Category Archives: Of This and That

And Here We Are……

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Probably other than my 18th birthday (back when the federal government didn’t intervene with the states so that was the legal age for alcohol in Louisiana), I haven’t marked any of “the big ones”.  Today as my 70th isn’t an exception other than to reflect generally on birthday celebrations. I don’t go in for them much anymore and I have certainly worked on more than one occasion. I like doing things for other people’s birthdays though and for me, it’s kind of a sure, let’s have a nice dinner either going out somewhere special or doing something special at home.

Living here, I do try to make it a point to go diving, although I have a “window” of about ten days to count that as a “birthday dive”. The span is in order to allow for weather and boat availability. In fact, because I have two kind of complex articles for next week’s paper, I’m working this weekend in case Mother Nature is kind enough to allow me to go dive tomorrow afternoon. We shall see.

Okay, back to celebrating. I don’t feel as keen on driving down into the Keys as we have in the past because weekend traffic has gotten much worse and a few of our restaurants do qualify for special occasion. I wanted lobster last night and we would have gone to Capri, but they were having a huge party in and I knew it would be hectic for them. Hubby was puzzled when I told him I wanted to go to Red Crab. It is nice, although no tablecloths. Anyway, I didn’t explain that when I was in there Wednesday with friends, the waiter told us about a special of exotic meats with bison, ostrich, and venison. I was surprised and I knew Hubby would love it. I didn’t explain that to him because I wasn’t sure they would have it. He does love whole fried snapper, which he didn’t realize they had and was all set to order it. Our waitress remembered us from a previous time and I asked about the specials. They did still have the exotic meats although they were out of bison. He was quite happy and now understood why we were there. They doubled up on the venison, my lobster was delicious, and I do use my birthday as an excuse for dessert. We shared a key lime pie because I have chocolate cake for tonight.

“Perfect as the Enemy of Good”….

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There is a saying in the military as well as business, “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good”, and I’m not sure what caused this thought to pop into my head yesterday. When making a plan or trying to find a solution to something, there are times when you aren’t likely to have the perfect plan. That is not to say you shouldn’t plan carefully and do as much analysis as is practical. If you are dealing with a committee/group decision situation, a single individual can keep coming up with “what ifs” or concerns that cause a decision about what to do to be delayed indefinitely.

The flip side to that, however, is the military saying of, “No plan survives first contact”. In other words, once you engage in an operation, it can come apart. While it may seem contradictory to move ahead with a plan even if you don’t have it exactly as you want, it isn’t really. The ability to accurately assess a situation and realize you need to adapt is important, too. We are human and make mistakes which, if properly applied, provides good lessons. Granted, some can be fatal, yet most aren’t. There may be some pain and even humiliation involved, and I have had my share of both. I am on the periphery of a rather ambitious plan being undertaken by an organization and I suppose that’s why I got to thinking about the above saying. I was quite skeptical of initial discussions, although I wasn’t in a position to be consulted, nor did I want to engage. In learning a little more, I think “good enough” plan is accurate and if successful, it will be a plus for the community. I’m not sure though how much adapting can be done if anything major goes wrong, so I will cross my fingers, too – can’t hurt.

Another Local Story…..

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As I have mentioned, writing for the paper pays basically nothing, but it’s part of why I know so much about the community. We get stories different ways and this is a case of someone coming to the paper to ask if we could cover it. That was last year and the event is now an annual one.

We only have a few nice assisted living places in town and the fancy one (with applicable high costs) is appropriately name The Palace. Not surprisingly, they have a wide variety of activities for the residents.  Also not surprisingly, they include arts and crafts sessions.  While the residents enjoy that, many of them were quite active in the community in their younger time. The instructor, who has been teaching at this and other facilities owned by the same company for ten years, came up with the idea of the residents at the Palace should sell their items and use the money for a back-to-school contribution. They all loved the idea, but how to actually do it was the question. Enter one of the local individuals who is involved in many different non-profits, to include one he established specifically to support things for children. He and a couple of others set up sales events around town as well as on-line sales opportunities. Then he reached out to a couple of other non-profits to help select twenty children as recipients.

The children and family (or usually a parent) come to the Palace for a luncheon, meet the residents, and are presented with an electronic tablet and a backpack filled with school supplies. The food at the Palace is one of the things residents pay for, but in this case, they make it a kid-type lunch which probably also brings back memories for the residents. The twenty residents who created items this past year (actually twenty-two as two passed away before the event) are planning to keep with it for the coming year.

Including Tips…..

