suggestion. “Come to the field around 3 o’clock tomorrow,” she says. “There’s always people around selling extra tickets.”

So we show up at 3 pm and drop Jordan off to score some tickets, if he can, while the rest of us drive off to look at some real estate. Five minutes later the cell phone rings. Jordan has scored four box seats at $14 each.

Man, I love spring in Florida.

That night we show up and watch the golden boys of the Red Sox take the field just a few feet away from us. Everyone around us is excited. This is living. Both Jordan and Lesley hit the cell phones to call friends. Their conversations inevitably start out with “Guess where I’m sitting right now…”

How could anyone guess? Back home in Rhode Island there is 7 inches of snow on the ground. Chicago, where Lesley lives, isn’t quite as bad, but it’s far from baseball weather.