Slightly Inaccurate…

…  so yesterday I posted a little anecdote about how I was slightly foolish on the plane from my wonderful trip to Central Florida back home. I would say it’s a bit less foolish and more dorky.  Either way, the point of the piece, it can be assumed, is to laugh at me rather than with me.

Which is why I’m reminded of another happening this past Sunday — an exchange between Hilly and myself  where a bit of foolishness manifested itself. In typical fashion, Hilly urged me to post this adventure for all to see! For you, the audience, to read, chuckle and mock the foolish party involved! And so — in the sole interest of entertaining you — I’m posting the incident here. I’d like to give it a lighthearted title. Like “The Divine Nature of Modern Day Prophecy Through Didactic Symbolism In A Chaotic Realm.”

Now — before I begin — I know Hilly quite well. And I’m sure that, no matter what I write, she’ll comment on this story and say something like “Really? You remembered it that way?” Or “Shiny, what the hell is the matter with your recall ability?” Or something else which will get her all into a tissy because I have something minor wrong. Like an exit number or mile marker. Or, heaven forbid, I might describe a different variety of palm tree than it actually is.  Simply take this as a forewarning to take her almost certain corrections with a grain of salt.

So anyway…

We decided to drive up the shore a bit after spending some time at Daytona Beach. This was a nice opportunity for us to explore the different types of beach experiences people have in Florida.  Daytona was very touristy. Lots of gift and souveneir shops. Hotels on every block. Relatively crowded beaches with bike and chez lounge rentals all over the place. Planes with banners unfurled overhead.  But we wanted to see some of the less touristy places. We drove up I-95 a bit near Flagler Beach, and then hit up A1A, the road on the Peninsula which (on the most part) parallels the shores of the Atlantic Ocean.

And drive we did. It was fascinating to see the off-the-beaten path rentals. The beach houses on stilts. And, evem further up, the secluded beachfront mansions which were beautiful. And the occassional biker bar to the side of the road.  There was one called “Finn’s” which we were going to take a picture of — but the light turned green too soon.

It was around this time that Hilly noticed that she was running low on gasoline. The light had just come on on her dashboard. I mentioned that this meant we probably had about 20 miles or so to go and not to worry. In fact, I believe that I was quite chill about the whole thing.  But she was quite intent on finding a gas station right then.

We didn’t have a working GPS in-dash — but we did have our iPhones! A simple search for “gasoline” was able to pull up some results. I advised to keep driving; a gas station was sure to come up shortly.  She agreed and we kept driving.  But there weren’t actually any gas stations — despite what Google Maps was telling us.

I remained calm as Hilly started to panic a bit. She looked at the iPhone and was very afraid that we would run out of gas in a secluded stretch of A1A in the middle of an almost deserted, backwards looking town a few miles south of a place called “Hammock.”  While I simply decided to have faith that something would turn up, Hilly was becoming a bit hysterical. “We need to turn around,” she gasped. “I don’t see any gas stations on the map beyond this point. We need to go back!”

I decided that it would be best to choose my battles and not let this be one. We drove for a few more yards and, while I remained cool and collected, we turned into the parking lot of a dilapidated Orthodox synagogue at the side of the road.  We circled the parking lot to exit and make our U-Turn — and that’s when I saw something crucial: a gas station only a few more feet up the road! It even took Hilly a few moments to see it for herself!

After all this time — after all of  Hilly’s worries that we would get stuck because of something probably misread on Google Maps — there was what we were looking for after all! “And all because of this Orthodox synagogue out in the middle of nowhere!” I laughed. “I suppose this is a sign — a sign that my God (the Jewish one)  is superior to your God (the Christian one) because… um…”  And then I said something witty about having only found the gas station after Divine Intervention through the synagogue parking lot! I suppose you had to be there.

“Ah, Shiny” she replied, “you’re just so darn witty. And smart! And clever. I think you should blog about this and demonstrate the prowess of your God through such miracles.”

And so I did. And I got most of it completely right. I think…

So — that’s the story. Wasn’t it fun?

–

Oh — while we were walking around Daytona, we came across this dude whose money-making scheme was to find peopl and put rare, tropical birds on their shoulders and take pictures of them for money. We decided to do this.

And the picture turned out quite lovely. At least I thought so. Hilly was not happy with the way she looked in the photo and made it abundantly clear that I was not allowed to post the photo to my blog or to Twitter.

But it bugged me a little. Only a little, of course, because I was pretty sure I would ignore her directive very early on.  That notwithstanding, I was concerned because I truly felt it was a good picture and she didn’t.  I eventually bugged her enough to the point where she agreed I could post it if I cropped her out.

But come on! The symmetry of the picture only exists when there are two birds! And the bird on my shoulder was (and I don’t want to sound too snooty here)  very monochromatic.  It simply wasn’t something I felt comfortable doing.

So I decided I would post the picture anyway.  A quick substitution was made for Hilly:

I only wish he had smiled a bit more. Yummy…