CUBA LIBRE CHRONICLES

24 Dec 2015 – Thursday (Christmas Eve Day)

        Rained all night but surprise…. no leaks on AURORA.  It even appears to be letting up somewhat for this Christmas Eve day. My nerves are still a bit jumpy watching the flood water rise towards the Mini last night.

But no destroyed Mini Cooper

        I love to cook.  I love to eat more than I love to cook and my waist line is ample proof of my priorities.  I particularly like to cook, eat and drink on holidays.  This Christmas away from family and friends will be a bit different but I see no reason why my other priorities should not hold their place in my lifestyle choices.

Santa will visit tonight

Shucking oysters, savaging an overflowing bowl of shrimp, slathering pate on a crusty French bread and drowning it all with a cold micro brew is THE perfect brunch, particularly because we are in shorts and tee shirts.   As I watch the years slide by, I notice I prefer to watch the slide from a warmer clime rather than a snow bank.  

I am beginning to understand the entities known as Arizona and Florida.  In spite of the incessant rain, Kris has secured tickets to Bellingrath Gardens for the Festival of Lights which boasts 3 million lights artfully placed over 65 acres of formal gardens, river frontage and a small lake.  Originally a rustic cabin and a fish camp for Mr. Bellingrath, the new Mrs. Bellingrath had more grandiose plans. 

Luckily (or with prescient foresight) Mr. B invested $1500 in a new company called Coca-Cola and obtained exclusive rights to half of Alabama.  Called a fool by his friends at the time, they repeatedly asked him what idiot would buy soft drink in a bottle when you could get it easily at the soda fountain?  And who in the world would ever drink it during the winter?  He persisted and even was the instigator of all those ads with Santa holding up a Coke. Furthermore, he fast-talked a cousin and a brother into doing as he did and for many years thereafter, if you bought a coke in Alabama or Louisiana or half of Texas, you bought it from Mr. Bellingraph.  And Mrs. Bellingrath spent your money on changing a fish camp into a stunningly expansive (and expensive) estate and formal gardens. 

Now agreeing to go to see a garden with a few colored lights did not exactly light up my evening plans but there are things one does to maintain equilibrium within relationships.  It has taken me more than a few decades to learn how to say, “My Dear, I’d LOVE to go out on a rainy, misty Christmas Eve to walk through a winter garden of trees without leaves,”  and say it with conviction.  Being a fiction writer, I have learned the art of lying convincingly as some of you have previously witnessed.  Here’s the irony.  I unconditionally loved the show and although they proclaimed 3 million lights, I believe they grossly under counted.  I simply hate it when Kristine makes a mockery of my know-it–all expectations.  And it didn’t rain while we were walking amidst the leaf-less trees either.  Insult to injury by my way of thinking. 

Cannot believe I am smiling

One of 50 trees in a lit grove

My cheap camera does an injustice to color

Some of the trees are 50-60 feet tall

The sea world walk way

The engine is 15 feet tall

Returning to the marina, we were in time to share a night cap with a group of boaters finishing up a pot luck dinner and I gifted those who wanted one, a copy of the Fayal Roads book as a little Christmas present.  Kristine and I completed the day devouring a tiny tin of Foie Gras sent to us by my good friend, Henri, from La Rochelle, France while sipping glass of Slovenian wine given to us by Kris’s sister, Natalie.  All in all, a spectacular Christmas Eve day far, far away from home.  Weather could never dim the light in our eyes after a day like today.  

Smiles, a perfect ending to a perfect day