Many moons ago, Jeff, the kids and I lived in California. My daughters, Kristina and Stacy, were with me in the living room when Jeff came in the front door, with an impish look on his face, holding something in his hand. He went straight to the kitchen, got a bowl out of the cupboard and said, “Come here. You gotta look at this.”
Stupidly, we gathered near while he shook something out of a cigarette wrapper into the bowl. We heard a clinking sound, as if a marble had fallen into it. Without yet truly realizing why, the three of us instinctively knew that it was time to scream like girls and run as fast as we could.
Following close behind us, an erstwhile Freddie Krueger, Jeff cajoled us, “No, wait. You gotta see this. I’ve never seen anything like this before!” We continued screaming and running until we had reached the last room in the house, my bathroom, where we locked the door and made like banshees. We shuddered and shrieked and brushed imaginary cooties off of us until our skin was raw, and told him to get the hell away from us. Ever the boy, he stood outside the door, saying, “No, really, you gotta come see this thing. I have no idea what it could be.”
After an extremely long time, he finally realized that we weren’t coming out. He took the thing back outside and we slowly and nervously went back to everyday life, not having any idea what that thing was, but knowing that we NEVER wanted to lay eyes on another one.
However, over the years as the internet has developed, I’ve tried searching for a picture of it, because I just have to know what in Lucifer’s fresh hell we had seen. What made it difficult is that I only had the briefest of glimpses at it before I fled, and I had no idea how to even begin searching something for which I had no keywords. Finally, today, I found it by Googling “scary California grasshopper.” And here, ladies and gentlemen, is quite possibly the creepiest bug in existence:
Jeff said to me this morning, “You haven’t written a blog in 10 days.” I replied, “We haven’t done anything worth writing about.” He agreed, and went back to slurping his coffee. (I make a damn fine cup o’ joe—Yuban brand, half and half, a sprinkle of cinnamon, sugar, and a squirt of whipped cream. Indulgent, yes, but it’s a pleasant way to start a day.) Little did I know that just a few hours later I’d be writing about something as stupid as buying a bag of ice.
After we finished our morning ritual, we headed out on the bike to the library to return some books, and Jeff remembered that we need to buy ice while we’re out. We go through approximately five bags a week, so we are old hands at remembering to buy ice, it’s that important to us. We are ice using people. One of my favorite things in life is a glass of ice water on my desk all day as I work.
Our favorite store to buy ice is Publix. It doesn’t have that funny, stale-freezer taste that some other stores have. The cubes are the right size and are easy to chew (I’m an ice chewer, but that’s a topic for another day). They are also the right shape, a hollow tube. For some reason that shape seems to last longer.
Yes, of course all of this is meaningless in the big picture of life, but my point is that we both make buying ice a priority in our daily life. And one of my biggest bitches and gripes about some stores is that they put the ice freezer AFTER the cashier. Every single time we’re in a store that does that—and with Publix it’s a crap shoot depending on the store—we forget to buy the friggin’ ice, even though we make a VERY deliberate point of saying to each other, “Don’t forget to tell the cashier we want a bag of ice.”
Let's play a game called "Find the Ice Cooler."
We could pick it up first thing, as soon as we walk in the door, but that only works if ice is the only thing we’re buying. We’re usually in the store for a while and the ice will melt if we put it in the cart first. So we make that the last thing we pick up. When stores put the ice cooler by the exit, after the checkout counters, we cannot logistically make it the last thing we put in the cart. We have to remember to tell the cashier that we want to buy a bag of ice and pay for it first. Neither of us can seem to do that, no matter how hard we try, no matter how many times we remind each other “Pay for the ice,” no matter how often I add it to the list, or even write it on my hand.
So today, we went to Publix on the way home from the library to buy a bag of ice. I even reminded Jeff, “Hey, this is the Publix that has the ice after the cashier, so let’s not forget that.” After all, we were only there for ice, but figured while we’re there, we’ll get a couple things. Well, we found those things, stood in line, paid for them and got all the way back out to the parking lot before we realized we didn’t buy ice. So Jeff had to go back inside, stand in line AGAIN, and tell the cashier he needs a bag of ice. Thank god he remembered it that time.
