WHEW --- TIME FLIES!!

Been up to Chattanooga again... Been there, done that a thousand times, it seems. Took a trip up on the side roads, passing some swampland, seeing route 66 by another name. But every time I see Lana it's a new excursion. She greeted me this time in her Cal Bears shirt I got her. And now that she's not taking baths every night, she's on a dirty clothes rampage. (So the shirt was on two days!)

This time we checked out an open house at one magnet school. The next morning we played "hookey," sort of, since I got her out of one school... but into another. We toured a second magnet Middle school, for a full hour. Since I was leaving Saturday, we stayed together until then.

And wouldn't you know it, her mother, who insisted she have Lana back Saturday by noon, then cancelled her house party she needed Lana for. But by then, Friday, my plans were made: the hotel nights set, the emotional time frame set, my dog walks scheduled, and my enthusiasm for seeing Amy again creeping in.

Another quick trip up to Lana in the works -- but first Amy and I have a zany month or so of travel and adventure. Not even considering the twin Minis.

GARDEN POST
(pun intended!)

Lana's back in Chilly Chattanoooga (22 today) after a totally fun visit over XMas. Now cold-ish days here portend the garden-to-be.

So, as in Lincoln, I conscripted myself to make some garden boxes. This time, the design is a little different, making a frame so I can wrap some screen around the box, keeping out the vermin of the 'hood: squirrels, cats and armadillos.

So, from ten til four-thirty, this was a six hour project. And the boxes I built the night before! What, you ask, took so long?!^* Pulling long tendrile roots out of the sandy soil. Weeding the crabgrass roots. Turning the soil and looking for grubs to pull out. Then mixing in leaves and pine needles to level the soil as a platform for the boxes. Cutting a tarp to fit in the bottom. And... filling the boxes with bagged topsoil mixed with "native" soil, a mix of sand and contractor-added topsoil.

Next up, some plants after the last frost date.

The good news is that the farmer's market here -- Neptune Beach -- had great greens and NEW bringers of bread. Yes, there is a future! Bread form non-commercial kitchens, one from a farmers' "friend". Good stuff, really home-made and unlike what you will find in Whole Foods or other markets.

To seal the deal this weekend, we took home a "growler"from a local beer hall that has rotating guest beers from around Florida and makes their own brews as well.

EVERY DAY SO FAR....

This year has been terrific! I've gotten to read bedtime stories to Lana and each day seen her the next morning. Well, almost morning. Closer to lunch, really, but that's all right. This morning is frost-level temperature, but mostly the days have been sunny and in the sixties, with the exception being New Year's Day -- in the seventies!

New Year's Eve was loud and colorful with completely uncontrolled localized fireworks, but no too many guns shooting up in the air. We paraded up and down the street at midnight wearing glow-stick necklaces. In the morning we found bottle rockets in our driveway. I'm pretty sure you can't see that in California.

Amy has had a well-synchronized few days off for flying our new helicopter, riding bikes and walking the beach. And she's tried her hand at cooking -- about one hundred meals!

The halfway point in Lana's visit is past, but more fun is yet to be shared.Today we'll try the rock-climbing wall and come back so she can scooter or bike with Abby, a neighbor's girl. Abby's house had about one million lights displayed for Christmas, as well as rocking reindeer.

Picking up Lana I drove E-W across Florida, and along the way some major attractions. We stopped to see Florida's tallest waterfall, (about forty feet.) I found some spectacular light on a swamp by I-10 and got out to snap the photo, only to be foiled by clouds, so I stood there another seven minutes until the sun peeked out again. I think other motorists thought I was peeing.

Once here, we lived through more superlatives. Like the biggest second Christmas ever! As Gru says in "Despicable Me," "This is going on for-ever!" And the yummiest banana muffins. And scrumptious anything-you-can-think-of-treats, like fudge, caramels, shortbread, oranges (farmer's market) and marzipans of all varieties. Not to mention the practically empty white sand beaches, pristine after I picked up the plastic bits that wash in from the Atlantic.

More soon. And happy new year from me, Lana and Amy.

GOOD SURPRISES

Well, isn't this the life! Life on the <DELTA QUEEN> a riverboat in Chattanooga, ironically from Sacramento!A wrap-around deck with sunning chairs, a restaurant, and views of the bridges. Jimmy Carter even stayed here shortly after it became a hotel. The cabin wasn't a tight a space as they suggested -- at least not horizontally. But I bashed my head ducking through the doorway a few times -- they ought to warn of a cabin ceiling height deficiency! Not a worry yet for Lana.

