A Sky Aflame

Just like everyone else, we're having some chilly weather here, though the degree of chill is decidedly less than most places. I think it was in the high 50s F when I walked yesterday morning. I passed a guy bundled in a jacket and said, "It's breezy this morning!" He said, "Yeah, it caught up with us."

Hardly cause for complaint, considering how many people are dealing with snow and ice and wrapping their plants to protect them from freezing temperatures.

I love the name of this little house (above) that I passed: "NO rEGRETS." That's a Florida joke for sure, with egrets painted on the shutters. And it's for sale! I wonder how much they want?

And then there's this place:

I'd be afraid to drive on that driveway!

Yes, I love some Florida whimsy. Which is probably why I had such a great time at Goodwill yesterday. Dave, his sister and I all went after breakfast at the Cortez Cafe (a waffle for me, with two eggs over hard) and I did pretty well. I got a pair of shorts and three short-sleeved shirts, which will be great for trips to warmer climes and for approximately three weeks a year in England. One shirt has tiny flamingoes on it, one by Michael Kors has a sort of random floral-ish pattern, and then there's this:

Those are barbecue grills, in case you can't tell. I initially left that shirt behind because it's a "slim fit" and it's a bit snug on my shoulders, but then I decided I could make it work so I went back. I had to have it. I loved the pattern too much.

I passed this one up:

It was a hideous lavender-and-green striped shirt, and it was $24.99 (highway robbery!), and it had a spot on it. So, no sale. But I loved that fabric inside the cuffs and collar. Can you see the tiny dog faces? As I told Dave, if the shirt had been made of that fabric with the stripes inside the cuffs, I'd have bought it in a minute. Maybe even for $24.99. Maybe even with a spot.

I also passed on the rather extensive assortment of "Gone With the Wind"-themed plates.

In the afternoon, my brother showed up, having driven down from Jacksonville. He'd proposed going to a rustic little restaurant called Tide Tables on the Intracoastal Waterway, overlooking the bridge connecting Cortez to Anna Maria Island. Well, Dave's mom vetoed that idea because she thought it would be too cold, and she wasn't wrong. Most of Tide Tables' seating is outdoors, and what's inside is pretty rustic. So JM and I went on our own, and had a fantastic seafood dinner in chilly Old Florida surroundings with a waterfront view.

When we got there, the sky looked like this. You could see the line of clouds marking the cold front that had settled over the area. It was a dramatic enough sky, but as we ate it just got better and better. I am not exaggerating when I say it was one of the best sunsets I've ever seen. Here's a final FloriVideo™ to inadequately convey how spectacular it was:

Watch the whole thing, because it just gets better and better! And keep an eye out for the pterodactyls pelicans plunging into the bay for fish. (Music: "Triste" by Antonio Carlos Jobim, permitted on YouTube by the copyright holder.)

After our conch fritters, my fish tacos and whatever my brother had (I can't remember), and after we'd been sufficiently awed by the waning beauty, we raced over to a nearby chain steak house to join Dave and his sister and parents. Let's just say, I think my brother and I had a superior restaurant experience. (Well, my brother experienced both of them -- he ordered a steak at the steak house, on top of his seafood from Tide Tables. Surf and turf!)

Today we're heading back to Tampa to see our stepmother, who's still in the hospital but seems to be improving, and so Dave and I can catch our flight tonight. Tomorrow, insha'allah, I'll be coming to you from chilly England, where we're about to get a "snow bomb" according to weather reports. I'll be home just in time to cover the avocado!

Black Beans and Pelicans

I don't know what I've gotten into, but all of a sudden my legs are covered by itchy bites. I don't know why this surprises me, since I'm in Florida, where (as I'm pretty sure Ms. Moon has said) everything will bite or kill you if given half a chance. I think it happened when I was planting the new landscaping at my in-laws' yesterday morning. Chiggers? Mosquitoes? I have no idea.

I did get their plants in, though! Front to back, we have Hibiscus, Clusia, Ixora, a ti plant, another Hibiscus, and then behind a few hardy Dracaenas that were there already and survived last year's hurricanes, a third Hibiscus (which you can't see in the photo above). There's also a Lantana in the front flower bed. I'd forgotten how easy it is to plant things in soft Florida sand! Dave told his sister, "Steve's definitely going to want to move here now, because it's so much easier to dig than in England."

