You may have noticed (I presume maybe a couple of people actually read my ranting)  I played hooky yesterday…was actually out at yard sales and the like looking for stuff for my online store:  https://www.etsy.com/shop/DragonLaire?section_id=16388770&ref=shopsection_leftnav_4  Check it out I have some really great jewelry—including some original SteamPunk  https://www.etsy.com/listing/236518151/steampunk-gears-bezeled-in-peyote-length?ref=shop_home_active_4   that would look great on you.  We had lunch at Gator’s https://www.facebook.com/GatorsDocksideBaldwinPark/info?tab=overview  my fellow shopper and BFF’s favorite place.  Last night went to dinner and a movie through a Met Up Group  http://movies.meetup.com/cities/us/fl/orlando/ .   Lots of stuff around the area for the weekend  http://www.orlandoatplay.com/event/detail/11501 Oh and check out the ongoing work on my novel:  https://www.pinterest.com/lindachase56829/my-novels/.

STEAMPUNK gears bezeled in peyote. Length-24 PENDANT

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 STEAMPUNK Original spiral with clock face PENDANT. Length-25″

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$40.00 USD

 

ST PETE Grand Prix Memerobilia 1987 and 88

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$20.00 USD

CHAN LUU style wrapped pink leather bracelett Length-9″

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$20.00 USD

I’m back, already out to post office—sold a Bobby Kennedy post card from my store:  https://www.etsy.com/shop/DragonLaire?ref=hdr_shop_menu.  Yesterday had a treat on movies:  To Kill A Mockingbird  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056592/ that movie is one of my favorites.  Otherwise just a at home work day  June (If a June night could talk, it would probably boast it invented romance.  Bernard Williams  http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/june.html#m1bJg1uGBFJ5OPFM.99)  But no romance for me….just work and getting older (To me, growing old is great. It’s the very best thing – considering the alternative.  Michael Caine   http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/growing_old.html#xpVMMioveE0XAPbw.99)

Steampunk flattened, patinated spoon 24″ HANDMADE NECKLACE

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Photos and Other Items from EPCOT CENTER 1980’s

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The ORACLE PAPER May 1967 Haight Ashbury San Fran CA. The Summer of L…

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 Simple steampunk gear on a brass chain with black beads. Length-17…

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 TWO NURSERY Planters 1980s

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So keepin’ busy….Droughtlander  http://www.zap2it.com/blogs/game_of_thrones_george_rr_martin_outlander_tobias_menzies_back-2015-06 began in earnest with no new show last Sat night.  Am working on a walking tour of London  http://www.visitlondon.com/ and am trying to get together a group to go there next year.  Watching old movies the last couple of days—  http://www.tcm.com/  I go through my phases were I get into watching or reading or dwelling on something (besides OUTLANDER) to the exclusion of all else…not all the time just occasionally….So onward to the Blog:

Details about  HAND PAINTED FLORAL DESIGN CLEAR GLASS VASE 8 1/2″ TALLDetails about  HAND PAINTED FLORAL DESIGN CLEAR GLASS VASE 8 1/2″ TALL

 

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33 1/3 VINYL LP Frank Zappa’s Apostrophe

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LISNER VINTAGE Orange Leaf 16″ necklace 1 1/2″ pin and Match…

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Great weekend.  Winter Park Boat tour  http://www.scenicboattours.com/ fun, lunch with friends, got my hair done http://www.haircuttery.com/  and hanging at Starbucks drinking coffee with an extra shot.  Even some grocery shopping and Greek pita http://www.mykonoslongwood.com/  Now back to work

Some people are praising Sam Heughan for a possible Emmy nomination….let’s keep our fingers crossed.   http://www.eonline.com/news/663875/outlander-s-sam-heughan-talks-shock-of-emmy-buzz-for-his-fearless-and-risky-performance

THE NUN:  A WOMAN’ PLACE.

We have a nun in our neighborhood, I mean a real habit (modern one but) wearing nun.  I’ve never lived in a neighborhood that has had it’s own nun before.  She’s an older lady, maybe retired?  Not being catholic I’m not sure, can nuns retired.  I never really thought of it before I guess I just always thought that nuns just kind of faded away somewhere in their convent surrounded by their aging peers and younger versions of themselves.

