Week 23 - 2011

Pat and I drove to the Sarasota Airport last Saturday to to pick-up Rita and drive her to her Timeshare on Longboat Key. We stayed the week with her and on the following Saturday dropped her off at the Airport for her return trip to Detroit. It was a most relaxing week visiting with the various families that make that trek every year. The accommodations have been upgraded with granite counter-tops, new pots and pans, large flat screen television in the living room, and new linnens and towels. Next year, we were told, the living room furniture will be replaced. Rita received the deed for Unit 201 on this trip and plans to bring Kelly on her next trip.

There were twenty of us playing on "Nickles Night" and, as many of you know, it was a fun evening. I won the first game and the nextt two games were a draw. Liz, Mitchel's new girlfriend, won the three ensuing pots. We used three tables to accommodate everybody, using only two sets of dice. Yes, sometimes a die would fall to the floor during a throw or transfer but it added to the hilarity. The kids become very serious when it is their time to throw and give themselves up to the excitement of the game. I claimed to have won because of a lucky nickle and the kids got really involved when that nickle started to travel toward them. Once, Sarah got it and it took some pleading to her fairness to get her to let it go. Eventually it was lost into the "pot" and could no longer be tracked much to the chagrin of the kids.

Doughnut-day brought us all together and we spent most of the morning over coffee and a doughnut. Of course, the doughnuts were all eaten and we did fall back to eating the large cakes that were provided. It was here that John brought us up to date on the plans for a ceremony in honor of Kim and Monica. It had been decided that a floral-wreath would be sent out into the Gulf waters late one evening. When that evening arrived: John, Krista, Mitchell and Colton swam out quite a ways, at high tide, to release the wreath. Everyone gathered on the beach to watch this ceremony.

On Monday, the first day the fishermen went out, they caught nothing. Doug had brought his boat and he wanted to go deep-sea fishing so that is what they did with disappointing results. Mitch had brought his boat and the next day they went to where Mitch knew they would catch fish, and he was right. Liz caught a large red fish which, according to Florida law, required it be thrown back. Mitch follows the fishing rules exactly and is not going to lose his boat for any kind of violation. On Wednesday, Liz requested she be dropped off on an island so that she could catch blue crab. She was there for two hours before Mitch came back to get her. She had netted a large amount of crabs which were used for bait and our annual fish dinner.

Thursday night was the fish dinner. Liz had cooked two large pots of fish gumbo and one large pot of chicken gumbo (for those who do not eat fish.) She had also made a large pot of stuffed crab using crab meat and shrimp. There were two kinds of hush-puppies: with onion and without. A large cauldron of oil was used to fry the fish, they fried all they had. The drink of the evening was "Beerballs", very tasty. All together, about forty-five were fed, having invited all around the pool to join us. Still there was some left over, but all the fish was eaten. There were various kinds of fish and I know I had different varieties but it made no difference, all of it was so fresh and it was all delicious.