North Easter Island Circle, Englewood, Florida
Actually, there is no Easter Hippopotamus. It is just something my father-in-law made up today. There is, however, an Easter Bunny and a Birthday Hippopotamus. The latter is the source of any birthday presents that no-one else seems to have given a child. Anyway, magically, Tim woke up today to find he had received an Easter basket. We kept the Bunny informed and he found his way down here somehow. (I did notice, tho, that a lot of beers were missing from the refrigerator this morning, so he must have been quite thirsty working in this mild heat.)
My daughter Erin called today and proved that she is still quite ill. So ill that the family she is visiting in New Jersey left her at home alone while they went to Mass. Her vacation is to read about ours.
The big adventure today was my trip to Port Charlotte to see one of the most famous living American visual poets,
Bob Grumman. (Okay, no jokes: visual poets know you don’t know who they are.) Bob and I had a little work to do related to a book he’s publishing and a project I’m working on, so I reviewed his collection of books and borrowed a few of them. Bob’s house is a maze dedicated to a life of books. He’s blocked two large windows to set up shelving, which he fills with the books he’s published. One bedroom is just a mazelike library of filing cabinets and shelving. And he stores an otherwise abandoned car in a carport, so he can use it to store books and manuscripts. As a records professional, I had to explain to him that none of his storage solutions were the best. But he claimed that storing records outside in the car was his highest quality storage he had. Some days, being an archivist doesn’t even help. Bob did take the time to show me a few beautiful large-scale visual poems he’d produced, including
this one, which is enormously more beautiful in person.
But the big part of the day was the Easter potluck dinner at Polynesian Village’s recreation center.
What I didn’t understand was why we had to arrive at 4 pm for a dinner that didn’t start until 5. (Later, I learned that the room gets so crowded—despite reserved seating—that it would be difficult to make it to your seat if you arrive late.) Our table was almost entirely family: 12 people altogether, and 11 from the same family. So that was great. But I ended up having to make room for people, so I sat at the foot of the table. I say “foot” rather than “head” because I was sitting at the card-table extension to the main table with Tim and Sophie. Now, Tim (14) is my son and Sophie (4½) is the cutest and sweetest little girl—but our conversations were not in the stratosphere: “Don’t poke your sister.” “You have butter on your cheeks.” “Tim, do you see any superdweebnoughts around here?”
The greatest part of the meal, tho, had to be the golf. Apparently, there was some kind of tournament going on today, so the people in power turned on the big TV behind me on. Now, I am no sports fan, but golf has to be the most boring sport in the world (“a good walk, ruined,” according to Mark Twain). But I thought, Hey, I’ve got my back to the TV, so I don’t have to watch it. What I didn’t count on was that so many other people in the room would be watching golf through me. I mean, I was sitting in front of the TV. As I put food in my mouth and chewed, as I dropped food, as I took a drink, I was blocking people’s view of the TV.
The food was okay: basic American food, so Timmy had no idea what it was. “What are deviled eggs?” he asked me. “What are scalloped potatoes?” (He also asked if he had to eat ham, but that’s because he knew what ham was.) Tim would’ve been able to recognize the foods better if they were normal foods: feijoada, caldo verde, salade huthoise (okay, it’s usually salade niçoise), four-bean southwestern stew, ostrich burgers, octopus, sauerbraten with spaetzle, sweetfish and catpotatoes. You know, regular food.
The best part of our meal, tho, was the hat contest. Mostly women, but also one man and one little girl, paraded around the hall before dinner, showing off their beautiful, funny, or unusual hats. One of the judges was Tim’s second cousin Suzanne Grant, who took her assignment quite seriously. But she also chose the wrong funny hat—the funny one was the one that made Sophie laugh right away! (There is another Grant girl—Caroline—but she was at the head of the table, about 20 yards from me. We didn’t get a chance to speak.)
After dinner and dessert, Tim returned to the house. He wasn’t feeling well because of too much exposure to the sun, too little exposure to sunblock, and too many unintentional swigs of seawater. I followed soon after, getting out of the way of those watching golf, but I’d forgotten about the hat competition. I missed the awards ceremony, so I can’t report on the winners.
As I walked back to the house, I noticed that some people had opted out of attending the festivities today, for whatever reason. I considered them my brothers.
Well, except some of them were women.
Quotation of the Day (Mrs Mike—in her element, standing up to get a better view during the parade of hats—to Nancy):
When I was your age, I’d think the same thing, but this is great!
(I don’t actually think Nancy made any relevant comments immediately previous to this statement, but who knows what expressions she may have made.)