But I’ve heard that the younger generation of women, which in these modern days are constantly moving from the traditional religion to something else or nothing in particular,  aren’t flocking to nunneries any more and this has left nunneries and the church they belong to in a lurch.  Older nuns are left to fend for themselves in an aging population with few if any novices to assist them in their old age.

I have not heard if there is a similar shortage of priests, but one could see why this traditional role does not appeal to the “new” woman, who is constantly bombarded with her own importance and need to succeed at success.  Given the role models of this and the recent past generations, dawning a habit and serving others is slightly out of step.

Young girls want to be brash and important,  how can basic black (or the more sedate wear of the new habit-less sister) compete with bare midrifts and being constantly on the cover of all the gossip rags, TV gossip shows or their own “reality” gigs?

Did anyone notice that when Princess Di was killed while running from the press, she became a poster child for the rich and famous.  I am not saying that I did not feel sad at her passing.  But I did notice that at the same time Diana departed this realm with great fan fare, that a tiny elderly woman died quietly with no huge media feeding frenzy , no accusations , in fact with little note at all and while she did make the news it was in a quiet forgetful way, mostly noted by her fellow nuns and the poor, teaming masses who were cared for by Mother Theresa.  And while Diana’s mention still raises questions and issue, the saintly mother who died as she lived quiet and unassuming is seldom every brought to mind.

It make me wonder at our priorities, but I must warn you that this basically Protestant leaning if not particularly religious woman mourned the tiny nun in the cheap white habit and left the princess’ wake to the rest of the world.

All in all it brings into account just exactly where women are today.  Has our liberation been a success or are we just deluding ourselves?  Are we happy or just too tired to care?  Will the succeeding generations be better or worse?

When time began we were weaker, smaller and often encumbered with infants and young children.  But on the other hand we were capable of reproducing life–which in an age that didn’t understand conception gave us a mystic quality.  Deities during this time were usually female.  The Mother Goddess bore children (often male gods or leaders) and brought forth crops and wildlife.  It was a harsh age and between the gathering and preparing food women were constantly  conceiving and bearing young  and often dying of complications of that same process.

As civilization progressed the hunter gatherer left his caves, built shelters and developed basic crops.  Goddesses were still there, but slowly their powers were being eroded by male deities.  And as the knowledge of where “Babies come from” was evolving–the mystic powers of woman and  the matriarch line was rapidly disappearing.

We were still weak, often large with child and dying young in the process of birthing that child, but now the gods were evolving into male warrior figures.  Civilization grew, cave were abandoned to more complex shelters.  Nomads left their wonderings to form villages, villages grew to cities an cities into complete cultures which spawned empires that struggled for prominence and domination.

Woman’s mystic status was still there (the wise woman turned witch being one example) but only in a hidden often distrusted way.  Men now knew that women could not conceive without them and while one act could make a man a father, the woman remained burdened with pregnancy and child rearing, while still subject to early death and pre-mature aging inherit in the process.  In  some societies they became almost disposable with men having harems and concubines with aging wives being replaced by younger, more attractive replacements.

Rare was the society where they had a voice in their own fate, let alone that of their children.  The community was protected, governed by the strongest and often most cunning or devious male member.  Men amassed treasure, lands and with them power, and the females that were available given all that.

Women were chattel–married by their all powerful fathers to unseen men to cement land deals, stop feuds, and even develop alliances between war lords for small and large countries, fiefs and kingdoms.  And though some wore beautiful gowns and lovely jewelry they were still little better than their sisters who dwelled in poverty as they were still often big with child and dead in bearing same.

And while a few used their beauty and sexual talents to gain power and security for themselves, the majority of women moved into the “modern era” burdened down and reached the 20th century  with only a hope of a better life, with the rapid turn over of technology, and life styles and bigger and better warfare but basically otherwise unchanged in status and reproduction.  But the times they were a changing.

First came the right to vote and have a voice in our political world–not let me preface this by stating that this is more of a European world-view (US, Europe even some of areas influenced by them) and not necessary a lot of other nations and religious beliefs.  This was a long drawn out struggle pushed by our braver fore-mother’s efforts which often was greeted with abuse and punishment.

Medicine improved but primitive birth control was still the norm, so while woman still had issues with multiple pregnancies they were less likely to die of same.

  Then in the 60’s came the big liberator–the pill–Women were suddenly in control of their own reproduction.  This of course wasn’t full proof with complications of reactions to the medication, religious disapproval and the usual life issues making this less workable for some.  But in less than 100 year technology of all kinds have came forward out of the primeval slime and woman were suddenly not necessarily an object of nature’s whims.

