repentantlawyer

It's 5:30 p.m. here in East Newark.  The sun is streaming through my window, through the new bead curtain I bought in St. Augustine, Florida, reaching me here at my desk/kitchen table.  I took a little drive w/my girlfriend down to Florida.  We left Jersey (Newark) on Easter Sunday and made it to Fayetteville, NC.  She's from Brazil and had never really been too far outside of the Eastern US. 

My little cousin, who's not so little, lives in Miami.  He works for the Brazilian Consulate and met up w/us on South Beach on Tuesday.  We made it to South Beach late Monday night.  My cousin obviously speaks Portuguese and we got along great all 3 of us.  It was a lot of fun and he reminds me of a younger version of me....trying to make it happen. 

Xata and I made it to Key West after that and hung out down there for 2 or so days...about 90 miles from Cuba.  I taught her to fish a little there at the White Street Pier.  It was late at night and there were 30 pound + Tarpon swimming the shallows.  She was screaming and yelling, "voce nao sabe pescar!  Eu vo embora se vc nao tira o negocio en frente dele, eu vo!  Dame a vara!!"  It went on like that for a few minutes but the Tarpon weren't interested in her casts or mine.  They're really strange fish and if she had one on, she'd have dropped my $300+ rod in the water.  All they do is jump and fight. 

After Key West, we headed up to Marco Island and fished with Captain Carlos.  Xata caught two fish to my one...q vergonha...and one was a nice-sized Redfish.  Cap't C kept the Redfish; we kept the pictures.  It cost me $400 (including tip) to go out w/Cap't C for a 1/2 Day of fishing.  He was really cool.  He didn't speak any Spanish, like I had originally hoped, but we got along just fine w/me trying to figure out how to say hook, rod, reel and bail in Portuguese.  I just used the typical "esse negocio la" and "olla la, olla li" and was understood. 

Following Marco, we went to my grandparents' house in Englewood.  I got there at 9:00 p.m. or later and some dude was parked in my driveway.  The streets are too narrow to park on them so I tried to pull on the lawn.  I ran over a coral rock that my grandpa put there in the 1970s.  It tore up the whole underside of my car.  Yet another blunder.  The dude moved out of my driveway about 10 minutes later b/c of all of the commotion.  No one lives there and no one's been there in a year.  So, I kinda can't blame him.  I had it towed to an Audi dealer in Sarasota and they tore some other crap from it and gave it a clean bill of health for me to drive it up north. 

In total, I must've put like 3K miles on the car.  My car's a piece of $hit so I really don't care much.  I've got 42 more payments left till it's mine all mine!!!   I hope to get rid of it before then. 

Xata fished more from my backyard and caught 2-3 more fish, mainly Snook.  She totally outfished me.  That was a first and hopefully will be a last.  My ex-girlfriends have never outfished me.  FISH FEAR MY NAME! 

After going there, we ate lunch at some Brasilian restaurant (Terra Nossa) in Sarasota and it was good.  The dude was from Union, NJ by way of Brazil, naturally.  He said there some 4000-5000 Brasilieros in Sarasota now.  We also went to some Brazilian supermarket there and Xata got all excited when she saw that they sold the thing to put Ximarrao (Mate) in.  She bought it ($17) and two things of Cha Mate ($6 total).  She said if they sold those things in Newark, it'd be like three times the price. 

We next went to DISNEY (in Brasilian Portuguese that's "JIZNEY") and I laid out $250 just to get in the freakin' park.  It was worth it, though.  I was last in JIZNEY in 1982, before Xa was even born.  LOL.   After that, we stayed a night in Orlando at Motel Seis (6) and went to St. Augustine, Florida.  We also were there on the way down, too.  It's the oldest city in the USA, founded in 1565.  The Spanish founded the city and had built an amazing fort there, el Castillo de San Marcos.  After going there, we went to Charleston, SC and Fort Sumter. 

After seeing Ft. Sumter on Monday, April 16th, I left Charleston at 5:00 p.m. and headed up I-95 toward New Jersey.  I had to work on Monday but skipped it because I was not making good time.  I had to start making some good time and had no choice about that at this last minute.  I made it to Richmond, VA by midnight and finally crashed in some rest stop north of DC in Maryland for 3 hours.  We made it back to Newark at 9:00 and I was in work by 11:00 a.m. 

Needless to say, I did nothing all day at work.....