Florida: Some Bad, Mostly Great, Lots of Photos (Batch 1, Anyway)

You can imagine my pleasure in the fact that tomorrow is Friday. Coming back from a trip on Wednesday night makes for a fairly painless re-entry to work. Or at least, the pain is short-lived!

It goes without saying that I had a great time visiting my mother in Florida (duh, right?), but I will go farther and state that I had a great time in spite of three things: some rain, fire ants, and food poisoning. Now, that's saying something!

First: rain. It's not unexpected in southwest Florida at this time of year. A nice feature is that storms often blow in and out again pretty quickly, meaning that the whole day is not necessarily lost. And it was nice and warm almost the whole time, which made me very happy. (As Melissa noted, I brought the warmth back with me, which makes me so happy. Sorry if it's not your thing, but it's mine: I like warm. Not as fond of humid, true, but I'll always pick both warm and humid over neither.) I even got a little sun, without burning, which also makes me happy. (In short: I am happy.)

Two: fire ants. They got my mother much worse than they got me. I have two bites on my left foot that get itchy particularly when I walk around with shoes on (and sometimes when I'm just sitting, barefoot). Solution: minimize the amount of time that I walk around with shoes on, as much as possible. I would be complaining about it far more except for the simultaneous perspective I was given when my mother got bitten ALL OVER her foot, so that it looks like she has two different feet from two entirely different people (who do not wear the same shoe size, by the way). The poor woman has been in pain, icing and elevating her poor swollen foot since Monday. Public service announcement: stay away from fire ants*. They are nasty. (You're welcome.)
*No, I don't actually know how to do this. We never saw them before they started biting. Does anyone else know?

Seriously, though, we went to the local Memorial Day ceremony, so nice and patriotic, and look what happened. They need to Do Something About That, don't you think? (It was still nice and patriotic. Just, you know, not really worth the aftermath.)

Three: urp. As to the food poisoning, well, that was all mine, and I'm not sure I've ever been sicker, honestly. It was Saturday afternoon, so it might have been from lunch (if it developed somewhat slowly) or it might have been from the frappuccino at Starbucks (if it developed almost immediately); I don't think we can be sure. Everything tasted fine! Point is, after seven bouts of throwing up, over 5+ hours, I was never so grateful to have a sleeping pill work. Whew! Seriously awful. And did I mention that this was Saturday? As in: I missed the whole Bruins game. I'm glad they won and all, but I would have liked to be compos mentis for the game. (Oh well. Next round starts Saturday, so you'll hear plenty about that in the next few days.) I felt quite a bit better when I got up on Sunday, and back to myself by afternoon/evening, so it didn't spoil too much of the trip.

And really, the trip may not have been perfect, for those reasons, but it was still really good. We spent some time sitting on the lanai, reading and talking, and what's better than that? We also watched an old PEI video I found at the library book sale last year, and The Muppets. Fresh-squeezed oj (squeezed by my saintly mother before the end of orange season and frozen for me; yes, I am spoiled) and raspberries and coffeecake. Delicious meals in and out, often overlooking the water. Sunsets over the beach. Egrets and cormorants.

Pictures! (Click on any one to make it bigger.) 

Here is the weather I left behind in Boston.

The sock, where I got it to *just* as we reached the gate.

Friday night, dinner overlooking sunset on the beach.

Going...

Going...

And...

Gone!

Lunch overlooking the water, Saturday.

Fun wine the first.

And the second.

Dude floating past lunch on the water on Sunday.

Clearly a Bostonian boater: it's a "keepah"! ("Keeper" to the rest of you.)

We were wondering when they ring the bell. Closing time, maybe? Last call?

Beach walk around sunset on Sunday.

Feathery dude hopping from rock to rock.

Sunset over the breakwater.

Different feathery dude on the right.

Out for a walk.

Hop.

Hop. 

Hop. 

Hmm.

Hop?

Dramatic clouds are dramatic.

Boats being ridiculously lit by dramatic clouds.

Beach vista from left...

And across...

And across...

To right.

Another feathery guy.

"You gots anything good? Like fishies?"

Feathery sky and sailboat.

Floating past.

Tide and beach.

Crazy sky-feathers.

This is for you--you know who you are.

Hard to read, but that's the Shallow Minded.

Sunset driving home.

If you're cold-blooded, does the blood even rush to your head when you hang upside down?

Ho hum, another beautiful sunset.

Now we're just showing off.

All right, I love the warm, but I'm sticking to the desk. More another night! (Yes, there are more. New here, are you? Welcome. I take a lot of pictures.)