Our newest generations have the opportunity of being fully capable of making their own destiny.  I am not saying they are always good at it but at least they have the chance.  And if you feel they are not doing too well with it yet, remember that men have been empowered for years and often still don’t make much of a showing.  Women like me came of age in  the heady freedom of the 60’s.  And while we were more liberated than those before  us I am not sure that our attempts at our lives were such a great example to our daughters–the first generation to be technically free and now their daughters are inheriting the world,.

Which is where we are today a generation often rejecting traditional roles, like those of nuns but not always certain of what choices should be made to fill the gapes that are left in a world hustling to keep up.  And a world where men makes more of the frame work decisions than we as modern women like to admit.

Yesterday was work, work and more work…cleaned house, listed sales items and work on a new marketing gig…..what did you do…went to see a movie….worked a job….read a book?

 Vintage St. Augustine FOUNTAIN of YOUTH Brochure

DragonLaire

$10.00 USD

Now that’s so DISTURBING…Sam Heughen does a great acting job

  OUTLANDER THE BOOK  http://www.dianagabaldon.com/books/outlander-series/    AND THE TV SHOW:   Sam Heughan, “Outlander” (Starz) – Now, let’s talk about someone who has had to play quite possibly a larger array of emotions than almost any actor on TV. As Jamie Fraser, Heughan had to make some of the most terrible things that can happen to a human being seem believable. He gave us a bold, at times gut-wrenching performance of a man who at one point found love, but another was maimed, beaten and raped by a man desperate to take it all away.  http://cartermatt.com/166929/2015-emmys-why-sam-heughan-jamie-dornan-grant-gustin-freddie-highmore-deserve-best-actor-nods/     ARE FANTASTIC…..

 FRANK ZAPPA’S 200 Motels Vinyl 33 1/3 LP 1986

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$25.00 USD

Now back to Key Weird

Along this end of the street you’ll find the Bagatelle http://www.bagatellekeywest.com/  on the left, a trendy restaurant residing on the porch and some small inside rooms. Setting on the porch is my favorite. Duval provides a great dinner show.

On the right (thru the banks parking lot) is The Hog’s Breath—a small,   http://www.hogsbreath.com/keywest/  yet famous bar whose name came from the founder’s grandmother who use to say “Bad breath is better than no breath at all.” Where the hog came in at I have no idea. Do hogs have bad breaths? They serve food and drink (the bar not the hogs) in an odd shaped building with the bar proper in a sheltered court yard area.  In fact their t-shirt shop next door is about as big as the bar proper.

As we continue to dodge crowds and religious groups who are allowed to sell T-shirts on Duval, while the non-holy aren’t because the holy are protected by both God and State while the rest of us are pretty much on our own it seems.

At the corner of Greene things get interesting.

On the right is Sloppy Joe’s and on the left, about ½ block away on Greene is Captain Tony’s.  These two bars are famously linked by one man and his bar and made famous by a writer who looms above most in the legends of this town.

Joe (Sloppy) Russell owned a bar called—yeah Sloppy Joe’s  http://www.sloppyjoes.com/ which was originally in a building which was in another life an ice house and morgue. At this bar in the 1930s was a larger than life writer who ended up in Key West accidentally and decided to stay. The writer Ernest Hemingway helped Russell  moved his bar from the building that now houses Captain Tony’s (another legend but not this time around) http://www.capttonyssaloon.com/ to its present location (along with some other patrons) when the first location’s land lord raised Russell’s rent $50. So everybody just carried everything from one building to another less than a block away and it’s remained there for over 70 years and is now a landmark.

Russell was a member of Hemingway’ group of friends in Key West and was made immortal by him in TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT. Which was the only novel Hemingway wrote that was set (at least partially) in the U.S.  His body rest in the Key West Cemetery, another place with a real Key West atmosphere.

Hemingway enjoyed the island for many years and his former home   http://www.hemingwayhome.com/ , provided by his wife’s wealthy relatives is now a tourist attraction. While here he wrote mornings and then spent the rest of the day drinking, fishing, sparring with various fighting partners and drinking some more late into the night with friends. He met his 3^rd wife at Sloppy’s and later left Key West to be with her in Cuba. He committed suicide, like his father, in the 1950s.