After cleaning up, Dave, his sister Dawn and I hopped into the car and drove to Tampa to meet with my college friend Sue. We had lunch at Carmine's in Ybor City, and realized that yesterday was the tenth anniversary of the party that Sue and her husband John threw at their house to celebrate my wedding to Dave. We got officially married just days before in Tampa, though we'd been Civil Unioned in New Jersey five years before that, and we use the New Jersey date as our anniversary.

After a fun lunch of Cuban sandwiches and black beans (for me), Sue went back to work and Dave, Dawn and I strolled through Ybor City, Tampa's old Latin quarter and once a world headquarters for cigar manufacturing.

We popped into La France, possibly one of the best vintage clothing stores on the planet, where Dave bought one shirt and I bought two. Turns out they are not vintage because La France also sells some unusual newly manufactured clothes, but I still love them. I'll post a picture tomorrow.

We considered going to some Tampa thrift stores but we wanted to get home before traffic got crazy, so it was back over the Skyway and home. We tried to go to some Goodwills in Bradenton, but the two I knew about have been turned into donation-only centers, where you can drop stuff off but not buy anything. What's up with that?! We'll have to try again today.

Today's FloriVideo™ comes from my evening walk. I tried to focus on pelicans, because I've given them short shrift in my previous videos and they are really remarkable birds. They are absolutely pterodactyls. The variety I've shown here is the brown pelican, but there are white ones too. You'll also see several sunset shots of Sarasota Bay, with the bridge from Anna Maria Island to Longboat Key in the distance.

Here's where I spent the late evening, watching light seep from the sky as I listened to Bossa Nova music on my iTunes. I later went inside for left over pizza and we all watched "Die Hard," in which neither Huey Lewis nor Tommy Lee Jones appear, contrary to popular and mistaken opinion. (An actor named Dennis Hayden, who is in the movie, somehow manages to look a little like both of them -- even though they do not particularly look like each other. The mysteries of camera-work!)

Spoonbills and Sushi Socks

I spotted this manatee on my early-morning walk yesterday. I love how someone has managed to give it lipstick and mascara.

BUT...I actually also spotted real manatees on my walk, along with a bunch of other interesting wildlife. Spoonbills! I've only seen roseate spoonbills in the wild a handful of times, and yet there they were, in a ditch behind some trailers, with an egret and some ibis.

And of course I decided not to bring my big camera on this trip, so all I had was my phone to record these momentous events. But it's better than nothing.

Here's a special FloriVideo™ Wildlife Edition to show you the morning's critters:
-- We start with a flock of Nanday Parakeets, flying away. I mainly wanted to record how noisy they are.
-- Then we see three Nanday Parakeets on a bird feeder, with a stork hanging out beneath them. The stork ambles away as I approach, but the parakeets stay put and squawk loudly.
-- There's an osprey, sitting in the top of a tree and piping loudly.
-- That's followed by the spoonbills and the other birds as seen in the photo above, with a noisy fly-by from the parakeets.
-- And then, manatees! They's just dark blobs in the water, but you can see their noses emerge as they breathe. We could hear them exhaling and inhaling as we stood on the shore.
-- There's another view of the spoonbills, egret and ibis from the other side of the ditch.
-- And finally, a cormorant surfaces with a big flopping fish in its beak. We didn't think it would be able to swallow it, but it did, to the disappointment of a waiting osprey. (You'll hear a woman's voice, along with me and Dave -- just another curious onlooker!)

Dave and I had lunch yesterday with my friends Jay and Charlie, who I used to work with at the Sarasota newspaper back in the day, and their partners. It was great to see them again. We ate on the patio of a restaurant at University Town Center, a glam new shopping area east of town -- it seemed like a good idea at first, but by the end of the meal I was wilting like a hothouse flower. The sun was brutal! That area was all farmland when I lived here back in the '90s. Progress, I suppose.

And yesterday evening we had our lasagna Christmas dinner. We gave Dave's dad his jar of pennies, as well as some other gifts. I got this great set of socks from Dave's sister Dawn:

Don't you love those?! I hate to even try to wear them, they're rolled so precisely. I may just enjoy them in the box for a while!

The Steak Seduction

I just ordered my morning coffee at Starbucks and it came in a paper cup, contained within a second paper cup, contained within one of those little cardboard rings that's supposed to protect my fingers from heat. And with a plastic lid. Seems like a lot of material for one cup of coffee.

