Day #50 – Lunch with Jan

Sarasota FL

Our friend Jan comes down to St. Petersburg every year about this time for the Silver Threads conference.  We had forgotten all about that, so her email inviting us to lunch took us by surprise.  We drove up to see her today; it’s about an hour’s trip.  It was a pretty drive with lots of bridges and water.  On the drawbridge to St. Pete, I saw an osprey, a bald eagle, and a second osprey, all sitting on adjacent lamp posts.

As soon as we walked into the hotel where Silver Threads was being held, we were greeted by other women attending the conference.  Although we knew none of them, they were all friendly and welcoming to us.  Lunch with Jan was wonderful!  It was so good to see a familiar face and talk about Pittsburgh.  Afterwards, we went in search of a bookstore Jan liked.  The bookstore had closed, but we found ice cream on the way back.  We were so taken with the hospitality and friendliness of all these women we decided to register for the conference and stay in St. Pete for the long weekend.

Kelly made a mad dash back to Sarasota to bring us clean clothes and keep a theatre promise to her mother.  I settled into our hotel room to enjoy Law & Order reruns and the sounds of the surf  until Kelly returned.

Day #48 - Solomon’s Castle

Sarasota FL

Today, we went on a road trip!  And, you’ll be pleased to know, we remembered to take our cameras!  We travelled on back roads, through cattle country.  I never thought of Florida as being anything beyond citrus, tomatoes, and mouse ears, but there seems to be more cattle than anything else.  GPS Maggie got a bit confused and tried to take us on a wild goose chase.  She wanted us to make a hard left off a narrow country road to get to the castle, but there wasn’t even a tractor rut for us to turn onto.  Common sense prevailed and we drove on, to the first safe left turn.

Back in 1972, Howard Solomon began building a castle.  He hadn’t planned on that, but then, he hadn’t planned on finding a swamp on his newly purchased property either.  He built the castle himself, using recycled products such as used printing plates, old milk cans, and reclaimed broken tiles.  He drained some of the swamp in such as way that he could create a moat. In the moat, he built a 60-foot replica of a 16th century Portuguese galleon.

As we approached the castle, we noticed that a great deal of care had been taken to plant all kinds of flowers and shrubs along the path.  Due to the heavy frosts we’ve had the last couple nights, the flowers and some of the bushes were quite dead.  It was sad to see.  Many of the bromeliads, hanging from trees, were wrapped in colorful quilts to protect them from the worst of the cold. The concrete path had been stamped with yellow, orange, and red “bricks” to create a yellow brick road.  The castle itself was about three stories tall, with turrets and stained glass windows.  It shined so brightly in the sun that we could hardly look at it. 

We were lucky to be on a tour led by Howard Solomon himself.  He began by showing us an example of the printing plates he used.  They were very different from the ones my dad used to bring home.  (My father was a technical writer and worked for a company that designed and built airplane engines.  Back in his day, people wrote with typewriters and did real cut & paste.  He often brought home used printing plates.  They resembled sheets of roof flashing, with curious backwards writing and pictures on one side.  He used them in all kinds of ways in his shop and garden.  My mother used some in her artwork.  I wasn’t allowed to work with them because their edges were so sharp.)  These printing plates were smaller – about the size of a newspaper page – and with edges that had been folded over, with mitered corners.  They also had an iridescent quality to them that had been missing from the ones of my childhood. 

Mr. Solomon took us through several art galleries on the first floor of the castle.  He has built sculptures from found objects.  Each one had puns, language twists, or political satire worked into it.  Some of his pieces took years to make because he had to wait to find just the right part.  I wondered how a person with such a quick mind could find the patience to wait so long for the right part.  The second floor of the castle was clearly his family’s living quarters.  It felt a bit odd to be part of a tour group trooping through someone’s kitchen.

Lunch on the boat was a bit weird.  I get seasick pretty easily and even though this boat wasn’t really floating, every time it swayed, I wondered how long I would last.  The food was all homemade.  Kelly had meatloaf and I had chicken pot pie.  My side of spinach casserole was excellent and I figured out how to make it again.  We were joined by a small calico Manx.  She really wanted to jump into my lap.  In my own home, I’d never hesitate to share lunch with a cat and lean over her to reach my plate, but it just didn’t seem like the right thing to do in a restaurant.  On the other hand, the cat lived with a man who invited strangers into his kitchen.  She was a sweet little thing and made me long for Bob, Rudy, Digger, and the rest.

Our ride back home was peaceful.  Along the way, we found a new state park with RV camping and excellent kayak opportunities.  We promised each other to incorporate more of these day-trip adventures into our time in Sarasota. 

Here are some links to websites related to Solomon’s Castle:
•    http://www.solomonscastle.org/ - his own site
•    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB56G9Xf2C4 – quick overview video from YouTube
•    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbSkDxhnzQg – Part 1 of 4 of the actual tour, from YouTube video

Day #47 - Cleaning & Cupcakes

Sarasota FL

Kelly would say I had a hissy fit this morning, but I would tell you I was on a mission.  The trailer will be ready soon and the weather is warming up.  We could be back on the road in the next week!  But, our off-road projects aren’t finished yet.  Since we had no other plans today, I decided we would tackle our trailer clutter together.  All our boxes from the trailer are sitting in Pat’s garage or the bedroom we’re using.  Why not start going through them?

Kelly had other ideas.  She swore she could not even talk about de-cluttering until we had cleaned the house.  The whole house.  Not just the parts we’re using.  So, we cleaned until the floors and every surface were shiny.  We washed rugs and removed science experiments from the fridge.  We picked up other people’s stuff and put it where it belonged.  Kelly cleaned off Pat’s desk.  I thought those last two tasks were a gross invasion of privacy, but Kelly insisted otherwise.

Kelly says we have to clean the remaining two cabinets in the garage before we can de-clutter.  She says we’ll need a place to put, under lock and key, the items we remove from our trailer boxes.  Even though she’s probably correct about this, I’m totally frustrated by the lack of forward movement.

Kelly’s afternoon meltdown got to the heart of some issues that have been building for a while.  She worked so hard to get this house fixed up: replaced over half the flooring; removed pet smells from the underlying concrete; cleaned pet filth from the walls; repainted the entire house; fixed torn screens, removed shower and tile mold; cleaned the grout on the tile floors; cleaned up a flooded room after the dishwasher failed; replaced every appliance; fixed and replaced ceiling fans.  The list could go on for hours.  While her main purpose was to get the house ready to rent, her underlying mission was to make the house livable for us when we finish this road trip. 

She rented the house to Pat because Pat loved the house and Kelly wanted to help her get a fresh start.  We hoped our investment would be safer with Pat than a stranger.  The state of the house, before today’s cleaning spree, made Kelly feel like a failure.  She felt that Pat was ruining our property and destroying all Kelly’s work.  Sometimes I think Kelly feels that, if she could just find the right thing to do, Pat would be happy and healthy, and she would become the mother Kelly dreams of.

We were so exhausted by our work and the emotional turmoil that we got take-out food from the local Mexican restaurant, plus some cupcakes from the local bakery.  Cakes by Ron (http://www.cakesbyron.com/) could be on the Food Network.  Amazing sugar work and cake designs.  My dinner was scary – the sandwich contained body parts I’d never eaten before.  But, the cupcakes were divine.  We won’t wait for a meltdown or hissy to have them again.