Update March 29

Hi all:

Just sold the sofa sleeper this morning for $50. It has served us well, and it's kind of sad to see it go (it has been Dawn's bed for the last six months). But no place to put it in the new furnished apartment we are moving into in a couple of days. Sold it to a guy who lives kiddy-corner across a lawn and drainage ditch from us. Funny, we advertised it in Craigslist for all of Fort Myers, and sold it to a guy 50 yards from us who who hauled it to his place on a hand truck!

Well, greetings to our friends and family. Since my last update, we've done a couple of interesting things.

First was the annual "Book Reading Festival," held in downtown Fort Myers March 19 at the Harborside Event Center and Centennial Park. We had lunch there at one of the outdoor food vendors, "Little Joe's Special Events." They are a catering company specializing in large outdoor events such as this, and they do a pretty good job of serving up a varied menu of tasty eats, including kabobs, salads, sandwiches and the perennial favorite, pizza. They even set up tents and tables for everyone to eat at. Dawn had a slice of pizza and I had a Gyro. Both were delicious.

We went into the event center, did a once-around with all the vendors (authors, publishing companies, etc.) then settled into the lecture hall to listen to Jacqueline Mitchard talk about her latest book, "Two if by Sea." Jaci is originally from Madison, and she and I worked at Madison Newspapers at roughly the same time, she for the Capital Times and me for the Wisconsin State Journal. We really didn't know one another, but I followed her "beat" (mostly medical) because she was a really great writer (and still is). She would soon go on to the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel as a columnist ("The Rest of Us: Dispatches from the Mother Ship") which was eventually syndicated and appeared in 125 newspapers nationwide.

Her first novel, "Deep End of the Ocean," was selected as the first book in the Oprah Winfrey Book Club. She talked about her ups and downs since that first book (1996), the inspiration for this latest novel, and her writing process. All very interesting. She's a wonderful speaker as well as writer.

The second event was our day trip to Naples, Tuesday, March 22.

I had a gift card to the Silverspot Cinemas there, and to make the trip worthwhile, we decided to spend

the entire day in Napes. We left Fort Myers about 9:30, and arrived at the Naples Zoo about an hour later. After paying the $20 admission, our first stop was the giraffe enclosure, where Dawn fed one of the giraffes. That was a great thrill for Dawn, because giraffes are her favorite animal in the wild. Next, we stopped to see "Uno," the Florida panther which is probably the second most favorite attraction at the zoo (after the giraffes), owing to the fact that there are only about 180 of them left in the wild. Uno was shot in the face and hip with a shotgun and left for dead. He was brought to the zoo in Dec. 2014 and will live out his natural life here because the shotgun blast left him blinded in one eye. Some of the buckshot is still lodged in his jaw. We were fortunate enough to see Uno with one of the handlers, and this is the picture I got:





as well as a closeup picture of him from the zoo's website:





We had a wonderful time at the zoo, walking two complete laps around the perimeter. We had a light snack at one of the zoo's concession's which is run by Wynn's, an upscale grocer/deli with several locations in Naples.

After the zoo, we headed to "old downtown" located along Fifth Avenue, and window shopped along the many exclusive fashion shops, art galleries, and boutiques. There were many, many nice restaurants, and we noticed a preponderance of Italian places. We opted for "Aqua," a steak and seafood restaurant. I had fish tacos, and Dawn opted for a house salad. From there, we walked to "Tin City" which is a collection of Quonset-style buildings set against a marina, housing a variety of specialty shops and eateries. Some people enjoy it; others call it a pricey tourist trap. We went mainly to check out a place called "The Monkey Bread Factory," which serves individual sized portions of monkey bread (yes, the gooey concoction made with pieces of bread dough clustered together and baked with cinnamon, sugar, and butter) along with coffee, Espresso, and other beverages. We split a "Monkey Roll" and a cup of coffee. Delicious.

After that, we headed out to the Silverspot Cinemas, located in the exclusive Mercato retail/condo development in North Naples (condos start at $1.3 million here). We wanted two tickets to see "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" starring Tina Fey. We handed the cashier my $16 gift card, and were told that the balance due was $16. Yep, $32 for two movie tickets, making this the most expensive movie theater have ever visited. The seats were big and cushy (but did not recline) and the sound system was fantastic, we grant all that. But $16 a person? Holy Christ! For that price, I was expecting a BJ, expertly executed by one of the Kardashian sisters, during the movie. No such luck. The movie was fairly good, though not what we expected (the trailers suggested more comedy) but good and eye opening. There were a few chuckles, but it was a little bit of shock seeing people blown up by IEDs and hearing Tina Fey utter a near constant spray of expletives during the movie.

We drove back to FM after that, arriving at the apartment at about 8 p.m. We figured we'd each been through the better part of a $100 bill and concluded that Naples, while a nice place to visit, was a little too pricey for our tastes and pocketbooks.

Since then, we've just been hanging out in and around town. We spent Easter Sunday mostly at the apartment. I made a special breakfast of scrambled eggs and ham, homemade potato puffs, and Bloody Marys. For dinner, we went to the Sunflower Family Restaurant, after being shut out at "Prawnbrokers," one of our fave seafood restaurants (they were completely booked for Easter dinner). The Sunflower has become our official holiday eating spot, having dined there for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and now Easter. They are nothing fancy, but they turn no one away. We each had fried shrimp, and they were delicious.

Our official move date is April 1. We are ferrying batches of hand-carryables over to the new apartment, and a delivery company is coming Friday to move the piano, my bed, a recliner, and a dresser. Tomorrow (Wednesday) a truck is coming from a charitable thrift store to pick up the kitchen table and four chairs, lanai table and two chairs, a TV stand, and table lamp. I tried, by the way, to sell all this stuff on Craigslist, but was only successful in selling the sofa sleeper. Note to self: It's near impossible to sell used furniture in Florida, especially when all the snowbirds are heading back up north. Buy carefully and cheaply in the future!

Cheers,


Bruce & Dawn