A Winning Personality

I have been sorting through my failures and taking inventory of my limitations now that I have the time in retirement to tackle all this self-indulgent nonsense.  I must say it is a thankless job and it is taking a whole lot longer than I thought it would. 

I guess one of my problems is I like to win.  I am trying to figure out if this is a character flaw or a virtue.  Actually, I quite like that part of myself.  I think I will keep that.

Why am I subjecting myself to this torture?  For one thing, I am trying to learn how to become more comfortable with failure because failure is often the fertilizer for new ideas. A new idea or two wouldn't kill me.

I am also trying to get to know myself at 64.  I am probably not too old to change.  If I find some qualities I really cannot stand I might try to change myself.  A little.  Just a little bit.  Yes, it is that damn change thing again!  Now I suppose I am too comfortable with change and will become addicted to it.  Sheesh.

I am pretty clear on how we gain knowledge.  Wisdom, of course, is something else. I am not exactly sure just what wisdom is or how you become wise.  If I figure it out, I will let you know.  Or perhaps you will tell me?  Either way is fine with me.

Paris, 13 Nov 2015

“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées   

Like everyone else, I was glued to the TV and my iPad last night hoping for more information.  Hoping for clarity, I guess.  I had a hard time falling sleep, thinking hard about the families who had received the bad news that their family members would not be coming home from the concert or the restaurant.  I thought of good and evil.  I wondered about the nature of both.

 

“Remember that all through history, there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Always.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments With Truth

Geraldine Page as Mrs. Ritter

I am always surprised when people assume I am a sweet old lady. No one ever mistook me for a sweet and unassuming teenager or a sweet middle aged woman.  I may look like a chubby, gray haired, little old woman now, but I am no lady. I have written about my distaste for "ladies" before.  You really cannot make assumptions about old folks.  We are just like we were when we were young, except slower and more wrinkled.  OK, maybe we have gained some weight, too.  Oh well!

Some older women are sweet and kind.  Others are a bit like Geraldine Page's character, Mrs. Ritter, in The Pope of Greenwich Village.  You never know who we are until you take the time to get to know us.

Here's a clip from that movie with the great Ms. Page. I really love this character and this scene.  In 1984, when this movie came out, I was 33 years old.  At the time I was an employee union organizer trying to bring collective bargaining to Cornell University in order to demand some respect for women in traditionally female jobs.  I was pretty tough and sure of myself.  That is how I wanted to stay. 

You know how it is when you are young.  The thought of aging horrified me.  Not only did I not want my youth to fade, I did not want to become a vulnerable and sweet old lady.  That seemed to be the only older woman role model when I looked around back then.  The character of Mrs. Ritter was something of a revelation to me because, even though she was older, alone, and grieving the loss of her son, she remained a badass woman.  I love Geraldine's interpretation of this character.  A lesser actress might have made a joke out of her.  She's no joke.

At a loss, except for words

My last post, about losing our gardenia, made me think about loss again. It is an interesting concept, loss.  I am going to chew on this for awhile.  If it bothers you then for crying out loud, please do not read it.

What is this potent euphemism, loss?  Can you really understand it if you have not had the experience of losing people, places, and things? 

It happens to everyone, I am not special in any way.  Many people have had more and worse loss than me. I am not feeling sorry for myself in writing this.  I just want to step back for a few minutes and explore this thing called loss.  Why not?

I have moved many times.  Leaving one place for another is a special kind of loss.  I am not only thinking about houses and people, I am talking about the land, the climate, the flora and fauna, the way a sofa might fit perfectly in one living room but not another.  This is the loss of the familiar.  Of course with this kind of loss (moving) you also gain something in the process, so the loss of the familiar is tempered somewhat by the excitement of the new.  There is still emotional pain, but there is also hope.  And, of course, you learn things. 

As an adult I became acquainted with death. In early-middle age it seemed like people I loved were dropping like flies.  That is when I figured if boys could condition themselves to stop crying, so could I.  And I did. It was easier than you might think.

I thought maybe I was starting to get the hang of it after awhile.  I imagined I was becoming accustomed to loss.  I distanced myself from pain. Working and being busy helped.  People in my life continued to die or move away and I handled the losses fairly well.  I started spouting the whole “death is a natural part of life” line - as if that statement isn't just the most obvious thing in the world.  I was beginning to imagine I was well-adjusted, strong even. It was great, too!  I think of those as my glory years.  Yes, I know that is a stupid thing to say, but I am not going to lie.  I am as stupid as the next person.

There are people who read this blog who only know me from that long period of my life when I did not cry and I am quite sure they found me super annoying. I was overly proud of not crying, and when you are overly proud you are kind of begging for a slap down.

