There's a house just down the street from my brother's where the owners go all-out decorating for Christmas. It's truly unbelievable. We took my nieces last night and strolled through the holiday fantasia, and I compiled a little video to show you what it's like -- complete with cheesy Johnny Mathis Christmas songs (which I secretly love) and a special holiday appearance from Dave!
A couple of months ago I found this vintage ring-toss game, Hoopla, while walking Olga in London. It was set out with some other games on a garden wall, clearly meant for someone to take. If I had to guess, I'd say it's from 1970 or so -- those figures of the birds and "Mr. Mean" are very H. R. Pufnstuf, aren't they? Anyway, I brought it to Florida and played it with my nieces last night. I thought they might roll their eyes, but it turned out to be pretty fun!
This morning I woke up in our hotel and decided to risk going out for my morning joe (as usual -- I can't stand in-room coffee). Most places were closed, but I found a Daily's store in a Shell station where I got a cup (southern pecan flavored, allegedly, although you couldn't prove it by me). When I took it to the cashier she said, "Is that all, sir?" I said yes, and she said, "Merry Christmas -- it's on me." That totally made my morning.
We spent yesterday with my mom at her retirement community near the wide St. John's River. There are always lots of birds around in Florida at this time of year, with migrants either passing through or stopping for the winter, and we saw some interesting ones yesterday. The green heron (above) is a year-round resident.
One of Mom's neighbors has a bird feeder that was a hive of activity, with squabbling bluebirds and several yellow pine warblers. I'm hoping to have another look at this feeder today. I saw what I think was a magnolia warbler on it too, but I didn't get a good shot.
We were there all morning and then went to lunch at a taco place nearby, where I had virtually inedible huevos rancheros. (And for me to say something is inedible is, well, saying something, because I am not a picky eater.) The eggs were severely underdone, the whole dish was tepid and yet the tortillas were so tough I couldn't cut them with a knife and fork. I ate it with some trepidation but fortunately there were no bacterial consequences.
Afterwards I felt like I'd swallowed a bag of cement, so I went for a long walk around our hotel.
I found a few more sculptural frogs left by the Frog Man of Mandarin. I'm always happy to come across his colorful amphibians.
More family time today, of course. Happy Christmas Eve, everybody!
Dave and I made the long trek yesterday from Jacksonville to Tampa, and we made it even longer by taking a little side trip to Cedar Key.
Cedar Key is a rustic little fishing town in Florida's "Big Bend" area, and it's a long, long way from everything. I hadn't been there for about 30 years, so I wasn't sure what we'd find. There's a lot of history there, and now it has a sort of artsy vibe too.
We popped into the historic Island Hotel, which the proprietor said dates back to the 1850s. And there we found...
...a manatee playing the piano! And I had my camera!
We walked around town, popped into a gallery and bought some local art, and then walked out to Dock Street, on the waterfront, to have lunch.
The Gulf water there is heavily stained by tannins from the cypress swamps and rivers that flow nearby. We sat on the upper deck of a restaurant, listening to a guitarist playing Johnny Cash songs. I had a grouper sandwich, which cost an appalling $14 but apparently grouper isn't as easy to come by as it once was.
Afterwards we hopped back in the car and headed for Jacksonville. Driving back on the rural roads through the swampy interior, we saw...
...belted kingfishers perched on the power lines. I have never seen one before, at least not that I can remember, but they're unmistakable with that crest. Photographing them was hard -- they're very shy and every time I slowed down the car they flew off. This was the best I could do.
We got to my brother's at about 7 p.m. last night. Whew!
Dave and I went to the nature preserve again yesterday, hoping for better weather this time. (The blue shell was still there.) We did in fact get to walk all the way around the park, and we did see a gopher tortoise -- well, part of one, anyway. It was in its burrow and it really didn't want to be disturbed. We saw the edge of its shell as it shuffled farther underground.
