d: we had to think. we’d both have a weekend available sometime around week 28 of the bean’s uteral journey and we needed to hit up a spot where ashley could live out her lifetime dream: to wear a bikini while showing her big beautiful pregnant belly. months in advance, we couldn’t be sure we could count on san diego to bring us enough beach heat, so miami it was. last week, when the time finally arrived, i had just come off of my only exam of the year, and ash was knee deep into a rough quarter of school. needless to say we were both ready for some time away…
d: as soon as we arrived in miami, and the first thing that struck me was how euro everyone was. throughout the weekend i continually questioned whether everyone i was seeing was actually euro, or just trying really hard to be? as an extremely typical example, check out this guy on our immediate left one night (unfortunately the mohawk didn’t come out well…)
…and then these two on our immediate right:
i’ll spare you the hairy dudes in speedos and aviators on the beach. without having spent a whole lotta time in europe, i’m guessing that the greater the ratio of huge sunglasses worn indoors or after dark, the more roughly euro a place is. regardless, the culture in miami beach is quite different from any other place in the united states, to be sure.
the clay hotel was relatively inexpensive considering the (awesome) location, but don’t you dare go there for the service or comfort.
a: i feel particularly bad for the asian dude sharing a bathroom with us, since for the entire first day we were there we kept yelling through the door for him to find his own bathroom (we specifically booked a private bath because we didn't know how i'd be feeling). i'm glad we could give him a taste of american hospitality. i wouldn't say the front desk was particularly sympathetic about this situation.
d: we heard about a food and wine festival that coincided with our visit; it seemed awesome since admission got you entrance to all kinds of free gourmet food and drinks, as well as shows put on by some pretty famous people in the cooking field. as much as ash and i love food and what it represents, we couldn’t justify the $250/person entrance fee and instead would just pretend we’d missed it all together and enjoy the beach in our own ways.
first two days were very chill, literally and figuratively. friday we had a truly delicious italian meal that you’d swear was straight outta florence. we spent an hour or so on the beach and tried to take a swim but the apparently cold florida winter has led to the water being far colder than the average 74 degrees for the month of march, so that didn’t last more than a couple of toes… stepped in to a café on the way home (for better or worse, there’s always work to be done) for some quality reading. saturday we tried the beach in the morning but were swept off it by an arctic blast that we won’t soon forget. thank god for the heat lamps at a nearby outdoor bar to keep us relatively sane:
saturday was also the day i stepped in dog sh*t for the first time since 8th grade. the f*kkin dog took a sh*t in the middle of the sidewalk. who does that. ash says she steps in dog sh*t at least once every year. that sounds like a lot. most of the remainder of the day was spent cleaning sh*t off my sandal and people watching indoors as a classic miami afternoon thunderstorm passed through the area.
a: it's said in michigan that we have 9 months of winter and 3 months of bad sledding. the analogous maxim in chicago is that we have 9 months of winter and 3 months of dog sh*t. chicago isn't exactly grassy, and there seems to be a citywide protest against curbing dogs. it's virtually impossible not to step in dog sh*t on any given stroll in the outdoors, particularly when the snow starts to thaw and the terds have really collected over the winter.
d: sunday was the day to remember. we started out at the local farmer’s market. i think that the fact that precisely one vendor was present suggests that the ocean water hasn’t been the only thing affected by the cold winter. (we’ve since heard about tomato shortages around the country due to the cold; burger king has several franchises without, if you can imagine.) from there we hit the beach, where it was legitimately the type of day we’d hoped for months in advance. sunny, warm and beautiful. warm enough to take a brief dip into the water and feel good about it 10 minutes later despite the initial shock to the legpit.
ignore my scoliosis and check out my hawt wife and our little girl…
who needs to pay $20 to rent beach chairs
i made friends with a few gulls…
…who showed how loving they can really be as i ate lunch:
my request of the day (besides the beach), was that we find a local bar to hit up and watch the gold medal hockey match between the usa and canada. fortunately we found a place that could not only accommodate the game, but allowed us a table outdoors directly in front of the screen. shortly after the initial drop of the puck, two chicks whom we hadn’t so much as even noticed tapped us on the shoulder and asked us if we had any interest in going to the food and wine festival that day. ‘nigga pleeze’ i believe was our answer. while of course the game was huge, this festival was too good to pass up. apparently wristbands were given out with admission—these girls just gave us theirs, worth a combined $500. they fit perfectly, and off we went.
