Be Strong in the Lord

I got up early yesterday morning and took a long walk through the neighborhoods just to the east of Dave's parents' mobile home. It was about 55º F (or 13º C) -- cool enough that I needed a sweater, which isn't all that unusual for Florida in February. I had a great time checking out all the Florida-themed paint jobs and garden ornaments.

Then I took some boxed bed frames up to the UPS store to return them to Amazon for Dave's sister. They were purchased for their parents's new place, but for whatever reason they didn't work out. Those suckers were heavy and I was glad to get them shipped back and to be able to do something small for Dawn, who has been working so hard to get their mom and dad settled.

I had an appointment to meet my brother in Tampa at 12:30 p.m., so I hit the road about 11 a.m., which I thought would give me plenty of time. But THE TRAFFIC! Holy cow! I navigated my way out to I-75 and the northbound cars were backed up for miles. I don't know if there was an accident or what, but rather get in the middle of that congestion I drove past the Interstate and found a northbound detour, through the sprawling new housing developments that have paved almost every inch of the swamps and pastures that not so long ago patchworked that area. By the time I was on the main road again it was practically noon.

I got to Tampa half an hour late and joined my brother, J.M., for a meatball sub at Alfonso's, a pizzeria we frequented as kids -- now run by the former owners' son. Still a fantastic meatball sub! We ate as televisions overhead showed highlights of World Wrestling Federation matches.

J.M. and I had some important family business to attend to -- scattering my mom's ashes. It took a while to work out a plan, get permission and wait until I was back in the country. Not to be all mysterious, but I'll keep the details to ourselves.

We also visited the house where we both grew up. No one was home, but I laid a hand on two of the big trees on the property -- a magnolia my mother planted and a pine that was there before the house was built in 1966. I choked up, thinking about my mom and how these two trees had seen us grow up and get older. And now a whole new family is growing up beneath their branches. Trees seem so eternal.

That's the lake where we used to swim. If there is a God, he/she was present at the moment I took that picture.

We drove around the neighborhood for old times' sake and then hit the road separately for Jacksonville, where my brother lives.

It took four hours to get up here, so I was driving through little towns like Waldo, Starke and Middleburg at night. I haven't driven on an open road after dark in ages, and I worried I'd come across a deer or other wildlife, but I didn't. In fact I saw no animals all day, living or dead, except humans, the occasional bird and two house cats frolicking on a side street when I stopped in Starke to take the photo above. The absence of roadkill was striking. I wondered if wild animals are learning to stay away from roads, or perhaps there are simply a lot fewer of them.

Anyway, I'm here now!

Another Day in Paradise

Morning: Eggs, toast, grapefruit on the front porch. The weather is cool and crystal blue. The next-door neighbor, Tom, stops by to ask how Dave's parents are doing. He seems shocked by the suddenness of their move, but we explain how it happened -- Dave's dad's back injury, and how it left his mother (who has her own mobility issues) unable to care for him. Tom goes into a monologue about his Dutch heritage and his history in Michigan.

When we later tell Dave's parents about Tom's visit, they roll their eyes. "That guy likes to talk," they say.

Dave's sister leaves to take the parents to some doctors' appointments. Dave and I drive out to Anna Maria Island to see the hurricane damage. On the Cortez waterfront, the Seafood Shack stands decimated -- "crushed by the storms," as my brother wrote earlier. We all ate here as children. Now it's going to become a public dock and marina.

And of course, the Rod N' Reel Pier, which I wrote about last fall after Helene damaged it and Milton destroyed what was left. The sign says they intend to rebuild. A guy in biking gear is taking selfies next to the fenced-off pier entrance, decorated with wreaths and flowers. He shares his stories of fishing here with friends while growing up in Bradenton. I share mine of late nights with college friends, sitting on the end of the pier with bottles of Miller Lite, watching fish churn the water and a Space Shuttle launch on the other side of the state, blazing a trail like a shooting star in reverse.