I didn't get a lot of photos. The wind was blowing so hard I couldn't easily see any birds or other critters -- everything was moving. Dave gets the credit for spotting this little brown anole, sticking his head out of a fence post. Definitely the best shot of the day.
For lunch we went back to Dave's favorite Chinese restaurant in Lutz. This time, the "in bed" game didn't work for either of our fortunes. Bummer!
From there we drove downtown, and checked in to our hotel. We're on the 20th floor overlooking Harbor and Davis Islands, and I'd show you the view if I could get a decent picture through our dirty, tinted window. Suffice to say it's pretty nice, and I can see Tampa General Hospital below us -- where I was born!
While Dave settled down to take a nap I walked along the Hillsborough River and through downtown, catching this crazy warped reflection of the old Tampa city hall in a neighboring building. It's always great to visit Tampa, and even though I haven't lived in the city proper since 1992 it still feels like home.
I found this unusual graffiti on the Riverwalk. Somebody has an artsy streak! (Well, sort of.)
Last night we caught up with some of my oldest and closest friends from college. We had dinner at Ulele, an excellent restaurant on the river where we tried to sit at the outdoor bar but it proved too freakin' windy and cold! It is winter, I suppose, even here. We retreated indoors.
Today, Dave and I are off on the long drive to Jacksonville, hopefully with a little side trip that will prove interesting!
Not the greatest photo in the world, but I hope you can see all that rain! It poured all day yesterday. Dave and I were out and about in it because he decided to make a Christmas dinner for my stepmother, stepsister and her husband and son -- we wound up going to the butcher for a standing rib roast and then to Publix for all the various necessities.
I'm not a fan of grocery shopping, but I always love a Publix. The stores are meticulously clean, everyone is so nice, and they tend to every little facet of your shopping experience. For example, when we left, an employee was standing at the front of the store with a huge blower, drying the shopping carts that had been collected from the rainy parking lot. What other store does that?
Their slogan for years has been "Where shopping is a pleasure," and it's true. (I swear I am in no way on their payroll, although, in full disclosure, I will proudly reveal that my nephew works there.)
We also stopped at the public library in Lutz, which I used to visit as a child. (The town where I lived, Land O' Lakes, didn't even have a library when I was really little.) It's a low brown brick building, kind of '70s-cool, built on the site of that big open area at upper right in the mural above. Although it's been redecorated and expanded since I was there last (probably 40 years ago!) it was fun to visit again. I was impressed that they have two copies of David Sedaris' diaries. Oh, and they still have DVDs and audiobooks on CD -- so digital discs have not died everywhere.
Dave spent the afternoon cooking and I did laundry and read. Today the Lutz portion of our Florida idyll comes to an end, and we drive into Tampa for a night in the city.
My stepmother gave these old cookbooks to Dave. They were her grandmother's. (My grandmother also had a copy of that Boston Cooking School cookbook -- I think everyone had one back then. It was the "Joy of Cooking" of its day.)
They're full of old, bizarre, elegant recipes like "Capon in aspic garnished with cooked yolks and whites of eggs cut in fancy shapes, pistachio nuts and truffles." There are huge, complicated Jell-O salads like "Royal Diplomatic Pudding." Someday I want to try making some of those things just for the heck of it.
Rainy Maybelline says hello! She has a shelter, but was quite happy to leave it for a scratch, even if it meant getting wet. Priorities!
Here's another shot taken on Tuesday morning, when the mist and the sun were blending in amazing ways. Unfortunately, the weather took a turn for the worse yesterday, and now it's pouring rain. I guess it's only unfortunate in that it limits our activities -- it actually sounds really nice from indoors.
We took Maybelline on an adventure yesterday. She lives in an enclosure on my step-mother's property -- a good-sized pen, but one she never leaves. She doesn't seem to mind it and as you've seen in the videos, she has a shelter and plenty of room to run around and she's well cared for. But you can't help but feel a little bad that she never gets out.