Today the bar makes more money on Hemingway’s face on everything from mugs to t-shirts than they do to the multiple bars. Though I spend little time in the touristy place a lot of the natives I speak with say they go there when a new good group shows up to rock the place.

An Irish Pub (Kevin’s)  http://www.irishkevins.com/ on your left has  loud college-humor type entertainment and is usually noisy and active. Rick’s  http://ricksbarkeywest.com/ on your right is a complex of bars including the Red Garter (topless). This is the area where a few years ago 4 patrons/staff were killed in by an ex-employee gone postal (very unusual where there is little in the way of major crimes let alone murder).

As you walk along the street you’ll probably notice an increase in people which denotes that you’re in down-town Key West. Here you’re with in walking distance of the cruse ship docks and the passengers swarm like disturbed ants into this area from their mound like ships.

As you walk along you’ll find artsy shops, restaurants, more bars and hundreds, probably thousands of t-shirts. There is a Woman’s Club with a brick covered lawn and a playhouse to the rear—one of several in the city that parties with culture.

Now we’re at Caroline Street. there’s a building on the east/west corner  a 3 leveled establishment that use to be a grocery store with owner’s residence above it.

The first floor is The Bull. http://bullkeywest.com/ WHISTLEcoupon.asp This is an old looking bar with murals of the Keys, including Fantasy Fest revelers. You use to be able to set at tables at the windows but now there’s a long bar affair with stools to allow you to watch the Duval people parade go by.  They have been known to discourage people from dancing in the windows however they tend to let a few of us do so—I’m one of those weird non-conchs they like.

On the Second Floor is the Whistle. This is a local’s place in the evening and is largely deserted during most days. The high light of this smaller bar is the porch overlooking Duval and Caroline. This is a great spot to observe the action below.

Finally there’s the third floor The Garden of Eden which is a bar on the roof which provides lounge chairs for clothing optional sun bathing…I would like to recommend an age limit–say no one over 80 as that seems to be a common age here.

There’s one more in this group  a little beyond this building down Caroline is The Lost Weekend—owned by the Bull. It is a liquor store. You order at a door on the front porch of this tiny establishment.  Easy walking from all down town areas.

 CARO VINTAGE Beige Cone Shaped Leaf Composed Earrings

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$5.00 USD

Don’t know the reason,
Stayed here all season
With nothing to show but this brand new tattoo.
But it’s a real beauty,
A Mexican cutie, how it got here
I haven’t a clue.

Jimmy Buffett

THAT’S THE NEPHEW—Lead Singer for StraightJacket    https://www.facebook.com/straightjacketofficial  this last weekend…check them out.  Yesterday I took a friend to the doctor and had to wait for her surgery to be done…had lunch, a drink at Post Time   ahttp://www.posttimelounge.com/  where they have a great Happy Hour….and then spent the evening trying to straighten things up on my computer…busy but not exactly exciting.   Oh and check out my novel progress on:  https://www.pinterest.com/lindachase56829/my-novels/   My Merlin is so different as is the whole Arthur legend….try it you might like it.

Lots of talk on the  Outlander Rape in the last episode…..If you haven’t seen the show you should  Just don’t start with this episode…its the best TV I have seen in a long time:

A man questioning his reasons to live.  Jamie Fraser—I love the show, the character and Sam too.

OK  I just did a three day road trip with causal observations and weirdness that is central to me—sorry I’ll try to get on something more sane soon–oh by the way we did find out where we’d gone wrong on the trip:  Atlantic Blvd is only an exit on I-4 not the turnpike.  The trip took 5 hours (what with rain, traffic clearing multiple accidents and us getting lost.)  But anyway we did make it, partied the night away and flew out the next morning for a week in the Abaco’s (Bahama Out islands)–life’s rough….  http://www.bahamas.com/islands/abacos

I thought I’d complete the travel theme today with a little bit from one of my favorite cities–in my own words–Key West  http://www.fla-keys.com/keywest/    and :

I sell escapism.   Jimmy Buffett

DUVAL STREET

The main artery of Key West is Duval. It pulses with the blood of currency, how Duval Street goes, so goes the economy of Key West.

On Duval Street sets two areas of historical importance: The Strand, a classic old movie theater building which went on to be a  “Ripley’s and is now a Walgreen’s.  The great thing is they kept the marque and the wonderful old decorative exterior so even though the theater is lost inside it’s spirit still lives outside.