Seriously, I do not understand why stores do this. I refuse to believe they’re doing it just to be dicks, so I have to wonder: do they think it’s more convenient? Are they trying to help us? Cuz it’s not and they’re not. It’s like Bank of America telling me that they allow purchases to go through on my debit card even if there’s not enough money in the account, as a “convenience” to me (at a cost of $35 for the overdraft charge). Even after I told them that this is actually an inconvenience, and asked them to please stop helping us, they continued to ding us every time Jeff would just use the card to buy a pack of smokes or whatever nickel and diming he was doing (he was assuming that if there wasn’t enough in the account, the purchase would be denied). So, yeah. Don’t try to help me in ways that disturb my chi. Please.
How ‘bout a little standardization: why don’t you stores all put the ice with the frozen foods, near the end of the typical shopper’s flow, so it’s the last thing we see as we approach the cashiers? And then, if I don’t have enough on my card to pay for the ice, the bank can decline the purchase because otherwise that $2.00 bag of ice is going to cost me $37.00. I don’t need it that badly. I can always pull out the old fashioned ice trays and make my own.
I feel better now, having ranted a bit. Who knows? Maybe this only happened because Jeff mentioned over coffee this morning that I hadn’t written anything in a while and I said we hadn’t done anything worth writing about. Be careful what you witch for, eh?
You know what sounds good right about now? A cup of iced coffee. I’ll drink to that!
Here's you a dog, laughing at the idiot humans who can't remember to buy ice.
I promised to blog about the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, and I sincerely thought I’d be able to do it in real time (or at least “day of”). However, the trip was so different than I ever imagined it would be and I simply was unable to post anything but the most cursory blogs because of the major travel issues (and, therefore, time issues) that we encountered. So much happened, and so many blog topics are awaiting their turn, but first I want to talk about the Rally itself, the show that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert put on, because that was the reason for the trip, wasn’t it?
I sort of feel that, since this is being written so many days after the fact, everything that can be said about the Rally has already been said all over the ‘net and the media. Everyone who cares about it knows what happened and how it went, so all I can really talk about is my own experience. And my experience was mostly the backs of other people’s heads (I’m very short, only 5’2”). Once in a while the guy who stood directly in front of me (after I had already been there for hours and could see fine until he got there AFTER the show started—but I’m not bitter) would move his big fat head and I could see, but those precious moments were rare. In fact, the view of the back of his head is burned into my retinas. But that’s a story for another blog.
After realizing that I would never be able to take pictures without being able to see what I was aiming at, I stumbled upon a trick that you’ll see in this picture of the O’Jays. (If you click on the thumbnail, you’ll see where they are onstage, because I circled them in red.) I had to hold my camera above everyone’s heads and I had no idea what it was aimed at. However, there was a space in the trees just above the JumboTron, so I tried to aim my camera at that light blue space and that’s how I knew I was in the general vicinity of getting a picture of the monitor and, hopefully, the stage. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not so much.
But back to the show. As I mentioned, we got there VERY early, like 9AM-ish and the people were just beginning to filter into the Mall. It was a very cold morning, but our Sanity and Reason kept us warm. At around 10, the pre-show started on the JumboTrons that were placed all over the Mall. The pre-show consisted of all of the Daily Show/Colbert Report segments from the past few weeks where they talked about the upcoming rally, as sort of a build-up to the big day. We were all getting a little antsy, mostly because we’d been there so long. Finally, at 11:58, the JumboTron showed a countdown of two minutes. Yay!!! We all started counting down the seconds with the monitor. One minute to go! Yippee! We can’t wait! Bring on the Sanity and/or Fear! Go! Go! Go!