Dave and I drive back to the mainland, navigating horrendous high-season traffic, to join his parents for lunch at Discovery Village. Dave and his sister go back to their apartment to assemble more furniture and fill out 10-page insurance forms that inexplicably come with multiple envelopes, yet all seem to be going to the same place.

I duck out for a Starbucks coffee and find this:

What is it about Trump that creates this kind of enthusiasm? People loved Reagan, Kennedy, Clinton, Obama, but none of them, to my knowledge, inspired their own roadside shops. Neither did Newt Gingrich, Barry Goldwater, Rush Limbaugh or other earlier heroes of the rabid right. I suppose it's because Trump is not just a man. He's an attitude.

I drive back to Discovery Village and we hang around until dinnertime, when we go to a nearby Italian restaurant. We find an easily accessible table and park Dave's parents' walkers next to a wall. A jazz band plays too loudly and I, trying to eat healthy, get the biggest, most ridiculous salad I have ever seen, topped with about half of a full-sized chicken (diced). I eat a third of it, bring home the rest and throw it away.

Today I'm off to Tampa to meet my brother for some family business before heading north to Jacksonville.

Oysters with Pearl

Dave and I have rapidly settled into the American way of life. We are eating, eating, eating and occasionally shopping. When in Rome, I suppose.

We went to breakfast yesterday at the Cortez Cafe, which is one of my favorite spots for pancakes and eggs (and I had both). Then we moved some furniture and wall decor to Daves' parents' new place in Discovery Village, which sounds like a bigger job than it really was -- the furniture wasn't large and our cars have capacious rear storage so we could do it without renting a U-Haul or anything like that.

While Dave and his sister stayed at DV to assemble some chairs for his parents (imagine long but unnecessary story here involving free chairs mistakenly sent via Amazon), I decided to run to Kohl's to return a belt that his mom sent for my birthday in November. (When I say "run" I mean drive, obviously. Again, the American way of life.)

The belt was too small. I have a 32-inch waist but she sent me a 32-inch belt, which of course means it wasn't long enough to be buckled because you need a little extra belt for that. So I brought it back from London and drove it to Kohl's and explained my tale of woe: old purchase, different store, no receipt, blah blah blah.

They were nice about it, even though I could only get a refund for about two-thirds of what Dave's mom paid. I intended to also buy a replacement belt and some new undershirts. But the process turned complicated when they needed a driver's license, which I suddenly could not find. I looked in my wallet and my pockets and...WHERE WAS MY DRIVER'S LICENSE?! I can't drive around Florida for a whole week with no license!

I tried to pass of my British biometric ID card but that wouldn't work because they have to scan a bar code on the license, and then of course that led to questions about why I had a British ID and a purported Florida license that I couldn't find. I finally ran out to the car and was half-tempted to drive away before I got arrested for identity fraud -- but I found the license, which I'd carelessly tossed into the glove box, thank god thank god thank god. I took it in and they scanned it and then they needed a phone number for my Kohl's reward dollars, or something like that, and of course my British number wouldn't work. So I gave Dave's Mom's number and she got my Kohl's dollars, and will now probably be arrested herself when she goes back to the store.

Long story short, I got out of there with a new belt and t-shirts, and not in handcuffs.

I've seen lingering signs of damage from last year's hurricanes, Helene and Milton. The mobile home park where Dave's parents have wintered for years (and where Dave, his sister and I are now staying) has several units that look like this, especially along the waterfront of Sarasota Bay. There are uprooted forests of Australian pines, gigantic trees that are non-native and invasive and not really made to withstand those kinds of storms. Miraculously, Dave's parents' place escaped serious damage, though some of the landscaping seems to have been killed by salt water.

On my way back to Discovery Village from Kohl's, I took a side trip to drive through the neighborhood where my friend Cherie lived in the '90s. I used to go to her house every Thursday night to watch "Must See TV" but on this return trip I could not find it. The area has changed so much with road-widening and new construction, and of course all the trees are bigger, and I recognized nothing.

I came across this flock of ibis, which seemed perfectly untroubled by the increasing urbanization as they happily nibbled morsels off the pavement and out of the lawns.

