Life in the Bubble

Sometimes, things work out in ways one couldn’t have imagined. Saul and I bought the house here in Florida back in May thinking that we had an agreement of sale for the amount we wanted for our house in Pennsylvania, and we were devastated when the sale fell through and we had to return the sizable deposit, and then when subsequent sales agreements were violated. We tossed and turned at night, having trouble sleeping, not knowing what our responsibilities would be before we would finally be free. We could not have imagined how much we would enjoy our new life in Florida, and that helped us put everything in perspective and get through the months of uncertainty. In the end, we sold our beautiful and beloved home in Pennsylvania on January 10, 2014, to an extended family who agreed to buy it “as is” for a far, far lower price than we had anticipated originally. Little did we know or expect the bullet that we dodged in view of the type of winter weather in the Philadelphia area that began in January and has lasted to the present moment as I write. Had we not sold the house when we did and as we did, we would have had the added aggravation of keeping inactive pipes from freezing in frigid weather, days-long power outages, snow removal headaches, and flooding worries. We dearly loved that wonderful dream home that we designed ourselves, and that rewarded us with 20 years of incredible memories. We had innumerable parties, incredible and unique Shabbat and holiday meals with family and friends, and even set up a clinic of sorts when Aunt Ruth, my mom and I all required nursing care at the same time. Our single-level living with wheelchair-accessible floor plan and bathroom enabled us to take care of Uncle Jack, Uncle Stef, Aunt Ruth, and my mother for a year of hospice care in a loving and inclusive environment. Although my kitchen in Florida is spacious and well laid out, it will probably never equal the state-of-the-art kitchen I designed there. It was a great 20 years!

In the last seven weeks since January 10, a great weight has been lifted from us psychologically, physically, and financially. The polar vortex, a term with which most people were unfamiliar until this winter, has left us feeling that we are living in some kind of delicate bubble here in Florida. While temperatures have been hovering between sub-zero and 20 degrees throughout most of the country, we have been blessed with warm weather and sunny blue skies through most of this winter. Our pool greets me when I slide open our shades in the morning, and most mornings, I open not only the shades, but the multiple sliding doors as well, to invite in the delightful morning breeze that wafts through the screened lanai that keeps out insects and birds. We keep the pool heated to 84°F. and we like to use it not only during the day, but to swim at night under the stars and moonlight when the air is warm enough. Having bought discounted-for-Florida-residents Disney annual passes, we are free to park our cars in any of the four parks and use all the facilities the parks have to offer whenever we like. A few times a week, we choose a park and spend several hours walking there. Being at the Disney parks, which are only 15 minutes from our home, certainly beats walking in the mall. We wake up looking at our palm trees through the window and are tempted to pinch ourselves each morning because we can’t believe we are not dreaming. Life feels like being on vacation almost every day. We wish our friends and family could be here more often to enjoy it with us and worry when they are dealing with shoveling, icy roads, pot holes, power failures, cancellations and cabin fever.

There have been many changes and highlights to our lives in the last few months since I wrote the last blog post on December 16. Ari rented out his home in Washington, D.C. on a two-year lease and moved to a sophisticated, brand-new, two bedroom and bath flat in London to work for the United Kingdom branch of his company. Jessica resigned from her job where she had become very unhappy and took over my business, from which I have pretty much retired this year. We enjoyed the most delightful Christmas holidays. Jess drove down here in one day with the girls and our friend Larry in his Tiguan S.U.V., while Alex led a Confirmation class trip throughout Israel. The girls were in their bathing suits and in the pool within minutes of walking through the door. Jess, finally relieved of all the stress of the last few weeks, slept for almost two days. Saul and I took the girls to the Disney parks multiple times. Sami and I took drawing lessons together at the Hollywood Studios park to learn how to draw some of the animated characters while Saul took the younger ones to the “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” playground nearby. We took them at night to see the sensational Osborne Family Dancing Lights there.

On December 23, we all took the slightly over one-hour drive to Clearwater Beach for the most delightful beach day. The sandals came off the moment bare feet hit the warm, white, sugary sand. Before we had even dropped our stuff to make camp, 4-year-old Yona had stripped off her bathing suit cover-up and rolled in the sand, making a sand angel. Reprimanded for not waiting for sunscreen, she did not even wait for it to dry before rolling in the sand again. We had a delightful day bathing in the temperate water of the Gulf and basking in the warm sun, even though cocky seagulls snatched Sami’s sandwich right from her hands as we picnicked. Yona took charge of the situation and chased every last seagull away from our area of the beach, looking and sounding so formidable that we all laughed until we cried, including some of the other beach-goers around us. We spent December 24 at Animal Kingdom catching one of the last “Lion King” performances before it was closing for months of renovations. The girls wanted to bake together while they were here and they chose to make dozens and dozens of hamantaschen with me on December 25, 26, and 27, most of which we froze and sent home with them for the upcoming Purim holiday. We hung out by the pool, cooked great meals together, ate out in restaurants, especially Sweet Tomatoes, Kumo, and Woodlands. Right before New Year’s Eve, Ken and Randi flew down and Ari flew in from a month-long stint in London to join us. We shopped for special ingredients, and supplemented by some unique British victuals compliments of Ari, we prepared an amazing feast to welcome in the new year in our new home. New Year’s Day was spent at Epcot where Yona and Izzy met Winnie the Pooh and Tigger.

A couple days after New Year’s day, Jess and Larry headed back home with the girls, leaving in the evening with the intention of driving straight through. About an hour after they left, Jess called to say that they had a flat tire along with a number of other cars who had all hit the same piece of a drive shaft that someone had dropped in the road. The tire was beyond repair, but when AAA came to put on the spare, Larry could not find the key to his locking lug nuts. The car had to be towed to a nearby repair shop and Saul and I left in the Pilot to pick them all up after midnight to bring them back for one more night here. They left after lunch the following day, once the car had been repaired. Fortunately, Ari’s house was available, so they stopped in D.C. late that night to rest up for the remainder of the drive. Ken and Randi flew back on January 5, encountering all kinds of flight delays due to inclement weather in other parts of the country. They had to wait at Orlando airport from about 6 p.m. until after midnight to finally get a flight home and didn’t arrive home until the wee hours of the following morning. Usually, it is a little less than a two-hour flight.

The next day, we began our travels north with Ari to help him wrap up his affairs in the United States in advance of moving to London. It had been snowing in DC, and we watched the temperatures dropping as we proceeded north. We stayed overnight in our usual Comfort Inn Suites in Florence, SC. While Ari wrapped up things in the office, Saul and I began packing up his personal things. Three different management companies that he interviewed all independently agreed that his furnishings were of a quality that could stay, a great relief to all of us because it made the packing far less complicated and meant that he would not have pay for storage facilities while in London. Ari is not one to accumulate a lot of stuff, so we were able to fit anything he wasn’t taking in two suitcases to London into the back of our SUV for the trip back to Florida. During our stay in DC, settlement finally took place (without our presence) on our home in Pennsylvania, managed by the best real estate lawyer ever, Michael Maley. The three of us were able to wrap everything up and be back on the road to Florida by January 14. On the sixteenth, we finally opened a bottle of bubbly to celebrate our move to Florida that had been given to us by the realtor who facilitated the purchase of our Florida home. It had been chilling in our fridge since May 17. We had not felt like celebrating until we felt we were free of the other home. On Friday, January 17, our Shabbat dinner was a Tu B’Shevat seder. I had almost everything I needed for the seder either in the pantry or the freezer. It was beautiful!

On the next evening, Saturday, we really began to celebrate with a very special Chef’s Table dinner at the Edgewater Hotel in Winter Haven. We arrived to find an antique car show in progress along the main street of quaint Winter Haven and we took some photos before sitting down to dinner. Ari and I ordered the wine pairing to accompany the various courses and Saul had a few sips of each one. The meal was amazing! The next day, we took a drive to Clearwater Beach, but Ari’s experience of Clearwater, due to the damp weather, cold water, and piles of seaweed at the water’s edge was nothing like the previous experiences we had had. I hope he will come back to enjoy it as we had done before on numerous occasions. Meanwhile, back in the north, the whole polar vortex thing had begun with snow and ice storms, school closings and power failures. Sami and the girls used some of the time for creative projects at home. On January 22, the dining room table and chairs I had ordered back in May finally arrived! They were worth the wait. I just love them. While he was here, Ari helped me to pick out lighting fixtures and home accessories that had been put on hold until the sale of the house. I ordered and received some items of furniture that had been waiting in my shopping carts online for months. The whole house really started to come together beautifully. On good weather days, we hung out by the pool, or enjoyed the parks. We finally got to try the new restaurant in The Magic Kingdom, “Be Our Guest.” We waited in line for about 45 minutes and had lunch there, which was a unique experience. On entering, you choose your meal from a computerized menu at an ordering station that looks a bit like a casino slot machine in a very elegant castle-like setting. You are presented with an artificial rose-shaped homing device and choose any table in one of three French-castle-themed rooms straight from the “Beauty and the Beast” animated movie. We sat next to a wall of soaring Palladian windows which appeared to look out onto a night-time French countryside in which it was snowing. There was actual, artificial snow falling outside the windows. The homing device allows the waiters and waitresses in French colonial garb to find you and serve you the appropriate choices from a glass-encased, mahogany-framed rolling cart reminiscent of the cribs they use in hospitals to wheel out premature newborns, or perhaps Snow White’s tomb. We discovered at lunch that if you find an employee with a clipboard as you leave, you might be able to snag a dinner reservation that evening based on the day’s cancellations. We had been unsuccessful at booking dinner reservations there even a few months out, so we were delighted to be able to book really late reservations for the same evening. The dinner service is far more formal and expensive, but not unreasonably so. We felt we had a very wonderful dinner in a unique setting for a reasonable amount. We were happy to be able to view most of the fireworks show outside the castle before we went in for dinner. I also was absolutely delighted to be able to celebrate with a glass of French Sancerre wine from the Loire Valley, which I have not been able to locate by the glass since we dined in Paris over 20 years ago.

