Barbecue with the Unabomber

Here's something else that's blooming a lot around here at the moment -- the Virginia Spiderwort. It's a type of Tradescantia, just like the purple heart plant in our living room back in London, as well as the well-known houseplant wandering jew. (I just read on Wikipedia that some people have begun calling it "wandering dude" to avoid the ethnic reference, but that hasn't reached my ears yet.)

My brother and I went back to see Mom yesterday morning. I sat with her out on the patio while my brother took care of some Mom-related business, and then we went to get pizza for the staff. My brother wanted to do that to show appreciation because apparently some other families have been hard on them lately over changes being made to the facilities.

We went to a local pizza chain to pick up the pies, and there was only one guy working there -- he said he was usually the driver but apparently the baker didn't show up for work that day. He kept up a steady flow of conversation as he made the pizzas, and when he got around to the situation in Ukraine I abandoned my brother to go for a walk. "I hate you," my brother said.

Perhaps I'm lacking in patience, but I really thought I might lose my mind if I had to listen to the pizza man's opinions about Ukraine. Even though he seemed to be on the right side of the issue, from all we could tell.

Anyway, after delivering the pizzas my brother and I went to Alpine Groves, a park and historic homestead in the village of Switzerland on the St. John's River. It's the subject of today's Florida video. (I think I'll call them "Florivideos" -- copyright pending.)

The pink flowers blooming amid the ferns are oxalis, which Dave and I also have in our garden in England. And while I'm not usually a fan of graffiti in a natural environment, I was amused by the big smiley face on the log by the river.

We went to dinner last night at a barbecue restaurant (barbecue is something I never get in London) and I had pulled pork and collard greens, for the true Southern experience. My youngest niece, Kate, insisted on wearing one of my brother's oversized hoodies, with the hood pulled up, and my big sunglasses -- we joked that she looked like the Unabomber. In fact we called her the Unabomber all night, even though she has no idea who that is. I hope she doesn't go to school today and say, "I'm the Unabomber!"

After dinner we went down to the river in San Marco to catch the sunset:

Kate was especially impressed with how red it looked through my tinted sunglasses. She eventually took them off because she started to get a little freaked out. The water, she said, "looked like lava."

Today I'm headed back to Tampa.