Weekend adventures and a hot parade

What's up friends? Hope you are doing well. It's been eventful way down here. On Friday, I got the pups settled then roamed the city. I'm serious y'all, you could feel the excitement. Everyone was so stoked for the Heat. It's such a unifying thing to have a team. And a highly successful team at that. It doesn't matter what language you speak, where you come from or your income bracket - having a team puts everyone on equally footing. That's certainly important here where there is a cultural mishmash like few others in the country.

 

But I digress. So I walked around (3 miles or so), picked up my new Heat Championships shirt and went to the grocery store. On my way out of the store, a nurse with the Red Cross blood drive stops me and starts speaking to me in Spanish first, then when I look dumbfounded she switches to English. Basically, they were doing a blood drive for a baby with Leukemia. They needed blood really badly. And assured me that "Senora, it well only take three minutes." (Seriously lady, three minutes? Not 2 or 5?) Well, how do you say no to that? I may be a bitch but I'm not a heartless bitch. So in I go. I've given blood before and I used to do it frequently. The last time I did it in Brunswick, I passed out. Josh had to come pick me up. No bueno. Then I nearly fainted during my "toe-lectomy" and trigger point injection. So it's understandable that I'm a little gun (or needle rather) shy after that.

 

Eitherwhoo, I went in and did it. I was totally fine and it went smoothly. I feel like I'll be hearing from them again in 4-6 weeks. They know I'm 0-negative now - the universal donor. Every time the blood folks see that on my Red Cross card they are all like

 

 

 Mmmm ... blood. O-negative blood. Mmmmmm.

 

I left with a big sense of accomplishment and pride - "what a great person I am." That was until I started thinking about all the alcohol I ingested the night during the championship game. Hope they clean it well before they give it to the baby ... it could get retroactive fetal alcohol syndrome or something. Eeek.

 

I'm sure it will be fine. Right? Oh and speaking of alcohol, we tried a different Happy Hour joint, Finnegan's, Friday too. It was really cool ... it's got a lot of good "bar food." I had hummus and J got cheese sticks. On the way home, we stopped in to watch some of "War Horse" being played on a projection screen in the park. It's a cute (and actually free thing) that goes down once a month.



  

After that it was back to the apartment and to bed. Saturday we hung out and went to the pool. That night we dropped by Miami's oldest bar, Tobacco Road.

 

 

Then to Publix for groceries. We grilled (black bean burger for me and a regular one for J) and watched "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark" (my fav). Sunday we planned to go to the beach. We made it over by 1 p.m. (really early South Beach time). We did lunch and hit the sand. It was packed but we had fun. 

 

 

Loosing his farmer's tan

During our time there, we got to see two landmarks:

 

Dash Miami

 

And the Clevelander ... a hip, deco spot that's been around since God was a child. It was interesting. They have these retro psychedelic dancers. These chicks basically get naked and get painted all trippy like. We were like "whoa."

 

That was all the excitement we could take so we headed home. I had big doins planned for Monday -  the Heat's championship parade.

 I was going ... even if it was by myself. (I tried to talk J into calling in sick ... no luck). I made it down early and got a great spot plus a sign that says congratulations/felicitaciones. It took a while for them to start but it was so worth it.

 

Chris Bosh and some other guys (I needed my glasses and for them to wear their numbers)

 

I had no problem spotting LeBron James. He rules this city.

 

It will def. be one of my favorite Miami memories. Only there was a bit of a downside ... you can hang with 500,000 (seriously) of your closest friends and not be exposed to major germage.  

 

So yeah I got a stomach bug. That's guys. I haven't done much since Monday. Tuesday I laid around - watching my new favorite show Deep South Paranormal on SyFy. Love it.

 

But I don't love the bug. It's killing me ... and my wallet because when I get sick, I get desperate. I always think that something in the store will make me feel better. So I buy it all.

 

One thing that I can't buy is good help. But I have it in abundance. Byron (and Keats) have been great furry nurses. Hopefully, it'll improve tomorrow.