Trying to squeeze in all the fun we could before Ari was leaving for London for at least two years, we spent more sunny, warm days by the pool, and, the night before his flight, we had dinner at Monsieur Paul’s, an upscale French restaurant on the second floor above the regular French restaurant at France, Chefs de France, in the World Showcase of Epcot. Dinner, again, was truly wonderful, although I was a bit disappointed not to be able to get my beloved Sancerre by the glass there. Our wonderful, authentically French waiter, however, recommended a French pinot noir to accompany my meal which was quite good. That night, beginning at about 2:00 a.m. I became very ill with what I feared was food poisoning. I was aghast to think that Saul, and especially Ari, would have to deal with what I was going through while involved with packing, airports, and a long airplane flight. There was not a single food or beverage that we did not share at dinner the previous evening. In the morning, to my relief, I learned that both Saul and Ari had slept well and were feeling fine. By 6:00 a.m. I was feeling okay and felt fine by 8:00 a.m. after a two-hour nap. Apparently, I had been the unfortunate victim of a nasty 4-hour stomach virus. I later found out that Randi had experienced the same weird symptoms back in Pennsylvania a few days before they arrived here in Florida at the beginning of February.

A couple of days after Ari arrived safely in London, Saul and I met Adele and Larry at First Watch in The Villages for breakfast. We brought Adele home with us for a few days to visit. On the way back from The Villages, we spent the whole day shopping to put in provisions for the visit from Ken and Randi, and subsequently, Haley and Erik. We discovered that The Villages have a very active Original Brooklyn Water Bagel Co. (they even import the water from NY!), but we decided we prefer the Clearwater bagels even more. We stopped at Tuesday Morning in The Villages, Aldi’s, B.J.’s, Walmart, and the Cagan Crossings farmers market. We had a beautiful Shabbat dinner together with the groceries I had purchased along the way. Saturday evening, we took a walk to the Epcot gate from Disney’s Boardwalk. Adele had never been at The Boardwalk and was really taken with how realistically it mimicked the Atlantic City of our youthful vacations, albeit for only short distance. The weather was threatening rain the whole time, but we lucked out and only experienced a light drizzle for a few minutes. As all the restaurants there had at least a half hour wait, we decided to have a late dinner on the way home at Bahama Breeze, which has a late-night, half-price happy hour menu of appetizers and drinks. We had a great time schmoozing in the happy atmosphere of mostly-vacationing families.

The schmoozing continued with the arrival of Ken and Randi and we all spent a lovely, warm and sunny day hanging around the pool. Larry came to pick up Adele and we all had lunch together. For Izzy’s birthday on February 2, we sent her a robotics kit with several motors that allow you to assemble and build whatever you choose. She made very good use of it in the large expanses of time available due to all the school closings for snowy, icy weather in February. We had brunch with Ken and Randi at First Watch in Orlando on February 3. While we were traveling back, the outside temperature registered 93°F. on our car’s gauge, even as the weather in PA and NJ was in the teens. Unbelievable! Another unbelievable sight that day was an ultralight airplane flying over our house. In advance of their stay with us, Haley and Erik sent us a floating chess, checkers, and backgammon set that can be used in the pool.

After a few days with us, Ken and Randi left in our Pilot for a pre-scheduled stay at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL, and were very pleased with the doctors they encountered, the state-of-the-art facilities, and Ken’s test results, as well. After a few days there, on their drive back, they picked up Haley and Erik when they arrived at Orlando airport. Ever the consummate foodies, Haley and Erik, began their vacation, along with us, at their favorite steak restaurant, Charlie’s Steak House, on Rt. 192 near Celebration, as good a steak house as I have ever experienced. Thus fortified, we proceeded to celebrate Saul’s birthday with a string of amazing and decadent food experiences. After seeing the poignant movie, Monuments Men, together at Downtown Disney’s AMC theater, we finally were able to fulfill our reservations at Fulton’s Crab House. On two previous occasions, we had had to cancel at the last minute. Our meal was, again, a home run, and I have to say that Fulton’s makes the best Bloody Mary I have ever had, bar none. Next up was another encounter at the Chef’s Table at the Edgewater Hotel. We were just as pleased with the experience as the first time with Ari, a great relief, because you never know when you laud a restaurant to someone if it will come back to haunt you with a fiasco on the next occasion. Everyone was just as pleased as we were with both the food and service. They were a bit surprised at the ambience, having expected a big, glitzy hotel from our unwitting description, instead of the quaint, bohemian atmosphere that prevails. Following this, Randi’s sister Lori and her husband, Jules, drove in from Boca Raton. They were staying at The Swan Hotel and walked down The Boardwalk to meet us for lunch at Big River Grill and Brewing Works. We sat at a table outside, soaking up the warm sunshine, and keeping a wary eye on the hovering rapacious seagulls. Afterward, Jules and Lori returned to their hotel and we hopped on a ferry boat which deposited us at the gates of Epcot. We spent some time rocking with The British Revolution band in the garden at Disney’s English Village, and roamed around Epcot, meeting with Haley and Erik who had spent the day at Epcot with Erik’s mom, Betsy, and his brother and sister-in-law, with their little boy. Erik’s family had dinner reservations at The Garden Grill in The Land Pavilion, while Ken and Randi, Saul and I, Haley and Erik, and Jules and Lori had reservations in France to celebrate Saul’s birthday on the actual day. We met Betsy, Haley and Erik at Test Track and walked Betsy over to the other side of the park to meet her children for dinner. Then we walked back to have a late, elegant, but very noisy dinner in the crowded downstairs restaurant, Chefs de France in “France.” Saul has two birthday cakes with candles in the photo because we were also supposed to be celebrating Jules and Lori’s anniversary, and the staff got their signals crossed.

As part of their vacation, Haley and Erik had pre-scheduled all of us, including Erik’s family, for a dinner at Mama Melrose’s in the Hollywood Studios park which included special seating for the evening’s performance of Fantasmic! The package deal enabled us to order absolutely anything from the menu, which, thanks to our knowledgeable and efficient waitress, enabled us to take more than we could eat with us in packages, which we snacked on a few hours later while watching the show on the stadium seats that surround the lagoon where the show is presented. Before the show, we had time to experience “The Great Movie Ride” together. Our foodie experience the next day was in Celebration at the Columbia Restaurant, which Ken and Randi had loved, and couldn’t wait to share with Haley and Erik. We had a late, delicious, dinner with a waitress who kept us entertained with funny stories as she waited with trepidation to see if one of the owners of the restaurant would arrive from the airport before closing time. We had a few false alarms, but he was a no-show, as we were among the last to leave at closing time.

We spent several hours on a few different occasions looking at condos in the area, as Ken and Randi have decided to sell their house and move nearby. Haley and Erik have just rented out their home in the suburbs and were getting ready to move into an apartment in the city of Philadelphia. They found a chair that they liked online from a chain that has outlets near us, Rooms to Go. We finally located the appropriate chair on the floor of the outlet in Kissimmee. We drove to see it and then, ever searching for the new food experience, Erik had previously discovered, by searching online, that nearby Lakeland was having a gourmet food truck extravaganza. Somewhat reluctantly, we all agreed to take the drive. We were glad that we did because it did turn out to be a very unique and delicious experience. As the sun set though, the evening turned distinctly chilly, and we were glad to abandon the windy, green expanse of the town square, surrounded by food trucks purveying every type of food imaginable, for the warmth of our heated S.U.V.

The next morning, after dropping off the four of them at the airport, Saul and I went to buy provisions for Shabbat dinner. We went to B.J.’s and discovered in the midst of our shopping that we had missed a phone call from Betsy. Erik’s brother, wife, and son had driven to Florida because they could not find a peanut-free flight. Their child has a life-threatening allergy. Betsy, who is afraid of flying, had taken a two-day train ride down. Because of severe ice-storms in North Carolina, her return train had been cancelled and she was unable to book another night at her hotel because it was full. She was stranded with no place to stay and no transportation. Haley managed to book a flight for her the following day. Saul and I left from B.J.’s immediately when we heard the situation, and went directly to pick her up. We had relaxing, no fuss, Shabbat dinner together. In the morning, I gave Betsy a few of the Lorazepam tablets that I take when I fly, and she said, over breakfast, that she felt it kick in to calm her down. We also plied her with lots of fresh ginger tea to settle her stomach. During the drive to the airport, she was freaking a bit because she couldn’t find her driver’s license for identification that she had been holding that morning. When she arrived back in Philly, after an apparently smooth and uneventful flight, she laughingly texted us that she had stuffed it into her bra for safekeeping and then forgotten that she did it. Luckily, she remembered in time at the airport. Erik’s brother and family also returned home after driving through some harrowing weather, safe and sound.

