Floridians Rule! continued

Back by popular demand...for all you who obviously suffer from schadenfreude! Our pain amuses you, huh? Well, guess what? We live in Flor-da, we live in Flor-da and you all dow-nt! But seriously, the trip started to improve immediately. That night, after washing the kitty litter out of the things we wished to salvage, my lovely wife took me out for THE GREATEST MEAL OF MY LIFE--IFE--IFE--IFE!!! My mood was understandably foul and I wasn't looking forward to searching all over hell's half acre for reasonable dining. So, we hopped into our sporty little rental car and headed for the closest restaurant we could find. Never have such low standards yielded such amazing returns. We found Charley's.

The Scene: Simple, common facade (neon sign and all). You enter and immediately before you is a brick fire pit, easily 10'x10', and the most wonderful smells. A waiter, dressed to the nines--full tux, shows you to your table. Their bourbon selection consisted of 8 top shelfers, including Woodford Reserve. Your steak choice would be difficult, were it not for the a la carte presentation. I opted for the 20 oz. (quick little conversion and you will find that is 1.25 lbs) Fillet Mignon, served rare. No sides, just a salad and the steak. The salad was really just to taunt the meat. Whitney had a 12 oz. Fillet Mignon with the house Cabernet sauce and rosemary mashed potatoes. It is our new favorite restaurant and once I go for 1 year without smoking I will return. Who knows, maybe I'll try the 50 oz. Porter House. Did I mention that all of their meat is aged for 4 months at the restaurant in an O2 free environment. It was like eating cotton candy, if they made cotton candy out of cow. And, I should also mention that neither Whitney nor I could finish our entrees.

The next few days were spent shopping and acclimating ourselves to the new surroundings as we waited for our stuff to arrive. We slept on the floor and invented ways to pass the evenings. The most entertaining creation was Noodle Golf. It requires a pool noodle, a ping pong ball, and a willingness to look like complete idiots when neighbors walk by your patio. I took home "The Noodle" and Whitney came in a respectable second.

Our furniture and cars happened to arrive the same day, Monday, at the same exact time. Two different companies having zero affiliation, it was weird. Whitney dealt with the car guy while I dealt with the movers and, much to our delight, they were awesome. In the Florida heat and humidity they still managed to have everything unloaded and in our apartment in about a third of the time it took the other guys to load it, and with one less helper. So we spent the next 3 days, working 12 hour days, unloading boxes, shifting boxes from one room to another so we could arrange things, only to move them back again--repeat 4-5 times and you see the level of hell Dante loaned us-- and, my personal favorite, dumpster shopping. Dumpster shopping is where you drive around the community dividing your ungodly quantity of packing paper and boxes between several dumpsters so your neighbors don't hate you. Oh, it turns out they have a cardboard recycling dumpster behind the clubhouse. Oops! The things you learn on day 3.

Well, that about sums it up. Whitney and I are unpacked and official Floridians, with driver's licenses and all. For those of you who might be sticklers for grammar, please ignore any solecisms you might find in this blog for it is written late at night (by my standards). Oh!  One last thing.  We can see the Magic Kingdom fireworks from our bedroom.  Well, that is where Whitney maintains they are coming from. ;-)