As I write, I'm sitting at the bar at Pepin, my favorite Spanish restaurant in St. Petersburg, Floriday which is my hometown where I've been for the past 2 weeks. It's been over 8 years since I've had what normal people would consider a vacation, the type of trip where you go someplace where you don't work and you spend days doing fun things you don't usually do and you disconnect from your every day life and you rest and you don't worry about anything and you get a tan.
That's pretty much what I've been doing since I arrived in St. Pete on the 17th of December, and even though the first few days of me being here were spent planning and fussing over my Mom's funeral which was on the 20th of December, that was still a lot of fun and it felt really different from the type of work I usually do in running the studio and in running my Pilates school, Pilates Excel.
Almost every day since I've been here, I've walked my favorite beach, the one I grew up playing and swimming and drinking and skiing on, it's called Pass-a-grille and it's at the very southern tip of St. Petersburg Beach. Pass-a-grille is about a mile long and 2 blocks wide, the long sides are on the water with the west side on the Gulf and the east sde on the Intercoastal. It's still relatively untouched by development, progress, bastardization. The main resort, the Don Cesar, still anchors the approach to the beach fro the Bay Way, which is a series of bridges that connect south St. Petersburg to the Gulf of Mexico beaches.
When I haven't walked Pass-a-grille, I've walked the downtown waterfront which is so stunningly beautiful, it takes my breath away.
My family moved here from Ohio when I was 4 in 1961 and I left here almost 30 years ago but it still feels like home.
So much so that sitting at the Seahorse Restaurant one morning, the woman next to me at the bar said "don't you shop at Bamboozle?" I do.
I eat at a table in Debby's section at the Seahorse almost every morning and here's what I have, every single time: Cheesy grits with butter, 2 scrambled eggs with ham and cheese (that would be American cheese) and white toast with butter. I also have about 5 glasses of iced tea, unsweetened. I only sit in Debby's section at the Seahorse. Debbie is a gum smacking, sass talking sweetheart of a woman who has waited tables for over 40 years. I love Debby and at every meeting and at every parting we squeal at each other, both talking at the same time, saying things like "hi baby, how you are you precious, hi sugar, isnt' it a beautiful morning, you here with friends?, how's Corinn, is she coming?" Debby kisses my face and my neck even though I'm slathered with a quarter inch of non-greasy greasy SPF 50 and I kiss her face and her neck even though she's sweaty wth the work of her shift. I love Debby.
Shortly after arriving I couldn't help but notice that my pants began feelng tight. I went to TJ Maxx and bought a size 10 Lucky low rise and they felt much better than the Ralph Lauren's I brought with me from Seattle. I think my weight gain has something to do with the cheesy grits with butter almost every morning, but I don't care.
As friends have joined me for breakfast, Debby's met them all and we've loved telling her how long we've all known each other. We bring old pictures of us together for us to see and we show them to Debby and she always says how we haven't aged, that we still look 4 or 14 or 24 or 34 or 44. I love Debby.
It's New Year's Eve and I'll have one more Seahorse breakfast before heading back to Seattle on Friday morning. My oldest friend, Leslie and her husband Kevin are going with me to the Seahorse tomorrow morning. I'm not sure I can get through it without making a scene; saying goodbye to Debbie is going to be heartbreaking. I love Debby.
My evening meals have been at Pepin's where I always get the same thing: chicken with yellow rice. My waiter at Pepin's is William, he's been taking care of me for years and he always, always makes me feel like I've never left. One night William wasn't working and I had a lovely waiter named Joe who honeymooned in Seattle so we had some things to talk about. The marriage didn't last but his fond memories of Seattle did. Only 3 nights out of the more than 2 weeks I've been here have I not eaten at Pepin's. When I wasn't at Pepin's, I ate at Gigi's, my favorite pizza place out on the beach. One night at Gigi's I ate an entire medium pepperoni pizza by myself and my dinner mate, another of my oldest friends Carol Roberts (Dr. Carol Roberts who has a radio show on the local PBS station) only had soup. Carol weighs 1/8 of an ounce less than she did when she was 14. I think there may be a correlation between Carol's stable weight and her eating a cup of soup for dinner.
The whole trip has been a food fantasy and my friends have been very supportive. I've told them if they want to see me, they need to either come with me on my beach walks, to the Seahorse or to Pepin's. When I'm not doing those things, I'm working. They understand.
I've gained 10 pounds.
I'm eating more food in one day here than I usually eat in 3 days in Seattle. This does not concern me.
The blisters concern me.
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