Although Dave's parents' trailer has WiFi, it doesn't have a very good coffee machine. So I still find it easier to drive the short distance to Starbucks in order to blog.

So yes, they own a mobile home here, but they don't live in it. At least not anymore. Dave's mom and dad have both had health issues that necessitated their moving to an assisted living center, where they eat and sleep and spend most of their time. That's why we're staying in the mobile home, which frankly I love, because it's in one of these little sun-blasted waterfront retirement parks with hyper-neat landscaping and plastic flamingos and palm trees. We've joked about moving here ourselves. At least, I think it's a joke.

When I took my morning walk yesterday I found this sphinx moth (I think?) resting on the paved street. It was covered with dewdrops and looked like it had been there a while, but I didn't want it to get squashed, so I picked it up and moved it to a planter in front of someone's house. It was surprisingly hard to move. Those little feet can really cling. Hopefully when it warmed up and dried off it was able to move around a little more easily.

We ran errands yesterday morning, mostly preparing for today's Christmas dinner. There were originally plans for a roast and potatoes and all that stuff, but at some point it was decided that lasagna was the way to go -- easier to make and store, and using only one dish! So we bought lasagna supplies and also some new shrubs for the mobile home, where the landscaping suffered in Hurricanes Helene and Milton last year. We bought three Hibiscus, a Lantana, a ti plant, an Ixora and something I don't remember ever seeing before called a Clusia. I think the latter might actually become a tree someday, so we have to be careful where we put it.

Dave and I will be planting them today and tomorrow, and his sister will care for them, since she's staying for the next several weeks.

This insanity was parked outside a restaurant at the shopping center. I'm sure it's not road-worthy. It's just for display. There's a whole nativity scene inside the van.

Last night, Dave's parents came over (they still drive) and we ordered pizza and had a leisurely evening full of mobile home park gossip. For example, we heard about the female neighbor who solicits men in the park with offers of meat ("I have steaks and my husband isn't here; would you like to come over?"). Grace Metalious, eat your heart out!

After dark I took my nighttime walk. Today Dave and I have lunch with some friends from my years living in Sarasota (1994-2000) and then it's lasagna time!

Turtle Killers Go To Hell

Well, I'm in Bradenton now, staying at the mobile home on Sarasota Bay owned by Dave's parents. But I don't have any pictures of Bradenton yet because yesterday we were sorting out practical matters like trying to figure out the mysterious internet connection at their retirement home. They have institutional WiFi, but they also have their own WiFi for their unit, plus a router that we can't sign into at all. That third router -- why it's there and who's paying for it -- is the real mystery.

Anyway, all these pictures were taken yesterday morning before we left Lutz. I got in the habit of taking a long-ish morning walk near my stepmother's house, which got me some exercise after the daily self-harm I committed by eating a Boston kreme donut at Dunkin'.

The good news is, I should have better internet access here in Bradenton, so I'm hoping I'll be able to catch up somewhat in blogland! I know I'm way behind!

Dave and I drove down yesterday over the Sunshine Skyway, the very high bridge over the mouth of Tampa Bay. The day was sunny and we got spectacular views. I was prepared for hellish traffic, since it was a weekday, but of course no one was going to work on the Friday after Christmas so it was smooth sailing the whole way.

We met Dave's sister at the Cortez Cafe, our favorite diner in Bradenton, where I had the multicultural combo of a Greek omelette and grits. Then we went to see his parents at the retirement center, and stayed with them all afternoon. I only popped out for a Starbucks and to run a rather bizarre errand -- Dave's mom wants to give his dad a jar full of pennies for Christmas, because he's apparently a coin enthusiast and she thought he'd enjoy sorting them all. Getting hold of enough mixed pennies to fill a quart jar turns out to be a bit of a challenge. The first bank we went to gave us four rolls, but they're all fresh pennies from the mint -- so of no use for sorting. The second was a jackpot -- I got 20 rolls of pennies rolled by customers, which was above the teller's usual maximum but she said she was loaded down with them so was happy to sell them on. Problem is, that only fills half the jar.

That may have to suffice. We can get more later, if Dave's dad takes to this gift at all.

Last night we went to the Anna Maria Oyster Bar for dinner -- a cobia sandwich for me, along with two weak martinis. Which is just as well because I was driving.

