A Storm Fizzles

Oh what a wonderful few days I've had...

Beginning with the opportunity to help uninstall, and reinstall, Dale Wayne's recycled water bottle art piece which had been hanging outside the Orange County Administration building on Rosalind Avenue for maybe two months? Can't remember when I helped her last. In any case, it is now hanging in the downtown Orlando library, and does it look fab!

Dale is pictured in the top right photo, filling in a few gaps. It was very fun to go behind the scenes at the library, a place I've visited my entire life. Everything was unloaded on the dock outside the library, and then we moved them inside on carts.The fellow on the bottom right was a genius at getting it all secured on the railings. It looked pretty outside, but inside, against the bare concrete, it is really something.

Friday afternoon Bruce had Jonathan Nieves over, a young man who helps him when he has computer problems. His business used to be known as "Send a Genius", and since ours is across the ocean, he has had to rely on Jonathan. I was listening, and what not, and of course I wanted to practice with the new camera, so I took this shot of him while he was working.

As it turns out, he needed some head shots for various promos, so we did that too. Love that sort of thing when the opportunity presents itself.

Our date night was going to be one place, however, the parking lot was packed, not to mention it was rainy, so we tried a new place called North Orange Tavern, located, yup, on N. Orange Avenue. We began by sitting at the bar, however, neither of us liked the fellow behind the bar all that much, so we asked for a table. Well, we got a good one because I got to watch this fellow making pasta.

Through glass of course. He ran it through the machine a bunch of times, then laid it on the counter for cutting.

Please note the Premium Saltine box on the bottom shelf. Any place that actually serves the best cracker ever made is a good place in my book! He then fiddled with the cut strips,

I suppose portioning them; following that, he put them in the bin to dry out?

Having never made pasta myself I'm not entirely clear on how it all works. I do believe that is semolina  flour in the bin. Correct me if I'm wrong all you pasta makers out there!

Keep in mind I'm still seeing how well the camera works, so this post is going to be chock full of photos!

You can see that the street was quiet, probably because the weather folks have been hawking a hurricane. Mind you it was never even a hurricane, however, any chance to sensationalize the weather, and they are all over it. This is not to diminish the problems the rain and wind caused in the Dominican, but still, it was never a hurricane. What I learned on Sunday night is that while weather was in our news, Vancouver got the real thing. I read somewhere there was a massive tree loss in Stanley Park from this storm...in April, when I visited there, I could not get over the beautiful trees. I wonder if these survived?

Back, closer to home, we are not losing trees, however, the squirrels have been busy munching on pine cones. Both last week, and this, I gathered a bucket of them before mowing the lawn. This week the ground was littered with orange!

Then too, we found dropped acorns....always a sign of something to come.

Saturday afternoon I had the pleasure of attending a bridal shower for our hair stylist Monica. Must have been five or more years ago that I met Monica at the market as a customer. Although she does my hair, she does Bruce's a heck of a lot more. He should have been the one there! Anyway, these lovely ladies put on the shower for her at Park Plaza Gardens.

One customer (l), her new sister-in-law, and her sister holding Gracie. The event was just beautiful, from the room, to the centerpieces, to the food. And, Monica is such a doll.

The napkin color!!! Having lived in Orlando pretty much my whole life, fairly often, as in more often than not, I run into people, who either I know, or there is a pretty close connection. Pictured on the right is the wife of Tres Thomas, from the Thomas Lumber family. Orlando folks will know the name. But that's not all. Her sister-in-law, Linda, is one of my sister Maureen's oldest, and dearest friends! How about that for a small world?

Another day, another rainstorm...Saturday night I believe we got almost another two inches. Thus, waking up on Sunday morning, everything was still saturated, the weather predictions were all over the map, and I made the executive decision to skip the market AGAIN!! Twice in one month? Yes.

Well, let's do some fun stuff instead ,shall we? For the longest time I've wanted to ride on the West Orange Trail and now we have! Keep in mind that Mr. Bruce has not been getting the exercise that he might like these last two months, so we did not go far, but the amount we did was super.

Asking some folks in the parking lot, while taking the bikes off the car rack, they suggested we go North, and so we did. I don't know what I was expecting, but this section took me by surprise as it went behind some neighborhoods. Nice tree plantings all along the way, not to mention how green and lush everything is with all the rain this summer.

Amazingly enough, (see above), every single person we passed, either on foot, or bike, said hello, or good morning. Imagine our surprise as a fellow riding by called out, Hi Bruce! By golly, it was a fellow B worked with at Darden for fifteen years or so. They spent a little time catching up as Cris is still with the company. Me--I stayed in the shade under the lovely trees!

Next stop was this new cool spot in Winter Garden proper.

I said to Bruce--is this how folks spend Sundays? Having fun?

The year and half that I was doing the market in Winter Garden had it's ups and downs, but I sure came away from the experience impressed with what they are doing to invigorate their city. The bottom line is that it has a lot going for it these days, including this new brewery.

Bruce tried one of their beers, proclaiming it good. We roamed around, and had we not been on our bicycles we would have purchased more goods than we did. As B was getting a German pretzel, I glanced over at one of the stalls, thinking I just knew the proprietor. Finally I went over and said as much; lo and behold it was one of my former customers from the market! He and his partner spent a lot of time in Winter Garden, traveling from their home in Toronto. Now WG is their permanent home, and they've opened a little spot calling it "AntiquiTEAs. Naturally I bought some of their blackberry tea! They said they had been looking for me for ages...what happened to my website they wondered? The truth is, I pulled it down, and am now waiting on Matt to come home for Christmas to move me into another avenue. I've begun a little something here, but it's a work in progress..

You might note that we were out and about and the weather was just fine...that is until 3 in the afternoon when the heavens opened big time. I was in the midst of preparing an early dinner, running out in the rain to cut some chives for the boiled new potatoes.

And there was more fun...

Generally I hate action films--car chases, shootings, and the like, just don't do much for me. However, much to my surprise, I was able to both sit through, and somewhat enjoy, "Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation." Bruce was doing his best not to panic in the late afternoon after learning about a flood in his job from a water line causing the air conditioning system to stop. Escapism took on new meaning last night as we watched the film!

So, B is off again, facing his own mission impossible. That said, he's pretty much like Tom Cruise, takes a beating, but gets right back up to save the day.

Ready for more rain,

Gail