Finally, last night, we went to dinner at the Anna Maria Oyster Bar, which is a longtime haunt of Dave's parents and right next to DV, and thus very convenient. (Even though it's next door we drove, because now they both use walkers.) I had a couple of raw oysters, coconut shrimp with cheese grits and Brussels sprouts, and key lime pie.

We were intrigued by AMOB's dedicated waitress, Pearl:

I have never in my life seen a robotic waitress. (I'm saying waitress because of the coconut-husk bikini top, which may be in dubious taste from a feminist perspective but never mind. This is Trump country.) She seemed very "Star Trek." We gave our orders to a human, and humans mostly took care of us, but Pearl did steady duty helping to deliver food. She was very skilled in steering around people and obstacles, and seemed to flawlessly navigate the layout of the restaurant. Apparently she has occasionally been known to get stuck on a rug or drop a bowl of soup, but what waitress doesn't?

I'm not sure what's on the agenda for today, aside from more time at Discovery Village. ("What are we discovering?" Dave asked. None of us are sure.)

(Top photo: A bath-house at an RV park near Dave's parents' mobile home.)

Spacious Skies

We arrived in Tampa safe and sound last night, tired from the trip and the persistent crowds but otherwise fine. We flew out of Gatwick on British Airways, taking the direct flight that I always like. But this time, checking in was a nightmare. We were at the airport the recommended three hours ahead of time, and we spent an hour and a half standing in the check-in line. It was huge to begin with, but then the BA staff kept calling people up for flights that were leaving sooner than ours, so over and over again we were bypassed by hordes of people behind us who basically didn't give themselves enough time. As I told the woman standing in front of us -- who was equally punctual and thus equally punished -- "I'm just going to show up an hour later next time!"

And the ticket agent had to jump through hoops to find us both seats because by the time we got to the counter we were so freaking late and the plane was oversold. (Normally we check in online in advance, but I confess I completely forgot. Won't make that mistake again!)

Somehow we got seats -- Dave even got an exit row, though he said it wasn't particularly comfortable -- and here we are. I spent the flight reading -- two New Yorkers, a BBC "Gardener's World" magazine and the rest of "The Wager," which I really liked.

Once in Florida, we disembarked from the plane, breezed through passport control, baggage claim and customs, and said hello to Phoebe the flamingo. (Obviously that's not me in the picture. Phoebe is besieged by a steady stream of photo-posers and selfie-takers.)

We then went to pick up our rental car, which turned into another massive delay because of course the people in front of us had some problem with their car reservation, which the counter agent was apparently unable to solve to their satisfaction. A manager was called, there was much strenuous explanation of policies and procedures blah blah blah, the customers had to get on the phone to a travel agent of some kind, there were furrowed brows and shaking heads. We were finally called to an adjacent counter (after a 30-minute wait) and when we departed a short time later with our key fob, they were still there, trying to get to Disney World.

Speaking of which, there was lots of Disney swag on our plane -- t-shirts, bags, stuffed Mickeys and Minnies. The man in front of me was wearing a Disney-branded elastic headband securing his sunglasses to his head (yes, even on the plane). You could tell these were all people who had already visited the Happiest Place on Earth and were going back for another round. Other British schools must also be on break now -- in any case, there were a million kids.

We got on the road, cruised down the smooth, wide highways through St. Petersburg and across the Sunshine Skyway Bridge to Bradenton. I had to pay the bridge toll ($1.75) in cash, and all I had was a $50 bill that Dave's parents sent me for my birthday last year. "This is all I have, I'm sorry," I said to the toll-taker when I handed it to him. "Well, what if I don't have the change?" he said, with a half-grin. "I don't know!" I responded, but I could tell he did in fact have it, thank God, and we were on our way again.

We got to Dave's parents' place in Bradenton and sat up with his sister Dawn, de-briefing about their recent move to assisted living and all the tasks involved. Today we're moving some furniture and other stuff to their new place at Discovery Village, which Dawn has branded "DV" for short.