At straight up noon, the show began and the crowd went wild. But then we all realized, “Hey, that’s not Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert. That’s a band.” I don’t know about anyone else, but I felt like Ralphie in A Christmas Story reading his coded message, “Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.” Rats. A crummy commercial.
The band played forever and ever and ever. Yes, they were good. No, I had no idea who they were, at the time. I found out later it was John Legend and The Roots. I still don’t know who that is, but apparently that’s because I’m old, not because they aren’t well known.
Once they were finally done playing (again, it’s not that they weren’t really good, it’s that I came to see Jon Stewart) the Mythbusters, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, came out for a while and did a few crowd experiments, like seeing how long it would take a crowd this size (the official count was 215,000) to do the wave. That was actually a lot of fun, because we could see on the JumboTron (this was while I could still see it) what it looked like as the wave rippled across the crowd. They also had us all jump at the same time to see how much we could make the earth move. Adam estimated that “20 million pounds of meat” would be hitting the ground when everyone landed. The seismograph showed that our jump was “14 trillion times weaker than 1906 earthquake in San Francisco” or “100 times stronger than a 35mph car collision.”
Finally, at 1:00, the actual show started. Jon (circled in red, onstage) came out to a huge reception and welcomed the crowd.
Stephen, of course, played the fear card and made his entrance from below the stage through a tube like the trapped miners used. Funny, but even funnier, to me, was his Greatest Poem Ever Written, as read by Sam Waterston.
For me, however, one big highlight of the show was when Jon announced Yusuf Islam (forever known to me as Cat Stevens) to sing Peace Train. Although it was very funny when Ozzy Osbourne interrupted—in answer to Colbert’s request for a fearful song (Crazy Train) to derail the Peace Train—I was really bummed out because I wanted to hear Cat Stevens!!! How often does one get to do that anymore? Well, at least the O’Jays got to sing Love Train start to finish.
At the risk of making this blog too long, I’ll just post a few more pictures that I managed to snap over the heads of the tall people (at my height, that’s pretty much everyone). I got a fairly clear shot of Sheryl Crow, who sang a few songs with Kid Rock. I did not, however, get anything but a JumboTron shot of John Oliver dressed as Peter Pan, trying to bring Jon back to life with our clapping, after Stephen announced him dead and defeated with his video montage of the scare-tactic media, telling us about all the things that can and will kill us and/or our children. Funny stuff. (BTW, this is the reason I quit working in the news. I got tired of hearing the anchors using the phrase “… to keep you safe” when teasing their upcoming stories, and having to filter it out—because of my distaste for fear mongering—before I posted the news on the MSNBC site.)
I think we were all amazed to see the show wrap up with living legend Tony Bennett’s acapella version of America the Beautiful. He hit every note, right where it should be. Lots of tears were flowing by the time he was done.
Overall, I think it was an amazing show, considering how little time they had to put it together. I’ve done standup comedy (seven years on the road) so I know how hard it is to do untested material in front of a live audience. Even Broadway plays are taken on the road before they debut in the Big Apple, in order to get it just right. These guys didn’t have that advantage, and they still pulled it off, with only a couple of minor hiccups and glitches. They talked briefly about this issue in a fascinating press conference, after the show, for the National Press Club.
The best part of the show for me, even beyond Cat Stevens, was Jon’s “Moment of Sincerity” speech at the end. If you have watched none of the other videos I’ve linked to on this blog, please at least watch this one, if only to hear him deliver the magnificent line, “If we amplify everything, we hear nothing.” Wow. That hit me as one of the wisest things I’ve heard in years. I even made a point, then and there, to pull out a pen and paper to write it down.
In my opinion, Jon Stewart is a very funny man, but more importantly he’s a rational thinker. I love his centrist, moderate tone and calm reaction to the shit that life throws our way. The Rally to Restore Sanity was the sanest thing I’ve seen in a long time, and that’s why we made such a gargantuan effort to get there, to show our support for that message. There is no need for shouting. There is no need for rancor. In the words of another famous gentleman, “Can’t we all just get along?”