So Dave and I put a leash on her and took her for a little walk. Maybelline did not know what to think. She kept her tail between her legs, but at the same time, she was fascinated by everything -- all the new smells and sights. My stepmother is considering bringing in a dog-walker to train Maybelline and maybe take her out and about now and then. (She's too big for my stepmother to manage alone.) I think that would be a great idea.
After lunch, Dave and I went to the nearby Violet Cury Nature Preserve, where I'd hoped to show him some gopher tortoises. But apparently I am destined only to have bad weather experiences at that park, because about ten minutes after we arrived the rain began.
I had just enough time to find this peculiar blue shell along the trail. "You find the weirdest things," Dave said. We left it there, and turned back for the car.
We ran some errands in the afternoon, bought some last-minute Christmas gifts and went to lunch at a Chinese restaurant. Dave could not stop exclaiming about his General Tso's Chicken. There is something comforting about a basic strip-mall American Chinese restaurant -- the kind of place where you get food in a paper box and fortune cookies and orange duck sauce in little clear packets and the food marked "hot" on the menu isn't really all that hot. You know?
Dave and I played a game where you read your fortune aloud and at the end add the words "in bed." (Apparently this was a thing when he was growing up and he mocked me for not knowing about it.) His didn't work at all, but mine was something like, "Never forget what is worth remembering...in bed."
Anyway, we spent the rainy afternoon relaxing and I finally got our charitable donations made. I sent them via Paypal directly from our bank account, thereby skirting the credit-card barrier. Voila!
Yesterday morning was very frustrating. The entire digital world seemed to be against me.
Remember how I recently tried to make my annual donations to the ACLU and Planned Parenthood, and I couldn't get the transactions to go through from London? I thought the problem might be my British ISP, so I wanted to try again from here within the states. But no -- I couldn't donate from here either, and when I called their donation lines even they couldn't make it happen. Apparently their systems won't accept the British billing address on my credit cards. It's the craziest thing, considering I've had no problem at all in years past and the online donation form allows me to choose a foreign country as my address. I suppose I could send them a check, but geez, how archaic!
They need to get that fixed. I guarantee you many people are not going to work as hard as I have trying to get those donations processed.
I did succeed in solving another niggling problem -- the spontaneous reactivation of my long-dormant Match.com account. About a year ago I started getting e-mails from Match wanting me to meet available guys in and around New York, where I used to live. I was like, "Ummm, thank you Match, but I'm married now." Apparently my ancient account somehow became active again (though my profile was not visible) and I couldn't delete it from England, because the UK Match site is different from the American Match site. Argh! So yesterday I successfully logged in and cancelled my account, and supposedly I'll no longer receive notifications and my profile remains unavailable to others. (I imagine it's still out there, though, lurking on some server. Nothing ever dies on the Internet.)
Sorry. I know that's all incredibly boring. Welcome to my morning.
Here's a little bit of joyfulness -- family dog Maybelline, welcoming me to Florida. (Getting this video from Dave's phone to my YouTube account took another feat of digital gymnastics, but I'll spare you the details.) Maybelline is much slimmer than she used to be -- my stepmother has her on a lighter diet. That's a good thing when she barrels into me like William "The Refrigerator" Perry.
And here's Manny, one of the chihuahuas, looking at me menacingly as usual.
Yesterday afternoon was beautiful -- sunny and pleasant -- so I took a long walk around the neighborhood. At first I didn't take my camera, because sometimes I just get sick of lugging it around. But as I always say, if I don't have my camera, that's when I'll see three manatees doing a waltz in Dolly Parton wigs -- and sure enough, although I didn't see that, I saw a lot of other things I wanted to photograph. So I came home and collected it and walked a bit more. Walking is an excellent antidote to afternoon jet-lag fatigue.
Finally, because I had so many requests for a close-up of my stepmother's needlework:
She assures me that it is, in fact, cross-stitch. I know nothing about these yarny sorts of hobbies but hopefully this will assuage everyone's curiosity!
