A Valentine Monkey For Gabriella

Toy monkeys are hard to find. I have no idea why, but there must be at least a one hundred to one ratio between teddy bears and toy monkeys. When I wanted to send my new grand daughter a cute cuddly gift a few months ago I had to settle on other animals. My son said that she loved playing with them. Just before the holidays I lucked out! I wasn't really looking but I found a cute little brown monkey. Lucky Gabriella!

A few weeks ago I saw a huge display of assorted stuffed animals. I don't know why I even bothered, but I spent at least 15 minutes digging through that pile. Sure enough, there was one toy monkey in the unlikely (unmonkeylike?) colors of red and white with pink and white hearts scattered about on the red. One look and I just knew that it would make the perfect Valentine to send to Gabriella.

In a few days the monkey will get to fly up to Logan International Airport in Boston. It's cold there. In the meantime I've been taking her around the North Miami area to see the sights and meet my friends so she can tell Gabriella all about what a bunch of kooks I hang out with, and how we sit around all day long smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, reading books and newspapers, and talking about "The Old Days". In this shot we'd just checked out the magazines at Barnes and Noble and were about to head over to Starbucks to sit outside, sip a cup of java, and hopefully find a bit of friendly conversation. We can sit outside because it's warm here.