Having overdosed, happily, on lots of wonderful food, we spent the following week detoxing by eating healthily at home, swimming, walking in the parks, and shopping a bit. Not long after, friends of Jessica and Alex from their life in Baltimore came to stay at the Disney Resorts for a few days during Presidents’ Weekend. Alice, with her daughters, Leanne, and Danielle were here with her sister and her sister’s two children for a brief family vacation. On two of the days, we met them in the afternoons at Epcot and the Magic Kingdom and enjoyed the spectacular weather and made use of our “Tables in Wonderland” discount card. The first day, we lunched together at the new Moroccan restaurant at Epcot, The Spice Road Table. It was the only really poor Disney experience we have had. The portions were so tiny (think half a breakfast-sized sausage, or two olives)  that we were compelled to order more food, also tiny portions, so the bill was quite large, over $120 for the eight of us. Although they had told us at the front that they accepted the discount card and the waiter had also nodded off on it when we showed it to him when we ordered, when it was time to pay the check, the card was rejected. We were ticked off enough to complain at Guest Services, but, while sympathetic, they did nothing to rectify the situation. At the Magic Kingdom the next day, we waited in line at “Be Our Guest” so that they could continue to enjoy the rides. They absolutely loved the lunch there and felt it was a good value and fabulous ambience. They had scheduled reservations well in advance for dinner at Tony’s Town Square Restaurant, and Saul and I were able to add ourselves to their reservation when we stopped in to check. We went on many of the rides with them, using our Fast Pass Plus to save them time waiting in some of the lines. It was such a fabulous day that we stayed with them until after dinner to view the light show on the castle and fireworks.

The following week, I began experimenting with food. I turned me and everything in the kitchen bright yellow preparing fresh turmeric that I had purchased at First Oriental Supermarket in an attempt to make a liver detox tea from a recipe that Jessica found online when we realized that the spices in the Southern Indian food at Rajbhog and Woodlands were very effective at lowering my glycemic index. The tea, which included cinnamon, coconut milk and honey among other things, was delicious, but did not do enough to lower the numbers based on the amount of work to prepare it. Luckily, OxiClean in a bucket was successful at removing most of the stains, or my Cuisinart would have been ruined; probably my kitchen counters, too.  One of my best experiments involved incorporating several cups of a variety of high protein, non-glutinous flours into my challah recipe. I will be putting that recipe on my other blog shortly, and may never make it with all standard bread flour again because it was so delicious, healthy, and beautiful.

On February 22, we went to the Magic Kingdom in the evening to walk and found ourselves there until almost midnight because we had such a good view of the Electric Parade and the light show and fireworks. As we were leaving, we discovered that the entire monorail system had been shut down, and I was leery of getting on an overcrowded ferry boat at night to get back to our car. We hung around for a while, getting really close up photos of the parade a second time in the very uncrowded park, and by then, the monorail had been repaired and we got back to the car in record time.

During the rest of February, we continued to enjoy the great weather, swimming in our pool for a few hours every day, eating out occasionally, checking out condos for Ken and Randi, organizing our house, and walking in the parks. We could not be more contented. We also spent a few days searching for flights to London and were rewarded with a very good price. We will be in Europe for almost two months. We also arranged to have all our medical checkups back in Pennsylvania with our long-time doctors. We scheduled routine physicals, colonoscopies, and a mammogram for me all within a one-week period at the beginning of May.

At the beginning of March, we went to the AMC theater at Downtown Disney to see a matinee showing of The Wind Rises, the new, and probably the last, Miyazaki movie, as he is set to retire at 73. It is a beautiful and haunting tale based on real-life characters. When the movie ended, I felt very sad that such artistry will be at an end. Following the movie, we had a leisurely dinner at Joe’s Crab Shack where the chef makes us a special preparation of spicy chili citrus sauce that allows me to indulge without raising my glycemic index.

On March 4, we attended the Plant City Strawberry Festival. It was a huge extravaganza covering several acres of tract with carny rides, street food stands, midway games, livestock shows, pig races, sales booths, displays of local crafts, preserves, quilts, sewing, knitting, etc. as well as a huge stadium with country-western performances by well-known groups, such as The Oak Ridge Boys. Thousands of people were in attendance. We walked around for several hours, but the heat and humidity got to us after three hours of walking and we decided not to stay for the performance of Brenda Lee. After a quick late lunch at a Sonny’s (I could not bring myself to sample the fare at the questionably sanitary booths) we collapsed at home. We had lucked out bagging a reservation at Victoria and Albert’s, an uber upscale restaurant at Disney’s Grand Floridian Hotel. We had tried for months to get a reservation, and one last try a few days before my birthday had succeeded. That was another reason that I didn’t want to risk doing damage to my system with carny food.

We spent the morning of my birthday at Epcot where Disney’s Flower and Garden Festival was just opening. The park, which is usually beautifully landscaped anyway, was exceptionally gorgeous with the addition of topiary gardens, myriads of flowers planted in designs around all the water features and lagoon, breath-taking bonsais, and herb-surrounded booths selling ethnic delicacies from around the world in the World Showcase. The weather was beautiful and temperate, so we strolled for hours. In the afternoon, we met a realtor, so we could take Ken and Randi on a virtual tour of another possible condo, on which they bid, but subsequently, the bank withdrew from the market. We rested for a few hours in the afternoon, too excited about our 9:15 p.m. reservations to take a proper nap beforehand. The experience was scintillating on so many levels, probably the second or third best of my life, just after The French Laundry and an incredible meal in Paris many years ago. It was my first time at the Grand Floridian Hotel, which is over-the-top in a way that only Disney can pull off. Under the elaborate white portecochère, a complimentary valet took our car and directed us to the restaurant on the second floor overlooking the soaring skylit lobby. A full orchestra in period clothing was adding beautiful music to the majestic spectacle. The entrance is so tucked away that we had trouble finding it and had to ask at the gift shop. Even the salesgirl was not quite sure where to find the entrance. We were met by a receptionist and greeted by a hostess in Victorian garb who ushered us through a set of double French doors to our table. The room was small, housing about two dozen tables and was done in shades of peach, gold and tan. A large table with a huge fresh flower arrangement was the focal point at the center of the room. Our waiters were dressed in Victorian morning suits and were pleasant and low-key, but were extremely well-versed in their craft. Our customized menus were presented in leather cases. I ordered the wine pairings and Saul helped me with a few sips of each one (seven in all), although they poured a complimentary quantity of Champagne for him right at the beginning. I drank all seven of them, for the most part, over the next three hours without any sulfite reactions or headaches, something to which I am very prone. I was able to walk out (with a very pleasant buzz) in my high heels, and had no hangover the next day. We finished every morsel and drop of everything we were served, except for the last course of exquisite bonbons, which they wrapped for us and added to a complimentary bag at the end along with a remarkably good, freshly-baked loaf of orange-date-nut bread spiked with Triple Sec, our souvenir menus, and a long-stemmed red rose. Writing about the delights of the meal itself would take several pages, but suffice it to say that each course was gorgeous to behold and was a wonder of contrasting tastes and textures. The employees in Disney World always tell you, “Have a magical day!” My birthday was, definitely!

We went to synagogue at Ohalei Rifka for services on Saturday, took a nap after lunch in the afternoon, and then returned to Epcot to walk because the weather was so perfect, and because there was a rockin’ concert by the Guess Who. We bought some delicious sandwiches from the nearby kiosk, and ate them while we watched the concert under the starry sky. Then we watched the IllumiNations fireworks show over the lagoon, walked back to the Boardwalk to pick up our car from the complimentary valet at the hotel there, and drove the 15 minutes back to our beautiful home. I can’t imagine life being any better. May the Florida bubble never burst!

Hakuna Matata

Hakuna Matata, what a wonderful phrase

Hakuna Matata, ain’t no passing craze

It means no worries for the rest of your days

It’s our problem-free philosophy, Hakuna Matata

We went to see the “Festival of the Lion King” at Disney’s Animal Kingdom park with our friend, Larry, who joined us for a few weeks. The lyrics from this song struck me as perfect for our new retirement lifestyle here in Florida. Although I have known and loved the music for many years, until I googled the phrase, I wasn’t sure if it was a made-up word like “supercalifragilisticexpialodocious” or a real African phrase. Sure enough, it is a real Swahili expression meaning “no worries.” Most of the time, Saul and I achieve this idyllic state, as most of our days for the last few months have consisted of rising in the morning when we feel like it, having breakfast by the pool in gorgeous weather, possibly shopping, doing a small project around the house (there are always ways to improve it), and either swimming in our pool, or enjoying walks in one of the four Disney Parks, or both. Tough, huh?

Since my last post, I can report that we had as delightful and easy a fast for Yom Kippur as anyone could wish because of the temperate weather. Our drive back to DC with Ari after breaking the fast was fine, even though it was late. Saul and I left DC on Sunday, September 15, after having breakfast with Ari. Unfortunately, because of our timing, we spent about three hours in heavy traffic just traveling the first 100 miles of our 900-mile journey back home. Doubly unfortunately, once the traffic eased up, we almost immediately ran over a blown tractor-trailer retread that damaged the undercarriage of our Prius. It sounded much worse than it looked, and Saul, with his amazing talent for quick fixes, was able to crawl under the car with some hose tape that we purchased at a nearby truck stop, remove part of the damaged cowling and tape the rest up so that we could continue our journey. For this fiasco, we only lost about a half hour of traveling time. As we neared the end of our first evening’s trek to Florence, SC, the rain was coming down so heavily that we almost missed our exit in the dark. Fortunately, we were able to get a comfortable room for the night at our favorite Comfort Suites, and left refreshed and well rested the next morning, a clear day, after a satisfying free breakfast. We really were excited to be heading home to our new life.