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As the population here increases and we’re getting more new restaurants, and there has been no genuine let-up with inflation, a number of restaurants have begun to include an automatic tip (service charge). Several of them previously noted that only for parties of six or more. The new practice is generating a lot of discussion among people who are fairly well split in opinion. We do have quite a few foreign tourists who claim not to know about tipping. I have always doubted that as most travel books include that kind of information. Let’s set that aside for the moment.

We always tip well (pretty much 20%) and there have been times when it was over-tipping considering the service, but that’s not the point either. The automatic tips being added here are mostly 18%, although one is at 20%. One friend in one of my three lunch groups especially doesn’t like it because she gives cash to servers. Ironically, I had started doing that if the tip less than $20 since I don’t know when I add it to the card, if the server gets the full tip or if the service fee is held back. Moving on to another issue though.

A number of the restaurants now also use the table side card readers which is nice. Except the software on the readers automatically displays blocks to touch to add tips; 10%, 15%, 18%, 20% and custom or No Tip. If an individual is not aware a tip is already included and hasn’t looked closely at the itemized bill, a second tip is likely to be added. I know of three or four people who have done this. To start with, “service charge included” should be clearly marked on the menu – each page of the menu. More importantly, the servers should explain the inclusion when they present the bill. I understand the human inclination to not do so and pretend it’s the customer’s fault for not paying attention and sure, it will work a few times. On the other hand, how many people will continue to patronize a place where this occurs?

Kids and Summer Camp….

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I’m wrapping up a piece for the paper on a long-running summer camp that is only six weeks long, but it does provide enrichment for children ages 5-high school whose families would not otherwise be able to afford it. There are quite a few programs around that do assist with similar camps and we try to spread the word through the paper about these.

Further along the spectrum; granddaughter has her first time at a day camp this week. She was excited about the idea and we hope it works out. Her mom and dad are heavily involved in wrapping up the summer intensive dance camp and they need to be able to focus.

In looking back with what we did with son – and I may have mentioned this before – we sent him to multiple camps; all of which were science-type with the expectation he would be pursuing such a thing. Although he did love Space and Aviation camps, the Audubon and Marine Mammal camps were what led him to the plan of Wildlife Ecology. If you happen to be new to the blog, that of course derailed when he fell headlong in love with dance his freshman year at university and college went by the wayside. The utter irony is if we had had a clue, we could have put him into dance and performing arts camps and he would have had at least a chance of getting on the professional dance ladder at a much better time. Ah, the “you don’t know what you don’t know” truism strikes again. A potential irony which might not unfold for a bit is granddaughter has literally been raised in the dance studio and she’s already swapped from ballet to tap. Currently either of her planned careers include being a dancer. On the other hand, at age eight there will no doubt be other ideas to come about.

Not the Same Town……

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When I travel back to Louisiana to visit family and friends, the three (now will only be two) towns have different degrees of change. Minden, where Daddy lived, is a bit larger, yet not by much. Natchitoches, the historic town had changed more although not that it has lost it’s core nor has it become so populated as to strain the infrastructure. Many, the very small town where my mother was from, has few new things. It is in great contrast to Florida and especially South Florida where population is exploding.

When we moved here in late 2004, even though I was disappointed to learn this area is one of the only places on the East Coast that doesn’t have actual beaches, there were other aspects to enjoy. A fair amount of building was going on and as I have posted before, I wasn’t thrilled about living in a gated community. That, however, was the only viable choice for the type of house we wanted. It was enough of a small town to be reminiscent of where we both respectively grew up. As a quick reminder, the building boom went bust in 2008-2009, and was grim for people who were caught in bad timing. That cycle did pass and the book has come back multi-fold.

As always, it’s much faster to build houses than infrastructure and you can only do so much to improve traffic flow if you increase the density of traffic beyond a certain point. We may not be quite there yet, although crawling, stop-and-go patterns are common now in a number of places. There are those who have left, seeking somewhere else in Florida or neighboring states where growth is limited. Others are adapting, while those who recently arrive from even more crowded places find it “normal”. There are new services coming in as well which are generally more positive than negative. We shall see what the next few years bring.

Another Week Zipping Past…..

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For some people, summer is actually a bit of a break. That is most assuredly not the case for others. The areas that may not be as busy are overlaid by new ones or by either the ones on the “yes, I’ll get to it” list. These are the tasks that simmer along until such time as they really can no longer be avoided.This week has been a combination of the two. Ah well, we are at no risk of being bored in the near future.

After queries from a few fans I have begun work on Shades of Remorse, the fifth in the series featuring Police Detective Bev Henderson. As I explained to one of these individuals, I did not set out to write a series. My plan was for all stand-alone novels, but one idea led to another. As a reader, if I find a book I think is interesting and see it is a series, I try to go back to the first one instead to see if I like the writing and characters. As an author, it’s tricky to decide how much information to include about the characters and other background if a reader chooses to jump into a series beginning with a later book. Oh, I did plan the “Small Town” quilting cozies as a series so was able to set that up accordingly.

