Friday, 16 April 2004
We somehow managed to get up earlier than the day before, but laziness and indecision about what to wear, etc., meant leaving the hotel room around the same time (11:00) as we had on Thursday. Breakfast from the Starbucks cart again, but we ate in the room thanks to T.O. bopping down to pick it up while I showered and got ready. (Blueberry muffin & orange juice for me, cheese danish and milk for her.) I wore shorts and what may be my cutest but least "me" shirt, navy with short-sleeves and large (3"?) teal and aqua dots. And Band-Aid Blister Block, socks and regular (non-sandal) shoes - boo! T.O. wore jeans and a t-shirt and sandals.
I steeled my nerve and took the elevator - again, for what already seemed like the millionth time in the trip - from the 21st floor to the lobby. We read out on the Riverwalk for a while, me with my shorts hiked up on my legs as far as possible. I just wanted a little sun, you know. Stupid, since I'm pale and the sun doesn't affect me well anyway, but it just felt soooo good! Went out for lunch after a while at a funky bakery/lunch place just down the block from the hotel, Don Pan International Bakery. Fantastic food - I had a turkey sandwich made with hot turkey carved right in front of me. I know, it's not exotic, but it was excellent.
After lunch T.O. and I took a cab from the hotel to South Beach. This definitely counts as an adventure. Although I've taken taxis before, I've never actually run the process myself - there's always been someone else "in charge", making sure that the whole thing goes as planned, making sure we don't get screwed out of a bunch of money, figuring out the tip, etc. This time, it was the blonde leading the blonde. We gave the driver the address (well, the cross-streets) of the Wolfsonian Museum: our first destination. I wasn't stunned to discover that the driver was not conversational, but he didn't even appear to speak English. T and I babbled all the way over, taking note of the cruise ships and the mansions (see, e.g., Fisher Island) and wondering what the Wolfsonian was going to be like. When we drove into Miami Beach itself, I was surprised by all the traffic - cars everywhere! We passed a vanload of college guys from Ontario. I can't imagine making a drive like that. You'd have to really, really like the people with whom you were riding.
The driver let us off in an unlikely spot but we paid him his $20 for 10 minutes of work and got out. Surprisingly, he'd dropped us directly in front of the museum. Happy, we went in. After our eyes adjusted to the relative dark, we followed directions into the gift shop to pay our admission. In response to me query, the clerk said, "You want to see the museum? OK, and, what country are you from?" I looked at him blankly for a moment before replying, "We're both from the United States." He chucked, turned beet red, and said, "Ah, uh, I thought you were British because you have such pale skin! I'm so sorry!" T and I looked at each other, shrugged and said, "No problem." Then we affected super-strong British accents and tormented him until we were through. Tee hee. Admission was $5.35 (tax?). Exhibits started on the 4th floor, continuing to the 5th and 6th.
Elevator to the 4th floor. General exhibit. Some really interesting stuff. Some bizarre stuff, like telephones from the 1950s. Lots of what I'd call plain old crap that might be in a grandmother's basement waiting for a rummage sale. A copy of Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Poe, upon which was this quotation by Thomas Bodkin, the illustrator: "This is not a book which can be safely shown to a child shortly before bedtime, nor, indeed, to any highly-strung adult." I found a lamp that I desperately wanted. Cast iron, I believe, with a swan body and a sort of serpent/vampire head, doing what I can only say looked like it was, er, sucking on a, er, protruberance, which was almost as large as its mouth. Absolutely amazing. What drives someone to create such a thing?
Up to the 5th floor. Surprise: the limited-time exhibit called "Weapons of Mass Dissemination: The Propaganda of War". Anti-war posters, mostly. Some pro-war posters. 'How to use your gas mask' posters. Lots of photographs of dead people, including murdered children. Board games about war. It was icky to say the least. I was interested in it from a historical perspective but I think T would've gladly left after a moment or two.
Up to the 6th floor. Could it get any worse? Well, no, but it was not great. Another limited-time exhibit, this one of Japanese woodcuts called "Tokyo: The Imperial Capital". Not my cup of tea, let's say. Woodcuts can be fascinating, but these were of truly dull subjects. According to their website, "the exhibit features woodblock prints by Japanese artist Koizumi Kishio (1893-1945) as well as photos and documents that chronicle the Tokyo earthquake of 1923 and the social trends of the period from 1928 to 1940." Snore.
Once we were through with the 6th floor, we couldn't wait to leave. We went to the gift shop, but couldn't bring ourselves to buy anything. We hadn't seen the wrestler statue that we'd been dying to see, and that's the logo of the museum, so it seemed sort of lame to buy a t-shirt with him on it. Discouraged, we headed down the street.