a: much as i wanted to watch the hockey game, i wasn't disappointed to leave the bar. while it's pretty nice to sit outside in the sun and watch tv, it's pretty not nice to do so amid speakers blaring horrible rap and pseudo techno music interrupted only for announcements regarding buying shots in exchange for a photograph with whatever half naked 18 year old was receiving body paint at that given time or friendly waitresses selling cigarettes and cigars (the no smoking in bars movement has not yet reached miami). i somehow found it difficult to focus on the hockey game and instead shifted my attention to the bikini and cowboy hat clad women dancing around to attract yet more people to the bar.
while david became enthralled by observing the european flare among miami men, i couldn't help but notice the women's unbelievable butts. honestly, not a drop of cellulite to be seen...every butt in sight was perfectly round and firm. after the tenth perfect butt in a row, i concluded there must be some butt surgery rite of passage in miami that we in the midwest are simply not privy to.
d: we left the bar and walked into a huge tent located right on the beach and were immediately overstimulated. imagine the best day of costco and whole foods samples and multiply that by about six hundred and twenty. delicious food and drink everywhere, as the best restaurants in the city represented themselves with their favorite dishes for the taking. right as we stepped in, we got the overhead page: “thirty minutes of sampling to go.” needless to say, the next half an hour was a blur of rushing from the steak to the top-shelf vodka shots to the ceviche to the top-shelf vodka shots to the lobster make to the top-shelf vodka shots to the sashimi to the top-shelf vodka shots to the to the top-shelf absinthe shots to the top-shelf vodka shots. that was one of us, anyway. since the other is pregnant and doesn’t like seafood, that person stuck more to the slaws, duck, sweet potatoes, chicken, alligator tail (tastes like pork and chicken, shocker) and kale. needless to say, the food was tasty.
we stepped out of the tent to find cooking demos in the next large area by some of the best, brightest and most famous chefs in the country. those of you keen on the cooking network will appreciate that the great bobby fischer himself was present, showing off his skills and signing autographs… while we only had 30 mins of sampling and another hour of perusing the remainder, the festival was a highlight of the weekend, to be sure.
a: i describe the food and wine festival as the best and worst event of my life. the admission bracelets fell into our laps about halfway through my second lunch of sliders and sweet potato fries. i wasn't exactly ravenous. those who know me best (or only just a little) are aware that few things bring me greater joy than food, particularly good food, particularly a lot of it in a confined space in tiny portions so i can try as much as possible. but even taking just one bite of everything, i was so full and overstimulated in every sense after those 30 minutes that david had to walk me to a quiet corner outdoors for an equally long timeout. it was pretty sweet though, not to mention free, and i got to finally lay eyes on some of my favorite cooking celebrities whose voices were wafting over the beach the whole weekend.
eric ripert and anthony bourdain
d: we returned to the same bar where we’d planned on watching the hockey game to find it was over and had been a legitimate thriller; usa tying it with a few seconds remaining in regulation and canada winning it in sudden death. while of course we were hoping for a gringo gold, ash and i agreed that if someone else was gonna take it, it might as well be the canadians considering that hockey to them is like football, basketball and baseball combined to us. i predict a small but significant maple leaf baby boom in nine months of about 16,000 kids who would’ve had to wait for a happier canadian day to be conceived had the usa had their way that day. as it stands in this country, maybe only 40-50 little ones will not immediately come to fruition as a result of our olympic silver. so, good for them is all i’m sayin.
on the walk back to the hotel i got my first tattoo. “pura vida (pure life)” is a phrase well known in costa rica—it’s a sort-of state of being, i suppose, that describes their outlook on life. ashley reminded me of one of my favorite exchanges with a clerk at a market in cachi, a very small town near the capital:
Me: hola, como estas (wuddup)?
Him: Pura vida jefe (pura vida boss)…
anyway, eight months later i still like the phrase and what it stands for enough to permanently place it on a not-so-in-your-face part of my body:
i think it looks pretty sweet, and my wife claims to love it. incidentally, i’ve been told that a tattoo on the foot is the most painful of all. if that’s the case, tattoos ain’t no thang. top shelf aside, it’s not nearly as bad as has been advertised.
a: i do love it! i'm very jealous they wouldn't tattoo a pregnant lady, so i'm just gonna color my feet with sharpie to pretend i'm as cool as david
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while i still have a few days of vacation, playing out in san diego at the suggestion of my wife, ash is back hard at work in chicago with her crazy quarter. counting down the weeks now for the bean hatch. started a birthing class yesterday, which will prove to be educational and introduce us to other good people at the very least. looking forward to continuing with that. more to come, i’m sure…….
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