Tropical Storm Debby

At least it hasn't been hot for the last few days. What it has been is rainy, (4.5 inches so far), grey, gloomy and WINDY. When last I wrote, the rain was merely sprinkles, however, soon thereafter, the rain began falling and essentially did not quit for two days. Even so, we have been going out and about because that's what Floridians do. Staying home because of the weather is generally not on our radar!

Giving Bruce the choice of a drive up to Sanford, recently made infamous because of the Zimmerman case, or, over to Cape Canaveral, where I'd read there is a nice restaurant overlooking the ocean, he chose the former because, truth be told, the 45 mile drive to CC might have been challenging. As it was, the 25 miles to Sanford had it's moments with yours truly the designated driver.

I'll admit Bruce was skeptical of both ideas, however, once we arrived in downtown Sanford, such as it is, he was glad we'd made the trip.

On my last visit to the tiny downtown I noticed the tables filled with diners at the Willow Tree Cafe, thus my mission was to see what the fuss was all about. My half reuben on marbled rye bread with German potato salad on the side hit the spot, however, for some unknown reason, Bruce ordered a liverwurst sandwich leading to a discussion about the difference between braunschweiger and liverwurst which this link clearly spells out. Although he carried fond memories of the stuff from his childhood, the real-deal German stuff wasn't nearly as tasty as he recalled. According to him, Oscar Meyer is to blame.

We next wandered into the art gallery next door spending an hour or so perusing both the work spaces and main gallery area. Despite what you may imagine, for such a small town, there were many fine works of art, be they sculptures, folk art, watercolors, mixed media or abstract paintings.

Driving there we took 17-92 all the way to the downtown, allowing Bruce, as the passenger, to point out all of the empty businesses which was mighty depressing. Our discussion centered around the idea of were too many buildings built in the first place, or is the recession to blame for what we saw?Probably a little of both don't you think? Heading to the interstate towards home,  I pulled into a lakeside parking lot to take this:

Some parts of the world have white outs, on this occasion we had a grey out! Caution was the order of the day driving home on I-4!

I had some chores for Bruce before he left for the week, one of which I'm ashamed to say took me way longer to prepare for hanging than is reasonable.  Last summer, while visiting the Fludes in Melton Mowbray, they showered us with gifts, including this, finally hung, piece by Tom's brother, Ollie.

The color is way weird in the photograph--despite what your eye tells you, everything is blue, the wall, the mat, and the drawing, although that's not really the technique. Once again, I'm embarrassed to say that I've forgotten how he does it. All that is water under the bridge now, and because it is hanging in the hallway, I'll be seeing it daily from here on out!


Let's get back to the weather shall we? The pool was overflowing yesterday morning when I went out in the rain to empty some of the water into the already sodden ground, which is becoming more so every minute. The wind, as mentioned above, has been wild one minute, calm the next. Windy enough to blow the float out of the pool and across the yard.

If not for the bushes stopping the forward momentum, I've no doubt the float would be resting on the gate! The palms have been blowing like crazy as are the pots of flowers. Check this out:

My how these whirly things have faded since I got them a few months ago! Because I wanted the movement of the whirly gigs to show, I used ISO (film speed) of 100 which was pushing it because the light has been so bad. Who should appear on the fence behind me but a beautiful cardinal? Those photos were terrible because of said slow shutter action. Heading out into the side yard, and our little man was on the other side of the fence!

Somewhat surprisingly, at least to me, I decided, what the heck, I'm doing my bike ride, rain or no rain. Now, as an adult, it is rare that I voluntarily go out in the rain, but as I discovered, it was still fun, not quite as fun as when I was a child mind you, but fun nonetheless. Originally, I planned to take a road trip from Tuesday to Friday while Bruce was gone,  but you know what became of those plans! Monday was already spoken for because I had to drop off my framed prints for the Red Chair project, explained at length in this video. Putting them in a kitchen garbage bag for protection, I drove to the Orange County Office of Cultural Affairs. Good thing I did so because I had to park way far from the door, and because of their size, I could not carry an umbrella at the same time! What's a little rain?

Soon thereafter, I went to play bridge with the "experts." Man, was I terrible yesterday, holding at one point nine hearts and not even bidding them. I won't bore you with the details, but Bev and I got spanked!

Bruce called last night while I was reading in bed, and his trip to California is going just fine for those of you wondering.

I'm blaming it on the barometric pressure due to the storm, (for lack of anything else to pin it on), but the last few mornings I've flet glued to my bed. Yeesh! Nevertheless, I finally got up and after a few chores, took my chances again on my bike ride. I'm happy to say not a drop fell during my ride, however for the last few hours it has rained off and on. Do you suppose that all the wind and rain are responsible for the condition of this sunflower?

It seems as if all our roads are flat, when in truth, if you ride your bike around you'll soon discover that is not the case at all. Sadly, these are in the way on the part of my ride that would normally be a fun little coast!

Like a good girl, I walked my bike through these piles, lest I fall and break something! Which leads me to the end of this post. Instead of little spikey things, my trees are dropping copious amounts of twigs and mistletoe all over what was once a nice green carpet, mostly in the front yard. Tomorrow is yard waste pick up so the time has come for me to get that stuff off the yard and into the bins. Perhaps tomorrow we'll be back to our regularly scheduled weather pattern? Or, so I hope.