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I walked into the house alone, dragging both roller bags since monshu had stopped off at the market to buy milk and other absolute necessities and expecting the cat to meet me. He didn't. Some minutes later, as I was walking through the upstairs hall, I heard a plaintive meowing from the lower level. He was sitting just outside the master bedroom, where the old carpet gives way to the new, and didn't move until I scooped him up.

Everything looks healthy (except the dill sprouts, which I didn't expect to make it) but none of it has taken off the way I thought it might during a week of good summer weather--plenty of rain and sunshine--in Chicago. Scooter was knackered, having spread most of the mulch (to a depth of four inches!) himself. He proudly took me on a tour of the beds himself. A plant may have been crushed here or there, but I'm hardly going to hold that against him on balance. The condo prez still has done nothing with his plot; it'll be solid catnip in a month if he doesn't do something.

Since it was too late for a nap, the Old Man and I made cocktails and sat on the porch. (I don't need to tell y'all how much he was savouring not having to go down fifteen floors for a toke.) After a while, I began to nod off, so I went inside and blasted tunes on the computer--something I missed almost as much as Internet porn. When he asked about dinner during the slog back from Midway (two changes and nearly two hours), I quickly came out with the idea of the local Thai restaurant. Even slapping together sandwiches sounded like too much work.

It was a decent travel day all told: twenty minute delay taking off, but they still took us out of the line at security and ushered us through the pre-check. monshu and I kept disbelieving that we didn't have to remove any articles of apparel and I didn't have to opt out of a scanner for once. We were through in ten minutes, giving me time to buy some water and then get into an engrossing conversation with a lovely greyhaired couple from the resort. (I'd befriended the wife hoping it would give me a crack at chatting up the hubby later, but it hadn't born fruit before we had to leave. Greek-American, ex-military, fills out a shirt nicely. Sorry, where was I?)

And now here I am, ten minutes to read the background e-mails before my first meeting. Feh.

View from on high

Although we returned to Singer Island this year, my sister and stepmother decided to try a different property. If you peer between the skyscrapers, you can see the terracotta-coloured roofs of where we stayed four years ago and another four years before that. It has the advantage of being larger and not on the main drag (the continuous traffic noise was reminiscent of when I lived near LSD). The units here had larger balconies and fancier showers, but were otherwise much the same.

We were surprised to have an open vista to the south like this. From what we were able to piece together, the hotel located here was torn down some years ago but part of it (visible in the lower right) became a massage parlour. That closed, too, and the property was bought up by a speculator who uses it to host parties. Out of frame to the left is a pavilion which I discovered was stacked with folding chairs and tables when I snuck in on our last morning there and had a peek.

It was refreshing to see a bit of greenery which wasn't manicured to within an inch of its life even if it's still far from natural. Obviously the line of palmettos is a relic of some earlier landscaping, but it seems likely that the trees are volunteers. The squatter ones are seagrapes, which I was familiar with from earlier visits (Marriott uses them to screen the pool areas from the beach) but I'm not used to seeing grow so large.

The spikier ones aren't actually conifers even if they are popularly known as "Australian pines". The species name is Casuarina equisetifolia, from the resemblance to both cassowaries and horsetails. They don't have needles at all; their leaves take the form of scales covering thin twigs and they're actually in the beech family. They are Australian, however, although endemic to South Florida, where they're considered invasive.

Unfortunately the weather conditions captured here were rather typical. Normally the Florida summer means thunderstorms which build over the course of the day, release a cloudburst around 4 o'clock or so, and dissipate. This trip we had rain into the evenings most nights, and often in the middle of the day as well. At points the winds were so strong the raindrops were driven upwards, giving them the appearance of snowflakes and making my sister doubt her eyes.