Today is Tuesday, June 25, 2024. I’m happy to report that Elliot and I are back from our sojourn in th Sunshine State, visiting two sets of relatives, cousins of Elliot’s. We stayed with the first cousin in Margate from Thursday to Sunday and then drove to Boynton Beach to stay with our second set of cousins there. In the interim, we met with my son over breakfast on Saturday in Palm Beach Gardens. We did very little sightseeing this time since the purpose of our visit was spending time with relatives. We did manage to spend some time in Palm Beach browsing two bookstores.

We also walked around the picturesque promenade in Delray Beach, Atlantic Avenue, home to Kilwin’s Chocolates, where we had some delicious ice cream and spoke to the salesperson behind the counter about living there and my Adventure Time-themed shirt which attracts as many compliments I can count in a day. On that particular day, I counted at least two compliments concerning the shirt – all coming from young women, primarily. They must have been very young when the show was first aired.

All in all, the weather was not as horrible as originally predicted. We thought it would rain in Florida the time we were there, and it didn’t. It was warm, but so was it here in New York. In actuality, it was hotter in New York the days we were gone. It was ninety-one degrees today, my weather app says. Tomorrow the temperature goes down a few degrees, to eighty-nine degrees. That’s cool!

The only negative about our first flight down was that I had to check my suitcase on board. I was told by a Delta agent that there was no room on the plane for my bag. That was a minor inconvenience compared to the turbulence experienced on the second flight – today – on our Airbus A321. Even though the pilot made excellent time, landing at LaGuardia a whole half hour earlier, the flight was marred by too much jangling and bumps. This went on for almost an hour, I reckon. I couldn’t concentrate on watching the Coen Brothers’ Burn After Reading, a dark comedy from 2008. I had seen it once before, but I decided to rewatch it after not remembering it too well. It had an excellent cast, headed by George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, Tilda Swinton, John Malkovich, and Richard Jenkins. The reason I was drawn to the film was its length: just about an hour and thirty-six minutes. The turbulence, however, took away from enjoying the film more a second time. However, the important thing is that we landed without incident at around 6:25 or so. The flight was expected in at 6:53 or so. I couldn’t care if the flight was that much earlier or not, especially if we were strapped to our seats in nerve-tingling fear.

Anyway, as Elliot always says, a good flight is one you can walk away from in one piece. This particular flight still qualifies for that distinction and I’m quite happy to report that we are safely ensconced in Forest Hills, to the sheer happiness of our feline companion, Atticus.

Stay safe and be well.

This is “Rene”‘s and “Roland”‘s cat, Tommy. He is about eight years old and very affectionate. Unlike our cat, he’s more vocal and he enjoyed getting up on the sofa and biting my hair in the back as I sat watching television with our hosts, Rene and Roland.