Fertile Myrtle the Turtle Got Over a Major Hurdle

It is my older brother’s 40th birthday in two weeks and he’s had such a crap year that we’ve decided to extend his festivities and make it a month long party of great weekends. Saturday night was the first in the long string of drunkenness to come...but, alas, not for me. *sigh*

So anyway, we (Joey, G, Sash, E, Me and Ray) piled into Joey and G's fabulous Mercedes SUV and sped off to The Food Shack. Uh, for those of you who will be in Florida at any time in the future, this is a must not miss. I've been hearing about this damn restaurant for years and finally managed to get there.

And. It. Was. So. Worth. It.

It's in Jupiter in a crappy little strip mall. Looks like nothing from the outside. The only marker is the crowd of people waiting to get into the joint.

ps - they only have a beer and wine license, yet nobody cares. It's all about the food.

We finally got our party of six seated, in the back, near the toilets, on a 4 top with chairs squeezed on the ends. Again, nobody cared. After looking at the handwritten menu for the day, passed to us by 7-year-old Jessica (it was her first night, Joey told her she was working like an old pro), Ray and I ordered a kebab of pan-fried scallops, cooked to caramelly perfection, atop a bed of greens and tropical fruit. Holy Crap! Then I had the coconut and ginger encrusted hogfish with some sort of crazy sauce drizzled over it, atop a salad of delicate micro greens. Holy Crap Crap! I was loving it. After Sash ate his meal, he draped himself across E and G and caught a quick catnap. Nobody in the restaurant cared. My kinda place!

The gang then decided that we should hit the liquor store next door and load up on beer, ice, gin and mixers and hit the beach like we were 17 again. Sounded like a plan to me, but I ducked into Publix to get my own personal stash. That's right. Cake and cookies. C'mon, meow!If I can't imbibe in the G and T, you better bloody let me have some sugar!

At the checkout, I witnessed two big boobed modelly types being chatted up by two older bull dykey types. Lots of flirting going on there. I casually looked up into the magazine rack and saw that someone had left a discarded toy called The Jumbo Fish Dive and Catch Game. Hmmm.

How appropriate.

I went back into the liquor store to see how things were coming along. Everyone had a drink in their hand! I guess the party goes wherever Joey goes, so paper cup beers and plastic cup wines were all over the place. Exclamations of "Ooooh, try this one!" and "I like this red better than the other two!" and "We should make our own beer, like this!" We left with three bags of booze and a cooler full of ice. Sandy paradise, here we come.

So, because all of them were already drunky, I got to drive the Mercedes! Beautiful car, but complicated. It was as if it was saying, and not so subtly "I am special, therefore my controls will be weird and in completely different places." Sniff. I kept trying to indicate my turns with the cruise control and I had to have the push button Park mode explained to me a couple of times. But fantastic car nonetheless. Flips a bitch like a dream. A the sound system was pumping out Motley Crue like nobody's business. Joey's on a Crue jag right now - he's dragging Sash to their concert tomorrow night. Thank god I have Prenatal Yoga as an excuse...

We unloaded the car at the quiet end of the beach just as the sunlight was disappearing. They set up the bar, I dove into the cake (a slice white on white for me, chocolate for the Birthday Boy, and sugar cookies for the rest of you bastards). We laughed and got even more drunky and peed in the bushes. Joey kept standing upwind of us and farting these devastatingly revolting beefs our way. It really was just like we were back in high school.

Then, the most amazing thing happened.

An enormous, and I mean gigantonormous, sea turtle hauled her ass out of the ocean, plowed her way up the beach, leaving an SUV-sized trail in the sand, and commenced digging a nest and laying her eggs for the next hour and a half. We stood there in awe just watching this pregnant monolith work her paddles like the devil, grunting out and covering about 100 leathery eggs. Then she turned around and lumbered, with frequent rests, back into the sea.

It was pretty magical. Joey got all weepy and said we'd just witnessed a miracle. I think he was pretty drunk, but it was sweet. I also felt a pretty cool oneness with the old girl. I'm just thankful that I don't have to squirt this kid out by myself, in the dark, with ten billion grains of sand crawling up my ass crack.