December 23, 2008

Christmas in Florida

A couple years back, my parents bought a condo that's ON a golf course in a retirement community in Florida. They'd gone down there a couple of times on vacation, but my mom still had a couple of years left working before she could retire so they were still mainly living in New Jersey. But in 2008, my mom retired and they sold the house in NJ, which meant that in order to spend the holiday with my family we had to go down to Florida to see them!

My brother was spending the holidays with Amy and her family in Ohio. He called me right as we were headed to the airport and I promised to document for him in photographic detail the legendary "retirement condo" that he and I had been hearing about from our parents for years, but had never seen! The few details our parents had given us about the place (a golf cart parked in the garage that had their names airbrushed on the side! WHAT?) had only confirmed our suspicion that it was a real-life version of DEL BOCA VISTA. Meredith and I headed to the airport to hop on a plane and spend Christmas in Florida!

Monday, December 22nd

meredith — Despite having severely injured her ankle at my company's holiday party the previous week, Meredith insisted her ankle was fine, and elected to leave her crutches at our place and packed super-light with just one bag.

No matter how many times I've done it, flying over Manhattan is one of my favorite things and never fails to completely bend my mind.

I can see our house from here! (Seriously).

It's like a perfect rectangle carved into the city.

me, meredith — Up, up and away! See ya later, Yankee winter!

A little over two hours later and the landscape below made it pretty clear that we were over Florida.

My dad picked us up at the airport and the mustache that he'd so proudly presented to me a month prior had blossomed into even greater beauty! My dad's deep pride about his new 'stache was clearly starting to cause concern with Brett and Amy; their wedding was coming up in a couple of weeks and they were starting to worry that a certain uninvited guest was going to make an appearance in all their wedding photos. (Spoiler alert: Mr. Mustache ends up attending the wedding! Yes!)

(PS - I **still** think I gave him a run for his money with the mustache I grew while I was away on a meditation retreat).

About 45 minutes later, we'd arrived at my parent's new house! My dad hit the button and opened the garage door and Mer and I both yelled with excitement when we saw the golf cart parked inside. We had sorta thought my parents were kidding. But nope, there it was.

My mom was whipping up lunch as we arrived.

I ran upstairs and dropped off our bags.

The Christmas tree was already set up in the living room.

dad, meredith, mom — Holiday lunch in Florida!

dad, meredith — Meredith thought she'd be okay sans crutches, but right when we got off the plane she reinjured it pretty badly and it swelled right back up. After we'd finished our latkes, we ran out to the store to pick up ANOTHER pair of crutches. (Which was no big deal because crutches are WAY easier to find near a retirement village in Florida than they are in the East Village.)

Psssst...check out the book selection at the Rite Aid. Aw yeah, Grandmas! Getting their sword-wielding Fabio romance action on!

After we'd gotten Meredith ambulatory, it was time for us to be taken on a tour of the new community. We traveled by GOLF CART of course. Check out my parent's ride! On the front it says "The Battjer's"...

meredith, mom — ...on the driver's side it says "Brian"...

Oh, did I forget to mention that my dad's brother bought the condo next door that's *attached to my parent's place* and also has a golf cart parked in his garage? It's like they're starting a retirement GANG. So awesome.

The houses were all different, but they basically all looked like this. The landscaping was awesome. I'd never seen so many crazy-looking prehistoric plants and trees.

See? Like, what **is this** even? There was a bush that was filled with these guys. They were like soft sea urchins that smelled nice.

The place has a golf course so there are these pretty lakes/water hazards everywhere.

And big-ass birds. I'm sure if you live in Florida seeing this is no big whoop...

...but because the only birds we ever see are pigeons, this felt like some next-level Jurassic Park type of action.

dad, mom — Our grand tour culminated with hitting the driving range (where you can hit as many golf balls as you want and it's FREE!)

Warming up. This is my trying to touch my toes. Pah-thetic.

Wednesday, December 24th

Florida has all sorts of awesome innovations that cater to the mostly-older population. Check out this wireless doorbell they had on every table that you could use to signal for your waitress. (You know, in case you need more ketchup or in case your lunch-mate expires. Aw, Florida!)