We arrived home on Monday, September 16, and had dinner at Sweet Tomatoes before 5:00 p.m. We quickly unpacked our car and suitcases and met Ken and Randi at Epcot for the IllumiNations fireworks that same evening. They had been in Disney World at The Swan Hotel vacationing with Jamie and Andy, Presley, Evan, and John and Cindy, Andy’s parents. The next morning, we met all of them at The Art of Animation Hotel where Jamie and Andy and the kids were staying to have a rather chaotic breakfast together. Following breakfast, Jamie and Andy went off to a timeshare pitch, while the parents babysat, and we went home to catch up with laundry and food shopping. The next day, we picked up the “old folks” to see our home. That night, while Cindy, Randi, Jamie, Andy, and Presley were attending the “Not So Scary Halloween Party,” dressed as various characters from Peter Pan in the Magic Kingdom, Saul and I picked up Ken, Evan, and John and had dinner at Joe’s Crab Shack, where Evan was able to play in the restaurant’s playground with me while we were waiting to be served. Afterward, we dropped the three of them off at The Art of Animation Hotel to put Evan to bed and await the return of the others. The next morning, we picked up Ken and Randi from their brunch at The Grand Floridian, with John and Cindy, dropped John and Cindy back at The Swan to meet their airport shuttle, and brought Ken and Randi with their luggage back to stay with us for what was supposed to be two weeks.

We spent Thursday with Ken and Randi relaxing by the swimming pool while the kids fulfilled their self-scheduled activities at the parks. Over the next few days, we picked up provisions for Shabbat dinner at Costco and First Oriental Supermarket, went to see Fantasmic! at Hollywood Studios, bought a used wheelchair for Ken from a Craigslist ad (so that we would not have to rely on renting them from Disney), took a late night walk around the lushly-landscaped indoor gardens of the Gaylord Palms Hotel, and shared half price mojitos and small plates at Bahama Breeze. Randi’s sister and brother-in-law, Lori and Jules, became grandparents to a new baby boy, so we spent a day driving to Boca Raton to visit them and to see the new baby, a drive that was memorable in that we were held up for half an hour alongside a car that had just flipped over, while the medics evacuated a badly injured young woman by helicopter. It landed on the cleared highway right in front of us. After visiting the children at home with their new son, we had a lively and delicious dinner together with Lori and Jules, sitting at outdoor tables along the seaside at Boston’s. The next day, we toured Animal Kingdom. Afterward, we picked up Ari at Orlando Airport on his return flight from Paris where he had been vacationing for a several days. He stayed with us for the last few days of his vacation, before flying back to DC. During his stay, we spent some very enjoyable hours making the rounds of the Food and Wine Festival that had begun at Epcot, sampling some really exotic wines and beers from around the world. Thirty different countries were represented at the festival. On Friday, September 27, we shopped for and prepared a Shabbat dinner and were joined by Larry and Adele, who drove in from The Villages so that we could all be together. The strain of the vacation took a toll on Ken’s health and he and Randi decided to return home earlier than planned so that he could receive a few extra treatments from his applied kinestheologist. We took them to the airport on September 29. Ari spent a day shopping with us and just hanging out by the pool before we returned him to the airport on September 30. For the next few days, Saul and I accomplished various odds and ends around the house, including finishing hanging our artwork, a process that began with Ari’s input, assembling a few miscellaneous pieces of IKEA furniture (a television table and a printer table), adjusting some wiring to be more unobtrusive, unpacking and organizing a few last boxes from our move, cleaning out the garage, cooking to use up some leftovers, etc. In between, we swam in our pool and took long walks in the parks almost every evening, enjoying the “Eat to the Beat” concerts that were a part of the Epcot Food and Wine Festival, especially The Pointer Sisters.

Our friend Larry drove down to stay with us for a few weeks beginning on October 18. Larry, like Ken and Randi and Ari, also decided to buy an annual pass to the park so that we could all come and go at will. On his first Shabbat morning here, he accompanied us to services at Ohalei Rivka, where he was immediately welcomed and rewarded with an aliyah. Over the next few days, we visited Epcot and Animal Kingdom. We dined at various restaurants in the area, Miller’s Ale House, Bahama Breeze, Sonny’s Barbecue, Sweet Tomatoes, First Watch and Ming’s Bistro. One night, we visited Universal Studios City Walk and had a very lively dinner at Margaritaville where Larry imbibed a multicolored and flavored flight of margarita samples. We visited Adele and Larry at The Villages and had a very pleasant lunch with them at Lighthouse Point Bar and Grill by the side of a lake. Saul developed a nasty ear infection in both ears during the first few days of Larry’s visit. He was much better after we visited a nearby walk-in clinic and he began taking antibiotics and ear drops for a few days. He was under the weather for a day or two, though, so just Larry and I went to the parks a few times. Saul missed the Boyz II Men concert at Epcot. At our Shabbat dinner on October 25, I made a number of Larry’s favorite dishes to celebrate his birthday on October 22, including kasha and bow ties, Texas sheet cake, wedge salad with Russian dressing, chicken satay, corn on the cob, and homemade challah. Larry brought with him a collection of etrogim from the Sukkot celebration at MBI-EE. While he was here, we turned them into a collection of etrog/honey jam to take back home with him for our friends. Saul and I went to see Smashmouth at Epcot, an amazing concert. After making arrangements to visit the lodge, Saul and Larry attended a Masonic meeting in nearby Clermont.

At Larry’s suggestion, we took a drive to Clearwater Beach, somewhere none of us had visited before. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and the pleasant drive took about an hour and a half. Coincidentally, we arrived to find that their Second Annual Chalk Walk Art Festival was in full swing. We had a delightful lunch sitting on the second floor deck of Frenchy’s, a seaside restaurant. The beach was spectacular white sand, and the calm Gulf water warm even at the end of October. We took off our shoes and strolled a few blocks down along the water’s edge. The artwork was incredible! I even was invited to pose, sitting on the concrete sidewalk inside one of the chalk drawings that was designed in perspective to look three-dimensional, so that it looks like I am sitting in a beach chair! It is one of my favorite photos ever. Another bonus of the trip is that we found a little place that makes the most delicious New Jersey-style bagels anywhere—Clearwater Bagels. We bought a dozen to put in the freezer, a good thing, because we had recently discovered that the one place in our area to get good bagels, A Roll with a Hole, had just gone out of business. On October 31, Halloween Day, we decided to explore Celebration, Florida, a nearby planned community that was to be a prototype a la Disney. We had an elegant and memorable lunch there at the Columbia Restaurant, a 100-year-old family institution that began in Ybor City, a Spanish community that settled in Florida many years ago. In our meanderings through this very charming and unusual town, we happened upon a sizable, Halloween-decorated private house that was the ultimate. In fact, it was not immediately recognizable as a house. The entire front was obscured by a two-story-high, fake facade that emulated a haunted pirate ship. The presentation was so enormous and so detailed that we immediately wondered where the whole thing is stored during the rest of the year. Our meal at Columbia was delicious and memorable. We returned home and spent the rest of the afternoon in the pool, only drying out to hand out candy to the approximately 15 kids who came to the door trick-or-treating.

We had Shabbat dinner that I prepared with Larry on Friday, evening, November 1. He left for home the next day right before we were hit with a driving rain storm. During the following week, we went to a Christopher Cross concert at Epcot. On Tuesday morning, we picked up Adele at The Villages and brought her home to stay with us for a couple of days as Larry was attending a Bridge Tournament in Daytona Beach. We hung out by the pool, ate at Sweet Tomatoes, and spent Wednesday in Clearwater Beach. The weather and water were as beautiful as the first time. We had lunch on the second floor deck of Crabby Bill’s Bar and Grill, next to Frenchy’s, overlooking the Gulf. Again, we walked for several blocks at the water’s edge. Again, we picked up bagels and added some pastries, Adele’s treat. On Thursday, before returning Adele home, we stopped in Celebration to show her the Halloween house and then went for dim sum in Orlando at Ming’s Bistro, because Adele is a big Chinese food fan and Larry is not. That Friday, Saul and I just had a quiet Shabbat dinner together. Within a few days, Ari flew to London for a work-related extended stay.