Well, sort of. The Rally to Restore Sanity was a fun and awesome event, but insanity continues in everyday life as we try to get around in a city overwhelmed by too many people and too few buses. Jeff and I are heading back into the city today to do some sightseeing, and I haven’t been able to write a decent blog because we’re spending so very much time just getting to and from the city, but here are just a few pics as a sample of what the rally looked like. I’ll tell the fun stories once I have a minute to write.
This is the Mall as we arrived, very early, in order to get decent seats and a good view of the stage.
Team Sanity: Tracy, Val, Jeff, me and Clark. Please note the vast expanses of grass all around us.
Father Guido Sarducci delivers the benediction.
So much for getting there early. This dude’s head became my view of the stage for the next two hours. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Steven, Kareem Abdul Jabar and Jon on stage and Jumbotron.
One of my favorite signs. I’ll post another blog later with all the great signs and costumes I took pictures of.
In front of the stage, after the Rally.
After the Rally. We could never have gotten this close to the stage otherwise.
Gotta go! The shuttle is here to take us to the airport, to take us to the bus, to take us to DC. Oh, my achin’ dogs! (There’s you some dogs!)
I’m sure it’s no surprise that there is no time to devote to a real blog at this moment (it’s been a nonstop whirlwind here in DC for the Rally to Restore Sanity) but I wanted to upload a few pics from yesterday before I leave in a few minutes on the shuttle into town.
Our hotel is WAAAAAAY further away from the city than I expected (wouldn’t you think an airport called Washington Dulles would be at least NEAR Washington?). We have to take an hour long bus trip just to get to town, so we have to leave very early in order to get there in time for the noon rally. They are expecting about 300,000 people. Wow!
The people we met yesterday were amazing. Seems everyone we saw was in town for this thing and the mood is lighthearted and fun. We’re wearing our rally t-shirts, and so are they, and it’s a huge party. Anyhoo, I have to get moving, but here at the pics from yesterday with mini commentary:
At the airport. Looks like that game Don’t Break the Ice, doesn’t it?
The incredibly packed bus into DC.
It was super cold yesterday. One girl even changed out of her flip flops into her neato shoes on the bus. I had to take a pic of her shoe, cuz it’s so cute. Sorry it’s so blurry.
These huge helicopters kept flying up and down the city. Yes, that’s the Washington Monument in the background.
The Jefferson Memorial … nice view from my friend Clark’s hotel.
Jeff pretends to be about to eat squid from our new friend Tracy’s plate. Please note I said PRETENDS. That’s as close as it got.
These folks have to be at the rally site at 6AM because they’re volunteering. LOVE her hat!
I didn’t think I’d have time to post a decent blog before I leave for Washington DC in the morning (Jeff and I are going to the Rally to Restore Sanity/Fear, hosted by Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert, in case you live under a rock). But after I posted on Facebook that I wasn’t going to post anything tonight, a hole appeared in my evening and I was able to sit down and jot down a few notes.
I have to admit that part of me is terrified. This promises to be a huge crowd, with guaranteed mayhem on the rapid transit system. The sheer size of the event has me feeling a little claustrophobic, agoraphobic, and even arachnophobic. I’ll be fine once I get there, but I have a sick need to scare the shit out of myself just thinking about the enormity of the event. I do this every time I travel—can’t help it—but I always get over it once I’m in motion (and after downing a fistful of xanax with a glass of merlot. KIDDING! I KID! It’s half a xanax and a glass of cabernet).
Also, I’ve begun working on a life-changing and enormous writing project and it’s sort of taken over my life. To have this Rally occur while I’m extremely occupied elsewhere causes me to have to shift gears in a way that is sort of hard, but, again I’m doing it.
God, I wish I could talk about this new project because I’m bursting with excitement about it! It’s premature to say anything because of legal confidentiality agreements—plus it’s just too early to talk because sometimes leaking news dissipates the buildup of creative steam. Rest assured, however, that you will be fascinated by the new book I’m co-authoring.
