a brief diversion south

We left Washington DC for Florida, and the mission was to acknowledge the death of one person and the rebirth of another person.

Leaving home required a tremendous leap of faith, that the tarp-covered wreckage of our back deck would remain unmolested by wind, rain, or storms for a few days. We're still waiting for contractors to begin re-roofing back there, and we're feeling a little, uh, exposed...to the elements right now. The slightest mention of rain sends us to fits of nervous twitching, like un-medicated veterans at the sound of a helicopter.

The trip was pleasant, considering the cause, and I'm still convinced that the United States should return Florida to the Seminoles. They obviously know how to manage that land much better than we. But anyway...

In Miami was the peculiar estate known as Vizcaya (garden pictured above). The mansion home and its surrounding ornaments were built by James Deering on Biscayne Bay in about 1916. The home itself is filled with a head-spinning array of Rennaissance-era furnishings (hence, no photography inside), and is operated today by Miami-Dade County as a museum. A fun diversion.

Meanwhile, the motel television was dripping with news from home. DC appears to be having another crime wave, and the national media never tire of the irony of it all: the Capital of the Free World has a Murder problem!?!? Folks seem to forget that this city contains real people, and isn't some obscene, fascist campsite for powermad stormtroopers.... Yes, sweet motel television, it is both of those things.

Of course the sad truth is, according to the media, there are NO murders in DC until someone of status is victimized. I simply don't understand how the murder of a tourist on the Mall or a foreign journalist in Georgetown is any more important than "some guy" in Ward One.

And then Lebanon blew up. Jeez, I turn my back and go to Florida for ONE MINUTE, and see what happens... That does it. For the safety of the human race, we shall not travel in 2007.