Downtown Orlando

In spite of my sunny attitude, it rained yesterday. I'm not talking a little shower my friends, I'm talking hard rain for nearly an hour. What's more, it's a long story, but it took us longer than normal to set up, and less than four hours later, we were sadly, having to close down.

All the while Dana was guiding cars into their spaces for loading, which was making me a tad nervous due to the thunder and lightening. Fortunately, Mr. Bruce had the foresight to put a few rain walls up which kept everything relatively dry, mind you I said relatively! Actually we did fine, it just takes so darn long when it's raining. Before the deluge I took a few photos for the weekly album:

I'm not much of a mango fan, so I've no idea if they should have all this darkness on them, but it does add a little something to the photograph. The berries, who doesn't love berries and cherries?

And, of course, every week I'm loving the look of the peppers,

Mr. Bruce left way early this morning, like maybe 4:45? I woke briefly as he was saying goodbye, and then again soon thereafter. Looking at the clock it read, 5:15! Because I was awake anyway, I got up, briefly considered a day trip, and thought better of it. Instead, I did my now-normal morning routine, emptying the drainer while waiting on the kettle to boil for my morning tea. And, of course, my bike ride which I'm still thoroughly enjoying. I've just finished cleaning up all yesterday's mess after everything had a chance to dry out in the air conditioning.

Experience has taught me that selling something big and pricey at the market is pretty tough. Because I won't be doing any fall art shows, I decided to hang my big flower in the sun room which I'm thinking works pretty well.

Enough about the weekend. When last we met I wrote that this post would include a bit about downtown. Well, wait a minute, the market is downtown. Okay, that means we are on track!

Friday afternoon I dropped off my calendar submissions at City Hall. As I walked there from my parking spot on Rosalind Avenue, I got a closer look at a very exciting project, our new performing arts center, under construction. To make it all happen, the city bought a block of property which housed a fairly new building belonging to First United Methodist church. In turn, the FUM, built a new building across the street to make up for the one they lost.

Hard to tell it's even church-related. So, down goes the other building:

as shown from the Rosalind side, and here's a look from Magnolia:

You can see the new center going up on the right. It's the story of Orlando--something new torn down for something newer. While at City Hall, I had to go through the whole screening thing--making myself a badge, along with the x-ray screening, all of which took me way longer than my ride up the elevator to the sixth floor and my drop off! I'm not holding my breath over my entries.

Once on Orange Avenue, I saw the construction from this vantage point.

I know my friend Karen will loves those puffy clouds! Because I'm always practicing, I re-take many things I've done in the past. This one, a sculpture in front of the Orange County building, has always been one of Bruce's favorites:

And this one, the colorful sculptures of Dorothy Gillespie in the middle of a parking garage, has always been one of mine:

I hope I haven't overloaded you with pictures today. I'm well aware that blogs are no longer so cool, facebook is losing steam, while the brevity of Twitter is where it's at. That said, although I try my darnedest to keep it short, it's pretty much impossible on most days!

Finally, here is a super cool new tool from Sherwin Williams, called, Let's Chip It! Click on the link and you'll see an image I uploaded, which through some sort of computer magic, turned into a paint color palette! Recently I overheard some folks saying that choosing wall paint colors was the absolute hardest, so what seems like a nifty idea to me is, choose the art work, and then, just, Chip It!

Action Packed

At least our weekend seemed that way to a middle aged couple! Remember the party weekend several weeks ago? Well, the man of the house had a birthday--it was time to get out and celebrate! And so we did.

As you may recall, Bruce was having his struggles earlier in the day on Friday. Nothing like a date with your wife to put some of those frustrations out of your mind. Because it was my treat, I left the dinner location up to him. Where did he want to go? Well, where he wanted to go was Maxine's on Shine. And here my friends, is Maxine herself:

Orlando folks will remember this space as the former Bravissimo which then turned into Neighborhood Shine Kitchen, which then became Maxine's. Our experience was super fun with Bruce telling me he wanted to return next Friday night! We are always on the hunt for a place that serves good food, has a cool vibe with reasonable service. (More on that later) Speaking of a cool vibe, although we ate outside, I stuck my head in to see the new look, remarking that the lights were super cool. On closer inspection, they were not what I was expecting!

