CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY: LIVING LARGE IN LARGO

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY: LIVING LARGE IN LARGO

Breaking news! El Chapo has been captured! Again! Philadelphia police officer was shot at point blank by assassin with stolen police gun, who pledged allegiance to ISIS! U.S. missile sent to Spain for military exercises was sent back to Cuba last year – by mistake! 292,000 jobs were created in December, 2015! The stock market plummeted the first week of 2016 – worst start ever! It’s the eighth day of January 2016 -- Twenty three days left until the Iowa caucuses!

Here in Key Largo, on Slow Motion, the Admiral has put up a cloth sun screen on the sundeck and I got my prosthesis adjusted to help me walk better. I’m transitioning from the rollator (walker) to a sturdy cane that stands by itself. The Admiral made chicken stir fry, jambalaya and SOS this week. Oh, he also gave me breakfast in bed one morning and the next morning he served up a delicious omelet. We turned off the air conditioning and actually slept under a sheet and a quilt a few nights when it dropped into the mid-sixties. We have watched the news (breaking news!) every night this week, and I watched the CNN special with President Obama and Anderson Cooper and a “town hall” on guns and violence.

Now which of these two paragraphs was more interesting to you? If the point of reading this blog is to catch up with me and the Admiral and our life on Slow Motion, it’s got to be the second paragraph. If, sadly, you come to this blog to get the latest headline news – really? – then the first paragraph is the winner. It is no question that we are pummeled by the news stations, twitter, iPhone news breaks, and other social media twenty four hours a day with the latest killings, gun fights and Trumpisms. So when you come to this blog, I try to make it an island of sanity, calm, and ordinariness – except for the occasional political rant. It’s a chance for you to relax and take a few minutes away from your hectic schedules to read about our laid back, slow-moving, food-focused lives. Not that your lives are better than ours, or vice versa, but they are just very different. And you have a standing invitation to visit us to experience for yourselves this difference, particularly if you are willing to work as crew on Slow Motion and help us travel to various ports.

Tonight, Saturday January 9, we are learning about Madagascar and the fact that 90% of its woodland has been destroyed by “slash and burn” agriculture. But there is a national park of some 40,000 acres which has been preserved where the golden lemur (500 left in the wild) jumps from tree to tree. Anthony Bourdain, who took us to Madagascar, suggested to his hosts that ecotourism is not a great option for the island’s economy. So one of his hosts asked: “What is a better option?” No answer. Oops, the Admiral switched to the Pittsburgh/Cincinnati wild card playoff game. Talk about culture shock. This is an unusual evening for us, watching television programs. Usually the Admiral and I read or play Sudoku or a wicked card game on our IPads. The Admiral just walked to the corner gas station to buy tickets for our billion dollar retirement fund. We’ll know in a few hours if we won – of course we will win. This is 2016 – the year of good luck. And good luck starts with winning the lottery. Just write down the three things you want the most and mail it to us, and we’’ ll take care of it. The Admiral says if we win the lottery, we’ll send out for pizza. Always the big spender.

I have gone to a new physical therapist since December 24, and she is very good. She is a native Key Largan, with licenses in Florida and in North Carolina to ply her trade. She put a cane in my hand the first time I visited, and I was very skeptical about keeping my balance. But, miracle of miracles, I am now walking around with a cane, feeling older than my years. Canes are symbolic of old age, except when they’re in the hands of an expert tap dancer. I am not tap dancing yet, so I fit the old age stereotype. Still, the cane makes me feel like walking on my own is just around the corner. I need to put a few more miles on the cane before I fly solo, however. And when I’m not channeling an “older American” with my cane, I go to the fitness center of the Courtyard Marriott to work out for 45 minutes. My favorite piece of equipment is the stationary bicycle. When I’m riding the bike, I feel “normal.” It’s an odd term to use, I know, but “normal” for me is still defined as having two working legs with feet attached. I have come very late to this amputation condition, and I can’t ignore all those years of walking, jogging, hiking, and biking – fast – with reckless abandon. That was my “normal.” The “new normal” is a lot slower and a lot less reckless. It requires patience to learn to walk again, to endure the pain and the pressure – patience has never been my strong suit.

It’s Sunday afternoon, and already we’ve had an eventful day – not by world news standards, but in the world of Slow Motion. I got my weekly deep tissue massage and when I returned to the boat, we moved Slow Motion to another dockside location in the canal, with the help of our fellow boaters. It was great to hear Slow Motion’s engines, and at one point, all I wanted to do was cruise out to the ocean. Alas, we were headed to another tie up less than 100 yards away, closer to the dreadful Skipper’s Restaurant live Muzak, but with a better Wi-Fi connection. Trade offs.  I also have the challenge of steps when I go to the shower and restroom. But so far, when I start lifting the rollator up the steps an angel appears out of the blue to help me. It’s a different angel every time. I can do this myself, but I must look like I’m struggling. At our new location, Slow Motion does not hug the dock as closely, so the Admiral has a new worry – Can Ann avoid falling in the drink when getting on and off the boat? I tell him that I will be super super careful, but of course he still worries. We have entered the Inner Sanctum of the Pelican Brotherhood, another concern, given their penchant to poop nuclear waste on boat decks. We have rubber snakes to scare them off, and the Admiral constructs a complex spider web of string across the deck on the bow. It seems to work. Time will tell whether they invade us or we evade them.

Just so you know, there was no winner of the lottery. We have to buy more tickets to win our $1.3 billion. The numbers will be announced on  Wednesday. Your checks will be in the mail by Friday. You can take that to the bank. We expect that you will use some of your winnings to visit us and travel to Key West with us on Slow Motion. Then you too can experience firsthand what it’s like to live large in Largo. See you soon!