The other is the Quay. The Quay which starts just a ways beyond the edge of the island was a place of “entertainment for sailors who made port here—an area of saloons and houses of ill repute.

But there’s much more on Duval. It starts with its head resting in the Gulf of Mexico. Here are two upscale hotels. One use to be the Ocean Key, I’m not sure what it currently is. This hotel has a large deck from which is a great outdoor restaurant surrounded by water which is very popular during the day and even more so at sunset.

Sunset in Key West isn’t just a daily fact of life, here it is a celebrated event, where you gather at various sites along the island’s border on the Gulf to watch the golden orb sink into the sea. Some areas like this offer quiet dinning and drinks while you do so…others have entertainment, in a carnival type atmosphere which over the years have include everything from trained cats to the southern most Scottish Piper to name a few.

After this is the a fore mentioned Quay buildings. When sailors frequented the area from wreckers and the like in the 1800s this was a red light district, now its just aging buildings with assorted businesses that have changed over the years.  There used to be a little shop in a strange stone building that was a few steps below street level on the west side that had to close when there was a heavy rain–basements are for the most part don’t exist in Key West.  First the island is a hard coral base which is hard to dig in and second the island is so low the areas are prone to flooding.  One Exception is the Hemingway House in which they actually used the stone on site to build the house which was built over the hole it was dug from.

Across Front Street (which during hard rains, particularly at high tide resembles a river more than a road.). On the right is a fantastic brick bank building with alternating colored bricks which makes for a rarity of design. The building is still a bank (if you ever saw the old Billy Crystal/Gregory Hines movie “Running Scarred.”   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Luy502C920 its the building where they apply for a loan and then roller skate out of.)   FORMER FLORIDA FIRST NATIONAL BANK, (established 1891) Front & Duval Sts. By the late 1800s, with half of the Key West population being Cuban, it should not come as a surprise that this 1897 red and yellow brick building, with heavy Spanish influence, was financed by a group of wealthy cigar manufacturers. The carved balcony along the Duval side, with finely detailed column capitals, and the tower on the corner are particularly noteworthy   https://oirf.org/page.php?p=pelican

Now you’re into Duval proper—and don’t be surprised at the mass of trashy t-shirt shops, cameras, electronics and the like that take up most of the next two blocks. If you come to Key West seeking perfection you will be disappointed. Duval has all the class of a carney midway—but that trashy ambivalence is something that is so much a part of the city that to loose it would be to loose some essential part of the spirit that is Key West.

What I don’t like to see though is the intrusion of chains and corporations that have not the social redeeming value of bring money to local pockets.  While they have come they have not overtaken the city and  there are still plenty of interesting  shops to tempt and titillate among the camera shops, t-shirt shops and corporate trappings.  One major issue in Key West has for years been the t-shirt shops. Laws have been passed to prevent a new such shops being open next to an existing shop. The thought of nothing but t-shirt from sea to sea scared even Key West I guess.

There  have been other issues. T-shops are owned by many types of people and in Key West not all are honorable or locally owned.  Shops have been known to grossly over-charge ($500 – $1,000 on credit cards for just a few shirts). This was especially true of custom made shirts. The basic shirt was available at a very low price, but the transfers cost more than your first car. This was done to many tourists, usually  charged on a card and most often foreign speaking tourists seem to have been the most common target.  Multiple city standards have dealt with posting costs, and  I am hopeful that these rips offs are a thing of the past.  Other scams have included money laundering and my favorite a clerk married a foreign national for a fee (now one wonders what the going price for that is.) so that the party could stay in the US.

I went down to Captain Tony’s to get out of the heat
When I heard a voice call out to me, “Son, come have a seat”
I had to search my memory as I looked into those eyes
Our lives change like the weather but a legend never dies

Jimmy Buffet

Yesterday was work and more work.  Listing organizing and setting at my little desk….help???  Heavy rain—Florida is like that, yes it is.  Am still working on my King Arthur book—check out my Pinterest Board on my first novel in triology:  https://www.pinterest.com/lindachase56829/my-novels/  Rough quotes and stuff I’m looking at on research….hopefully I’ll get going again soon.

DROUGHTLANDER IS BACK

And they haven’t even given us a date when 2 begins—-so we leave the couple on a boat fleeing Scotland and they didn’t even invite me to join them.