Also, a few days later, we picked up Erica and Danny, along with Brenna and Ava, at Orlando Airport to begin their one-week planned Disney vacation. Their vacation had been planned long before we had an inkling that we would be buying a home here. We brought them home to drop off their luggage, lunched together on our good bagels and lox, and then we took them to visit their parents, and tour The Villages. We all had dinner together at Sonny’s Barbecue in The Villages. Brenna stayed with Adele and Larry, and Erica, Danny, and Ava stayed with us the first night because of Ava’s allergy to the dogs. The next morning, we awoke to the happy sounds of Ava in the pool with Danny poolside with his cup of French-press coffee. We headed over to their Disney hotel, the All-Star Disney Movie Resort to meet Adele, Larry and Brenna so that they could all check into their rooms. It was a process that took over two hours. After that, we rendezvoused at Joe’s Crab Shack for dinner. After dropping them back at their hotel, Saul and I went to Epcot, taking photos of Epcot’s “England” to exchange for the incredible photos Ari was sending us from the real England. Then, we attended the Big Bad Voodoo Daddy concert, which was majorly swinging! We met the family off and on for various experiences in the parks. To celebrate Brenna’s birthday, we all had lunch together at the Rainforest Café in Animal Kingdom. Later, we bought Brenna a microchip-controlled set of light-up Mickey Mouse “Glow with the Show” ears which coordinate with various extravaganzas at the Disney Parks. Unfortunately, Danny got sick with a stomach bug almost from the beginning, but toughed things out for a few days until it got the better of him. On Friday, November 15, our friends, Ruth and Giora stopped in on their way down to their winter condo in Marco Island to see our home, have lunch with us, and drop off instructions so that we could stay in their home in Voorhees, NJ, the week before, and during, Sami’s bat mitzvah. Their home is only about two miles from Jess and Alex’s and from TBS, and, more importantly, it is pet free. On Saturday evening, November 16, Saul and I went to the Magic Kingdom to see the castle lit in gorgeous fashion as though it were encased in ice (a la the new Disney movie, Frozen). We hung around that night to see what the park looks like when it is almost empty of people. Unhappily, that is how we discovered that the monorail back across the lake to our car ceases running at midnight, but we were able to take a much slower ferry boat. We felt a bit like Cinderella when the coach turned back into a pumpkin.

With true serendipity, Saul and I discovered a free, invitation-only party online, sponsored by Yelp with suggested donations to help Harbor House, that was taking place on Sunday, November 17, in Orlando. We put in our names as alternates, as the guest list was already filled, but were awarded last minute tickets when there were a few cancellations. We had an absolutely incredible afternoon, strolling around the grounds and sampling the offerings of dozens of restaurants and vendors from the Orlando area. In addition, there was entertainment by a number of local acts—singing, dancing, magic, guitar, etc. There was even a hairdressing salon set up outdoors if you wanted to sit still that long. Billed as Yelp’s Bohemian Bash, it was an amazing amalgam of food, wine, whiskey, cocktails, and entertainment where we ate wonderful tidbits until we couldn’t move and drank more alcohol than we should have. We went home loaded with more flare and beautifully-packaged desserts than we could easily carry. An added bonus was that, in addition to learning a great deal about what was available around us in Orlando, we met some really delightful people from the area, although of the 500 that were lucky enough to get tickets, we were probably among the oldest.

A few days after Danny, Erica, Adele and Larry all went home, we hit the nearby outlet malls in search of a folding suitcase. We found exactly what we wanted and returned home to pack our party clothes, anything we still had that was warm, and anything we thought might be useful in the kitchen to prepare for the bat mitzvah (about two cartons worth of cake pans, cookie cutters, cake decorating equipment, etc.) and packed up the Prius for our trip to New Jersey for Sami’s bat mitzvah. We left on Tuesday, November 19. We had planned to have lunch at Fresh on the Fly in Lake Mary, FL, again, along Rte. 4, but sadly discovered it was already out of business and replaced by another restaurant. Around the corner, we ate instead at Jax 5th Avenue Deli and Ale House, a bit disappointing, but the food was okay. Staying overnight again at the Comfort Suites in Florence, SC, we later discovered a charming new place along our I-95 route in the college town of Wilson, NC—Quince, A Southern Bistro. Besides the charming setting, we were welcomed with warm southern hospitality and good southern cooking—definitely a great respite from the long hours of driving.

We arrived at Ari’s home on November 20, and walked over to nearby Meridian Pint for a satisfying dinner. Since Ari had been assigned to London with only a few days notice, we were able to get things organized for him that had been left undone, such as emptying his refrigerator of perishable food, etc. During our time in DC, we discovered two new breakfast places that we really liked, Highlands, very fresh food, reasonable, and just a mile from his home; and Mark’s Kitchen in Tacoma Park on our way to New Jersey. Mark’s Kitchen had some really unusual offerings and I was delighted with my savory mung bean pancakes, served with teriyaki sauce, home fries with onions, and eggs. Saul was also delighted with his breakfast sandwich and buckwheat banana pancakes. We made the final drive to Jess and Alex on Friday, November 22, arriving at Ruth and Giora’s with just enough time to open the house, unpack, change clothes, and head over to join the kids and Alex’s mom for Shabbat dinner. We all attended Alex’s family service at TBS the next morning.

Beginning on Sunday morning, our preparations for the bat mitzvah the following Friday and Saturday began. Jess and I went shopping after her Sunday morning classes were over. We delivered everything to the TBS kitchen and I began to bake all the cakes needed to somewhat emulate the tiered wonder that Sami had found on Pinterest. While at Michael’s for additional cake decorating supplies, such as fondant, we were inspired by pearly blue chocolate-filled beads that matched the colors for the party, which were turquoises, peacock blue and copper. I found copper Luster Dust there as well. Jessica had ordered sugar peacock feathers to add to the cake decor, a discovery she had made online. They inspired the rest of the cake. In the months leading up to the event, Jess, Alex and the girls had all been busy with crafts and items that made the affair truly unique. From the acrylic painting I had made based on Sami’s Torah portion, Alex produced beautiful invitations incorporating various elements of the design, as well as birkat hamazon benchers. The girls had spent countless hours producing one-of-a-kind women’s head coverings made from copper wire, beads, and charms. Jess had crocheted the men’s kippot. Leftover wood strips of flooring from their kitchen remodel had been turned into long centerpiece planters which housed herbs and etrog trees that Alex had grown from seeds leftover from last year’s etrog-honey jam. Suspended above each of them were nine delicate glass globes to house tealight candles in a chanukiah-type configuration as this year, Chanukah, Thanksgiving, and Sami’s Bat Mitzvah all came together in one marathon long weekend. Elaine, Sami and Jess, but mostly Elaine, had labored to produce a gorgeous tallit for Sami to wear that is as unique as she is, with embroidered messages of love in the corners. Alex and Jess grommeted the holes for the tzitzit and Alex and Sami worked together to tie the special knots incorporating the tekhelet of blue into the tzitzit. Sami has worked countless hours this year volunteering for Hazon CSA of Southern New Jersey, a group whose mission is to support sustainable agriculture and local farmers. With this in mind, Jess planned everything from the recycled centerpieces, to the plates and cutlery made from pressed palm leaves and bamboo, to the stacks of fabric towels in the bathrooms, to the local and sustainable sourcing of the meal itself, so that disposable waste did not accumulate because of this event. To date, Sami has personally raised over $2,500.00 for Hazon.

With everyone pitching in, we were able to complete all the preparations that had been planned right on schedule. Ari flew in from London the Saturday before the bat mitzvah, worked in DC for a few days, drove to Cherry Hill on Wednesday, and stayed with us at Ruth and Giora’s. He was, as always, a tremendous force for good, keeping everyone cool and on track, always pointing out what is truly important when we all get stressed over the details, and lending a hand wherever necessary. He spent several hours tying multicolored ribbons around the napkins which draped from the plates down the sides of the tables, adding a colorful touch to the room. On Friday morning, we returned his Mercedes, which was at the end of its lease period to the dealer in Cherry Hill, ahead of his returning to London. Jess and Alex were especially happy to host their friends, Rabbi Menachem and Liz, and their three children from Berkeley, CA. Their friendship dates back to JTS days and with all the demands of family life and synagogue congregations, they have had precious few moments to spend together over the last 17 years. Menachem was the best man at their wedding. Every child had one corresponding to their age with whom to relate, and they all seemed to get along famously.

Wednesday evening, Jess had arranged a professional photographer to take formal shots of the family as no photographs could be taken during the Shabbat festivities. It was a happy and productive evening. The photographer, Sheena Levi Photography, a friend and co-worker of Jessica’s was very professional and exhibited a creative and delightful personality. Elaine hosted the Thanksgiving dinner for the family this year and we so appreciated the delicious food and all the effort she lavished on the details, especially after our daily labors to ready everything for the bat mitzvah.

The actual event was far more than a warm and unpretentious service and meal. On both days, Sami handled almost all aspects of both services with poise and expertise. We all knew how smart and creative she is, but we were nevertheless wowed by the amount of preparation and knowledge that she exhibited. She was a superstar! Entering the candlelit hall, we were impressed with the creativity of the beautiful setting, sparkling with not only the suspended tea-light-illuminated, glass globes, but the fairy lights that twinkled beneath the sheer fabric of the buffet tables and lattice panels. The seating arrangement, listed on a board next to the cake at the entrance was also unique and beautiful. The families and friends, who had come from near and far, moved about the long tables and actually engaged in lively conversation. The food was delicious and beautifully presented on the buffets. The servers were efficient and friendly. And, as is usually the case with Jessica’s affairs, the weather was great, too. The evening was lovely in every regard.

