tadhana: last week in cocoa.

it went quickly. mostly we worked. and missed consuelo. we NEED another dog. tom was grilling dinner one night and said he missed his sous-chef. yes, she really was a major part of our lives.

friday, we drove over to the south side of the canaveral national seashore (we were at the north side last weekend, by new smyrna beach) and the merritt island refuge. our plan had been to drive as far as we could along the shore and check out the beach so at the last parking area (there are 13), we stopped and got out of the car. ummm.... no one told us that it was where all the nudists went. sigh... nevertheless, we were there already, greeted at the top of the boardwalk by some fat naked guy all sprawled out in the corner letting it all hang out. it was definitely not an attractive sight. there really weren't that many nudists and they were spread out on a very long beach. some were surf fishing, some laying out and some just walking around. no one was talking. the funny thing was that here was tom carrying his big camera hahaha... anyway, we ignored them and they ignored us. i don't "get" nudity but well, whatever. we had planned to drive a bit more around the refuge area but the the bridge at the haulover canal was left open so we could not cross over to the other side so we just headed on out to mikey's and since we got there early, we left again with him to visit a mall by marie's office and then picked her up when she was done with work. dinner at home was pancit palabok (a filipino noodle dish), lumpiang gulay (vegetable rolls) and dessert was turon (deep fried banana rolls)! so good... it was so much fun to have filipino food again and to introduce them to tom!

we left early the next morning for the boat as annie had a meet that tom and i weren't going to attend since my old high school friend, richie, and her daughter, anna, were coming to visit. i am glad that i stopped to think about when anna was born and calculated how old she was. i hadn't seen her since she was 10 and here she was, a young lady at 33. where did the time go? we had lunch at a nearby thai place when they arrived and then walked around cocoa's historic village district. tom and i finally got to see the inside of some of the interesting shops (i know, after one month in cocoa, you'd think we would at least have gone into one of them but tom and i are not big on shopping. however, it was fun to watch the others spend money hahaha.....). we really had a good time and they must have, too, as they said they had to leave at 5:00 p.m. and stayed until 7:00 p.m.!

the next day, sunday, we had our usual pancakes and bacon at home and then left for harbortown marina on merritt island for a nautical flea market to see our friend, patty, who was going to be one of the vendors at the event. we went there primarily to see patty but i'm afraid that we walked away with some stuff, too. for the longest time, we had been looking for metal locking rings for our power cords. apparently, they don't make the metal ones anymore, just plastic, which break constantly. tom found one while he was wandering around by himself and i found three more when i went through with him. great finds - i don't think we will dismiss nautical flea markets ever again! we also got some solar dock lights. after that, we passed by the publix to do a little grocery shopping and then home to the boat. mikey and marie came over that afternoon. it was marie's first time to see the boat so i gave her the GRAND two-penny tour and then we left for an early dinner at a filipino restaurant in cocoa beach that mikey had heard about from one of his friends. well, it certainly was an experience for tom - the food, the ambiance, the karaoke..... hahaha! tom said he could have done without the karaoke singing but i thought it was a hoot. the singing was really REALLY bad :)

anyway, this is our last night in cocoa and we leave in the morning. it's hard to believe that a month went by just like that. we enjoyed our stay except, of course, for the part about consuelo but if it had to happen, i'm glad that it happened here where we were sitting for a while and with my family nearby. consuelo is with us now as we are taking her ashes back to the chesapeake and we are looking forward to being on the move again. interestingly enough, since i'd never done it before, the package included the "urn" which was a can with a paw print pattern all over it, a certificate of cremation and a card with the rainbow bridge poem. we also received a condolence card from the staff at the animal hospital. there was a bookmark, too, with another poem and a butterfly-shaped thing attached to it with instructions on the back to remove the butterfly and to plant and water it - it was to become a little wildflower garden. i thought that was pretty neat. i gave the bookmark to marie who is way better with plants than i ever will be and she said would get a special pot for it. and if/when it blooms, they can send us a photo and maybe next winter, we can see it when we visit again. because we will be back next winter and every winter from now on.