Sunday, December 18, 2016

What DID I Do This Year


Last Christmas strolling El Conde in the Colonial Zone of Santo Domingo, while peering in shop windows a tall dark-haired woman approached my companion and me. “You’re American; I heard you speaking English. I want to talk to someone who speaks English,” a woman blurted out in a moderately thick Serbian accent.
Seriously, I looked around for Alan Funt Jr. and the Candid Camera crew. We went for coffee, no joke, and then went to the caves, and shopped in the Mercado; the trip ended with a new friend, Olivera from Michigan.


Christmas in the Caribbean, my new holiday tradition will take us to the San Juan this year. Most months I listen to live jazz in Old San Juan, so I seldom get lost anymore. Olivera will dash through the snow at Detroit AirPort to join me for a balmy Christmas. With arthritis, I don’t ever want to see a white Christmas again or I never, ever want to see a white Christmas again; which is more emphatic?
If someone asked what happened this year, I couldn’t tell them without evidence, so I went through my pictures. 
Start the year in the Dominican Republic, in spring the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival
and the French Quarter Fest in New Orleans, and back to the Dominican in November.


It disappoints me so; that I’ve bitched my way through what by looking at the photos was a great year. All year I’ve listened to quality live music for little or nothing; I’m very pleased about that.

Driving the gulf coast of Florida on the way to Orlando, the sand whipped across the road reminding me of white outs in winter snows. The best oysters I’ve had all year came there; during that meal, I started thinking how I could live in Florida if I didn’t go back to New Orleans.

A week from today is Christmas; I’ll be doing as much freebie stuff as possible since I already spent this month’s allowance on my first outing in 2017. 

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