Mercury retrograde, when the planet of communication reverses course, can cause disruptions to communications of all kinds. This includes verbal or written communications- e-mail, snail mail, phones, computers, etc… Sometimes it’s effects are minor, other times catostrophic. This one, which officially started October 13th, has been a doozy for me!
We were set to get our boat Friday morning at 11 a.m. Zeke woke up early, more excited than a kid on Christmas morning. In truth, the excitement was mixed with some degree of anxiety. Zeke’s last experience captaining a boat had been in the ’80’s, when the extent of his boating prowess involved taking his Dad’s boat (The Tenacious) to and from Sundays on the Bay. And he always had problems docking.
I grew up in Gables by The Sea, on a canal and my Dad had a boat from the time we moved there in 1967. I never had any interest in driving the boat- was either water skiing behind it or, in the cabin sleeping or reading. I do have fond memories of going to gas up the boat with my Dad at Matheson Hammock and never felt as free as when I was standing on the deck, flying through the water with the wind in my hair. Still, at this point, I wished I ‘d paid more attention to operating the boat, instead of just being a passenger.
As we drove down to the Keys, something happened with my cell phone, where I wasn’t able to send or receive phone calls when out of range of the house. Nevermind, we were getting our boat!
You’re finally living up to your bumper sticker.
I said to Zeke on the ride down.
I’d gotten him a “Salt Life” bumper sticker that he put on his car; the girls had given him s**t about. Now, we were about to fufill our dream of actually becoming Salt Life people and we couldn’t wait!
Around 11, Nick from Unique Marine arrived.
“There’s our boat!” Zeke said, seeing it being pulled in on the trailer to the launching dock, from our unit.
He hurried down to the dock as I scurried to put together a boat bag with sunscreen, a hat, drinks and lip balm. I videoed our boat being splashed for the first time and my childhood friend, Mike Brill, who’d helped us get the boat at Unique Marine, joined us on our maiden voyage.
“Never go faster than you want to hit something,” was Nick’s first piece of advice.
Mike, who used to be an actual ship captain for a cruise line, talked about the pivot point of the boat and how it changes when you reverse the boat. I feverishly made notes in my little notebook as Nick went through all the features of the boat and we practiced anchoring. Zeke was nervous about docking, but when he brought us into the Sanctuary dock, he did just fine. He did have two guys there giving him advice on how to do it- “Use your outside engines.”
We dropped Nick off and went out with Mike to get some more sea time and go to lunch at the O.V. On the way back, Zeke drove and Mike and I talked about my Dad and growing up in Gables by the Sea, where he was our next door neighbor and would just walk in our front door without knocking, like one of us Rice kids. He told me about how my Dad came to visit him when he was captaining a cruise ship in the islands; my Dad Butch and his Dad Larry went on the cruise, with Mike as Captain, for a week. My Dad had just gotten diagnosed with lung cancer and he’d gotten his ear pierced, as a big FU to cancer.
“After all the shit he gave me for getting my ear pierced in High School!” Mike lamented.
He showed me a photo of my Dad from that trip- he was wearing a t-shirt, knotted in the front, exposing a beer belly, with his ear sporting a gold hoop and a shit-eating grin on his face, looking like some kind of deranged pirate.
The next day, Zeke and I took the boat out ourselves. We drove to his friend Doug’s house, anxious to show off our new baby. Doug, however, was watching “Game Day” on TV, so we made the trip to John and Kelley’s home at Venetian Shores. It’s not that easy finding things from the water, as it is from the land. There are no Mile Markers and everything looks different from that perspective. We did find their house, however, and docked but no one was home. Disappointed that there was no one around to see our new boat, we went to lunch at Bayside Grille, near our condo. I cheered myself up with a “Lime in the Coconut” rum drink and a tuna tower appetizer.
Zeke did a good job docking, this time alone. According to Todd at Unique Marine, the only time you need to look good on a boat is leaving the dock and arriving at the dock. Emma must have heard this bit of info, as she showed up for her boat ride the next day in Leopard Shorts, a fancy black top, a little strappy purse and mirrored Aviator sunglasses. We took her and Gui out on the boat to go get some lunch. While I’d been Zeke’s first mate, keeping an eye on the depth finder the past two days, on this day, I was upfront talking to Emma and Guillermo.