...and I headed out with my parents to play "a few" holes. I was like "What do you mean 'a few' holes? My dad pointed out into the backyard and explained, "That's the 15th tee right there." Hahaha. So we walked right out the back door and just started playing some golf. Here's Big Bri, teeing off.

Mom teeing off. My mom doesn't even really like to play golf but goes occasionally to humor my dad (and because her name's on the GOLF CART).

Yep, this about sums it up. Haha. I can't believe I didn't even have to put on a collared shirt.

I remember being so full I could hardly move and it looked like I'd barely made a dent in the thing.

Back at the house after dinner, it was time for stocking stuffers! (We kind of all agreed to just stop getting gifts a couple of years back).

You never know exactly what kind of assortment of items ~~my mom~~ er, Santa will put in your stocking, but it will usually be both good and weird. Like this trail mix / six different flavors of chapstick combo. Score!

Or how about these sexy slingback liners?

Perfect for that gimp on the go! (Look at the bruise that's still there! Ouch!)

There were even cards filled with dollar bills that had these awesome stickers on them that perfectly block out George Washington with Santa. Haha.

Oh, and scratchers. There will be scratchers.

My parents were in the midst of buying new furniture for the place and while we were there there were we had to listen to all sorts of heated debates between them about how the new furniture should be arranged when it arrived.

When my dad reached into the bottom of his stocking for one last item and then pulled out this teeny tiny copy of FENG SHUI FOR DUMMIES, I nearly lost my mind laughing. Santa is king of the subtle slaying (sleighing?). Hahaha.

Thursday, December 25th

It's Christmas in Florida! The weather was perfect out. It was like sunny and 80.

dad, me — I rolled out of bed a little past noon and headed out to play "Christmas Golf" with my parents. Haha.

I think we only saw one other twosome the whole time we were out.

mom — All of the houses have screened in back porches.

More crazy dinosaur birds sleeping with their heads tucked under their wing.

I like to play adventure photographer and see how close I can get to animals.

After I got back, Meredith and I got krunked on Pina Colada wine coolers (I love how tropically festive it looks next to the holiday basket in the background)...

Friday, December 26th

Friday was our last day in town. After breakfast...

Ridiculous. Haha. I love how happy my dad is to show off how big the tv is.

His main computer monitor (that he uses mostly for gaming) is a 40" flatscreen. Big kids all growed up.

Homeboy's got remote controlled black-out shades so that the Florida sun will never have to interfere with gaming or TV watching.

A bunch of the bottles of booze my dad has are from his dad's house. Check out the old school Johnny Walker label.

dad, june, meredith, mom — On the way to the airport, we stopped off at a restaurant on the harbor to have lunch with June. June was the woman my grandfather dated after his wife Connie died. She was like second grandma to me for a couple years when I was a kid. My grandfather died in 1988 when I was eleven and we kind of lost touch with her after that. I hadn't seen her twenty years and it was fantastic to catch up with her and her husband.

...because that's what the restaurant is well known for: big ass pelicans that aren't shy...

...about flying up out of the water below and coming to see what kind of treats you might have to feed them.

Their giant clicky-clacky beaks kind of freaked me out.

Look at how tufty his ducky hair is in the back. Aw.

Then we flew home. We arrived home to find our apartment door completely blocked with boxes!

Some of them were holiday presents...but most of them were part of the emergency food supply that I'd ordered. (Back in the W years, this seemed like a good thing to have laying around. It also finally confirmed Meredith's suspicion that I'd graduated from "eccentric" onto "full-blown weirdo.")

But she was too busy managing her TWO PAIRS OF CRUTCHES to go on very long about my crazy-person emergency food rations.

The books Meredith selected for me were all bulls-eyes: Fifty Places to Dive Before You Die.

Outliers, Sway and RAGNAR'S URBAN SURVIVAL: A Hard-Times Guide to Staying Alive in the City. Hahaha.

Happy Holidays from your crazy neighbor.