I guess what this weekend boils down to is a test of my ability to shift gears and be fully in the moment, wherever I am. I have to put my project aside for a few days and just stop thinking about it so I can give the monumental (no pun intended) trip to DC and Rally my full attention, as it deserves.
I’m going to stop writing now because I’m almost speechless with antici …
Here's you a hot dog. And you better not try and hurt her, Frankfurter.
My friend Elizabeth Anne Hill and I were talking the other day (she’s a writer, too) about how people accuse us of complaining when we tell what’s going on in our crazy lives, but we don’t see it that way. We both see it as noticing our circumstances and commenting on it. How else can you describe something, if you don’t point out the contrast you see? So when I talk here about being bored, I’m not complaining, I’m just sayin’.
I mean, I live in Florida, five miles from the Gulf of Mexico. I have no right to bitch. A boring day here is at least filled with amazing sights. Just last week Jeff and I went to the library because I’m doing research for a project I can’t talk about yet, and we saw this row of election signs littering the landscape. Among them was the most delightful thing I’ve seen in a long time: a candidate for Mosquito Commissioner named “Skeeter” Abbott. Only in Florida, man, only in Florida.
We decided, since we had the entire day to kill, to take a ride to Hudson Beach (which isn’t really much of a beach, per se, it’s more of a housing subdivision that ends with a small strip of sand bordering the Gulf where no swimming is allowed). The houses all have a river inlet and dock for a back yard.
On the way to the Gulf, we stopped for a hot dog at the Hudson Beach Ice Cream Parlor, a place we’ve driven past a thousand times but never visited. I was unimpressed with the “food” but hey, this is the kind of place you go for kitschy atmosphere, not fine dining.
Even if you can’t swim at Hudson Beach, it’s still a cute place to spend a little time. You can have some more crappy food and a beer at a cute beachside restaurant called Sam’s Beach Bar, which is where I usually like to spend each birthday, watching the sunset before we move on to a place to get a real meal.
Yes, someone lives there. Lucky bastards.
Other than that, I just love sitting there at the water’s edge and listen to the waves and the seagulls, and drool over the gorgeous houses that sit on the shore and somehow survive the occasional hurricane.
And to top off this “boring” day, check out what we saw on the way home, in someone’s front yard. We weren’t at a zoo or wildlife sanctuary, these gigantic birds were in someone’s front yard. Seriously, if you’re going to live a boring life, it might as well be under a palm tree with birds as large as a second grader running amok.
As Jeff and I begin to count the days until the Daily Show’s Rally to Restore Sanity next weekend, I have to start thinking about packing. I realized that I need a good, old-fashioned fanny pack to carry my stuff because I don’t care to be encumbered by a purse in a crowd of several thousand people. Unfortunately, fanny packs are currently out of style, making them impossible to find in local stores, so we set out today to find a substitute.
I don’t understand why on earth a useful tool like a fanny pack would be subject to the whims of fashion. Why can’t they be like purses—necessary, but with new and exciting designs? How else can one carry a decent amount of necessities without being stuck with the burden of keeping track of a purse? Even a backpack isn’t as useful, because it’s on your back (hence the name, right?) which, therefore, makes access difficult for the wearer but simple for a pickpocket. The fanny pack sits right there at your waist, just the right size and completely hands- and worry-free. So why can’t I buy a fanny pack, just because some fashionista has decided that they are passé? (Yes, I can get one on eBay, but that’s beside the point.)
Today, Jeff and I got on the bike and ventured out into the world, which is a wise thing to do once in a while anyway. It would be really easy to never leave the house except to buy groceries, because we really don’t have anywhere we have to go, both being unemployed. Staying in the house too long begins to feel like we’re covered with slow-setting cement, and the longer we go without getting out, the harder it is to break the crust of lethargy. So out we went.