Back on the road trip:

The ocean is a central image. It is the symbolism of a great journey.

Enya

Life is a journey. When we stop, things don’t go right.

Pope Francis

Past a horse trailer with one horse all the way from New York state, it is amazing what people take on vacation.

Closer now getting tired of riding, tired of sitting, no comfortable place to move your butt, even a grossly over padded one like mine feel sore from the constant pressure.

Ronald Regan Turnpike—does it forget where it’s going?

There comes a moment on a journey when something sweet, something irresistible and charming as wine raised to thirsty lips, wells up in the traveller’s being.

Patrick MacGill

Hopefully we’re almost there—our exit is suppose to be Atlantic Blvd. Pompano, but we’re coming into Ft. Lauderdale

No Atlantic Blvd.  Next exit we’re off for a map.

Stop for gas and a map on Sunrise.  Rain pattern is going over–brewing over the glades and onto the coast.  4 inches of rain in some areas.

 

So it’s been kind of a long road, but it was a good journey altogether.

Sidney Poitier

 

 

 JIMMY BUFFETT’S A1A 33 1/3 LP Vinyl Record 1974

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$20.00 USD

 

The choices that we make aren’t always perfect but it’s ok… It’s part of the journey.

Hayley Williams

WINSTON CUP ’91 Nascar Championship Book

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$30.00 USD

 

Well if you are back I’m presuming that you haven’t found my observations too weird or boing or maybe somewhere in between since you’re back or maybe you’re like me and weird works for you.  Yesterday added some new artists to my shop on line…so watch for some new and exciting things…even some steam punk.  Oh and my Straight Jacket update: https://www.facebook.com/events/1437856319850187/  check out their latest gig.   Had some heavy rain yesterday, my swimming pool was to the top water wise.

“Some beautiful paths can’t be discovered without getting lost.”
― Erol Ozan

Like kissing a corpse:

What a hero and now he is broken–but once mended he will be stronger than ever.   JAMIE FRASER why can’t they made real men half as good.

“I went on a road trip with my cat, Cap’n. I would have let him drive, but he was drunk.”
― Jarod Kintz, $3.33

“Sometimes the most scenic roads in life are the detours you didn’t mean to take.”
― Angela N. Blount, Once Upon an Ever After    

Well let’s get back in the car and back on the Turnpike and see where we end up:

As we traveled on we passed another result of the wet weather.  In Florida were ice is seldom a problem we have black ice when the rain starts or isn’t heavy and it mixes with the oil and chemicals on the surface it because as slick as the real thing.  We slowed o pass a police car stopped along the road and further off the road a silver sports car resting cumbersomely on its roof.  No sight of driver passenger or cop.  Just the results of the slippery rain.  But not to be deterred a yellow and black Porsche flies past, it’s oversize ass disappearing into the green framed gray distance.

As we head further south the skies begin to clear and the sun glares through the rapidly enlarging tears in the clouds.

Ft. Drum, an interesting name for a rest area.  Perhaps there was once a fort in this area, back in the deep, dark, days of the Seminole Wars.  Those bloody days of Florida history where in 3 stages (called 3 Indian Wars) the might of the growing United States arrayed its growing military against the branch of the Creek nation which became the Seminoles when they decided to remain in Florida.  When they finally they had no where else to go for refuge but the river of grass , the Everglades, the land no white man wanted, an where they were finally left alone.

But before you cry too many tears for this savage band of warriors remember that they came here after the Spanish came to St. Augustine and the land they took was from the existing native Florida Indians who for the most part were living peacefully with the Europeans.   They came with the British on raids and a failed attempt to take the fort at St. Augustine (another very interesting story).  The British left (at least for a while) the Seminoles stayed and claimed the land from the real tribes entitled to it.  But remember when you hear the hype that indeed life is not aways fair and it’s not only the white European-types that take by conquest and might of arms.

The thunder heads dissipate leaving dark under bellies that appear to promise more rain.  Rain is tricky subject (time I originally wrote this ) this year.  Florida has had a two year drought, now don’t get me wrong, we’ve had rain, but not the daily downpours we’re use to.  It was so bad that huge sections of the state caught fire–with the air miles and miles away difficult to breathe due to its reek of burnt grass and trees.  Citizens stayed tuned to the TV and watched nursing home evaluations, highways closed for the burning vegetation on both sides and the cancellation of the Daytona July NASAR race since the emergency vehicles usually on had for the event were all tied up with rescues and he like. 