We went into a waterway off the intercoastal and some guy in a flats boat gave Zeke a “What in the hell are you doing?” arm gesture. As I looked behind us, we were churning up mud.
“Zeke! We’re in shallow water!”
I said.
He stopped the boat, which immediately caused us to sink further into the mud. When we started up again, there was an awful sound of metal on rock. We finally got out of there, when the Coast Guard, and its orange and white boat appeared, aiming right for us. Did we do irrepairable damage to a protected Coral Reef? Were we in trouble? Were we going to be arrested and thrown into the Coast Guard pokey? I was worried.
“Have you ever been boarded by the Coast Guard?” the young, cute Coast Guard officer asked.
“No, this is a brand new boat,” Zeke said.
“It looks brand new,” one of the six guys on the Coast Guard boat said. None of them had masks on. The guy explained this was a routine stop.
“Before I board, do you have any weapons on board?” the main guy asked.
“No,” I said.
“Yes,” Zeke said.
He asked the question again, with the same response from both of us. I was beginning to wonder what weapons Zeke had that I didn’t know about, but Zeke thought he’d said fenders– the rubber things to buffer the boat.
“No, I don’t have any weapons. Do you think I have a bunch of guns on the boat?” Zeke asked, thinking he was making a joke. Which I’m pretty sure the Coast Guard didn’t find amusing, kind of like saying “bomb” at the airport. But the guy was nice about it and two of them boarded.
We had all our safety equipment, but not our registration, which we’d left with the mound of paperwork in the condo. We got a warning, which the guy said meant nothing, and we’re good for six months.
“Did you notice all those guys were my age?” Emma asked, after they left. “I feel like we just got pulled over by a Fraternity Party.”
Lunch at Lorelei was good, docking a little trickier, as we had to reverse out of the narrow canal. That was Sunday and Emma and Guillermo left for Miami. As we pulled the boat out of the water and onto the trailer, I could see the skeg was pretty chewed up from our encounter with shallow water and the bottom. Luckily, the prop was unharmed. We were both tired, so spent the night in the Keys. I made ravioli with an arugula salad and garlic bread and was asleep by 9:30.
Back at home, our Miami Herald had stopped coming. The subscription had expired, but I still could read the New York Times on my phone, so felt I could at least keep up with current events. Monday morning I was at Pinecrest Gardens, handing out boxes for our Garden Club’s succulent Zoom workshop on Tuesday, which my daughter A.J. conducted. Kelley looked at my phone and couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Neither could Emma and they are my technology whizzes, so I figured it must be something really bad.
I finally broke down and took it to AT&T on Thursday, after a fun tennis match. After checking everything out, updating my settings and replacing my Sim card (and two hours later) the affable guy at AT&T told me it still didn’t work. He said it might be that my antenna was broken, since it couldn’t get any signal. I didn’t even know cell phones had an antenna- it must be very small! I imagined this miniature antenna, like the pistol of a tiny flower, slumped over and dead inside my phone, unable to send or receive signals. I called Apple and they set me up with an appointment for Saturday morning.
I decided to spend the night in Miami Friday, since I had the appointment Saturday morning. Zeke went down to the Keys without me. In the meantime, my phone now wasn’t getting any reception- no texts, news or updates- so I felt really incommunicado. Then, just as I was getting ready to make dinner, a violent storm came through our neighborhood, knocking out the power. Before, I’d figured even if I didn’t have my phone or the paper to get the news, I at least had the computer, but now the internet was out as well. No T.V., not even our land line (yes I still have one!) worked, so I couldn’t call Zeke and tell him what happened. Alone and in the dark, I ate my cold spaghetti squash noodles with pork in peanut sauce dinner, by candlelight.