On the way out the door, I finally happened to see our back yard tortoise at the same time I had the camera handy. One of my favorite things about living in Florida is the interesting wildlife (minus palmetto bugs … I could live without them, thank you very much) and our area is abundant with gopher tortoises. They are the bane of the construction industry, because they are protected species and if the construction cannot avoid a gopher tortoise burrow by 25 feet then a permit for relocation is necessary from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Our neighborhood has numerous tortoise holes, and one is right in my back yard.
You’d be amazed by how quickly these guys can move, in spite of their fabled sluggishness so I had to get over there quickly to catch it before it popped into its hole. They stop moving once they sense your presence, and send out pretty strong “get away from me” vibes, but once they realize that you’re not a threat, they go back to zipping along the grass to get to their hole as fast as they can.
Sometimes they get stuck crossing the road and it’s not an uncommon sight to see a car parked on the shoulder with the driver getting out to move the tortoise, who has frozen in the middle of the road because they sense the presence/threat of cars. The general rule of thumb is to just carry them across the road the rest of the way, in whichever direction they were pointing. It happens all the time and is just one of the many wonders of living in this part of the world.
So once my hard-shelled neighbor ducked into its hole, we went off on our mission, to find a substitute fanny pack. We headed to Walmart, but stopped at a garage sale on the way. I found this multi-use bowl for sale and took a picture because I don’t know that I’ll ever see another sign like this again. I didn’t buy it, however, because I simply do not need a mud/cement mold that can double as a dish for chips, vegetables or anything else, even if that is a whopping good price.
Once at Walmart, Jeff parked the bike in a row we’ve never parked in before and I took a moment to praise the uniqueness of this choice. I know this might sound weird, but when you don’t have a lot of money, you have to find your joy in the simple things, like parking in a spot you’ve never used before. I know for a fact that we never have parked there, because we always park on the far side of the building and have never been able to walk straight into the front door from our parking spot.
It reminded me of my habit of always keeping one bathroom stall in a commonly used public restroom as a mystery. For example, whenever I’ve worked in an office with multiple bathroom stalls, there is always at least one stall that I will never use. That way, no matter how long I’ve worked in the place, and how familiar and ho hum the place becomes over the years, there is always at least one place I’ve never seen. And on my last day working there, I will use that stall.
We passed through Walmart, in search of my new bag, and found this sticker on the inside of a large plastic storage bin. I believe this is just good advice: don’t store baby in a bin.
Finally, after searching the purse and backpack department, I found a bag that will suit my purposes in the camera department. It is the perfect size for my “writer’s kit.” It’s a camera bag for one of those big clunky cameras with the big old lens, and it’s the perfect size for my digital cam, cell phone, voice recorder, a pad of paper, a pen, batteries and business cards. It even has a belt loop attachment. I’m good to go! Washington DC, here we come!
Here's you a dog and Jeff's face Photoshopped onto Alice from the Brady Bunch. Amazing resemblance, no?
“Say, Lisa, why no new blog posts?” you might ask. If you did, I would respond, “Because life has been so freakin’ boring that I have nothing interesting to write about!” However, I have taken some fun and interesting (to me, anyway) pictures, so I think today’s blog will be just that … a bunch of pics that are collecting dust in my Pictures folder.
One has to wonder why they didn’t just buy a new mailbox.
I defy you to find one yellow tomato in this picture of “Yellow Tomatoes.” Orange, yes. Yellow, no.
I thought this was just a pretty building when I took the picture. I didn’t even notice the name of the place until I got home and looked at the pictures I took while in Tarpon Springs with Clark last week.
There are just so many unexplained focal points in this one. (Taken in St. Pete, across the street from Tropicana Field, as are the next few pics.)
Ferg’s Sports Bar in St. Pete. I love all the colors.
On the sidewalk in front of Ferg’s. It says:
New York Mets
St. Louis Cardinals
The Mets go on to win another World Series
but the real earthshaking news is
groundbreaking for the St. Petersburg’s
downtown domed stadium.
Jim Healey & Jack Lake
Baseball
Boulevard
1986
In Ferg’s ladies room. Yes, I’ve become “that person.” Hey, Jeff doesn’t just pick up the camera to take pictures of me when I think I look okay that day, so someone has to do it!
