A family from Slovakia and four fashionable sisters from the Philippines came to the cathedral yesterday morning. These are the things you learn when you usher. The Slovakians left after the offertory to catch their cruise, but the Filipinas stayed till the end. I wondered, about both groups, if they thought they were attended a Catholic mass, but one of the sisters, on leaving, told me she usually comes to the service in Spanish.
I got in the car and drove to Little Havana for the Three Kings’ Parade. Surprisingly, Calle Ocho was open to traffic. After parking on a side street, I asked a policeman about the procession. “It’s next Sunday,” he told me. “But today’s the day,” I said, shaking my head. Then I took a picture of a man in a white suit dancing in front of the Tower Theater.
At home I suggested to Hania – it was a spectacular day – that we go to the Las Olas Dog Show. It’s really the Las Olas Art Show, but the dogs are usually more interesting than the paintings. I ran into a former colleague from the newspaper carrying a Chihuahua in a pouch slung low on her waist. “It’s not mine,” she explained. “It’s my friend’s. But she left it with me for six months.”
We stopped at the Riverside Hotel for a drink, getting a table next to a family with three teenage children. “Your daughter’s very pretty,” Hania said to the mother as they got up to leave. “Do you want her?” asked the father.
Yesterday drove down to Miami for a Requiem Mass at Trinity Cathedral that lasted two hours. You would have thought it was Christmas Eve at St. Peter’s. At one point the bishop read a list of names; at the G’s I got up and walked to the back to talk to Toby, who was ushering.
“Who are all these people?” I asked. During the morning service, the number of sick people we are asked to pray for sometimes exceeds the number of people in the pews, but this list seemed endless.
“I think,” said Toby, “they're all the people who died in Florida in the last 25 years.”
The music, Maurice Durufle’s Requiem sung by the Anglican chorale, was gorgeous, and I did walk away with a line I hadn’t heard before. The bishop, in his sermon, spoke of the man who wished for a blessing that wasn’t in disguise.
Taking our evening stroll through the neighborhood, we found small tables in front of a number of houses holding bowls of candy. The owners usually sat on their porches; one sat on his terrace, drinking a glass of wine, while his calico cat Lucky lingered decoratively near the candy. Florida’s al fresco Halloween.
Later we ran into a band of trick-or-treaters making its way down the street with parents in tow. This sight would have transported me back to my childhood except for the fact that the parents were also in costume.
Drove down to see the Marlins last night.
“So you survived the Yankee fans,” I said to the parking attendant.
“I’m still recovering,” she said wearily. “They have no respect for Miami. Such rude people.”
I parked on the second level and walked to the stadium, estimating the amount of time one interacts with a parking attendant. Thirty seconds? Sixty? And yet Yankee fans had managed in that span to demonstrate ill manners. The New York minute.
Then I wondered what they could possibly have been rude about. It couldn’t have been the fee: $15 to park would have seemed a bargain to any New Yorker. And surely they didn’t insult the Marlins’ owner. Perhaps they found the attendant too slow with the credit card machine.
I showed my ID and picked up my free ticket (Seniors Thursday), though the young man who had directed me to the table said I looked “pretty young.” At the top of the escalator a member of the stadium staff greeted me with “Buenos noches.” Apparently I also looked Hispanic.
I walked past the senior ghetto in Section 25 and followed some thirtysomethings down the steps to a row of empty seats behind third base. I took the one on the aisle. The protective netting behind home plate had been extended since last year, insuring that I wouldn’t be hit with a foul ball.
Also new, at least to me, were the bongo cam – when fans, as soon as a camera was aimed at them, pretended to beat on drums – and the dance cam. Actually the name of the later camera was superfluous as people danced on screen at every inning break. Some were quite good; all transmitted an infectious joy. There didn’t seem to be a New Yorker in the house.