Go Bolts

Surprise! I'm in St. Petersburg! My stepsister's husband is running a race today on and around the city pier. We drove down yesterday from North Tampa and checked into the Hilton. The plan is to spend a couple of days here -- they have approximately 500 friends in town from all over the state and they're going to be visiting with all of them. I'm going to absent myself from some of that socializing, because even though I'm vaccinated I'd like to keep my exposure to different people to a minimum, but I suppose it will inevitably be a bit of a whirlwind.

That is NOT the Hilton in the picture, by the way. It's an apartment building for senior citizens near the St. Pete waterfront called Presbyterian Towers. The building itself is a bit grim -- and what's with all the tiny windows? Those apartments have a waterfront view! You'd think they'd take better advantage. But I do like the zippy paint job and I've always been a fan of that somewhat mysterious sculpture on the wall. It brings to mind Neptune's trident, whether or not that's the intention.

So here's a random story. My Dad used to keep a pencil cup on his desk at work that I'd made in kindergarten or thereabouts. It was a juice can wrapped in blue finger-painted paper, shellacked with glue. After he retired he brought it home, and it sat on his desk there. My stepmother, who has been cleaning things out, gave it to me the other day, and although I appreciated her saving it, I honestly didn't want to haul it back to London.

But I was curious to see the juice can underneath the wrapping. So I peeled off the paper and washed off the remnants of the glue, and was left with this -- an example of Minute Maid packaging from 50 years ago! I kind of like the logo. Maybe I should put it on eBay?

Some of you asked in comments yesterday whether I am aware of the hurricane churning toward the state. Yep, I know all about it. The forecast, last time I checked, has it passing as a tropical storm right over Tampa and Jacksonville at mid-week -- just about the time I'd planned to drive up to Jacksonville myself. So, yeah, I'm not thrilled about that timing. The rule with hurricanes, though, is that anything can happen. We never really know what they're going to do until they're doing it. I'm taking a wait-and-see approach.

There's also some big excitement about the Tampa Bay Lightning, our hockey team, which is on its way to some kind of championship. Hence the "Go Bolts" graffiti above. Wig Villa isn't boarded up for the storm -- it's just boarded up because it's closed. I had to take a picture because I'm always a sucker for a wig store, even a closed one.

St. Pete is very different now from the way I remember it in the '80s and '90s. Central Avenue then was quiet and somewhat derelict. Now it's thriving and lined with bars and cafes and quirky little shops. It's been quite a transformation.

There are lots of groovy murals everywhere. Apparently St. Pete has a regular mural festival. This one is by Dasic Fernandez, whose art I used to see in New York when I lived there more than a decade ago.

Here's the view from my hotel room -- Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays, our baseball team. It's just a few blocks away. I know as much about the Rays as I do about the Lightning -- in other words, nothing -- but I like the way the dome seems to reflect the cloudy evening sky.