Life is totes

I attended a spin class tonight and it felt good to push myself and work hard. It's been a while since I've done either. I spent the last week or so lying on white sand, or sitting outside at a cafe, or riding all manner of transportation to find a restarant - a remarkably good way to see a city, by the way - so except for perhaps two sunny jogs along a wooden boardwalk while dodging the well-dressed grayhairs and contented stray cats, I was wrapped up in some stage of intoxication or unconsciousness, and/or with a piece of silverware entering or exiting my yap. The restaurants were the goal and the prize: they prodded us into stepping out and touring an interesting city on our own, but if there is a bittersweet angle to this eater's paradise, it is that the food is outrageously plentiful, incredibly calorie dense and as sinfully tempting as it is delicious. We tried it all even though we needed help; as in, an extra stomach. Unfinished entrees had to be boxed up and carted home. Desserts were shared or passed up with painful restraint.

Once, after a Coconut Grove dinner with all the trimmings, we made stale excuses to the server to avoid ordering a piece of cheesecake, ultimately to dodge the embarrassment of having to doggiebag that, too - we were already taking an appetizer back to the hotel. Most of the time we ate until we couldn't. Two working stiffs on holiday with credit cards and noses for the unusual, were we left with any other option? No.


We each had our weaknesses. D went in for boozy coffees, spicy buffalo thingies, cashew-encrusted fish with rich mashed potato and succutash. (I might have coveted that meal just a little.) Me, I found the stone crab, the "lobster firecrackers," the creamed spinach (that's right) and the uncountable varieties of overly drinkable beers exotic and alluring and I had to, I just had to. I knew I would not be able to create, order, or even dream about these delicacies at home in my wintery city. The time was right. We took the opportunities and we have no regrets.