My friend and fellow travel writer Alan is in town for a conference (by day he’s a patent attorney) and last night he gathered a few friends for a dinner at Villa Romana in Hollywood. I sat between a Ukrainian-Canadian woman now living in New York City and a man from Bogotá who spoke about the deteriorating situation in his country. Across the table, a tall German man who lives in Potsdam told a Polish woman (my wife) of his concerns about the future of Europe. A little after 8 pm, a man in a glittering sport coat appeared with an accordion and a woman in traditional dress sang Romanian melodies. They reaffirmed my belief that Broward is more ethnically diverse than Miami-Dade.
I needed an oil change last week and, after making an appointment, I received a text with an estimate of $76. My friendly neighborhood garage has over the last few years gone high-tech.
I dropped the car off at 8 am and went to a nearby café. About an hour later I received a text from the garage, with a new estimate of over $500. Apparently, I needed a new battery – news to me – and a change of brake fluid. And the rotation of the tires, which used to be included, was now an additional charge because I’d bought the tires elsewhere, not through the garage. I passed on the new battery and the brake fluid.
When I went to pick up the car, I told the manager that I came to his garage originally because whenever I took the car to the dealer they would always find things the car “needed” to up the price. He insisted the car needed everything he suggested. Perhaps, I said, but in the old days someone would call me, and tell me over the phone what they had found, and ask me if I wanted to go ahead with the work. Now I get an impersonal text.
Most people appreciate getting a detailed text, the manager said. But I suspect the real beneficiary here is the garage: It’s much easier to lie, or at least fabricate, in a text than in a conversation.
Last week I gave an old friend a tour of Fort Lauderdale. Dan has a sentimental attachment to the city, having started a family here (in Wilton Manors) and taught English for years at Fort Lauderdale High School.
After lunch at Coconuts – where he had drunk but never eaten – we drove down Las Olas and into the canyon of office and residential towers. (Fort Lauderdale’s much-vaunted urban connectivity.) We darted through the disaster that is Himmarshee Village and headed north to Sistrunk, where we stopped at Kimchi Mart, the sparkling new Korean supermarket. I bought some kimchi (the delicious, house-made one) and red bean mochi.
Next, I showed Don the IcePlex in Holiday Park, which was relatively quiet – just a few skaters, including a young woman practicing figures with a coach.
From there it was a short drive to the recently renovated Jimmy Evert Tennis Center. It looked fresh and clean – with all new fencing – but something seemed off. I thought at first it was the absence of benches around the clubhouse, which I assumed had not yet been replaced. Then I noticed that the fences, with tarp in the middle, enclose the courts and destroy the air of openness. You used to be able to stand in front of the clubhouse and look down the whole row of courts. There had been fencing behind the baselines of course, but nothing between the courts save for small pavilions with benches. Now, all you see are what look like cages, connected to other cages. The courts are now giant chain-link cubicles, hiding the players hitting inside. I assume the changes were instituted to make the facility more professional, in an attempt to bag more tournaments, but the old neighborly feeling of the place has been lost.
I wonder what Jimmy Evert would think. Chris apparently will be there on Dec. 8, so perhaps she’ll tell us then.
At 5 pm yesterday we drove to the beach in hopes of seeing the full moon – the super moon – rise up out of the ocean. When we arrived, the horizon was a wall of clouds. We ducked into El Vez for some tortilla soup, and when we emerged, small pricks of light were visible through a frayed fabric.
We crossed the street. A full moon party was in full swing in front of the Four Seasons. Eventually, the honored guest escaped from the clouds and glowed brightly in the dark sky.
Saturday’s Day of the Dead event started off slowly. Instead of a Mexican children’s choir, a DJ occupied the gazebo in Esplanade Park, playing a mix of American and Latin pop music, some of it quite old. (Nothing takes you out of the spirit of the holiday like “The Monster Mash.”) Families filled the park, few of them in costume. Though a long line stretched in front of the face-painting tent. And more Spanish was spoken than in previous years.
Around 6 pm things started to gel. A man came on stage and credited Jim Hammond with creating the event. (Hammond, a professional puppeteer, was not involved this year.) And more people appeared in elaborate costumes, including a wedding party in flowery dress, a group of women in black who resembled The Furies, and the Grim Reaper. One man, his face painted in a skeletal grimace, wore a matador’s suit of lights. They all joined the procession that headed down SW 2nd Street, then turned south along the railroad tracks, before turning again when it reached the river. There were fewer puppets than in the past, but the air of macabre creativity, lavish solemnity was as sublime as ever.