I was up at 4:20 a.m. this morning (in England it was 9:20 a.m., so I actually overslept!) and had to run out to find coffee because the coffee machine here has apparently already made the move to DV. Fortunately there's a big Ed Ruscha-worthy gas station with an attached 7-Eleven just a mile or two down the road. The hot, fresh coffee gushed out of the urn like a brown waterfall and here I am, back in the land of plenty.

Taking Wing

As I walked home from work yesterday, I noticed that the Bottlenecks sign that was recently revealed on one of our corner shops is being covered up again. At least it's not being painted over or destroyed. Maybe at some point decades in the future, when Every Skin and its successor shops have come and gone, Bottlenecks will once again see the light of day and make people wonder about its origins.

The last two days at work were ridiculously quiet, given that there were very few students in the building. I mostly did background tasks in the library, things that I've been meaning to get to but can't when the kids are around. I cleaned out our resource lists and catalog collections -- lists of books we compile for specific classes or class projects -- deleting dozens of old ones. I also cleaned out my desk drawers. Big excitement!

Finally, at about 3 p.m., I could no longer pretend I was doing anything useful and I came home. Dave was already here because he did all of his parent/teacher conferences from his recliner via video calls. Our modern world!

We did nothing special for Valentine's Day, unless you count the steak dinner Dave cooked last night, which was indeed pretty fantastic. I'm not a big steak eater, normally, but that steak was darn good. I also got to watch Dave administer his own injection of Yuflyma, the hilariously named medication he's now on for his Crohn's. It's a "bioidentical" of Humira, and it replaces a different medicine he used to have to get every three months via infusion at the hospital. So the good thing is, no more hospital visits, which used to take hours and required him to miss work. The bad thing is, self-injection -- but it's actually pretty easy, administered every two weeks with something like an epi-pen rather than an old-fashioned syringe.

And this morning, we're off to Florida. In fact, I have to go pack. Our friend Warren will be staying over to take care of Olga, who is so far none the wiser that we are leaving. (We've delayed getting out the suitcases until the last possible moment.) Warren has stayed with Olga before so I think she'll adapt to the situation just fine, even if she's not particularly happy about it.

My Country 'Tis of Thee

Well, the unthinkable has come to pass, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been confirmed as the USA's new health secretary. I really did not think it would happen. I thought just a handful of Republicans -- particularly those with medical backgrounds or moderate tendencies (like Collins and Murkowski) -- might oppose him. But no! It turns out the only Republican with any integrity is Mitch McConnell, who helped enable the Trump administration in the first place and now seems to be having sudden pangs of conscience. Too little too late, Mitch.

Meanwhile, the National Park Service has stripped any references to transgender people from its page dedicated to the Stonewall Inn and the uprising there in 1969 -- even though transgender people were a key component of that event. Talk about rewriting history. It's positively Soviet.

All my life, I have believed in the strength of the American system of government. Checks and balances seemed to ensure that nothing too wild could or would ever happen. That was the genius of our Founding Fathers, right? Even the dark days of George W. Bush and his war on terror, when we tortured and incarcerated people indefinitely in Guantanamo Bay without trial and I was left with the feeling that I didn't know my own country -- even those days didn't seem as perilous as this. With Congress as Trump's lapdog, the only checks and balances we have are the courts. They are pushing back valiantly, but you gotta wonder what's going to happen when Trump, with his apparently endless reserves of money, litigiousness and bile, appeals any contrary decision to the Supreme Court.

Trump and his minions insist those pesky judges have no right to stop him. He's the president, after all! Apparently he failed civics, if he ever studied it.

And while Trump continues to lay claim of ownership to Gaza, imperiling the release of Israeli hostages (who he really doesn't care about and in fact would rather see not released, giving him and Netanyahu a green light to continue exterminating the Palestinians), I note that the right-wing media outlet I peruse doesn't report his Gaza comments at all. His MAGA followers don't like this Gaza idea, because they don't see it as "America First," so the right-wing media response is to simply ignore it.

