early bed time

joshua thought it would be funny to hit me with the telephone book to awaken me. i did not.

then there was ice thrown.

this, just less than two hours after i went to bed from having driven all but about two hours of the fourteen hour drive.

i wasn't happy but remembered i was in the keys... and that the drive home was way too long to be silent and mad, so i showered and we finally ventured out.

we went back to the southernmost point of the island, which is just ninety miles from cuba. it's pretty neat but confusing since there is land that is more south...

duval street was our next stop... bar stools beckoned us from the hot sidewalk for a cold drink. cape cod for me. we had a couple at bourbon pub (the sister bar of the same name in new orleans where i won the 'student body' contest). scott, our bartender, was extremely nice and was very well versed about the island. i hammered him with questions about moving down here as he did the same thing with us with alcohol.

tipsy, we walked on, stopping in a few shops looking for swim trunks. it was me. i was the dumb ass who left mine at home. i didn't find any i liked.

tom... somewhere... in all his bargain hunting, had buy-one-get-one-free tickets for about three bars. while i was whining for food, he and joshua were marching stronger than sherman did to savannah to the next bar.

irish kevins saw two more margaritas for me... there was a jello shot somewhere along the way. i remember because there's a spot on my brand-new white shirt.

oh, leslee... if you haven't deleted the voice mail, forward it to me. at least tell me what i said, 'cause i don't remember.

scott told us to eat at a & b something... so we did. it wasn't until the second bucket of crustaceans that i realized what i was eating was clams... not the oysters i had wanted all along. by this time, our neighbors... a lovely couple from sarasota... had joined in our conversation. who knows what it was about?

anyway, the gentleman... i think his name was rob... told our server to bring mathew some oysters. and make sure they're just for mathew! she did... a dozen... and even had fashioned a flag that said "only for mathew". how nice.

when we attempted to leave... they insisted that we stay longer. i and they had three more rounds. tom stopped after one. joshua passed out on the toilet.

the conversation was awesome. suzan and her husband wanted to know everything about us... our lifestyle. the guy was a former navyman. he said "people where people". he didn't care. suzan, poor thing, is trying to make her son gay. she says she doesn't know if he is, only "it can happen". but she wants it...

i had to part... joshua had passed out - again - on the pier from which we were eating. tom went to get the car, running through the streets like he was in mission impossible. can't you see it?

ha ha. we're having a blast.

more later.