Saturday’s main event was attended by over 300 people. If Sami felt any nervousness or pressure, she did not show it at all. In addition to leading the entire service, she flawlessly read in Hebrew all but a small section of the entire Torah portion. She even impressed the part of the family that attends Chabad services regularly with not only her fluency with Hebrew, but her accuracy as far as the trope (rhythmic cantillation) of the reading. During the previous week, we had all worked at the synagogue to prepare four items for the meals—the cake, a dozen challahs, butternut apple crisp, and baked ziti. Everything was greatly appreciated by the guests. The cake, especially, turned out spectacular (better than the model on which it was based) and weighed about 60 lbs. when completed. After an enjoyable and sociable afternoon feasting and catching up with friends and family members we have not seen for far too long, we were ready for a long nap. As evening approached, Jess and Alex and Menachem and Liz headed off with the kids to a nearby indoor water park at the Hotel ML where some of the relatives were staying. Saul, Ari, and I decided, after we rested for a while, to pack up and leave for DC that evening, rather than waiting for morning, as Ari needed to be delivered to Dulles Airport by 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, and we feared getting caught in traffic on the holiday weekend. We secured Ruth and Giora’s home, stopped in Havre de Grace on our way home for a light meal at Laurrapin Grill, and were in bed in DC before midnight.

The next morning, we arose early to have a dim sum breakfast together at Oriental East. Arriving back at his home, we helped him finish his laundry, get his house together for his absence, helped him pack for the trip back to London, and delivered him to the airport right on time. Saul and I decided to sleep for one more night in DC before heading home. We had dinner one more time at Meridian Pint and then hit the sack early so that we could be on the road very early to avoid the DC traffic in “the mixing bowl.” We arose at 3:00 a.m., packed our Prius with our overnight stuff, and were on the road home by 4:15 a.m. When we left DC, the temperature was 30°F. and we were in winter coats, scarves, sweaters, wool socks, etc. We couldn’t wait to get back to our balmy Florida home. Encountering very little traffic at that hour, we fairly flew through Virginia and were in Florence, SC, our usual stopping place, before lunch time. We decided to press on and we were feeling great, both psychologically from our happy, contented, and productive week with family and friends, and physically, from the great food, lack of stress, and anticipation of resuming our warm, retired, Florida lifestyle (Hakuna Matata). We had a late lunch at Dickey’s in Pooler, GA, and decided to try to complete the drive in one day. By the time we reached Georgia, we had ecstatically stripped ourselves of coats, scarves, sweaters, and socks. We stopped at Sweet Tomatoes in Kissimmee for dinner as the sun was setting, and walked in the door of our home before 8:00 p.m. It was 72°F and it was sweeet! We lit our first Chanukah candles in our new home in Florida the last three nights of the holiday.

Tuesday, after unpacking everything, stowing all our winter duds far away, and catching up with our laundry, we spent the warm evening wandering at Epcot, taking more photos of “England” for Ari and our other Dr. Who enthusiasts, and viewing the special extra fireworks added onto the already-spectacular IllumiNations show. On Wednesday, we went to Downtown Disney to catch the movie, Frozen, in 3D. The weather was so beautiful that we strolled for hours by the lake, lounged under the palm trees in the public square, popped in and out of art stores, and lunched outdoors at Bongos Cuban Café before reluctantly leaving the sunshine to enter the opulently-appointed theater to see the visually-stunning animated movie. To our surprise, Downtown Disney is undergoing some sort of massive reconstruction project and we can’t wait to see what is being added. Thursday, we went shopping to replenish our supply of coffee for our newly-pilfered Tassimo (from Ari). We located a really well-stocked Bed, Bath and Beyond, and were gratified to find that their 20% off coupons were honored if you picked up the coffee there, instead of ordering it online. On Friday, we restocked our pantry and refrigerator with the most wonderful stuff. The Aldi Supermarket in Clermont has beautiful, fresh, mostly-local produce at bargain prices. On the way back, we stopped at a roadside farm stand to buy freshly-picked, locally-grown strawberries, that were expensive, $4.00 a box, but incredibly beautiful, sweet, and delicious. They were a variety that was long and slender, unlike the usual generic tasteless ones. Also on our way home, we stopped at the Friday afternoon farmers market at nearby Cagan Crossings, something we have been meaning to do for months. There, we picked up the most amazing eggs from a local farmer who cares for his chickens in a true free-range setting. He cannot sell his eggs directly because they are not pasteurized as commercial large egg producers are required to do. So, his business is billed as “Rent a Hen.” Technically, you are not buying eggs, but picking up the output of your rented hen. He has many different varieties of chickens and they lay eggs ranging in color from blue through various shades of brown and beige. The eggs, which we have been using all week, are wonderful! We also bought homemade tamales, hot, from a local husband and wife team, and my favorite Jubilee orange tomatoes. We sampled delicious, freshly-popped artisanal caramel and salt popcorn from two local guys, but we’re waiting for company to come before we buy some as I would probably be tempted to snack on it incessantly.

On Saturday, we attended services at our new shul, Ohalei Rivka, especially to say kaddish to remember Saul’s dad, who died right after the end of Chanukah many years ago. The synagogue was packed to capacity in honor of a bat mitzvah that was taking place that day. During the next week, as blizzards began to hammer practically the entire country, including the Philadelphia area, we were enjoying record high temperatures and sunny skies in Florida. We spent whole afternoons enjoying our pool, further exploring our surroundings, and taking long evening walks in the Disney parks which culminate with incredible fireworks and light shows. We discovered the seasonal Osborne Dancing Lights at Disney’s Hollywood Studios Park, truly an overwhelming and sensational experience. In the midst of all this warmth, we were experiencing man-made snow flurries in the park. Wow!

During our week with Jessica and Alex, we ate twice at Rajbhog, a completely vegetarian, southern Indian restaurant with an incredibly complex and delicious menu. On both occasions, even though I overindulged, my sugar measured in the low 80’s afterward, the lowest it has measured since I started monitoring it several months ago. I was incredulous, but then Liz pointed out that certain spices, especially turmeric and cumin, are extremely efficacious in lowering blood sugar. Since then, I have been experimenting with adding spices to my food with very good results. In conversation with our favorite waitress at Sweet Tomatoes, whose nickname is Jellie, I mentioned the fact that we had left behind, in the north, a vegetarian, southern Indian restaurant, that was capable of lowering my blood sugar substantially every time I ate there. She proved to be extremely knowledgeable on the subject, suggesting various spices and a homeopathic spice-based capsule that supposedly works in conjunction with traditional medication. She also recommended a vegetarian, southern Indian restaurant in Orlando, which she and her family have been frequenting for at least eight years, Woodlands. Saul and I immediately went there for their buffet lunch, and again, after overindulging in the unlimited buffet, including a sweet dessert called payasam and fresh wedges of Florida oranges, my blood sugar was normal. Today, we had lunch at a non-vegetarian Indian restaurant just about a mile from our home, Dhaba. I have high hopes for my blood sugar reading tomorrow! Rajbhog was the yummiest, but I would rather be living here.

Another signed agreement on our house in North Wales fell through when a home inspector managed to convince the buyer that a new dimensional roof on top of the first one was not really a new roof because it was a second layer, and they wanted us to remove both roofs to install a third new one. We are now awaiting the results of a third signed agreement that is supposed to be settled by December 31. We substantially reduced the price because they agreed to such a speedy settlement, and will take the house “as is.” In the meantime, the latest home inspector is about to drill holes through the outside stucco to check for mold with no liability on his part. We are fully expecting this deal to fall through as well, not because we think they will find mold, but because our life is so wonderful now, we expect that there must be some reason for us to worry. In that regard, we just keep reminding ourselves how lucky we are right now and that we should not let the stress of dealing with our former home creep in to wear away at our present happy state of being. Hakuna matata!

Our New Life in Florida

Since I began writing this blog five and a half years ago, there have been long periods when I have been so busy that months have gone by before I had time to make an entry. This is, by far, the longest period of time that has passed and for good reason. Almost everything about our life has changed and I am happy to say, so far, we are loving our new home and lifestyle in Davenport, Florida, about a 15-minute drive from Disney World’s gates. As I write this, Saul sits beside me at Ari’s dining room table in DC to help me get all the important stuff together to get some semblance of an accurate story of the last five months of our lives. We are presently in the north for the Jewish high holy days and right now, we are between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, which we decided to observe with Ari at MBI-EE in Philadelphia. We have been driving from shul to Jess and Alex’s so that we can be together for family celebratory meals. We have been staying overnight with both Ken and Randi in Warrington, and Ari in DC in between. We actually moved out of our home in North Wales, PA, on July 25, and the moving van arrived with our possessions in Florida on July 30. There was a somewhat frenetic, and anxiety-ridden period between May and September, which was more than offset by an absolutely delightful summer, probably one of the best in our lives.

During the month of May, we drove down to Florida in Ari’s Mercedes (to use up excess mileage on his lease) to see the new house we were about to purchase. We took advantage of an extra timeshare week we had previously purchased from a promotion at Summer Bay, just 10 minutes from the home. We were delighted with our first encounters with our new home. It was much cleaner and in better shape than we had expected. The purpose of this particular trip was to find contractors to get the house ready for our move. It rained almost the entire time we spent in Florida, an unusual situation, as mostly it teems for a few minutes every day and then the sun comes out within a short time. We did have a beautiful several hours sitting by our pool while waiting to meet various contractors. The last party in our old home was our annual Mother’s Day brunch. The next day, we began packing in earnest. Shavuot fell in the middle of the month, and we observed it with Jess and Alex at TBS. Before setting off for DC, we spent a delightful afternoon with our friends, Marianne and Cliff who live in the retirement community, The Foulkeways. Marianne was Mom’s hospice volunteer. The facilities where they reside are convenient, safe, and aesthetically pleasing almost everywhere you look. Their newly-constructed greenhouse held some real treasures, including a priceless and ageless bonsai. A few days later, we drove to Ari’s and spent a day with my cousin, Anne, who was attending a conference in DC. We toured the Lincoln Memorial, Korean Veteran’s Memorial, and National Arboretum. We had a fantastic lunch at and toured the American Indian Museum, and we were joined by Ari after work for a delightful twilight dinner outdoors on the canal in Georgetown at a restaurant called Sea Catch.

