Walking Rusty out of our apartment at six o'clock in the morning under an umbrella we pass our reminder.
We live in the Palm Beach building next door and there’s Tampa Bay further toward the office and Fort Lauderdale across the garden, and so forth. The naming of this complex called officially Lakeside is a reminder to me of the glory days of the US as example to be followed.
This is Florida living at 16 degrees south latitude in an economy where our pensions make us firmly middle class. Our unit is for sale but long term rentals are available.
We got our unit for a month because it’s for sale and we promised to agree to any showings in return we get to stay through our agreed rental contract currently January 8th but which we may have to extend to January 22nd depending on the van work.
The weather is overcast with frequent downpours such that we carry umbrellas at all times and I’ve even dug out my beach camera a Panasonic TS7, a compact dive camera safe to 100 feet under water. Sometimes one goes feel submerged and the pictures don’t do conditions justice.
The funny thing is the rain comes as a relief, it feels like winter in Key West with the air conditioning off and windows wide open. Getting wet is no more dramatic than that; this isn’t hypothermia country.
Rusty loves it and that matters to me. He mooches around looking at the world from the patio then he goes indoors and takes a nap as any old dog should. He spent an hour yesterday morning dragging me through the rain along the not terribly scenic lakeshore investigating absolutely everything he came across. I photographed things I came across just as we used to in the Keys.
Every now and again he would wander off and then look around myopically for me so I’d wave my umbrella to alert him to my location. The vets say he is getting glaucoma and possibly is a little deaf but he hears pretty well when he wants to.
We discovered a family of capybara, harmless hairy pig- like wild animals stuffing their faces on fallen mangoes. Rusty treated them like d wry other bizarre South American creature he has encountered: with curiosity and suspicion leading to over confidence when they snort and squeal and run off. He still comes when called though so his deafness doesn’t prevent him hearing me when I mean it. Rusty the stalker getting in position behind some cover:
I hope I’ll get a chance to watch them on a dry day with a proper lens.
If anyone suggested we should retire to a south Florida apartment to wile away retirement I’d get pretty indignant. But for the moment doing just that in Brasilia has enough of the exotic to make it enticing.
I trust we shall be back on the road exploring South America before I find myself yelling at young people telling them to get off my lawn.
Garbage hauling on three wheels:
They have expensive tastes in South America too. I read in travelers forums about standing out with an expensive car if you travel here. Not really…
