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Bob’s house had an almost hypnotic draw to it with clean white lines, wifi, and perpetual Starcraft II matches on the big screen.  Pulling away from the last nearly required a crowbar but my imperative to move on turned me into the jerk required to jump start the next leg.  We arrived at the hotel in the early afternoon and for the first time in the trip had a space to our own.  Suzie had a chance to luxuriate and do girly hair maintenance things while Mike, Chris, and I attempted to use the pool.  We found the pool, the towels, and the lightning that made the trifecta of attempting to enter a body of water in Florida and frowned as, yet again, there would be no pool visit on this trip.

Sometime in the deep dark long long ago of my semi-adulthood, Kyle moved to Florida.  We were fake good friends when we were together in Bucks County as we were both bored and under-engaged.  He moved to Florida and we took turns disappointing the other person in calling, emailing, or even notifying about the goings on of the others life except for semi-annual marathons.  The dam broke when Kyle moved back in 2007 and I decided that I was going to give this adulthood thing a try.  We both made a genuine effort and I think it paid off and it was with simultaneous joy and dread that I saw him off again this year.  He had a future that was not in Warminster as I should have had a future that was not in Feasterville and within months I had a visit date on the calendar.  I was doing it right this time, dammit.

The car ride to the restaurant, dinner, and the drive to our evening spot had the liquid grace of gravel in coal tar with a verbal staccato borne of fatigue.  I had forgotten the pidgin borne of a thousand eyebrow raises, smirks, laughs and eye rolls that formed a sort of linguistic secret handshake where each motion says “I know you”.  I didn’t know how to integrate the bottom-up narrative I had of Kyle with the top-down narrative I had of Mike, Chris, and Suzie.   I had forgotten how to talk to him.

After getting gas and act of sticker terrorism, we went to some site of golf potentiation and traded quips in the noisy quietude of an open cab vehicle.  Words began returning.
Shotcrobatics

This shot?  Totally safe to take.

Chris in Praise

Chris shows/fakes joy.

NOM

Fenris.

Suzie Drove

Suzie drives.

I think there was a novelty to being in neither a car nor on foot that made the mini-adventure freeing.  The bugs became annoying and then mouth-filling around dusk so we left for ice cream.

Coldstone Creamery combined two things I love: ice cream and people who try too hard.  In this store, one could watch such awesome ice cream prep maneuvers as the scoop drop, the ingredient over-add, the stale cone pass, and awkward tip request.  Each of these moves was delivered with a practiced amateurishness, a phrase that I didn’t even think was possible until I just wrote it.

Mike, Suzie, and Chris returned to the hotel room and Kyle and I returned to his house for what turned out to be the real visit.  We asked each other non-specific questions with no definite answers and gave none and we were at peace again.  I returned to the hotel room, took a long walk, changed my cell plan, and turned in for the night.

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Suzie, Reuben, Chris and I stayed up late prattling like school girls and Mike opted to be the responsible one and sleep a reasonable amount.  Thank you, Mike.

We rose at the crack of 10:30 and I picked off the last of the fruit salad after Reuben’s dad showed us the glories of a man and his quest to make a bear suit and after learning that, while awesome, the Atlanta Aquarium cost $40 a head, we opted for the vastly freer Fernbank Science Center.  Along the way, we picked up Grant at the University of Atlanta where in the distance of three blocks I was reminded of all the things I hated about college including loud bad music, people with the sartorial splendor of sock puppets, and liberal arts majors yelling about things.  On the way out, we passed a vagrant asking for money to whom I yelled “quijon, unt brocojantore!” my stock response to panhandlers.  It’s a line I picked up from an MCI commercial for international calling from at least a dozen years ago and it seems to silence them.

The science center was about as good as free science center can reasonably get but at least had clever signs:
Tiny Lungs

Inside, they had displays on bees and space.  I can’t really think of what else you’d need in a science museum after that with a display of a monkey in a capsule and a depiction of the lunar surface reminiscent of a failed under-chocolated brownie but we pressed on and explored their nature trail.  The mark of an urban nature trail is that it is paved and terminates at an artificial duck pond, this one had both and our group registered its approval by placing a TI sticker on the sign-in log.

We stopped for lunch at “The Varsity”, a classic-style of eatery where cashiers shout for the next person and you’re passed if you don’t make up your mind quickly.  The food tasted of grease, orange, and repressed racial strife which seemed appropriate considering the comparatively small portions and after crushing our frosted oranges, we headed again south.

Driving to Tampa was uneventful and it was good to see Bob again.  His is a face I’ve never seen marred by sadness nor a wit dulled by cynicism.  We ate at Steak ‘n’ Shake and my triumph of the evening was leaving with no food on my shirt.  Bob had brought the housemates that seemed to compose his ersatz but happy family.  Also attending were <tk lord slapnut> and his adorable daughter Zoey.  She received TI stickers with great jubilation and proceeded to slap all the ones she could get her hands on (10 or so) to her car seat.

Bob and I went on a question “for that guy that was on our team whose head was kind of misshapen.”  It was Surprised Face.

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