White Dwarfs & Cheesecake

Woke to find Mr F out marathon training so I sat by the pool with today's Piña Colada yogurt and awaited his sweaty return. Whilst waiting, I assessed the status of my 'tan'.

I do not tan as such. I do not even beige. All I get is a slow advance of freckles. I once got them as far as my fingers, but that involved a never-to-be-repeated six weeks in the Caribbean. Currently they were looking a little thin on the ground.

As I was thinking a quick swim might be in order, who should turn up and ruin it, but the pool boy. When I say pool boy, what I actually mean is pool middle-aged man in short shorts. He pulled out a long broom from who knows where and proceeded to scrubs down the tiles. I decided to make a quick exit and go slice up that humongous papaya we'd bought the other day.

In my absence, he filled my crystal clear pool with chlorine and some other nasty chemical that made it all cloudy and unswimable (new word I've just invented) for at least an hour so my morning dip would have to wait.

From the panting noises emanating from the front door, I gathered Mr F was home. Turns out, after testing the theory for 9 miles, he reached the conclusion that Floridian temperatures are not all that conducive to marathon training. It was decided that the rest of the day would be spent doing non-energetic things - kinda what I had planned anyway but I kept that to myself. According to the info, there was a proper mall in Naples and with a Cheesecake Factory just round the corner, it fit the bill perfectly. Off we headed, making sure to keep our eyes peeled for panthers on the interstate highway.

The mall had a branch of Macy's which was unexpected, so we had a wander through. Mr F was in need of some new shorts - he'd been wearing his work shorts for pretty much everything and between you and me, they'd seen better days several months ago. We rapidly found that we were the wrong age group for Macy's though, as it appeared they only catered for the infamous beige brigade. Diverted only slightly by the handbag section, we went on the hunt for caffeine instead.

Finding a Starbucks virtually next door, we popped in for a quick boost. I'd forgotten about the overly extensive length of the average US menu though. After several long, embarrassing minutes of perusing the options whilst being watched by the bemused staff, we pulled up to the counter with our best British accents at the ready. I'm proud to say we made a credible show of placing our order - probably because it didn't involve any additional words such as 'skinny' or 'half-fat'

When I next whinge about my job, please someone remind me of this - at least I'm not a trainee Starbucks barista. The trainer was an expert old hand and could make 4 drinks at the same time on a bad day. She also, perhaps, slightly enjoyed confusing the poor new girl in public. The two customers ahead of me, rolled their eyes at her slow coffee-making attempts, whilst I did my very best not to smile. The swines returned the first coffee she made so I planned on accepting whatever she gave me unless it was green and bubbling. When it came to my turn, however, the expert took over to make my mocha coconut frappiccino - I know it will never make it to British shores so I couldn't really not have it, could I? As she handed it to me, she said 'best frap you'll ever have' and you know what? It damn well was!

We wandered vaguely around the virtually empty mall, gazing in windows but not really enamoured with the bland selection of generic shops on offer - they had a Claire's Accessories for goodness sake! We did get asked if we'd like free healthcare though which was a bonus.

Having had our glut of window shopping for at least another year, we headed back to the car. It was now in such a furness-like state that we had to put the aircon on before we could physically get in. As we drove off to find the Cheesecake Factory, a gentleman crossed the road who was bent over backwards so much that he led the way with his hips. We think he must have also been a memory foam mattress user. Or a champion limbo dancer. Or very possibly both. And probably at the same time.

The Cheesecake Factory was everything I'd imagined. After seeing the cheesecake display, we planned on simply having a slice each, then heading home. Mr F, for some unknown reason though, didn't think they'd let us eat-in if we were just having cheesecake. To assuage his fears and to make him squirm, I asked "we can just have cake, can't we?" The reply was a decisive "of course" with a hint of astonishment thrown in. Our plans were then scuppered. On seeing the full menu, we ended up staying for lunch.

Mr F had the California cheesesteak sub (anything with the words 'cheese' and 'steak' in the title is never bad), whilst I had an impressive bacon & shrimp club sandwich. For the UK equivalent of 'shrimp', please read 'jumbo monster prawn'. Unable to physically fit anymore food in our bellies after this, we decided on takeaway cake to scoff in peace back at the villa. Which of the 30 flavours to choose though? Being a bit of a carrot cake fiend, I went for "Craig's crazy carrot cake cheesecake" as I guessed it would be as big a mouthful to eat as it was to say. Mr F, on the other hand, usually a devoted cheesecake follower, was swayed by an awe-inspiring beauty of a chocolate cake. It was none other than their famed Black-out cake. A chocolate cake so dense, it had to be kept within a time loop to prevent it turning into a white dwarf. This explains why it had it's own glass case well away from the cheesecakes and why Mr F's needed a sack truck to get his slice back to the car.

We were blessed on the return drive with a stupendous rain storm, which I hoped would wash all the nasty stuff out of my pool. That morning's weather report said we had a cold front coming in tomorrow - all of 85 degrees! I just hope the rain doesn't cool my pool too much though coz a girl needs to swim.

Back at the villa, it looked like we hadn't had too much rain after all but the pool was still murky. Strangely, I suddenly found myself in need of a siesta after all the excitement so Mr F popped out for a bit of late afternoon birding whilst I dozed. On his return, he mentioned he'd seen lots of slow water movement and thought it may have been manatees - we planned on investigating this further tomorrow.

We were going to Tara's lobster & steakhouse in Marco Island for dinner so one endeavoured to doll oneself up a little. Sadly, this was to be in vain. After a short detour to Cracklin' Jack's Rib House - the satnav had it's wrist slapped for that - we found ourselves in what could only be described as a seafront tourist heaven. Unfortunately, these places are never our cup of tea and finding Tara's to be virtually empty, did not bode well for it's reputation - perhaps the satnav was right the first time? On hearing our fourth British accent, we decided to call it quits and to be honest, we were still stuffed from lunch. Back at the villa, we dined on bagels & our fabulous cheesecake/neutron stars - not lobster I'll grant you but damn near close!

No. of imaginary dolphins seen: 52
No. of imaginary manatees seen: 134
No. of US cheesecakes eaten: 2
No. of equivalent UK cheesecakes eaten: 24