I was at Sage in Hollywood last night, standing at the bar, when a woman in her seventies approached wearing a blue dress and a gold chain with letters that spelled out - I saw as she got closer - "Blond Bombshell." I thought: She'd be a great match for the guy in the T-shirt.
The hunched senior shuffled through the Galleria in grey T-shirt and big white sneakers. His plaid pants were tied in the front, like pajama bottoms, and rose well above his waist. But not so high that they obscured the message on the back of his T-shirt: Old Guys Rule.
... you finish your cauliflower and onion tart at your favorite lunch place, 11th Street Annex, and Penny comes out of the kitchen and asks you if you like cold soups.
You say you do and minutes later she brings you a little stainless steel cup of cold mango and coconut milk soup laced with lemon and ginger.
... you walk back to your car, after stopping at the post office, and find a mango sitting next to a tire.
Saturday afternoon we drove to Coconut Grove and went straight to CocoWalk to check out the Pan Am memorabilia at Palm Produce. I thought one of the 50s era travel posters would make a nice birthday present – especially for someone born in that decade. But we learned, sadly, they’re still not for sale.
We got back in the car and drove north on US 1 before cutting over to S. Miami Ave., which was red with royal poincianas. Growing up in New Jersey, I never realized that my birthday coincided with the flowering of flame trees.
Dinner at the River Oyster Bar: a dozen oysters followed by two fishes, one – mine – wrapped in bacon. Then a postprandial stroll through Mary Brickell Village. Three young women stood in Perricone’s parking lot in short beige dresses and matching mortarboards.
“What happened to the gowns?” we asked them.
“We had to give them back,” one of the graduates said.
But, they explained, they got to keep the caps. They made for a smart, educated look.
Walking around the island yesterday evening I saw something new: a man alone in a boat going down river, one hand on the wheel, the other on his iPhone.