Changes in latitude, changes in attitude...

We still have a book club....I know, it's been so long since you heard about it, you may have been wondering if it still existed, but it does and this month, we're reading Jimmy Buffett's A Pirate Looks at 50.  And we're having a luau-themed party to discuss this deep, extremely multi-faceted book.  :)

Jimmy's music makes me laugh and his book did, too.  I love that he's very upfront about who he is and what he enjoys, how he got to be where and who he is, that he's a curious lifelong learner and embraces people of all walks.  His book reads sort of like a blog; he'll spend some time in remembrance, bounce to the here-and-now, profile a character, take the reader on a flight to Trinidad....you just never know where it's going to turn.  He's a very positive, bright writer who has a pretty generous spirit where life and people are concerned. And he's just funny. 

Here he talks about taking his seven year old son through a breakfast buffet at the Hyatt:

I woke up and my gaze was met by a small pair of emerald-green eyes inches from my own.  I don't know how long Cameron has been awake and looking at me, but there he is, larger than life.  It's a great feeling to wake up with my son beside me, or rather in my face.  "Hi, Dad! Let's get some French toast," he says.

The Buffett boys dress quickly and head for the breakfast buffet, where a line of early-bird Christmas tourists has already formed.  The smells of breakfast have our stomachs growling.  A buffet is not supposed to be a complicated meal- cereal, juice, coffee or tea, eggs and bacon or pancakes.  But the Christmas breakfast buffet at the Hyatt is just too much of an opportunity for the food and beverage manager to pass by.  There are ice sculptures of swans, banana-leaf-lined food trays, and an omelet chef.  The line is backed up like the Long Island Expressway on the Fourth of July.  Suddenly the line is brought to a halt by none other than Cameron.  He has stopped dead in his tracks just past the ice sculpture of a pelican.  He is sniffing the air like a retriever with his tiny upturned nose.  "Look at all that bacon, Dad."

In front of us is a platter larger than his red wagon, loaded to the edges with bacon.  He looks up at me with those wide green eyes, and I connect to his conspiring thoughts.  It's just us boys.  We have fled the International House of Women for a day, where skim milk, fresh yogurt and protein powder rule  the morning meal.  All of that stuff is available here, but I load him up with bacon French toast, and sausage, making sure there's plenty for the old man as well.  Bacon is the quintessential representation of something that tastes so good and is so bad for you.  I remember times in our sailing days when I would start the morning at sea by frying up a pound of Oscar Meyer bacon, which we would devour with hot bread, jelly and butter as insulation against the carcinogens.

And that's how Jimmy Buffett writes.

This Friday, we're having our book club "discussion"/luau/fiesta at my house....

Leis! Margaritas! Flip-flops! Coconut shrimp! Bikinis!
Okay, probably not bikinis (I know of three bookclubbers who just gasped out loud at THAT), but we're going coastal and it's going to be fun! 
AND...because it's Friday and no one has to work the next day, AND the barnacles are having a sleepover at their grandparents' house, the party could last indefinitely...'til 10:00 at least.  (Can you believe how wild and crazy these girls are? 10:00 PM?!?! Cohagen will be abuzz with the news...)
AND...because it's MY house, there WILL be photographs.  (Which ensures with 100% certainty that there won't be any bikinis.)

If you want to get an idea of what the book is like, this YouTube video, "King of Somewhere Hot" pretty much encapsulates the entire thing, except you don't get to see Jimmy's son in the Hyatt breakfast buffet line with the red wagon-load of bacon....

What's YOUR favorite Jimmy Buffett song?