This was on display at FolkFest St. Pete, the day we went to see the Indigo Girls concert on October 1.
This is a closeup of the same truck, above, of the doll heads on the cab’s roof.
One of the neato art displays at FolkFest.
I think Jeff found where they hid the yellow tomatoes.
It bothers me that my toaster has a nicer set of boobs than I do.
When you’re bored, anything makes an interesting picture. Here are some pics of us going through a car wash, from inside the car. Some of them turned out pretty cool!
My daughter Kristina spent almost two years in Turkey at Incirlik Air Force Base and I lived vicariously through her the whole time, learning everything I could about their culture through her eyes. I drooled with envy the whole time and one of my most treasured possessions is a trinket she sent to me from Turkey: an “evil eye” charm.
I’ve had the charm hanging in my car from the rearview mirror since then, along with my sparkly faceted cut crystal and my bouncing Buddha (enlightenment on a spring, don’t ya know) on the dashboard. I’ve never seen anything like it until I went to Tarpon Springs, a cute and kitschy Greek fishing village here in the Tampa Bay (I drag all of my out of town visitors to the Tarpon Springs sponge docks). I saw evil eye charms for sale in all the stores there, in all shapes and sizes, because the Greeks share the belief in them.
Today, I dragged another friend from out of town to Tarpon Springs with me to eat some amazing Greek food at Costas, my favorite restaurant there, to tour the sponge docks and to pick up another evil eye for our second car (the Volaré that kept breaking down on our road trip … sure coulda used one back then, eh?).
There really is no way to do justice in the telling to Tarpon Springs. It’s a splendid mixture of beautiful scenery, legitimate history (see the historical marker pic), excellent food and goofy fun with a “roadside attraction” feel. If the Tampa Bay had a Greektown, Tarpon Springs would be it. The restaurants are plentiful (many feature belly dancing) and most of the shops sells handmade olive oil soap and hand lotion, sponges of every shape and size, and, of course, evil eye charms. And then there is the Spongeorama, my favorite place in Tarpon Springs just because of its name. It’s the reason I drag my friends here.
My friend Clark, who lives in Fort Lauderdale, is someone I’ve known for almost 20 years. I haven’t seen him in about eight years, but we’re the kind of friends who just pick up where we left off, as if we saw each other yesterday. He’s one of those people who lights up a room with his fun and laughter, and I couldn’t think of anyone who would enjoy the kitsch of the Spongeorama Sponge Museum more than Clark.
After an excellent lunch, we walked around town and enjoyed the exquisite Florida fall afternoon. The temperature was a rare perfect (many people think Florida is paradise year-round, but we actually only have about four weeks out of the entire year of really gorgeous weather—summer is too hot, winter is very rainy, spring and fall are both only about two weeks long) and we were both in a really good mood. It would only get gooder when we found our way to Spongeorama.
If you’re ever in Tarpon Springs, you really have to take the time to visit the Sponge Museum and see the movie about how sponges are gathered in the Gulf of Mexico. Yes, it’s educational, but the sheer entertainment factor is what I go for. The movie was made in the middle of the last century and it shows. Clark said it felt like watching a movie in fifth grade that was even old back then. It’s true. It’s so tacky that you can’t tear your eyes away, especially when they begin extolling the virtues of sponges at the end of the film and chanting, “Need it. Need it. Need it!” But that’s second only to the sample of olive oil hand lotion that one of the employees squirts into your hands as you go into the theater.
Here are a few pictures of the various exhibits in the museum that I will allow to speak for themselves:
I don’t think I really need to say much more, do I? Oh, here’s a picture I took of the door of the ladies room in the little mall in the center of town. I think it sort of blends with the feel of the rest of the day, don’t you?
And in case you’re wondering whether I found a suitable evil eye charm for the Volare, here it is:
even funnier, to me, was his 
Here's you a blog ... 