The Apple store in Dadeland opened last Thursday, but there was still a line and Security people directing traffic. When I finally got up to the window (the rest of the store has been blocked off) the woman took my phone, ran tests and declared it D.O.A. Luckily, it was under warranty, so I got a brand new phone.
“What was wrong with it?” I asked.
“We may never know,” the Apple girl answered.
What was my week of being utterly out of touch trying to tell me? Maybe a message from my Dad, whose motto was “Shit Happens”, to get off the phone and onto the boat? A May Day from the Great Beyond to stop Doomscrolling and letting these constant political shenanigans and dire predictions by both sides, drive me crazy? A celestial S.O.S. to stay in the moment and enjoy life to the fullest? I may never know, as well.
Unfortunately, Mercury Retrograde lasts through election season (early voting and vote by mail) and the Presidential Election on November 3rd. This probably means the winner won’t be decided right away (something we kinda already figured). The last time Mercury was retrograde during an election was the Bush-Gore fiasco of 2000. Oy vey!
On Monday, I made a Moroccan Butternut Squash soup with Garbanzo beans, which sounded good but was just ok. Tuesday I made Trader Joe’s Butternut Squash Pasta (I’m on a butternut squash kick) with their Autumnal Harvest Sauce into a Baked Pasta dish with Mozzarella on top. Not really successful, a little dry and not enough flavor. The pumpkin shaped pasta fell apart upon boiling, so they looked like deflated pumpkins, the Harvest Sauce tasted more tomatoey than pumpkiny. Not a repeat.
The meal of the week was definitely Wednesday night’s Pork Tenderloin with Salsa Verde (Food Network Recipe). Pork tenderloin is pork tenderloin, but the sauce took it to a new level and luckily, I had most of the herbs in my garden. I used the leftovers in scrambled eggs and they would also be excellent on roasted chicken or fish. The recipe suggests serving it with crusty bread, but I served it with carrots and an asparagus, mushroom salad with roasted red pepper. Quite delicious!
Here’s the recipe:
Pork Tenderloin with Salsa Verde Food Network Recipe
Serves 4
Ingredients:
- One 1 1/2 pound pork tenderloin
- kosher salt and fresh ground pepper
- 2/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 1 cup flat leaf parsley leaves
- 1/2 cup cilantro leaves
- 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
- 1/4 cup chopped chives
- 1/4 cup fresh tarragon leaves
- 3 shallots, slices
- 2 garlic cloves
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Sprinkle the pork generously all over with salt and pepper. Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a large oven-proof skillet over medium heat until very hot and then add the tenderloin. Cook the pork, flipping occasionally, until browned on all sides, about 5 minutes total. Transfer the skillet to the oven and roast the pork until just cooked through, or until an instant read thermometer inserted into the thickest part registers 150 degrees, about 15 minutes. Let rest 5 minutes.
- While the pork roasts, put the parsley, cilantro, vinegar, chives, tarragon, shallots and garlic in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until the herbs are minced. Slowly drizzle in the remaining 2/3 cup oil with the motor running until you have a thick sauce. Season with salt and pepper.
- Slice the pork tenderloin and spoon the salsa verde over top. Serve with crusty bread for soaking up all the juices.
Up Next: How Shopping Has Changed in the Pandemic and Orange Crush Cocktail
]]>After years of dreaming, scheming, researching and longing, we finally bit the bullet and bought a boat! A brand new boat, at that- just out of it’s cute, white wrappers. She’s 24 feet long, weighs 4,800 pounds, is seafoam green, powered by twin 150 Yamahas, surname Robalo, nickname ‘Bout Time! Hasn’t been delivered by the stork yet (financing involved) but we’ve reserved a little spot to park her in our boat yard when she makes her grand entrance.
We’ve had a condo in Key Largo for five years and after having exhausted all on-land activities, we started talking a while ago about getting a boat. When you talk about getting a boat EVERYBODY has an opinion on what type, what size, how many engines, the brand etc…I’ve never had so much unsolicited (and conflicting) advice offered in my life on any subject and that includes raising children.
