POSTING #136

Random Thoughts on a Florida Holiday

            The Weather

We all ask people who have just returned from Florida the same question: "How was the weather?'

But we don't really want to know.

Unless there was a hurricane, a tornado, or a month of monsoon rains.

Then we'd be interested.

It all reminds me of my time working in Ottawa. During a January cold spell, a colleague from Vancouver would always call and ask how our weather was. After I had told him about our storms etc., politeness required that I ask him about his weather. And then I would hear about the daffodils that had just come out, the Japanese cherry trees that were now covered with pink blooms.

That sort of thing.

So let's get our Florida weather out of the way, knowing that you really don't care.

It was fantastic---a record-breaking stretch of warm, dry, sunny weather.

Now, let's move on---quickly.

            On the Road

Unlike our other drives to and from the South, the weather was super, the roads were clear and we made great time.

That was good, but we kind of missed the adventures of earlier trips---stranded by snow in Emporia, Virginia, eating beans for Christmas dinner, and all that.

I can only recall a couple of pretty lame stories.

At a restaurant in Pennsylvania, located in an ancient-looking building, we arrived just after what must have been a busy lunch time. The harassed-looking server shouted at us, "Sit at any place that's clean". We passed nearly 50 tables loaded with dirty dishes and finally found a 'clean' one back by the pool table.

When after a couple of forgettable grilled cheese sandwiches, the owner came over to ask how the meal had been, we changed the subject and asked him about the history of the building. He told us that it was over 200 year old, and had originally housed an apothecary's shop. When he was putting in the restaurant, the renovations unearthed a dry-well into which the apothecarists had thrown old medicine bottles, broken scissors, bandages and the like. A local antiquarian asked to be lowered  into the well on a rope so he could search for artifacts. He had to be hauled up when he passed out from a lack of oxygen. Later he went back with an oxygen mask and collected an amazing assortment of items which the restaurant owner now had in bins in his basement.

Pat was itching to volunteer to check over the artifacts but we had to move on.

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At a service station, after gassing up I needed to use the facilities. My need was so great  that I forgot how to speak 'American'. I asked the young, gum-chewing woman for directions. She pointed, and then said, "Y'all must be Canadian. Canadians always ask for 'the washroom', not the 'restroom'."

Chastened, I rushed to the 'restroom'.

            The Florida Economy

There are lots of official statistics that an economist could trot out to show that the Florida economy is slowly improving---employment is growing, the Gross Domestic Product is increasing and so on.

Since we were on holiday, I ignored the official statistics and fell back on my informal indicators.

• Newspapers were thicker and heavier this year than last (more advertising),
• Restaurants were busier, and
• Stores were more crowded.

There you have it. Rock-solid proof that things are getting better!

But there is a long way to go before the housing sector is back to 'normal'. A shop keeper, on hearing I was a snowbird from Canada, tried to sell me a 'second home' he had bought during the housing boom. He gave me a hard-sell on the merits of the second home and insisted on drawing me a map so I could check it out. I got the impression that he was treading water, financially, as he tried to cover two mortgages. As I left, he pressed his business card into my hand and pleaded with me to call him. (I am afraid I didn't.)

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In doing some Google research on the price of houses in the Naples-Bonita Springs area for this Posting, I came across a newspaper story that described how a real estate agent had had the sale of a lifetime. She had sold a house on Gordon Drive, Naples for $50 million. (Gordon Drive is home to the .0001% of our society---Hollywood celebrities, famous CEOs, and other super-wealthy people who have enormous Gulf-front estates.) She said that she would use the commission of $1.5 million to send her daughter to university.

In an ironic twist, the article noted that the new owner was going to demolish the existing 1930s mansion and put up a new, even bigger, even posher house. The reporter interviewed the new owner who said that it might seem ridiculous to spend so much money and then tear down a perfectly good house, but housing was always a good investment, wasn't it.

I hadn't checked the date of the article before reading it. When I checked, I saw that it was from 2002--- just when the housing bubble was starting to get really inflated!

            The Silverspot Cinema, Naples

Apparently cinema attendance has been dropping in North America, with experts blaming it on the economic slowdown, the emergence of home theatres, or lousy movies.

Pat and I love 'to go to the movies' but we don't go as often as we would like because of other factors. We hate having to get there an hour before the showing of a popular movie so that we don't end up in a seat in the first few rows where you have to look straight up at the screen. Or end up in a seat up at the very back where the air is thin and you need oxygen.

And, we hate the line-ups to buy tickets.

And the narrow seats, and the even narrower leg room. (Is there anything worse than latecomers loaded down with popcorn and drinks squeezing by---some of whom don't even bother to say 'excuse me'?)

Come to think of it, there are a lot of things we hate about the usual cinema.

That's why we were so delighted to find the SilverspotCinema in Naples. 

At the Silverspot, one can reserve and pay for seats on-line via a user-friendly website and then arrive 10 minutes before the show starts. The seats are as wide as first class airline seats and covered in hand-stitched leather. There is lots of leg room so one can stretch out and people can get by easily.

If one wants to dine or have a drink before the movie, the cinema has a gourmet restaurant and a lounge.

Tickets are a couple of dollars more than at the run-of-the-mill cinema---a bargain in our view.

We were told that Brazilian capital is behind the cinema---a case of the 'developing world' coming to North American to show us how things should be done.

A son tells us that the Cineplex Varsity and VIP Cinemas at 55 Bloor Street West have many of the same features as the Silverspot. He just wishes that more cinemas would convert themselves to this more customer-oriented approach.

Hear! Hear! 

            Reading in Bed

I love to read in bed but as my eyes get older I need more light. The bedside lamp at our rented condo had a 60 watt incandescent bulb---not large enough to provide the light I need. I went to the local hardware store to get the kind of energy efficiency bulb I use at home, which burns only 42 watts but gives the equivalent of 150 watts of illumination.

I was astonished to find that most of the shelf-space in the 'lamps' section of the store was still devoted to incandescent lamps with perhaps only a quarter devoted to the energy efficient bulbs.

After a search, I found the bulb I wanted and installed it in my bedside lamp. 

Happiness is having a strong bedside lamp!

Then I realized that mine was the only energy efficient lamp in the rented condo! Despite government calls for energy efficiency, all the other lights were incandescent.

I'm not sure what the moral of this story is. I'll leave that to sociologists, economists and other people wiser than me.

Anyway, I left the lamp, so the condo now has one energy efficient light.

I hope it will still be there when we go back next year.

But I'm not optimistic. I suspect the light with its queer, curled tubing will have been replaced by a sensible, trustworthy 60 watt incandescent bulb.

            A New Art form??

Here is a picture I took from the kitchen of the condo. I shot it through the screened window thinking that the camera would 'see through the screen' and focus on the reflections in the lake. As you can see, that didn't happen. These digital cameras are amazing. Anyway, it is kind of an interesting effect. 

Palm trees and condos reflected in the lake behind our rental place.

      

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See you on February 26, 2012 for Posting #137 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting,  or email me at johnpathunter@gmail.com.

Note:

Posting # 7 of The Icewine Guru blog has now been uploaded. In it the Guru offers his views on the birth control furor in the US. Was the controversy an 'epic blunder' by the White House, or a trap for the Republicans? See: http://theicewineguru.blogspot.com/