Aventuras De Viaje

Nitro Dean

Holidays have the capacity to change a person.  I’m not talking about core or fundamental changes necessarily, but rather more nuanced and subtle changes that wouldn’t impact the casual observer, yet to the trained eye, one honed over years of friendship, family-ship or marriage, well, subtle changes loom large.

For example, I have earned the moniker “Florida Blake” because I am more extroverted, more gregarious, and more willing to engage in conversations with strangers when I am on holiday.

Let me focus for a moment on my brother-in-law, Dean, Lisa’s husband.  Dean is a Frito-Lay executive, and expert in his field, though now retired, but extremely accomplished and by all measures, successful.  He is an excellent golfer, an avid tennis player, and curious about all things.  His sense of humor is spectacular, with a laugh that can come out of nowhere, triggered only by a thought he has or a circus dog trick by Mully (short for Mulligan) Lisa and Dean’s golden doodle, and this laugh builds and extends for what seems like minutes, causing others to laugh for no reason either, except his crescendo.  But Dean is also what I would characterize as a no-nonsense kind of kind.  He’s never silly, never flippant, and like my dad, never has an unkind word when talking about others.  It’s like he is always giving people the benefit of doubt – an admirable trait.

So that is Dean, normal Dean, but there is another Dean, “Nitro Dean.”  Dean does not drink coffee like I do.  As I’ve described, I love coffee.  Dean occasionally imbibes.  But down here, within walking distance of our oceanfront villa, there is a Dunkin Donuts conjoined with a convenience store/gas station.  Early in this trip, Dean investigated and then procured, a $4.28 cup of cold-brewed nitro coffee.  The first day of this acquisition, he consumed the entire 8 oz cup and Nitro Dean emerged.  On this particular lazy day, after pickleball (for Les) and tennis (for Lisa), after the walk on the beach with Mully and Lily, when the afternoon breeze caresses and kisses your skin blowing away the heat of the Keys afternoon sun, when books become naps, Nitro Dean emerged and according to the ladies, “He would not shut up!”  He was literally babbling about this and that – remember this is a man of concentrated words and brief, but thoughtful comments. 

Later in the evening, when we had air-fried some of our catch from earlier in the week, Nitro Dean was randomly getting up, wandering mid-mouthful about the house, only to return and join in at whatever stage the conversation was at.  For those who don’t know the Taugher women, their humor is legendary, and their ability to use their wit and dry sarcasm against their husbands, even more fabled.  This night, the bombardment fell on Nitro Dean, and to his credit, he accepted it with his famed laugh, but the conclusion was, regular Dean is not upbeat enough, and full-cup Nitro Dean was too much.  Again, all this in the loving manner of the Taugher lassies, but as Florida Blake is the most frequent target of their exasperation, I quite enjoyed being a spectator to the disembowelment of Nitro Dean.  The conclusion, which came a few days later and with some experimentation, was that ideal Nitro Dean was the result of the imbibing of exactly one-half a cup of Dunkin’ Nitro Cold Brew.

At this level, we still get a man who will literally get up from the table at Lazy Days restaurant in Isla Morada, have a wander through the tables, not in search of the loo, but simply to see the patrons, evaluate the lay-out, maybe chat to the bartender to assess the percentage of locals vs tourists, and then return to the table to announce his findings…or not.  But we also get the exploratory benefit, when Nitro Dean susses out new biking routes for us, finds hole-in-the-wall restaurants and discerns local facts that far outpace the capabilities of even Florida Blake.