We’ve visited boatyards, looked at websites, flipped through magazines, taken rides on other people’s boats, even went to the Miami Boat Show last January (before the world shut down); we talked to a yacht broker about what kind of boat we wanted, so he could be on the lookout. It was this Yacht Broker- my childhood friend Micheal Brill- who put us in touch with Todd at Unique Marine, to finally buy our boat.
“I’ve never seen it like this in all my life,” said Todd. “It’s crazy. There are no boats anywhere.”
As he walked us through the boatyard to see the new boat, he said “That one’s sold, and that one, and that one.”
“Why?” Zeke asked.
“People aren’t going to Europe this summer and need something to do. And the manufacturers shut down for months, so there’s less boats available than ever.”
Obviously, after that sales pitch and the fact it was a beautiful boat, we took the bait and plunked down a chuck of cash for a new Robalo. Zeke reasoned it will probably be our first and last boat since we’re getting older and he didn’t want to inherit someone else’s problems. I reluctantly agreed. Because while some kids are semi-off the payroll, one is starting a Masters in Law program this Fall, one (hopefully) a Nursing Program at U.M. soon and the last wants to go to U.M. Graduate School, all pricey options, so it’s not like we’re rolling in dough.
But, Zeke reasoned, it’s like having kids. If you wait for the perfect time, it’s never going to happen. I agreed, but on the way home, he’s the one who kept saying “I can’t believe I bought a boat!” and talked about how he wasn’t a person prone to impulsive decisions.
“Listen”, I said, “You’ve been talking about buying a boat for years. You’ve researched it thoroughly, know exactly what kind of boat you want and finally pulled the trigger. This is actually the OPPOSITE of an impulse buy!”
And so it was. Zeke was in shock the rest of the day, I kept trying to talk him off the ledge and he started drinking Iguana Bait beer from his Kegorator- “Either to celebrate or to forget the fact I just bought a boat!”
Meals this week nothing to write home about- they were mostly either left overs or take-out. I refashioned my Spaghetti Sunday meatballs and sausages into Meatball and Sausage Subs. I heated them up in extra sauce and put them on a Martin’s Potato Bun with sautéed bell peppers and shredded mozzarella. The potato roll was too soft for this kind of sandwich. It needed a hard, crusty Italian roll to hold up to the meat. In making sandwiches, I feel picking the right type of bread is a crucial decision, as well as the bread-to-filling ratio. You don’t want to overwhelm the filling with too much bread, just enough to complement and support it.
I found a recipe for “Easiest Ever Mango Sorbet” in my inbox and since I had the ingredients- mango, sugar and condensed milk- I gave it a whirl. I put it into my ice cream maker and it came out tasting like… frozen condensed milk, with hard, frozen mango chucks. Sometimes “easiest ever” recipes are surprisingly good. This one was not.
On Wednesday, I went to Footworks to buy a new pair of running shoes. I like to support local businesses and Footworks is my local running shoe store. The nice lady and I both wore masks as she looked up my info on the computer. She then measured my foot.
Seven and a half- your right foot’s bigger than your left. You have a wide foot and your arches have fallen. They’re not those high and perky arches you had years ago.
Footworks Lady
Yeah lady, like everything else on my body, they’re no longer high and perky. Got it. I tried on several pairs of shoes and settled on a pretty pair of rose gold Asics, size seven and a half.
“I can’t believe I’m a seven and a half,” I lamented to the sales lady.
I almost brought out an eight,” she said.
“Eight!” I gasped. Sacre bleu!
I can’t explain why I care so much that my foot’s grown from a size six to an almost eight. I have to blame it on a Nancy Drew mystery I read as a child where the heroine has a size five foot and a big deal was made in associating her small shoe size with her daintiness and femininity. The other footprint discovered in the book couldn’t have been hers because it was huge, clodhopper size (size 8), so I’ve developed this aversion to having large feet. Damn you Carolyn Keene!
Anyway, on the upside, I got a 10% discount at Cecile’s Bakery with a receipt from Footworks. You need to be wearing running clothes and show your receipt in order to get the discount. I ordered a cup of their Zucchini Cilantro soup and a Tuna Salad sandwich, with the croissant on the side so it wouldn’t get soggy. Both soup and sandwich were very good and I stretched the tuna salad into leftovers for days, by adding a can of tuna to the leftover tuna, as it was heavy on the mayo.