We passed some interesting people and stores unlike anything I've seen in the [boring] Midwest. A t-shirt shop that reminded me of The Philosopher - "Fuck Bush" and "Fuck War" t-shirts. An Italian deli with negroni and salumi, just like Molto Mario used to yap about. Of course, all of the women we passed were wearing next to nothing, bikini tops with cups the size of a post-it note and shorts so short that, well, you get the idea. And the men - some of them aren't worth mentioning, but the ones who were didn't notice us (or anyone of our gender, thank God for my ego) in the slightest. It was people-watching on a grand scale. And the stores - ah! Kenneth Cole and Versace and...too much to look at, too many people, too many gorgeous cars and fascinating things. It was cognitive dissonance but so appealing at the same time. I felt torn in a hundred different directions. When we finally wended our way to Ocean Drive, we could see the dunes in the distance, maybe 1/8 mile away, and smell the sea. All that was left was crossing Ocean Dr. - a challenge in itself. Once that was over, we debated actually going to the shore, since I had the blisters and would have to take off my shoes...it didn't take more than a couple of minutes to shut off the negativity, remove the shoes, and head up the sand toward the water.
The water - OH MY GOD, the water. Gorgeous, gorgeous blue. So pale, but still blue, not that gray of earlier in the spring. Some seaweed, but not enough to be gross. And it smelled salty but not fishy. It was fucking fantastic. I walked in right away. T took some pictures and walked around a bit. I just stood there, foot/ankle/calf/knee/over-the-knee deep in the ocean. By that time, T was beside me but a little closer to shore. And then - fuck, the tide started coming in. Her jeans were rolled up and the cuffs got wet, but my shorts got wet toward the middle and I looked like I'd had an accident, but I didn't care. It was amazingly lovely. Just looking out on the ocean made a lot of stuff I've been carrying around fade a bit, you know? That "things are bigger than me" thing. And I was there with someone who I'd die for, so that made it all the better.
My mutual assent, and maybe even without saying anything, we walked back up the beach and to the faucet thing to clean off our feet and get in our shoes. We walked down Ocean Drive a ways, away from the direction we'd come from. Talking, looking around. Some guys drove by in a car with a sunroof and the driver stuck his head out the top and yelled, "Show us your tits!" I nearly died laughing, but I did it internally because T was really uncomfortable with the whole scenario. The way I saw it, we were among about 2,000 people within a 5-block area. If they'd seriously meant us any harm, we'd have had a dozen guys-with-families at our side in a second. So it was just some harmless objectification. Harmless and damned funny, because we were dressed like these crazy Midwesterners in shirts and shorts or jeans, even, and they are intrigued and want to see more, while the admittedly hotter girls who have the tans and the tight bodies in the bikinis weren't drawing their eye or their call. Sociologically revealing - covering up does make them wonder what's beneath.
Shortly thereafter I hailed a cab. T wasn't comfortable and it seemed to be time to get back. We were hot and tired. When we hopped in, we gave our direction and the driver - way more chatty than any thus far - asked, "Where's the party?" That got things started. He and I mildly flirted all the way back to the hotel, verbally bashing a guy in a Porsche for wearing a lame striped polo shirt (I said he looked like Elmo and our guy nearly drove off the road) and talking about the Cubs and the Marlins. At one point, he actually said, "What's your sign?" I thought I was going to faint - "Show us your tits" and "What's your sign" in one day! I'm a Virgo but was born 2 weeks late, so I should've been a Leo. If you believe in that, it could be a reason for my duplicity and lack of firm direction.
Back at the hotel. Showered again, changed clothes. Felt kind of hot. Hmm, discovered the goddamned sunburn. Yes, blisters and now sunburn. Will I never learn? My scalp (ah, the fair-haired!), my face (nose, cheekbones, chin), my left arm (closest to the sun each time we went outside to read), and both legs from the bottom of my shorts to the ankles. Freakish and uncomfortable. T had a little color but not nearly the frying that I'd gotten.
Out for dinner: Lombardi's, the Italian restaurant at the Bayside Marketplace. We ordered an appetizer, Mozzarella in Carozza, which turned out to be little mozzarella cheese sandwiches on white bread, breaded (with cheese-stick breading?) and deep-fried, served with marinara sauce, black olives and anchovies. It tasted good, but it was obviously not a healthy dish. At the same time, I ordered something totally out of left field and in honor of J. and H. - an Orange Martini. I wanted something fruity but not too sweet and that's exactly what I got. Absolut Ohranj vodka, Cointreau and a splash of orange juice for color. It was the strongest sippin' drink I've ever had. It could've peeled paint! I drank it in deep slugs and felt very warm & fuzzy.
That wild, experimental drink made up for my basic dinner - a Pizza Margherita. Fabulous version, but still pretty plain. Dessert, shared with T, was a slice of chocolate cake which unfortunately contained cherries. Blegh. We ate the non-cherry parts.
After dinner, drinks at the hotel bar again, this time with my friend Joe from Toledo. He and T.O. had mojitos and I had a beer, probably an Amstel or Heineken. It was Joe's first foray into the land of mojito and he wasn't uniformly taken with them; his initial reaction was, "I feel like I'm sucking a bush or something." (Yeah, that was good enough to write down.)
Bed around 1:00, I think, after lots of reading in bed and yapping. Nonspecific plans for Saturday, but it would be our last real day in Miami so we didn't want to waste it.
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