Doesn't this look like one of those "ugliest dog contest" photos? This is Pinky, my stepmother's lone surviving chihuahua, who is mostly blind these days and also has no teeth. Remember how insane she and her erstwhile companion, Manny, were ten years ago? Manny is no longer with us but Pinky, of indeterminate age, is hanging in there. Fortunately her fierceness has diminished along with her vision.

Picnic Island

I have always been fascinated by this building. It stands all alone in its marble magnificence, completely different from the modest houses that surround it. When I was younger it was called the Commerce Building, I believe, and as I remember it was vacant. Apparently it was saved from demolition in the mid-'90s and became a library in 1998.

Dave and I passed it on Wednesday morning when we took a drive out to Picnic Island, a public park on Tampa Bay at the southern tip of the Tampa peninsula. I used to ride my bike out to Picnic Island when I lived in Tampa and I have fond memories of that area.

There are always lots of horseshoe crab shells out there. I'm glad the crabs haven't all been harvested for their blue blood. You can see downtown St. Petersburg across the bay on the distant horizon, directly above the crab.

We walked around the park a bit, watching the tiny fiddler crabs emerge from their holes in the mud flats around the mangroves, and checking out the scenery along the beach. Here's a FloriVideo™ featuring the scenery and something that sounds a lot like a seagull but isn't:

We had a busy Christmas yesterday. Dave and I went to the hospital in the morning to visit my stepmother, who seems to be doing OK. She complained of pain so she got some medication and we left after a short time to let her sleep. My stepsister who went to see her later said she didn't even remember we'd been there! Oh well. I think she's going to be in the hospital for several more days at least. She's still due to have some more tests and another procedure.

We had Christmas dinner at my stepsister's house, with her, her husband and some of their friends. Dave was in charge of the roast beast, which he actually cooked in the oven in our guesthouse, which as far as we could tell had never been used. It's right next door to my stepsister's so we walked it over when it was done.

Today we're off to Bradenton to spend the rest of our trip with Dave's side of the family. They've been very patient while we deal with my stepmother and her unexpected illness. This trip has been so surreal.

Merry Christmas!

This is a snapshot of my grandmother's Christmas tree, taken approximately 42 years ago. Every year from the time I was about 10 until I graduated from college, my mom, my brother and I drove north during Christmas break to visit her in Hyattsville, Md., near Washington D.C. We piled into my mom's Ford Escort and drove for two days on what seemed an exciting and exotic voyage, staying at a motel somewhere in the middle, usually some little town in South Carolina like Orangeburg or Santee or Manning.

I have such great memories of those trips. In the early years we'd drive US-301 up through Georgia and South Carolina, where I think I-95 wasn't entirely finished yet. We then joined I-95 through North Carolina and Virginia. Once the interstate was built, we switched to it along with everyone else, and forever after I lamented that we no longer drove through little burgs like Allendale, S.C. or Claxton, Ga. -- where we went right past the fruitcake factory! Part of the fun of the trip was seeing those familiar places over and over.

I loved the giant welcome signs at every state line, and crossing them felt like a triumph. Even though a state line is a political abstraction, we could almost feel the air change. I loved crossing the same rivers, eating in the same restaurants and staying in the same motels. The first few years we stayed in a motel in Orangeburg that was right out of the 1950s, with a restaurant in the forecourt.

Anyway, once we got to Grandmother's, one of the first things we'd do is break out her Christmas tree and decorate it. I can't quite remember where she stored it, but I have visions of it hanging upside down from the rafters in her basement or garage, covered with a plastic or cloth shroud. I may be making that up. (If so my brother will let me know.) She always waited until we arrived to break out any Christmas decorations.

She herself laughed at her little tree, saying it was rather pathetic compared to the invariably large and elaborately decorated one at my uncle's in northern Virginia (where we spent actual Christmas day, surrounded by our cousins). But we loved it.

Here's a (blurry) closeup of the vintage nativity scene we always put out with the tree.

I have no idea what happened to any of this stuff when she died in 1988. Maybe my cousins inherited some of the decorations. But finding these old pictures among my negatives brought back great memories. Voila! Time travel!

May all of you have a great day, whether you celebrate Christmas or not, and may you enjoy whatever memories the day may carry for you. Here in Florida my stepmother remains in the hospital, so we'll be going to see her as well as having dinner with family and friends in the evening.