Reading, Mowing and Storm Damage

I once again spent yesterday morning reading in the garden next to Olga, who was determined to be outside despite the somewhat chilly temperatures. (It wasn't too bad in the sun.) I am loving "Long Island Compromise," though it is a bit like its predecessor novel, "Fleischman is in Trouble," in its focus on Jewish family life and specifically, troubled and self-obsessed men whose behavior comes at the expense of the women they marry.

Eventually the grass dried out enough that I was able to mow the lawn, which is like vacuuming -- it makes everything look better. Now the wind and rain are whipping around out there and I am not looking forward to getting myself to work.

My cold, if that's what it was, seems mostly gone. I honestly can't tell if it even was a cold. Maybe it was allergies. Mostly just a tickle in my nose and throat.

Our canna lily is trying its best to belatedly bloom, but I think it may have waited too long. It's awfully chilly out there for a canna to flower. We'll see what happens.

I spent yesterday evening catching up with post-hurricane aerial videos of the beachfront communities I know so well in Southwest Florida. I've blogged many times from Anna Maria Island, which has a lot of damage, including tons of sand in the streets. And Longboat Key, where my family vacationed every year in the mid-'70s to the mid-'80s, also seems battered, but the condo complex where we stayed looks like it emerged without too much damage. (Of course it's hard to tell from the air.) St. Armands Circle, a ritzy shopping district on an island off Sarasota, looks devastated and was still underwater when the aerial videos were shot. I used to drive to St. Armands to have coffee and write in my journal almost every weekend when I lived in that area, and I went to several outdoor art shows under the trees in the main circle -- all submerged by the storm.

Just for old times' sake, here's a family photo from that condo on Longboat, taken in about 1980. That's my dad on the left, my stepsister, my stepbrother, me and my brother hiding behind my shoulder. My stepbrother was grumpy for some reason. It's funny how, when I picture the '70s in my mind, everything has that sort of orangey tone like you see in the photo. I suppose my memories are being affected by the color capabilities of the photo processors.

We spoke to Dave's parents last night who said their mobile home in Cortez apparently survived, but they may have had water in their laundry shed. They're waiting to hear more from a neighbor. (They're in Michigan now.)

And my brother in Jacksonville reports that his power is back on but his younger daughter, who has been out of school for four days, is "bouncing off the walls."

Finally, last night I rented "The Owl and the Pussycat," which you may remember was the last of three Barbra Streisand movies I wanted to watch after reading about them in her autobiography. I can see why I never saw it on television. It's mostly a harmless comedy/romance but it has some mature language and themes -- and again, some casual anti-gay slurs, particularly in the very beginning. A sign of the times in that era (1970), I suppose.

(Top photo: An aster growing next to a dusty miller in our garden.)