Settlement on the house in Florida went smoothly without our presence, except for a last minute fiasco that involved a glitch in the timing of our bank’s wiring the money. Luckily, we were having lunch with Ken and Randi when we learned of it and were just five minutes from the bank that was handling the transaction, so we were able to rectify the situation in record time, and we assumed ownership of the property on May 17, as planned. The last week of May and the first few days of June were spent back in Florida. Ari drove us down and worked remotely every weekday from a two-bedroom condo that was loaned to us by Ken’s friends Rich and Sandy. Rich was in Kuwait as a contractor at the time, and was really excited about the upcoming birth of his first grandchild. I am sorry to report that we were all shocked and dismayed when, shortly after returning to the U.S., he died suddenly and unexpectedly the day after some surgery for a blocked artery. We mourn the loss of this wonderful husband and dad who was so looking forward to becoming a grandfather. It makes us appreciate the blessings of spending time with our own grandchildren even more. While on this trip to Florida, we chose furniture and televisions for our new home, arranged for repairs, and modifications to the walls and floors, arranged to have it painted inside and out, chose a wood floor-look, porcelain ceramic tile to replace all the carpeting, and bought some basics such as a folding table and chairs to work and eat on, and anti-gravity chairs to lounge in by the pool or inside to watch television. We slept every evening in the condo. We returned north a few days before our scheduled one-week vacation in Ocean City, NJ, with Jess, Alex, Ari and the girls.

During June, our week at the beach was pure bliss. The house we had rented was reasonably-priced, fantastic, gorgeous, and convenient for our needs. The weather was great. If there was any downside, it was that because we were vacationing so early, just before the end of the school year, the big summer crowds had not yet arrived, and some restaurants and attractions were not fully open to their regular summer schedules. The beaches had been restored (to our amazement) after a winter of dastardly storms, to luxurious and pristine condition. We had a wonderful time! Beth came in at the beginning of June and spent a day helping us pack, joined by her friend, Megan with her baby daughter, for a few hours. Our friend, Larry, stopped in to show us his new red Mercedes convertible. The girls returned home to Cherry Hill after our vacation for a few days to partake of the celebrations of the last few days of school, and then Izzy and Yona returned with us to begin this summer’s session of Camp Bubbie and Saba. We all saw Sami off on the bus for her full summer at Camp Ramah in the Poconos, and then began the drive down to Florida for the third time this summer setting out in both of our cars. We spent the first night in DC with Ari. We left the Prius in his garage and continued onto Florida in the Pilot so that we would be able to drive home after returning Ari’s Mercedes following his flight back from Orlando on July 7. From DC, on our several trips down, we have begun staying at the Comfort Suites in Florence, SC, which is very close to the halfway mark and allows us to break the driving into two approximately ten-hour sessions, which is about as much as any of us can stand. The hotel has been very recently completely refurbished, is very reasonable if you bargain with the registration employee at the front desk, has a sofa-bed that accommodates the girls, provides free warm popcorn and freshly-baked cookies, and a sumptuous DIY breakfast by common motel standards.

Now that we have made so many trips down and back, we have discovered a number of treasures along I-95. One of these is a small, non-descript, down-home restaurant in Hardeeville, SC, called Gwen and Franny’s Fried Chicken. On the trip with Ari, we stopped at a barbecue buffet place, about 10 miles off the road into the middle of nowhere in SC to eat at Sweatman’s, which looks exactly like Cracker Barrel tries to look, but is the real thing, complete with bearded, overall-clad, farm types, rocking out front on the porch. Demolition Coffee in Petersburg, VA, was a charming and artsy place for lunch. Virginia is the most tedious part of the trip to my mind as I always feel that we are in it forever on our way down. There is a diner right off of I-95 in Rocky Mount, NC, called the Highway Diner which provides authentic, respectable, diner-type southern-style food in the usual retro diner atmosphere. Also, we liked a barbecue place called Dickey’s Barbecue Pit in Pooler, GA, a franchise, but good nevertheless. We discovered a virtual shack in Georgia, Altman’s Restaurant, that has very ample baskets of the most delicious fried grouper nuggets along with fries and hush puppies. The girls all loved them, especially picky Yona, and the staff is delightful with their southern hospitality. Down the road is a touristy, falling-down, farm stand that sells very expensive (but worth it) freshly-made peach slushies that the girls covet, and dense loaves of fresh peach bread, among other delights. Off of Route 4 in Florida, in an upscale shopping center located in an upscale neighborhood, is a superb fish restaurant called Fresh on the Fly, where we had an incredibly imaginative and delicious meal on the way back with Ari.

We arrived in Florida with the two younger girls on June 22 for the southern portion of Camp Bubbie and Saba. The first week, we stayed in a two-bedroom condo at Orange Lake Resorts, also a 10-minute ride from our new house. We needed to use points from our timeshare this summer or we would have lost them, and Summer Bay was completely booked for that particular week. As it turned out, we discovered that Orange Lake has even more amenities than Summer Bay. There were four huge pool complexes on the resort’s property, each with a different character. The first one we explored was geared for teens and singles, with tiki bars, loud live music, and giant water slides. The second had a tube river that snaked throughout the complex, smaller water slides, and a zero-entry pool that led to the deeper parts. The third, where we spent most of our time, was geared to families with small children as it had a huge kiddie pool that was only 18-inches deep everywhere. Other parts had water slides that kept Izzy amused when she tired of playing with Yona. There were also activities for children, such as a scavenger hunt, which Izzy and Yona won on one of the days we were there. The fourth area was one that we only viewed from the car and involved huge blow-up slides and moon-bounce type constructions that required additional fees. We availed ourselves of a camp day for a small fee, which allowed Saul and me to drop off the kids for the morning to try to get our Florida driver’s licenses. We succeeded on this, our second try. We had failed to have all the correct paperwork on the first attempt on our initial trip down. The week at Orange Lake enabled us to oversee the completion of the preliminary work on the house and delivery of some of the furniture we had ordered so that we could begin to live there with the girls for the next few weeks. I had filled the Pilot SUV with all the household items I thought I would need for our stay there ahead of the actual moving date of July 25. Ari drove down to join us and arrived on June 29. Within the first few days, armed with our new Florida drivers licenses, we purchased discounted annual Disney tickets for ourselves and the two girls which allow us to access the four theme parks anytime for free for 365 days of the year with free parking. Ari also bought a not-discounted annual pass for about $150 extra, so we could come and go to the parks whenever we wished. We then began a utopian week of exploring the parks for a few hours in the cool mornings, returning home for lunch and a few hours of swimming in our pool, showers, soaking baths, long naps, dinners out, and perhaps a few more hours in the park, swimming in our pool by moonlight, or vegging out in front of the television with ice cream. One night, we went to see Despicable Me 2, which we loved, but Ari became ill with a sinus infection toward the end and spent a day or two in bed with a fever. On the Fourth of July, after a day in the Magic Kingdom, the girls watched fireworks launched in the neighborhood, and viewed them from the hood of the Pilot parked in our driveway. Saul has been wonderful at walking around the parks this year without the use of a motorized cart. We explored areas of the park that we never had time to see before and discovered shortcuts for getting around, such as boarding the locomotive as soon as we enter the Magic Kingdom to circumvent the Main Street crowds and long walks in the hot sun. We dropped Ari off at the airport in Orlando on July 7, so that he could return to work, leaving his Mercedes for our use and return trip with the girls. We began our drive back with the two girls beginning on July 16, stopping to visit Larry and Adele at The Villages.

We arrived in DC on July 17, and spent the night in Ari’s vacated apartment downstairs. His three-year tenants had moved out the previous week and he was entertaining two sets of married friends from his college years who both had two-year-old daughters. Steve and Sarah flew in from Oregon with their daughter, Ayla, prior to beginning a six-month stint teaching in Argentina. Zach and Claire drove in with their daughter, Ava, from Richmond, so that they could all meet up. To facilitate all of us descending on him at the same time, I was very proud and gratified to see that Ari had prepared dinner for all of us. He made my recipe for Mediterranean vegetable lasagna and, while we were waiting for him to arrive from work, we put together a giant salad from veggies he had purchased supplemented with veggies from Zach and Claire’s garden. Saul and I volunteered to babysit once the kids were asleep so that the four could go down the street for a few drinks and adult conversation like in the olden days before kids. The next day, we all decided to visit the Smithsonian Natural Science Museum. The weather was very hot and they hiked with all the girls the several blocks to the Metro and back. Saul and I drove so we weren’t quite as tapped out, although we also had to park and walk from a few blocks away. All commented about how impressed they were with Izzy, her intelligence, sense of humor, and responsibility that she assumed for entertaining the other girls. They left the museum to have lunch at Ari’s, while we continued home to NJ, stopping to take the girls to a good Chinese buffet, Teppanyaki Grill and Supreme Buffet (which they loved) in Laurel, MD. The next day, Claire asked to see Ari’s vacated apartment and, within a week, without advertising, her brother had rented the space for a year. We arrived at Jess and Alex’s shortly before Shabbat and had a wonderful meal and reunion since the girls had been with us for over a month.

