A Week in Words (and pictures) – Day Two

Monday – We quickly fell into a morning vacation routine for the week – wake up around 9am, breakfast, the Bradenton Herald, some political discussions with my parents, very lazy and lengthy preparation for the day, maybe some lunch around noon and/or heading out for the day’s adventures. Monday afternoon was left to just me, my mom and Brian as my brother had to work and then after work, had a friend helping him move some furniture from one of his rentals to my parents lanai. We decided to lunch at one of my fav beach restaurants, The Beach House where Brian snapped this great pic of me and my mom. I have to say – this is one of the only decent pictures I have of the two of us together because somehow, both of my parents have forgotten how to smile naturally for the camera. Have I ever mentioned that my grandparents and great-grandparents owned a local camera store and all of us have had a camera shoved in our faces since birth? How do you forget that?

We spent a little time wandering through all of the beach stores and despite quite a bit of research on my part, most of them turned out to be crap. We ended up at my brother’s house, waiting for the furniture moving to be done and I must say, even with the fantastic view, it was tough to ignore that his house was just disgustingly filthy. Super bitch girlfriend is a complete slob – just throws her shit everywhere and wouldn’t know a broom if it came up and hit her in the head. My mom couldn’t stand it (look up neat freak in the dictionary and you will find her picture) so while she stayed behind to clean, Brian and I changed into our suits and stole an hour or two, relaxing on the beach.

We headed back to the house around dinnertime, changed and waited for my brother and dad. And waited and waited and waited. Finally, my dad shows up alone – which, anyone who knows my brother wouldn’t be too surprised. We decided to make the best of it and head to another highly recommended restaurant on Gulf Drive call the Sun House. I had read about this place on my tourist websites as a cool place to witness the sunset. The restaurant is on the 3rd floor of a building that faces the Gulf and every night, at sunset, they pass around shots for everyone called the Green Flash, ring a gong and then everyone sings “You Are my Sunshine”. I shit you not – I HAD to see this.

Our dinner was delish and just as we got our dinner, the hostess walked up to our table, pointed to me and said “Would you like to help us with our gong tonight?” Hells yes!

Is it sad that singing that song with that big crowd brought tears to my eyes??

My brother called when we were about half way through dinner and we ended up meeting him for beers at a local sports bar, just around the corner while my parents headed for home. He kicked both of our asses in pool but I didn’t care, it was nice to finally be able to spend some one on one time with my little brother.