One of the sweetest things Lana said last trip was that I make the <BEST COOKIES IN THE WORLD>. So, I was obliges to up the ante and try a new recipe. Double-chocolate, double spice. (That's cocoa powder and chips, with twice the cinnamon.) It was a hit!

Funny weather shift from 76-degrees and balmy in Florida at 4:30 am to 48-degrees and windy the evening I arrived. Brr! Two days like that and then it warmed up the last day. But on Friday night we went to another surprise -- the amusement park ha a late night Halloween event, with the rides open, so we had to go. A Fright house was a bit much, but the rest was fun, if cold. She's a demon in the bumper cars -- side photo -- which we rode seven or eight times. The Frerris wheel was cool at night, and for this particular night, they adorned it with <crashed> carriages and straw-stuffed bodies at the base!

To much to fit in here -- suffice it to say <AWESOME TRIP>!!

ST. AUGUSTINE

Florida Heritage Writing Conference

Last Friday I went down to the "Oldest City" for an all-day conference with all the big shots around Florida. The "Ritz" of the town, the Casa Madrona, hosted about 125 writers. It was a dark and stormy morning... (pictures)

The day was divided into five time slots: four seminar slots plus lunch. During seminar times, we chose a group from one of two subjects. These subjects ranged from character building to research to submitting screenplays. I can't say the catered food was worthwhile, and the conference rooms were less than impressive, but the event was good.

North Florida is suddenly in the rainy season, and clouds are regular observers in our skies. The sweltering summer still lingers, amplified briefly by humidity after the rain.  Mosquitoes regularly feast on me every time I take out the dogs. They don't get it, because of their fur, when I jump around and swat my skin.

It's dark now when I like to ride, so that's not so good. I notice Chattanooga is already in the fifties at night, while we barely get down to eighty. Whew! But when we got here in February, we had five straight days of frost, so I know it CAN get colder... and it'll probably be too cold soon enough.

Not Yet Half a Century

Yeah, I'm getting old. I was born before JFK was taken out. By most definitions, that's getting old.

But other measures are more kind. With the fallout from hurricanes hitting hard up north of here -- not in Florida! -- I looked into some of the past flooding in both Chattanooga and Binghamton, other places I have lived. And the flooding was bad, really bad. In both towns, the water levels took out the downtowns several times. And now floodwalls stand around each city. Recent floodwaters came up to and spilled over each wall, but they did prevent widespread disaster. But because people continue to build along side flood walls and in flood plains, I suppose the timeline of history is blurred, and the age of the lessons returns, making the older floods closer to memory. So maybe I'm not so old after all.

On a more immediate scale of time, the days have grown shorter. I used to take Grover to the beach at 7:45 for his evening walk, and we'd return home sandy, wet, bitten and hungry about 8:45. Now it's dark at 7:45. Still hot, though. So much for the later evening bike rides as well. No more 8pm departures to avoid the dining crowds on the road. The tradeoff seems to be we have different clouds this season. More of the familiar  orange-brown slurry of textures, similar to what we'd see over the Sutter Buttes back in California.

The sea turtles have all hatched by now, a fraction of them making it beyond the first two weeks, and only a fraction of those destined to make it to adolescence. The armadillos are back scurrying, like the squirrels, for the last of summer morsels to gather. And a new crop of frogs -- or a very small species -- is now underfoot and on the door. Cicadas scream in unison, drowning out even the light car traffic. And I finally baked some cookies for Lana, some banana muffins for me and Amy, and homemade beer for myself. (photos.)

SCIENCE, ANYONE?

Let's see what's happening around the nation. 

 American looks more and more like a Christian nation. Huge fires. Earthquakes. Tornadoes.  Hurricanes. Flooding. All at the same time.


Difficult to know what will go on in Congress this session. Probably nothing, since the bills forwarded to committees are all written by lobbyists anyway, lobbyists who have late breakfasts and hire the unemployed to hold a seat in the hallway for them. Funny how the nascent government officials in newly "liberated" countries are accused of bribery, and fined, while the halls of congress are full of unprosecuted bribers.


And talking of conspiracies, I'll be placing a short list of movies, most but not all, documentaries that tackle bits and pieces of our broken system. Hopefully these will be of interest to you visiting this blog. Maybe you've even seen some already. If you like them, pass along the title to someone else who might watch.


This week: 
INSIDE JOB; SO GOES THE NATION; BUSH FAMILY FORTUNES