Garden Party

 So Wifey and I put on some dressy-ish duds and headed over to the Kampong yesterday -- David Fairchild's home, now a National Botanical historic place. We were invited by our neighbor Gloria's boys to attend a surprise birthday party for her -- and once I navigated the tough to find entrance off Old Cutler, we were in. The invite said "Cocktail attire," but when I arrived I saw NO guys in jackets, so I left my blue blazer in the SUV. I have to fetch it later today.

The Kampong is lovely, especially in more temperate weather. We saw Gloria -- not very surprised. Turns out her boys told her -- they needed her help to get the usually private venue booked up. She looked lovely -- all "dolled up" as Wifey's Canarsie-ese described her, and enjoying the moment. Several fellow neighbors were there, including Ellen, and older lady (her youngest grandkid is 30) who moved away a few years back, and is now living on Brickell in a rented penthouse, which she crowed about to Wifey's "Ya see?" delight. Yeah, no, as we say in the 305 -- not for me. 

Ellen is a lady I initially disliked -- a know it all type from NYC -- but came to like her a lot. Part of it was learning how great a mother in law and grandma she was -- to me, sort of the measure of a woman.

We caught up, and then were led into the old patio area -- there was nice food, and as it turned out for me, luckily more wine poured. I say luckily since there was a well intentioned but ultimately comically bad idea -- a lecture about local botany and gardening that went, pun intended, deep into the weeds.

I guess we expected 10 minutes of "Hey - welcome - this is who we are here and what we do -- maybe compost more and join us," but instead got probably an hour of details about the career of a very nice, nerdy young scientist -- we could barely hear him.

Our table HAD 2 of the master gardeners, and we kept talking and laughing -- getting shushed a few times. But the truth is, it was hard to hear anyway, and what there was to hear was the stuff that bored me in Bio class at UM in 1979. So we rudely soldiered on.

After the lectures mercifully ended, we went back to socializing out loud --neighbors we really like but rarely get to spend time with. David is a VERY successful class action guy -- Barry helped save one of his daughters when she was born, and David's late Dad was THE Peds surgeon at Jackson. He's a serious, pretty tightly wound guy, but I get good energy from him, even though he laughed off my suggestion he drink more wine at the event.

Yesterday was walking -- lots of it - and then hosting Joelle and Kenny and hearing tales of their adventure to SE Asia and them hearing tales of our less adventurous cruise, and then a short drive to Old Cutler Inn, which had comically slow service and mediocre food -- it'll be a one and done for us. Too many great restaurants in Miami these days to endure mediocrity -- but the main thing was the company, and it was grand.

Today off the the gym, and a deconstruction of the Fiesta Bowl with my trainer Jonathan, and then a call to the Mom about the GAL case I have.

Soon February will make me shiver, with every paper I deliver...Actually, BIG cold front coming later this week, which means firepit time -- my favorite time in Miami.