See what I mean? If not, click on the photo to make it even larger!

Instead of heading out to Winter Garden on Saturday, I headed to Lakeland with Bruce to visit his job site. While he was checking on things I went downtown to go to Hollis Gardens and from there I was hoping to go to a store called, "The Patchwork Pig," which sadly is closed. Although I'd found the store online, there was nothing to indicate as such. I always feel terrible for owners of small businesses that close for whatever reason. All of their hopes and dreams, not to mention large sums of cash, are gone.

While at the gardens I saw a few photo shoots going on--one a pregnancy one (I have no idea how this has become so popular!), and one for a Quincenera. The fifteen year old girl had not one, but both parents sporting cameras having her pose this way and that. The skirt on her long dress was a mass of this:

It is certainly a popular place for event photography as we learned while there for the show last weekend. Prom night was happening with loads of couples having their photos made in the gardens. My goodness the dresses I saw were pretty revealing which makes me wonder what the future holds for prom dresses as they couldn't possibly get any skimpier. Can they?

How I wish our gardens in Orlando were as beautiful, although having said that, Leu Gardens is a gazillion times larger. I suppose you can't have it all in this life...

While downtown I stopped by a funky little shop which was barely larger than a good-sized closet, thus they had some of their merchandise outside, including these beautifully colored bottles.

After a visit from Bill and Dave we met up with Bruce's brother Cris and his wife Judy for another birthday dinner at Brio. Sadly, although the company was good, that's about all that was. The service was deplorable and I mean deplorable. You won't have to read all the details; suffice it to say the manager made sure we had a new server. Oh and the best cook in the house.  Leave that other one to the rest of the guests I suppose? Yeesh--although we go out with frequency, Cris and Judy do not so it was all the more frustrating. Nevertheless, we enjoyed our visit and afterwards I took this of Bruce and Cris leaning on Cris's new truck of which he is very proud.

They look more alike side by side than I realized! On my desk I have the most adorable picture of the two of them when they were very little boys all dressed up in their suit jackets and bow ties. I adore that photograph. This one puts me in mind of that one for some reason.

Sunday was market day and if not for my benefactor, Dr. Sievert, the day might have gone down as pretty much a visiting day. Writing about my very first market day five years ago, I wrote that it was like having a party without having to provide the food and drinks. Ditto for yesterday, with so many visitors I can hardly recall them all. My first day at the market  I had to rely on my family to visit--rarely do they come these days, replaced by new and old friends who keep up with me there. Woohoo! Just got a call from someone who wants to come by on Sunday to pick up a baby canvas!

As you know, my photo library is filled to the brim with pictures of the market, Sunday after Sunday, year after year. Most of those photos are the people and products with a liberal sprinkling of the dogs. This little girl is 15 weeks old and so small you cannot image. Or, maybe you can?

Naturally, there are a gazillion photos of fruits and vegetables, most of which are forgettable at best. The bright cherries against the green make this one a cut above the rest.

If only it weren't so sunny, however I'm not complaining one bit. Earlier in the week, our trusty weather folks predicted precipitation. Wrong again--not a cloud in the sky all day long. Dana took Bruce out for a birthday glass of wine following the market, well, I went too, but you get my drift. If only we had stopped with the one....

So, now it is Monday and Mr. Bruce has gone to you know where. For four days no less. I'm afraid this is going to get old pretty quickly, particularly since he's been assigned four more California jobs because the project manager covering that part of the country is out for back surgery. I see some trips in my future.

Our social life has been action packed so why should our yard be any different? Just when I was thinking that the jatropha, planted all over the back yard, was supposed to attract butterflies and why wasn't it, when butterflies appeared. Beautiful monarch butterflies.

