City Hall

I imagine you've never been in Orlando's City Hall, neither had I except for when they were building it. I remember when the boys were young we used to traipse around downtown, probably after a library visit. One day I talked someone into letting us go up to the top of not only the under-construction City Hall (9 floors), but the top of the Sun Trust tower(20 something). I hadn't thought of that in years until I was walking up the steps to City Hall to drop off my calendar photo submissions. I turned in four, but you and I both know I took way more photos than that. I'll be super excited if they like just one of them. Picasa made this process much simpler because they have something called web albums. I upload pictures to that then anyone can see the albums . I sent the invite to Matt in London and he helped me choose which ones were best. Isn't it astonishing what the Internet has made possible? You can see them as well--here's the address: http://picasaweb.google.com/gailpeck I've made albums of flowers, the market, buildings, you name it!

So much for "red sky at night, sailors delight", red sky in morning, sailor take warning." The sky is rumbling like anything as I type.

Jonathan called while I was at Leu Gardens this morning--he was on the train in Chicago from the airport. I asked him if he was nervous, and he said a little bit. Fortunately as I mentioned, two of Matt's friends are putting him up for one night each. He's looking at apartments right this minute!

I usually try to go to Leu Gardens at least once a week to see what is in bloom; I was not disappointed today. I'll post it soon--an amazing bloom--I hesitate to call it a flower because it is so unusual. Nevertheless, someone calls it a flower because it's name is--"bat flower." Unfortunately, it is hard to really convey the intricacy of it in a photograph. Maybe someone more talented than I can. We'll see what you think.

Re: Jonathan, or really, for that matter, all of us:

"Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be learned." Helen Keller

And then there's this: