Lucky To Have Seen That One

So Wifey and I headed to the Palace, and found my ancient suegra just finished with lunch.  We asked if she felt well enough to go to the cemetery, and she did, so I pulled the car up front and we loaded her into the rear seat.  Then the oying started...

Poor thing is in a lot of pain.  It's mostly arthritic.  She said she didn't want to complain, but then proceeded to moan for the entire, mercifully short drive to the graveyard.  Wifey plans to get on her doc this week -- they seem averse to give her the powerful stuff, since that makes her, I guess, harder to handle with her activities of daily living, but this pain is ridiculous for a 93 year old.  We all agree becoming addicted to opium based drugs, like maybe morphine, is perfectly ok now.

We unloaded her at the grave site, and we gave her a stone to place on the marker.  Wifey and I did the same.  Next week marks two years since Richard died.  While Wifey and her Mom sat, I wandered a bit, taking in the various other mostly Ashkenazi surnames.  I saw the Epstein section -- Murray, a former PI lawyer, who died young after his beloved son Alan died in a tragic car wreck during his freshman year at UF.  His widow Cheryl is there now, too, also died young.

And then I saw the marker of a fellow named Leo -- he died at 67.  His marker had the great line "You only go around once."  I took a photo of that, and sent it to my man Paul, who is 67, and like me, always contemplating his own death.

We re loaded the suegra into the car, and the oying started again.  Wifey took her back inside -- I waited in the car -- and got her situated with some coffee, and chocolate in front of an old movie with subtitles.  The oying stopped, and Wifey slipped out.  In the car, she told me the coffee, chocolate, and old movie would work for her, too, and if I was ever tending to her at a facility, to remember that.  I made a mental note.

From there we drove to UM, and parked behind the Science Building, and walked to Beaux Arts Festival.  They had moved the location -- massive new dorm construction is taking place along the lake where the festival is usually held, so they relocated it to the Green -- the area where I graduated on a steamy May day in 1983.  We walked around, and ran into Ruby -- our friend Elizabeth's sister, and her long time man Harris.  I took a photo and messaged it to Elizabeth in Orlando.

And then we ran into Mike and Loni and Chris and his lady Rachel.  We walked with them a bit, and Loni went off to fetch her Mom, who was waiting post Uber at the Lowe Museum.  And then we all walked, and saw some art, and ran into Susan, who used to sing at all the kids birthday parties -- Rachel's included.  She told us her brother was a photographer and was selling his photos of classic Miami scenes.  We found the booth, and I almost bought a shot of the old Tobacco Road, my long time watering hole, but then remembered I'm on an anti crap in the house crusade.  I walked away.

Then we saw the second friend-sister -- Karen.  She was there with her tiny dog, and a friend from Aventura.  We walked, and talked, and I learned the friend was born in Switzerland, to a German Jewish Dad, post War, and raised in Miami.  She was married about the same amount of time as Wifey and I, had two great sons, and then her husband dropped suddenly of a stroke.  He was in fine health, she said -- played tennis daily.  Her sons, now late 20s, were in college when they lost their Dad. I told her I feel for them -- same fate befell me.

And then Karen asked if I was going to Miami-Duke basketball, and I told her I was too lazy to buy tickets.  "Well, then it's a sign from above," she said. She had her two tickets, but had a conflict -- a neighbor was premiering a Holocaust film in Aventura, and she committed to go. She brought the tickets to the UM campus thinking maybe someone wanted them.  She was right -- Wifey and I took them -- we'll have an early dinner at Titanic and then go see the Canes take on the Deuchiest College in America...

We headed home, and I turned on the last of the late NFL playoff game -- Saints at Vikings.  I happen to like both NOLA and the Twin Cities -- though I haven't been to Minneapolis in many years -- so I was rooting for both teams.  And I'm glad I watched -- the Vikings won as time expired on a long, improbable pass that will hopefully further dim and memory of what that gnome Doug Flutie did to my Canes in '84...

It was something to see.  The Vikes go to Philly, to play the Eagles next Sunday. My friend Stu grew up an Eagles fan, as is his Dad Bill. Stu promised his teen son Val that if the Eagles win, he'll take him to Minneapolis for the Super Bowl.  So now Stu, like the protagonist in "Paradise By the Dashboard Light," is praying the Eagles lose.  Twin Cities in February is awful weather, especially for the converted sun worshiper Stu.  And the tix and trip will probably set him back north of $10K.

All I know is, today is MLK Day, and I plan to stay off the road. The last few years some knuckleheads have taken a nice idea, "Wheels Up/Guns Down" and turned MLK Day into a Mad Max type scene with packs of ATVs and other non legal vehicles roving through Dade and Broward as the cops helplessly watch.  Hopefully they'll be done by the time we head out to UM.

And maybe a terrific end of the game, in favor of the Canes, of course, awaits us.