Feb 15 - mucho gumbo

Too much gumbo. 

There was a gumbo cook-off on Flagler, so we headed over a little after noon and bought our tickets and worked our way down one side of the street and up the other.  There were something like 16 stations and 20 sponsors/types of gumbo. 

Each little cup of gumbo was no larger than a couple of tablespoons or so; at first it didn't seem like much but it started to add up.  The salt added up, that is.  About half-way through, we were at Clancy's and stopped for a drink.  After her half-pint, Sandy was too full for much more than a taste of the gumbo even though we had half of our gumbo passport left unstamped.  Oh well.  We continued and she had some but before we were finished, I was done.  I was full and my head was buzzing with so much salt intake.  Not good !

The idea was that you'd rate the gumbos and vote.  There was quite a variety of approaches, some with sausage, some with shrimp, okra, squid ... you get the idea.  Some were spicy, some were not.  They were all salty.  I think that they were trying to out-do each other with salt because if they were unsalted, they'd taste bland after the gumbo preceding.  We were gumboed out and didn't vote.

Back home, we headed to the neighbors.  The new neighbors, Jim and Joanne (J&J is how I'll remember their names) were having an open house.  They had friends from Edgewater, where they'd been previously and in visiting from out of state.  Jim is retired but Joanne still works in PA and flies up there every week.  Two more years, she said.  Been there, done that.

It's hard to believe that it's almost nine (9) years since I retired - end of April.  I could say that it seems like a dim, dark memory but that's not quite true.  I suppose that if push came to shove, I could step back in and do that kind of work.  From my limited knowledge, not much has changed other than the landscape and it wouldn't take long to pick up that knowledge; a couple of briefing sessions.  Would I want to ?  Not on your life !  I'd rather work as a Walmart greeter !

It's supposed to be warm today; with a little luck, I'll get out on the bike. 

Onward !