I don't want to seem too pessimistic, but it does seem like we're in uncharted waters and about to smash ourselves on a reef. I have no idea what's going to happen. Meanwhile I have friends in Washington who are losing their jobs or, if they're lucky enough to still be employed (so far), are sifting through agency grants and policies for problematic words like "justice." It makes my head spin.

I know, I know. Resist. Believe me, I'm resisting in whatever way I know how. I'm putting my money where my mouth is with donations. Just the other day I bought a "Gulf of Mexico" t-shirt in a vain attempt to resist Trump's ridiculous rewriting of our global map -- a minor form of resistance, to be sure, but it's something. (The shirt is being delivered to Dave's parents in Florida, where I hope I'll be able to wear it without being killed.)

In other news, unrelated to Trump, I purged my iPhone of photos. I'd stacked up a ridiculous quantity of photos over the years -- about 2,600 of them since 2017 or so. I winnowed them repeatedly over time but they still felt overly burdensome for my phone's operating system. They were all backed up elsewhere, so on Wednesday I deleted about 2,000 of them, giving me a much more reasonable library of pictures that I might actually want to look through. Of course, Olga is in at least half of them.

I just realized, seeing the date, that I penned this political screed on Valentine's Day. Sorry about that. Not very celebratory of love, but I send you all a virtual hug anyway.

(Photos, both taken yesterday: A glass-block sidewalk panel over a shop basement on Finchley Road; a brick wall in St. John's Wood.)

Skunk, NAFO and Another Moment

Here's another dewy plant in our garden -- an aquilegia that's just sprouting. More signs of spring and new growth!

I think my computer is biting the dust. When I started it this morning, after it nursed at its charger all night, it promptly died. I got a "low battery" notice but when I clicked on the icon, it said the battery was at 98 percent (although I also got a "service recommended" alert). Anyway, I can't do much on battery now, and the speaker is shot, and a lot of the letters are worn off my keyboard, which looks hilarious. I've had this machine for nine years and it's had heavy use. I think its time has come.

I probably won't deal with that until we come back from Florida. I have enough on my plate at the moment.

Yesterday afternoon was quiet in the library and I finally got some things done that I've been meaning to tackle, like updating our database usage statistics. Doesn't that sound exciting?! Woo hoo! I even had a chance to respond to blog comments and catch up on some blogs.

I expect more of the same today, though I have a couple of projects I want to work on, like cleaning up our resource lists and collections in our catalogue. (Sometimes when a class does a certain project, we put together a list of books for the students to draw on as resources, and those lists tend to stack up in our computer even if the class never does that project again. They must be manually cleared out from time to time.)

You know how I'm always intrigued by stickers I find around town? Here's one that's a bit mysterious. What on earth is NAFO? And what is that creature that looks like a fox with Donald Trump hair?

Well, according to the ever-reliable Internet, NAFO stands for the North Atlantic Fella Organization, an "internet meme and social media movement" that arose after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It's meant to counter Russian propaganda and support Ukraine, and its symbol is a Shiba Inu dog, which is somehow related to the Doge meme. I think I'm too unhip to really understand how all these things come together, but at any rate, that's what we're dealing with.

Speaking of being unhip, I walked into the library yesterday and smelt a distinct skunky smell. I thought, "How did some animal get into the library?" I wondered if a fox had invaded the building and left its mark somewhere. But then a co-worker came up to me and said, "Did you smell the marijuana when you came in this morning?" Oh, is that what it was?! Now I once again understand why some people call it skunk. Why the library smelled like marijuana I could not tell you, but I assure you I was not involved.

Finally, here's another item from my archives -- a 12-second "Moment of Zen." Back in 2011 I uploaded a video of light changing on a wall over a period of about two minutes. In my days of Zen practice, this is the kind of thing we'd notice while meditating facing a wall -- the patterns of light shifting and changing. I suppose I was trying to convey some of that meditative tranquility. I took the video above on the same day, as a first attempt. It's too short, but if you need a quick Moment of Zen, here you go.