Speaking of sandwiches, I made myself a BLT last week and I have to say it’s simply a delicious, classic sandwich, just the way it is. It needs no update or a reboot, no arugula lettuce instead of iceberg or, (heaven forbid) turkey bacon to make it healthier. A couple crunchy and salty bacon strips, contrast with refreshing lettuce leaves, topped with sweet slices of juicy, beefsteak tomatoes (seasoned with salt and pepper), all snuggled into lightly toasted bread (mine was rye), which has been slathered with some good mayonaisse. Slice in half and take a bite of heaven in a sandwich!
While we’re on the subject, is there a more comforting meal than soup and a sandwich? I don’t think so. While homemade soup is great, canned or boxed soup is perfectly good, and so much easier. For Italian soups, like Split Pea or Italian Wedding, I like Progresso, but lately I’ve been into the pureed Trader Joe’s soups, like Butternut Squash, Carrot Ginger or Tomato Basil. I usually doctor it up a bit with a dash of cayenne, some snipped chives or a plop of sour cream, but with a sandwich, it makes a wonderful and easy dinner.
The all time pits of a meal this week had to be Friday night. I hesitate to even call it dinner. Zeke arrived in the Keys Friday afternoon and we went to Sharkey’s Bar and Grill for Happy Hour. We ordered two glasses of Pinot Grigio and a Tuna Poke to split, which the waitress recommended. She was complaining about people who refused to wear masks while walking around the restaurant, which is required by Monroe County.
“If they don’t want to wear a mask, they should just leave,” she said.
We agreed, she then went on to complain about the new restaurant guidelines that don’t require two negative COVID tests after a restaurant employee has been sick. Now, if employees have been symptom-free for 10 days, they can just come back to work. She said a lot of Keys restaurants that originally opened had to close, re-opened and are now closed again (like the Pilot House) because of cases of COVID. She said it’s exhausting dealing with the anti-maskers and fear of catching COVID; she doesn’t really want to come back to work with the new regulations, but she needs the money to survive.
After eating our Tuna Poke, I asked Zeke if he wanted something else to eat. He said no, which was unusual for him to want so little for dinner. “Really?” I said.
I have a confession to make. I stopped and got a brisket sandwich at that Bar-B-Que food truck when I went out today.
Zeke
We were meeting friends for drinks at Snooks, so we left Sharkey’s and sat at the bar with Doug and Heidi. They’d already eaten, so we just kept drinking wine. Zeke did ask me several times if I wanted any dinner, but I didn’t want to eat alone, and by the time Heidi pulled out some peanut brittle her Mom had sent from Pennsylvania, that was dessert. When we returned home to watch our murder mystery, I told Zeke that was the pits of a Friday night date. “Half a tuna poke and peanut brittle!”, I complained. I also accused him of being a “sandwich sneaker.” Which he is.
On the way home from buying our boat, Zeke passed the turn for our condo.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
He took me to get my own Brisket Sandwich, “Otherwise I will never hear the end of it,” he said. It was a tasty and filling sandwich- five slices of juicy, peppery brisket meat on a potato bun with two bar-b-que sauces- spicy and golden- with ruffled chips and a finely minced coleslaw, which I threw on my sandwich. It was $10, at Mike’s Bar-B-Que food truck on the bayside near one of those Swim with the Dolphins places. MM 101.
Saturday night Zeke cooked me Ground Lamb Kebabs, with a cucumber dill yogurt sauce. He watched the video of the chef, Richard Blais, prepare them and he shaped his Kebabs on a sword, a very dramatic (and potentially fatal) presentation. Since we were clean out of swords, Zeke used skewers to put the meat mixture with herbs, spices and onions on and grilled them. They kind of fell apart, but he salvaged them off the grill. I made couscous and a Greek salad to go with it. The Koobideh (meat kabobs) were good but we both agreed it lacked pizazz, and could’ve used the Middle Eastern hot sauce (Shrug) I’d made at home. I liked it best the next day, plunked into a soft Na’an bread, with some yogurt sauce, jalapeños and cilantro. Can you tell I’m on a sandwich kick?