This year the rains are good, they came a bit early and they came almost daily with bunches of rain.  Expert doubt that it will make up for the two bad years, but then it won’t be the first time a weather expert was wrong.  Now there’s a contradiction of terms.  I saw a comedian once who stated the obvious.  “If you want to know what the weather is—stick your head the window and look.”

“That’s why I love road trips, dude. It’s like doing something without actually doing anything.”
― John Green, An Abundance of Katherines

But we have skirted additional bad weather that is drifting out to sea and we have just sprinkles as the dirty laundry layers move on.  We pass a memorial along the road, you see way too often.  memorials to lost friends and loved ones–several like this on has a plea to those passing it:  “Please Drive Safely”.

More rain–the sun has runaway again and now the sudden vision blocking downpour accelerated by a vehicle with worn-out wipers going 70 MPH.  And do I see the sky ahead a blue instead of dirty gray, though not a healthy blue a blue none-the-less.  Then suddenly no rain as we enter Martin Co and pass a truck with a trailer full of hand carved animals, interesting but not great art, or even great carving, but much better than I can do.

“It’s a road trip! It’s about adventure! . . . It’s not like we have somewhere to go.”
― John Green, An Abundance of Katherines

At this point I-95 and the turnpike parallel each other only a short distance apart and often visible through the uneven curtain of trees and large bushes.  There goes a “Fun Bus” (as opposed to a not fun one?).  The roads separate drastically at the river and are no longer visible to the other.  I’ve taken both paths and prefer Turn pike as it has fewer vehicles, less exits and faster drive times–worth the money to me.

The sky’s slate with the sun barely penetrating the water filled clouds as we move past Florida trucks, and Alabama cars.  We follow a prison van for awhile but loose it at the rest area, back in traffic and moving on. Past the exit for Jupiter (the town,not the planet), a nice little town on the Loxachatchee and the Atlantic with its inlet light, Blowing Rock (don’t you dare say it) preserves and other park, lots of water stuff to do.

“Lured by smooth roads onto a new turnpike, he read with surprise the rules he was handed, don’t stop, don’t turn around, pay when you get there; he made his escape at the first exit he saw, for fiftyfive cents, and now he was on the old road buzzing the staid turnpike by turns over and under, teasing it crazy.”
― Douglas Woolf, Wall to Wall

More rain–the sky now the gray that sets in up north before a major snow, but the heat lets you know snow isn’t an option.  The heat in Florida takes some getting to.  Many residents don’t leave their air conditioned residences except to get into air conditioned destinations.  The heat here is like being covered with a wet blanket that was removed from the drier in long enough to be uncomfortable but not to get dried.  It is clammy, stifling, uncomfortable air in which sweat can’t dry and thus something that is to help you cool off just makes you feel even more uncomfortable.

A truck off-road, banged and battered–more Florida ice and what appears to be a drug bust going down.  It is reported that this road is a major artery for cocaine and other abused substances that enters Florida from a thousand small beaches and hidden alcoves so that monitoring but a few is not possible.

“I think that travel comes from some deep urge to see the world, like the urge that brings up a worm in an Irish bog to see the moon when it is full.”
from Lord Dunsany

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“I travel a lot; I hate having my life disrupted by routine.”
from Caskie Stinnett

BUSY WEEKEND–Thurs went to see TOMORROWLAND (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWZ7O-RrATY )with Clooney—wasn’t planning to like it but I did—it’s a good Disney piece for the whole Family….Don’t read the critics,  let’s face it if they reviewed your day at the beach they’d probably find that lacking as well…just have fun—this isn’t Shakespeare it’s just a nice story.   Saturday:  it was massage morning and watching Straightjacket https://www.facebook.com/straightjacketofficial) perform at one of  the venue’s of Sanford’s  (https://www.facebook.com/places/Things-to-do-in-Sanford-Florida/113088345368102/)9th annual Hurricane Party  (http://sanford365.com/event/9th-annual-hurricane-party-at-west-end/).    Sunday started working on a trip to UK next year.

and now it’s back to Droughtlander again.

This week I thought I’d entertain you with a few of my own comments on life—one thing you may have realized if you’re a regular reader is that my interests lie all over the board and there is no theme (other than my daily Outlander offerings) to the Bedlam—but what else would you expect from a Dragon’s Diva?