Typically the blue jays have not come to the feeders very much. They are kind of the bully birds, so I'm not unhappy with that in the least. Just prior to me taking this photo, the blue jay harassed the cardinal to let him in on the feeding action. Seeing this photo on the screen I was pretty shocked that I'd got him/her in flight:

In case you are wondering, those brown bean-shaped things hanging from the tree are the seed pods of a the tabebuia tree. Although Regina finds them attractive, after the beauty of the blooms, I feel they pale in comparison and just want them to fall off soon.

After such a busy few days, today feels very quiet indeed. I've got quite the pile of library books, I think I'll dive in and the hours will pass like magic.

701!

Good grief, how did I miss that? This is my 701st post which somehow doesn't sound nearly as dramatic as my 700th! At any rate, here we are nearly four years into this thing I call Camera Crazy. Seriously hard to imagine isn't it?

Actually I intended to title this post, "Tremendous", the word Matt used to describe Let the Great World Spin. Yesterday afternoon I completed this amazing novel which I can't recommend enough. There are parts that are so heart wrenching causing me to lay the book aside for a day or so. Normally you think of a great book as one you can't put down; according to Matthew that's how he felt while reading this. I, on the other hand, just couldn't take it, which in this case is a good thing. The writing is such that you are completely transported to New York City and the lives he's intertwined. In a first for this little blog I'm going to quote the last lines of the novel, which by the way, give away nothing.

"Jaslyn thinks again of an apricot--she does not know why, but that's what she thinks, the skin of it, the savor, the sweetness.


The world spins. We stumble on. It is enough.


She lies on the bed beside Claire, above the sheets. The faint tang of the old woman's breath on the air. The clock. The fan. The breeze.


The world spinning."

Perhaps that will wet your appetite for this sensual novel with superb writing?

Lastly, and I'm almost done rhapsodizing about Colum McCann, I promise, his acknowledgement page was worth noting. The line I most liked was this: "The fact of the matter is that there are many hands tapping the writer's keyboard." Humble guy.

Normally I don't get all into artsy speak, however, on occasion I recognize inspiration when it hits me. Or maybe not.

After dropping off my entry for the annual calendar contest Wednesday morning, I stopped by our local Goodwill store looking for props. One never knows what one may come across for $1. Wow, that sentence is really crazy isn't it with all those ones? I digress....

I've been looking for a small cobalt blue vase for some time, still no luck on this trip. I did find this blue bowl, slighty the worse for wear but fine for my purposes. Now that I look at the image again, I'm making the connection with life is just a bowl of cherries, which according to Answers.com, the term  was first used in popular culture as the title of a song by Lew Brown and Ray Henderson in 1931. Apparently they were thinking cheery thoughts when they wrote it, although now that I think about it, how could that have been when the country was in the midst of the Great Depression?

Take from it what you will. Bruce and I thoroughly enjoyed those expensive Ranier cherries I'll tell you that much.

The first thing I picked up was a spool of colorful ribbons. I liked the colors and for a buck how could you go wrong? So, I went about trying to make something with them; tangling, playing with the light and backgrounds--you know the drill.

Here's where the arty speak comes in--I can hear the groans now. Seriously, when I was choosing something to go with this post it hit me right smack in the head and heart.

This is what the book was all about!! Although  these are all ribbons, their colors makes them unique, just like us-- just like the characters in the book. Furthermore, our lives are more interconnected than we often realize, especially with the World Wide Web. When they were shaped into a ball, I couldn't help but think of the internet. Each ribbon has a story to tell when used on a package, evoking a different mood or response depending on the color. Who doesn't feel calm when encountering shades of blue? Or vibrant when presented with orange? Pretty in pink? You get the idea. I guess that's why I bought the ribbons, trying to express the complex emotions I felt while reading this story.

Oy vey! Enough already of what I think. Anything come to your mind? Possibly that Gail has gone crazy? She's lost her marbles? How does she think a pile of ribbons can be art? I suppose because she can.