I was down in the Keys myself from Wednesday on and found myself watching Friends and Everyone Loves Raymond, the comfort food of TV viewing. In other TV news, The Bachelorette changed from Claire Crawley to Tayisha, supposedly because Clair found love right away during lockdown, so good for her! She was already making Bachelor history as the first “older” Bachelorette at age 39 (which is depressing), now this- the most dramatic season ever! This probably isn’t big news in most households, but it was in ours as we love our Bachelorette Mondays, although now it’s going to be on Tuesdays. Is nothing sacred? And I started my new book for Book Club- Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. So far, so good and it won a Nobel Prize for Literature, so there’s that.
August is Rose Month and I can get down with that. I’ve been leaving a bottle of the pink stuff in the freezer with a frosted wine glass, while I go on my walk, so by the time I return and pour myself some, it’s like a rose slushy. So refreshing! Iconic Cuban restaurant Rio Cristal, best known for their thin steak (or bistec) served with a mountain of crunchy, skinny fries atop it, is closing after 46 years in business. They just couldn’t survive the Pandemic! So sad, but they will be open until the end of August should you want to visit one last time. And in more Bad News, this Hurricane Season is supposed to be “one of the strongest seasons ever with 25 storms predicted,” according to the Miami Herald. I actually consider this good news, since whenever they predict a super active Hurricane Season, a hurricane never hits Miami. Yes, today is Opposite Day.
In dramatic news of the week…
Someone in our household had possible exposure to COVID, due to her roommate’s brother testing positive for it. This doesn’t seem like a big deal, but the roommate’s brother actually LIVES with them. Here’s the thing about Millenials (or whoever) thinking it’s no big deal to get COVID. Hopefully, it will work out for you, but you may have exposed someone else, who then goes into a house with a: Mom and Dad, a sister, a housekeeper (who goes home to her own husband, children and grandchildren), a daughter and grandchild, so it’s not just YOU that is affected. It’s whoever you’re around and then, whoever they’re around, and so on. Seven degrees of Kevin Bacon. So, as I rewound every conversation and meal shared with said person while I was in Miami, the roommate’s brother got two negative tests (how does this happen?), as did she. So, crisis averted, but it was scary and Florida is still in the red zone of COVID hot spots.
School starts soon for some children in Miami, including my grandson Wyatt. He starts his pre-school, in person, five days a week, at the end of the month. I worry less about him getting sick, then I do his teachers or other adults working at the school, although I know they will take every precaution possible to keep everyone safe. Normally, at this time of the Summer I’m thinking about getting in shape for tennis season, excited about UM football and tailgating at Hard Rock Stadium and looking forward to events, parties and galas that kick into gear in the Fall. This year, not so much.
I’ve gotten hotels for our Road Trip to D.C. at the end of the month and none of states we’re visiting are hot spots for Corona. We are staying in a lot of historic hotels and I’m planning on eating bunches of crab cakes and oysters, plus, I’ll be checking three more states (West Virginia, Maryland and Delaware) off my bucket list. Yipee!
And by the time we return to the Keys for Labor Day weekend, hopefully our boat will be delivered and I can perfect my blender drink recipes and cleat hitch for docking. Instead of lacing up my tennis shoes, I’ll be lacing up my new running shoes for long walks around the Sanctuary. Instead of wings and beer for UM Football games, I’ll be serving sautéed fresh fish we’ve caught ourselves with chilled white wine. And instead of shopping for a fancy dress and high heels for a gala, I’ll be sporting my quarantini bikini, and wearing comfy flip flops on my seven and a half, fallen-arched, clodhopper feet. Crank up The Beach Boys because this Fall’s my new Endless Summer.
Little Surfer, little one. Made my heart come all undone. Do you love me? Do you Surfer Girl?
Beach Boys
Up Next: Quarantine Projects
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