GETTING OUT OF ORLANDO–ah easier said than done.

The average person who doesn’t live in Central Florida thinks of Orlando as Disney World, Sea World and all those other Worlds and Universals.  All those fun parks that draws the tourists from all over the world to enjoy and congregate.  To those of us who live here it just means more difficulty in “getting out of Orlando”.

The high ways are choked with trucks from the heartlands of the state where we grow citrus and cattle to name a few.  Then there’s the SUV’s  many of which appear always ready for an off-road driving experience, which in truth never comes.  They just consume space and fossil fuel.  Service vans skitter in and out of lines of cars like water bugs, moving from one disaster to another.  And the afore mentioned tourists and travelers in vehicles as varied as the people:  RV’s, Chartered Buses, rental cars and private cars in all manor of size, shape, age and condition.  The inhabitants also multiple origins from the wealthy to the small family with their blue collars—spending months of salary in the amusement parks.

Add to this the thousands of locals getting to work, home or other places that life is currently leading them to, put us all on highways that have not always (let’s be honest here rarely if ever)kept up with the growing needs–then a pinch of rain with a dash of thunder storm to confuse the situation and then finish it off with more than it’s fair share of the geriatric generation driving below the posted minimum and you have a good idea of the recipe for cross town driving necessary to reach the turn pike.

I’ve lived in Chicago and other large cities and am use to toll roads but I have found those in the Sunshine State often less used.  I know people who will drive miles out of their ways to reach I-95 rather than take the turnpike.  I have pointed out gas costs and they look at me like I’m ignoring the obvious.  Don’t even bother mentioning time.  The little value people put on their own time, unless they’re taking about getting paid for work done is totally unbelievable.

The Turnpike is called (officially by the state at least) Florida’s Main Street.  It stretches from near Wild Wood–a small cross road town of little import (it use to have Russel Stover Factory outlet store–don’t know  if it still does) just south of Gainesville and north east  of Tampa.

It then heads south (our destination) through the lonely plains and savannahs of Florida.  You can pick it up south of Orlando (off I-4) and meander east to Fort Pierce on the coast and onward south to where it finally ends at Homestead and US 1 which continues on south to the Florida Keys, but that’s another story.

The road stretches long and mostly straight through the greenness which is Florida.  Rain slick and moderately busy the turnpike wanders past Kissimmee, St. Cloud and a rest area (read over-priced gas and fast food with tacky tourist stuff just in case) before it goes into the nothingness of the unoccupied vistas of the inner state, with nothing to stop the repeated sameness till Yee Haw Junction–a group of hotels and other traveler orientated institutions and little else.

The afternoon rain continues.  Rain in Florida use to be a summer constant, but after years of living here I have either gotten too use to it or it is becoming something less than it use to be.  The clear beautiful and hot sky of mid-morning gradually slips into partially cloudy with the tops of impressive thunderhead moving in on the horizon.  Not so different today except that the rain came early, about 1 pm when three or four pm is more common.  Today the storm is not so close, just the rains and the distant rumble of thunder is heard now just a distant shadow of its normal ear shattering racket.  You can see the lightening though as the long, jagged probe of brightness projects itself from the dark clouds that embrace the sky and moves rapidly downwards to the good earth and a few seconds later the resounding thunder.

The summer rains can be  as gentle as a kitten patting the earth with paws of water or more likely to proceed with wind and the roar of thunder that would make a lion proud.  It is not unusual to have at least minor (and all too often major) damage following each afternoon storm ranging from hail hitting a car to entire trees; with their root systems never having a good grasp of the sandy soil; being uprooted and falling on an assortment of objections including vehicles and structures.

Sometimes these storms spawn tornadoes, wicked demons of nature that “”Taz” their ways across stretches of land.    As a veteran of many years of Michigan and its really serious storms I am less impressed by these weak sisters that more likely to just tear off some tiles –but they are wicked to  trailer (God hates trailers) .  I did live near the exception a few years back when the night was split by the constant flickering of lightening and the unceasing guttural growl of thunder.  Even for Central Florida which has an average of over 200 deaths a year from lightening, the storm was impressive and when it was over we’d more than one class five tornado leaving death and destruction scattered from Sanford through Logwood, Orlando and down to Kissisimmee like a spoiled,  brat of a child in tantrum leaving a clear path of it’s dicards.

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Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.

Rabindranath Tagore

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