Yesterday I went to see my dentist of 30 years. The first time I saw him, shortly after I moved to Ft. Lauderdale, he examined my teeth and said: “There’s a lot of work I could do in there but until they start bothering you I say let’s leave them alone.”
And over three decades he pretty much has. A few years ago he told me that he’d like to get a partner, but the people coming out of dental school are all aggressive in their approach, recommending unnecessary procedures so they can pay off their student loans.
Yesterday, after the rigorous cleaning from the hygienist, he looked in my mouth and noted with satisfaction: “Your 37 fillings are all still there where they were last time.”
A message from management yesterday that the trees around our building will be trimmed today. I have made arrangements to be home all day in hopes of avoiding the carnage that occurred last year.
We arrived at the Arsht Center well before the concert – Caetano Veloso in performance with his three sons – and went to the Café at Books & Books. Asking to sit outside, we were led to a table next to three young men with shaggy black hair who were speaking Portuguese.
A few minutes after the waitress poured our water, one of the men looked over at me and pointed out that my cup was leaking. I had been so focused on our neighbors that I hadn’t noticed the small waterfall now cascading over the side of our table. I thanked him and asked if he had come for the concert. He smiled and said “yes.” “Are you in the concert?” I asked, and he said “yes” again. We had taken a table next to the great singer’s sons.
Shortly after the waitress got me a new cup, their father arrived, and took a seat at their table. He was a slight man, still handsome with chiseled features and a full head of hair. A young woman walked from the far end of the terrace and asked if she could have a picture with him. He graciously obliged. Then a middle-aged woman approached him, speaking in Portuguese.
Hania asked if I wanted a picture with him. I said no; I didn’t want to bother him. I tweeted, unobtrusively, that I was eating dinner next to Caetano Veloso. When he got up to leave, Hania also stood up and – with none of my reservations – said, “I hope you’re not a fan of your new president.”
He seemed less surprised by her outburst than I was. No, he assured her, he wasn’t. She explained that she was from Poland, which was having its own problems with a right-wing, nationalistic government. “It’s not good at all,” Hania said. “Not good at all,” Veloso agreed in that soft, sympathetic voice that, one hour later, we heard in mellifluous song.
We went to All Saints Church Saturday evening to hear Seraphic Fire sing music from the Latin American baroque. I once interviewed the founder and music director Patrick Dupré Quigley, who told me that the group’s CDs are recorded at the Ft. Lauderdale church because the acoustics are superior to those at the venues in Miami and Boca Raton.
After the concert, members of the choir chatted outside with audience members. One of the former said that the group likes performing at All Saints not just for the acoustics but for the audiences which, she said, are more enthusiastic than the ones farther south.
The Field Irish Pub & Eatery was packed with partyers Saturday night. The TVs at the bar were all showing the same basketball game: Kansas State vs. Iowa – or Iowa State vs. Kansas, I don’t remember exactly. All I know is that it was not Villanova vs. Seton Hall, who were playing at that moment in the Big East final.
Villanova, an Augustinian school, was founded outside Philadelphia to educate Irish immigrants who weren’t allowed into other colleges. It is one of the best known American universities in Ireland, thanks to great runners like Eamonn Coughlan who attended it. When I was an English major at Villanova, a popular course was Irish Literature, taught by a man, James Murphy, who later started a study abroad program in Galway. An Irish pub not showing a Villanova basketball game is like a Wisconsin bar not televising the Packers.
Oh, and Villanova won last year’s national championship.
Seton Hall, another Catholic school (a fair number of Irish are Catholic), is located in South Orange, N.J. My bet is that there were more people at The Field Saturday night who originally hailed from Pennsylvania and New Jersey than those who came from Iowa and Kansas. Yet, looking at the TVs, you would have thought it a hangout for people from the Heartland.
The two couples were led to the table next to ours, one of the women looking matronly, the other, about the same age, wearing a low-cut dress that revealed her newly acquired sunburn.
Our appetizers arrived: gazpacho and tortilla Espanola. While waiting for our paella, a pan of black rice was carried with great aplomb to our neighbors’ table. “Squid in its own ink,” the man sitting next to the matronly woman said when we looked over with interest. A few seconds later, a small plate of black rice appeared at our table.
“Thank you,” we said, turning again in their direction.
Halfway through our paella, an iron pan of meat, sizzling in its juices, was brought to our neighbors’ table. It garnered the same looks the black rice had.
“Do you want to join us?” the matronly woman asked.