The Ritual Blowing of the Flamingo

My mother has a variety of rituals that occur regularly here. In general they involve some sort of mischief. Like training iguanas, imprisoning crabs, or putting dead palm fronts on her friend’s door. She has also embraced the island’s flamingo leitmotif and has everything from flamingo hats to a flamingo corkscrew (my offering this trip) and various flamingish signage. 

This has culminated (I hope) in a giant inflatable flamingo she plans to trap a friend in at the pool. My father valiantly tried to fill the thing by hand, but eventually resorted to getting out a scuba tank and filling it that way. At some point, it became a group project.

Once sufficiently filled, the Flamingo needed a name. I suggested Felicity Brinesnoot, but my mother insists on calling her “Flo” instead. It turns out there are several other flamingo floats living around the pool, so my next pool experience was with a flock. The steady wind here means that they blow around the pool, and are generally annoying. So far I have avoided getting in one, but I doubt my luck can continue through the next two weeks. 

I am already burn/tanned enough to notice, and currently mourning the loss of the deathlike pallor which I carefully cultivated over the years since I was last here.