We had real crunch time now to finish packing before the arrival of the movers. Just one week on our own with the added blessing of Jess and Alex coming, sans girls, for a weekend to help organize and do the heavy lifting necessary to accomplish everything we needed to do to move out of a 4100 sq. ft. house we had lived in for 20 years, along with some of the possessions of three previous generations of my family who had lived in the Philadelphia area. The girls went to stay with Alex’s mom for that weekend. The husband of one of Ken’s employees, Ryan, gave us an estimate from a moving company, Clemmer Moving, that we felt was very reasonable, and as it turned out, we were delighted with them for the way in which they accomplished both the loading and unloading of our possessions. We had planned for some of our furniture to be delivered to DC, but the cost was prohibitive because of the size of the truck and the narrowness of Ari’s street. In the eleventh hour, Saul and I rented a 20-foot truck, which the moving guys loaded for us, and which we then drove to DC that evening after the movers had finished. Alex’s brother-in-law, Matt, met us to help us unload and pick up some furniture which we gave to him and Naomi. We slept at Ari’s and returned the truck in DC the next morning. Ari followed us in his car, and we continued on to Jess and Alex’s where we dropped him off to work remotely while we shopped for supplies for a huge Shabbat dinner for ourselves, Ari, Jess, Alex, Izzy, Yona, Rif, Paul and Meredith (who was in from Ohio), Faith, Larry, Naomi, Matt, Talia, Aaron, Stacey, Jacob, Lily, Zach and Elaine. Sami was still at camp. After dinner that evening, we drove back to DC in two cars, the Mercedes and the Prius. We rested on Saturday in DC, and then Saul and I began the drive for our permanent move to Florida on Sunday morning, July 28.

In hindsight, everything went down just about perfectly except for one enormous fly in the ointment. The Philadelphia area began experiencing record rainfalls and flash flooding during this past summer. While we were in Florida, a small leak in our basement, which we thought had been repaired previously, began to leak again unbeknownst to us during the torrential downpours. On the day that our buyers came to do an inspection, let in by Ken and Randi, it was raining in torrents and they discovered the leak. They then proceeded to send in their own assessors for the problem and informed us that the problem might require an expenditure of 40 to 50 thousand dollars to repair. In the meantime, the company that had waterproofed Ken’s flooded basement very competently, Dry Basements by Dean Bender, assessed our problem and assured us that they could repair the problem and guarantee their work for under five thousand dollars. We met with the buyers and offered them the guarantee with an additional thousand dollars to install a water-driven backup sump pump that would work even during a power failure. To our shock and dismay, they decided to withdraw their offer. We had to return their entire good faith deposit, or risk taking the house off the market while legal proceedings ensued for several months. All this went down on June 20, the day before we were scheduled to leave for Florida with the girls. We called a local realtor we had previously interviewed, who came over within hours of our call. We signed a contract with her to sell our house, and I tried to clean up as best I could within the few hours left to me so that the house would be presentable as realtors brought prospective buyers through, something I definitely thought I would not have to worry about. While we were away, I also paid a maid to come and clean as I hadn’t had time beforehand to scour bathrooms and showers, and to clean any mess left behind by the waterproofing company. All this was to no avail. No one rushed in to buy the house in the vacuum left by the previous buyers, and the long period until the final date of settlement which was to be September 27, eliminated the prime months during which we might have sold the house more easily. Now that the house is almost empty, it will be even more difficult to sell and we have lowered the price twice. It remains to be seen how all this will play out, but it is a great worry at the moment. We console ourselves by realizing that everything came together for us to get the house in the first place. Perhaps the delay in selling it will turn out to be bashert (an intended or fated outcome) in some other way.

Despite all the worry and aggravation, Saul and I were really excited to be heading back to Florida on our own to meet the movers. We loved the new colors we had chosen for the house, the beauty of the floors, which have all the beauty of wood with none of the drawbacks, our screened pool and lanai, the gorgeous Florida sunsets, which we can contemplate every evening, the palm trees and tropical foliage, the proximity of the Disney parks which we can stroll around in any time we get bored, nightly fireworks, of which we have never tired, and the air that surrounds us all the time of people enjoying themselves on their hard-earned vacations.

We had almost three weeks in the house to get things together before Jess was to fly in on Friday, August 16, with all three girls. She spent that weekend with us, and flew back herself on Monday morning, August 19. In those three weeks we unpacked and put away everything but our artwork. Although the new house is only 2550 sq. ft., I find I have many empty closets and drawers. I was very happy with my choices about what I chose to take, and what I chose to leave behind. I am very pleased so far with the new furniture I chose. One of the reasons we haven’t hung the artwork yet is that some of the furniture is still on order and has not yet been delivered and I want it all in place before we figure out what to hang, and where to hang it. Because of the high ceilings, pieces that looked large in the old house look much smaller in the new one. Saul replaced the old stove with a glass and stainless steel one we purchased at Lowe’s because it was just about non-functional. I brought my microwave from home because the one above the stove was downright dangerous, turning itself on and off randomly. Eventually I bought a new one at Lowe’s to put above the new stove because it cost almost the same amount as buying a plain vent would have cost. That has yet to be installed. The two of us had a blast playing with our new “dollhouse.” We decided to purchase a Hemnes solid wood bedroom set from Ikea for Sami’s room and spent two days together assembling it. It is perfect! When our mutual friend, Irv, came in from California to stay with Adele and Larry, the three of them slept over and spent a couple of days with us. We explored stores and restaurants in the area and found a great mom-and-pop-style place, A Roll with a Hole, just 10 minutes away, for New York style bagels. Finding good bread in Florida is really a problem. Most people there prefer the mushy soft-crust type of bread, and that is what most stores and bakeries carry, although we can get excellent bread at our favorite nearby cheap-y restaurant, Sweet Tomatoes. We also found a great, homey Mexican restaurant, La Fiesta Mexicana, but it is in Haines City, about a 40-minute drive away. Izzy and Yona really loved it when we took them there one afternoon. In downtown Orlando’s Chinatown, there is a restaurant, Ming’s Bistro that serves very respectable dim sum to which Chinese Americans will drive for an hour or two from as far away as Tampa when the craving hits them. Our three weeks alone were wonderful, but life was about to get even better with the arrival of our three granddaughters.

Jess was content to hang out by the pool for a few days, but as soon as she left, we took Sami to get her annual pass to the park. We were excited to show her all the fun discoveries we had made at the parks, but using our Disney apps, she soon had an agenda of her own, which included character drawing lessons at Hollywood Studios where the two of us learned how to draw Stitch while Saul took the others girls to the “Honey I Shrunk the Kids” playground. She also signed us up for different secret agent-type adventures in the various sections of the Magic Kingdom that involved cards and keys that revealed hidden video screens with short animations in various places around the park. We went to the parks for a few hours almost every day, returning home in time to miss the afternoon showers, but with enough time to get in a few hours swim in our pool. We ate at Sweet Tomatoes, of which the girls never tired, so frequently that not only the staff, but regular customers, recognized us. We kept everyone so busy that almost two weeks passed before the two little ones realized that the toy box from their old room with all their favorites in it had been sitting in the closet in their room. Saul and I ordered and assembled bookcase headboards for their beds. All their rooms are a combination of the new and the familiar and it all worked beautifully together.

When the time came to return home for the beginning of the school year and the high holy days, the girls were torn between not wanting to leave this idyllic lifestyle, and excitement about returning to their newly-decorated bedrooms at home, their parents, Inky, friends, and new teachers. During our visit to Adventureland, Izzy, Yona, and I climbed the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse as envisioned by Disney. Izzy had never read the book, The Swiss Family Robinson and thought that the treehouse had something to do with Peter Pan, so we downloaded the free audio version of the book and began to listen to the entire 12 hour dialogue on the drive home. Saul and I had both loved the book when we were children, a fact we just discovered. He read it four times and I read it twice, but that was over 50 years ago. We really enjoyed hearing it yet again. We stayed comfortably in the Comfort Inn Suites in Florence and returned the girls home in time for another wonderful Shabbat dinner with Alex and Jess. That night, we drove to Ken and Randi’s and stayed with them for a few days. Ari drove in also in time for Rosh Hashanah and slept there as well. After Shabbat dinner with Jess and Alex, the girls, Elaine, Ari, and Rif and Paul on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, the three of us drove back to DC in one car. This past weekend, we toured the extraordinary gardens of the mansion called Dumbarton Oaks. The hot and humid weather in DC, along with the plethora of spectacular wandering stone staircases that meandered up and down from garden to garden caused us to give up long before we would have liked. We will be revisiting as soon as we are able. This evening, we are preparing to return to Philadelphia when Ari finishes his work day so that we can observe Yom Kippur with our friends and the congregation at MBI-EE. For Neilah, we will be with Jess, Alex, the girls, and Alex’s mom at TBS. After breaking the fast with them, we will begin our much-anticipated journey back to our new life in Florida where Ken and Randi are due to join us for a few weeks. We are greatly looking forward to it!