In this case, the long lapse between novels has to do with the structure of “Remorse” in order to tell the story in the way I should. I generally write in first person or dual Point of View depending on the book. This particular story requires writing with a triple Point of View and I’ve never done that. While I have the story pretty well outlined, there are a couple of gaps yet and rather than continue to wrestle with it, I’ve decided I have enough to start. The rest should develop as I work through the main and subplots. We’ll see.

 

About Stories in Bars…..

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A conversation last evening set me to thinking about this. If you happen to be new to the blog, a quick bit of history of my writing journey. I was around ten years old when I knew I wanted to be a writer (Yes, influenced by Little Women). As a middle class, one-income, three children family, financial support for me to do that wasn’t going to happen and I didn’t want to do the “starving writer” bit. I had written short stories and some poetry of course although sadly, in the time before computers I lost the file in my subsequent moves. Anyway, I did tinker with short stories later, did some professional writing, and kept the dream of the novel for “some day”. Fast forward to my decision to primarily self-publish and thus the body of work I have.

I enjoy short stories though and am inspired periodically to write a new one. I did even have one published (“Ferris Wheel Love”) a number of years ago. A great many of my stories do take place or at least start in bars and that does come from the phrase of, “Write what you know”. Indeed for fans of my first novel, Orchids in the Snow, that combines my military background with the social aspects of the Officers Club. The list of stories and essays are in the Archives on my website, https://www.charliehudson.net/stories/story_archive.html

Those that take place all or in part in bars written from early to later are: Come Here Often?, Draft With a Sprig of Mistletoe, Painted Cabanas, Twelve Pack Trip (not exactly in a bar), Closing Time, Closing Day, Running Yellow Lights, Forty-two Beers on Draft, Herding Seahorses, and Flight Delay.

Hmmm, just thinking about short stories might bring on another idea. We’ll see. Oh, there are also a couple that are really long, but generally 3,000 or so words in length.

 

Burgers on the Menu….

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This is one of the rare Fourth of July times Hubby doesn’t have to teach/guide scuba. On the other hand, he does have to go to the big Race to the Fourth the city puts on at the Homestead-Miami Speedway. Not a car race; music, vendors, fireworks later. In years past, they had a special event where people could go into the Champions Club and we would attend that usually with a few friends. I would stay there as Hubby ate quickly, then went out to get “cute kid pictures”, and re-set for the fireworks. The population has increased so much, they can’t have that event any longer and quite frankly, I’m past the stage where I want to spend three hours in the heat basically by myself. It is a fun time though for those that go.

So, we’ll do our burgers at lunch – potato salad and coleslaw as the sides and Hubby will go later for the photo shoot. I can see the fireworks from the house and I will put the apple pie in the oven to where it is still warm when he gets in probably around 10:00. I will try to still be awake although there is not guarantee of that.

We generally swap around three standard menus for the Fourth – burgers, BBQ, or fried chicken. They all work as traditional and whether just the two of us or if we have others over. There will of course be neighbors out on the street for the fireworks and the folks on the gate will be really busy as this is one of the holidays with lots of visitors. Fireworks will be going late as well and some of the internal displays are pretty extensive. Hmmm, that means I probably will still be awake when Hubby gets in.

Happy Fourth of July!

Got Behind Again……

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So much for a calmer week. I’m not going to get into how the week became so jammed, but it’s not the first time and probably won’t be the last. Hopefully, the extra things thrown in will have positive results and we’ll leave it at that.

Skipping forward to the Food and Drink part, that’s not the usual sharing of a recipe. The oldest (or second depending on how you count a couple of factors) continuously serving family restaurant in Miami Dade County will change hands next week. We’ve know this if coming for a while as a couple of different offers have been working. The Capri in Florida City was opened in 1959 and carried on by the second generation. As I have posted before when it comes to family businesses, it is common for the third generation to be the one that walks away, or in some cases, fails. This time it’s that the third generation did work in the business for a while and have chosen not to continue with it.

COVID was so difficult for businesses and the Capri was determined to try and provide some normalcy during the months of closures and ever-changing restrictions. They complied with each new edict and we patronized them even more than usual in support of their efforts. The government financial support was no where near what has often been lauded although it was of some help. The follow-on inability to get staff is what was an added difficulty. And so, there comes a time when you make a logical choice even if it is not the one you would have preferred.

For all of its years, this was the special occasion restaurant and hundreds – probably thousands – of special memories were made. It was also the “nice” restaurant where celebrities and VIPs were taken when they were in town. While we will very much miss it as a place, we hope the family taking it over will be successful in their own way.