Considering the recent sewer main breaks, the Fort Lauderdale Forum’s next program has an interesting title: “How is the city handling the growth of downtown? What new projects are still in the pipeline?"
On the first morning of the new decade Hania and I drove to lunch at Coconuts, our progress delayed by the raised bridge over the Intracoastal.
“Do you still feed the pelicans?” I asked the hostess as she led us to a table near the water. “We feed the fish,” she corrected me, “and the pelicans jump in.” A few sat on the dock below, while five of their buddies perched on the railing of a nearby yacht.
As I ate my jambalaya and Hania her delicious crab cake salad – you know the crab cakes are good when celiacs can eat them – people cruised up in their boats for lunch.
It was such a gorgeous day, especially after weeks of rain, that we drove up A1A – the beaches so crowded they made me think of Spring Break (now not then) – to Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, where we turned left on Commercial, and caught another bridge. We drove south on Bayshore Drive – past Cardinal Gibbons High School and the George English Tennis Center – and then through Victoria Park, parking eventually behind Ann’s Florist and Coffee Bar on Las Olas, where we had tea and a coconut macaroon.
Finished, we strolled the boulevard as far as the Stranahan House, where we hopped on a water taxi. It was a busy day on the river – pleasure boats, sightseeing boats, the outsized gondola, a garbage collecting boat, which all added to the big city feel the new riverfront towers and crowded sidewalks created. We idled waiting for the railroad bridge to open – thwarted even on water – sailed west as far as Esplanade Park, and then returned through a light chop.
Back in the car we drove to Taron River Brewing Co. – catching the 3rd Avenue Bridge – and sat at a table set up on the sidewalk. “Fort Lauderdale would be a wonderful place,” I said to Hania between sips of my IPA, “if only more of our friends lived here.”
On the way home we drove down SW 10th Terrace and took a picture of the peacock sitting on a fence.
“Where’s your husband?” I asked Thea at our building’s holiday party last night. Nick is one of my favorite people on the island. I’ll see him working on his boat and I’ll say “How’s it going?” and he’ll say “Fantastic. But it’ll get better.” Once I said “Good morning, gentlemen” while he was talking with a fellow boater and he asked “What about me?”
Thea told me he was off in Guatemala, on a boat with five others cleaning the seas. I knew she was from England, but I had no idea about her husband. “Where did Nick grow up?” I asked her.
“He never did,” she said.
Fall here feels like spring. You open the windows for the first time in months and the fresh breeze carries in birdsong. You take up your outdoor activities again. There’s a sense of relief, and a similar feeling of renewal.
Friday evening we drove over to Savor Cinema for the documentary Operation Peter Pan – part of the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival – and afterwards we chatted in the lobby with two former Peter Pan children.
Saturday we went downtown for the Dead of the Dead celebration, which this year included, along with puppets and mariachis, hatted men on horseback.
Yesterday in Hollywood we caught another FLIFF movie – about a French couple who go on a vacation to Bulgaria – and then went to World Market where we were surrounded by people speaking Russian.