Randy and I drove down to Naples last Friday to attend the weekly Happy Hour at my sister Lisa’s condo complex. There are only 82 units, about half are full-time residents, but it’s “season” in Florida so Happy Hour included a lot of snowbirds.
We wouldn’t normally drive down to Naples for Lisa’s Happy Hour, but it was the actual day of her 60th birthday. She’s kind of a big deal down in her condo complex, known for her gregarious personality, relative youth, willingness to pitch in whenever and whatever, and ability to create a good time for one and all. As her big sister and geographically closest family, Randy and I wanted to help her celebrate this momentous event.
We’ve met a few of her friends since we’ve lived in Florida, so we weren’t complete strangers, but there were a lot of people there we didn’t know. And a lot of food.
Each week everyone brings a snack to share, but because of Lisa’s birthday, her husband Jim also picked up two full size (13” x 21” I think) deep-dish trays of lasagna and chicken alfredo (Lisa’s favorite!) from a local restaurant Lisa loves. He also brought a cake (of course!) and one of Lisa’s besties made, from scratch, an Oreo and caramel ice cream cake to serve with the regular birthday cake. It was all really scrumptious, especially since Randy and I hadn’t eaten all day.
I’m guessing there were probably 50 people there. The number of gifts she got was enviable, if I had an envy gene in me. As her big sister, though, I was just proud of how well liked she seems to be. Opening the gifts was hilarious, as all of these people know her very, very well, and are pretty darn creative in using that knowledge in their gift giving. Lisa walked away with several bottles of SKYY vodka, lottery tickets, lots of puzzles, including one someone thoughtfully ordered made out of one of Lisa’s family photos, other types of adult beverages, and the funniest gift of all, a couple of cheap, plastic ice trays.
The ice trays were a hit because Lisa broke her ankle a couple of weeks ago. She celebrated her 60th birthday in a walking boot. Here’s the backstory. Lisa and Jim, a few years ago, got a new refrigerator with a mediocre ice maker. So mediocre that the ice maker doesn’t keep up with their needs, especially when they party, which is pretty often. Lisa used to get ice from the condo clubhouse but that icemaker also broke some time back. She became aware (I’m not sure how) that the golf course, right behind their condo, separated only by a neatly trimmed hedge, put an ice maker in a mid-course restroom building, just a hop, skip and a jump from that hedge. Lisa decided to conduct a little raid on the building and abscond with a supply of free ice one evening. While crossing the hedge (barrier) she stepped in a hole and broke her ankle. The trays were a suggestion that it’s safer to just make her own damn ice.
At one point during the party, Lisa was chatting with some snowbirds. She realized they were from Plover, WI and that Randy and I used to live in Plover. She said to them (as confirmed by several witnesses), “come meet my sister and her husband who used to live in Plover. Wouldn’t it be funny if you used to be neighbors?”
Lisa dragged Mary Lou and Ken over and introduced us. Randy started describing the unique A-frame house we lived in and Ken said, “Geez, that sounds like the house next door to us.” We verbally stumbled around for a bit because I couldn’t remember our old address, but thanks to the magic of Google, I put our names into the search engine along with Plover, WI and the address we lived 27 years ago (!) popped right up. Sure enough, when we lived there in 1998, Mary Lou and Ken lived right across the street from us! They moved many years ago…only across the street, to next door to the house we once owned. We were all astonished.
Randy and I lived in that house for just 8 or 9 months before we moved to Missouri. It was an unsettled time for us right before moving to Missouri, and, as Mary Lou pointed out, we didn’t have kids. Though we may have met them as neighbors back then, we didn’t become friends because it seems we didn’t have any shared interests.
As we were getting to know Ken and Mary Lou, another couple came, a bit late, to the party. Lisa had commented several times on their absence, because they, too, are snowbirds from Plover and wanted us to meet them. Turns out they, Denise and Bob, are Ken and Mary Lou’s neighbors in Wisconsin, so also were our neighbors in Plover. We didn’t know them either back then, but as the seniors we are now, all of us enjoyed swapping stories, catching up on mutual acquaintances, and reminiscing about our favorite haunts in the area.
These strange coincidental meetings happen far more often than you’d think. Last year I wrote a post about the two women I sat with on a flight who were each from my hometown (Manitowoc, WI). None of us knew each other before that day we sat together in Seats 23 A, B, & C. Crazier still, we all live in SW Florida. We’ve become friends and have lunch regularly. In that same post, Six Degrees of Separation, I wrote about the time I was on Guam, met a guy from Florida who said he knew a guy from Wisconsin, who turned out to be one of my cousins! And then on Monday, the day before I post this, Randy and I met a man who grew up in Kiel, Wisconsin, a tiny, rural town about 27 miles from Manitowoc. We spent a bit of time reminiscing about Wisconsin and singing the praises of now living in Florida.
It is indeed a small, small, world. And I have the stories to prove it.
It’s been a great week, and we’ve made some new friends. There’s nothing better than retirement in Florida.
God is good and we are blessed.
P.S. We’re no longer heating the pool and it’s getting warm enough to plunge in. The beaches are also finally opening after the 2 devastating hurricanes (Helene and Milton, 2 weeks apart) last fall where storm surge, rather than wind, changed our beaches forever. Just in time, too. I need a beach fix. (Michele…let’s go!)
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