Death is uncomfortably personal and indelicate; we come up with alternate words to describe it because it is frightening. It is a little like Voldemort.  We do not want to speak his name for fear that he may show up or exact revenge in unspeakable ways. We do not fully understand what he is capable of, so we fear the worst. Best to keep him at bay.

Losing someone to death begins a process for the living that is very similar to losing a place or a thing. We look for our loved ones but they are gone.  We miss them deeply.  We come to realize we will never find them again. We feel our loss and we mourn their passing. We grieve our loss.  We change. We reluctantly adjust. Truthfully, I find the whole process infuriating.  But whatayagonnado?  I guess that is why it is so fascinating to me.

Since retiring and moving to Central Florida in March 2014, I have been reacquainted with loss.  I retired and moved away, leaving my job, friends, gardens, home. I found myself missing many of the "things" I threw out or gave away when we were downsizing, preparing for the move. I lost things when we moved into our new place. I learned to live without these things and reluctantly adjusted. However, I am happy to report I finally found my black handled scissors!  At least there is that.

The first year and a half after my retirement was fun. Everything was new. I was ready for change. I was happy and energized.  I could not wipe the smile off my face.  Then in March 2015, I "lost" my mother and all bets were off. Holy shit!  Suddenly there was too much change and too much loss with too little time to process it all.  I kind of overdosed on change.  Does that make sense? 

I am reluctantly adjusting to all this change. Reluctantly is the key word, and I think it is a reasonable adverb to use here.  It kind of happens over time. It is fair to say that, more often than not, loss sucks.  Loss is that empty hole, that endless tug, the searing pain, those burning tears pooling just behind your eyes.  I hate losing people, places, and things.  I totally understand why some people become pack rats and others stay in bad relationships.  Change is a bumpy damn road.

Apparently loss must be felt if we want to be healthy minded. Or at least that is what society would have us believe. It seems to be one of those “you can run but you cannot hide” kind of things we hear so much about.  And I (reluctantly) think that is true. 

Shutting down is useful, pragmatic, and effective if you can manage to pull it off, but it is not strength. It is not that.

I never want to get too old to cultivate strength. It is a matter of principle and seems like a worthy goal, which is not to say that I AM strong.  I often fail at being strong, sometimes in notably big and sloppy ways.  I am not sure about you, but I am no Athena and I did not spring full grown from the head of Zeus.  

We all get knocked down from time to time. There is no shame in that.  Of course we all want to pull ourselves up by the count of 10.  Sometimes we can and sometimes we can't, "there's the rub!" There's the humanity.

I am beginning to see that strength comes when we are willing to feel our pain, not in the overcoming of it.  Big *$#@! surprise to me, by the way.  I am not romanticizing or promoting this crap.  I take no pleasure in thinking this is true. I take no pleasure in thinking of it at all.

Demeter, in winter

 

Another one bites the dust

The other day our once beautiful gardenia succumbed to disease. We have such a hard time growing things in Central Florida. It is kind of weird. Some things we planted last spring are growing in leaps and bounds. But many other plants have died for one reason or another.

Most of our new plants were lost in the moist heat of the summer; during the 3 summer months it rains nearly every afternoon. I blame the rainy season for many of our plant deaths, but wet soil is not what killed the gardenia. It was fine during the rainy season. 

One thing I am learning is you cannot "baby" plants down here. It is standing-water-wet and steaming hot in the summer, dry as a bone the rest of the year, and can generate the occasional frost overnight in the winter. Plants must be a certain kind of hardy to live in this climate and survive the extremes in moisture. I am on board with that concept in theory, I have always been a survival of the fittest kind of gardener.  I have lost plenty of plants to cold winters up north.  But in practice it is always hard when they die.

I loved the idea of having a gardenia. That is my problem, really - liking the "idea" of a plant rather than settling for a plant that will actually grow in our back yard. Still, I thought the gardenia was going to make it. There are lots of them thriving in Leu Gardens about 25 minutes from us in Orlando.

When it was still healthy our gardenia grew steadily, bloomed at the appropriate time, and was both beautiful and fragrant. Then it was attacked by scales and developed sooty mold.  It seems both are common pests with gardenias, camellias, and azaleas.  Had we noticed the scales earlier we probably could have caught it.  By the time we noticed, it was seriously infested.  We had been treating the gardenia for weeks but it did not get better, it got worse.  The scales spread to the Desert Rose Plant.  We started worrying about our camellia and azaleas.  T chopped it into pieces on Halloween and stuffed it into a garbage bag.  Big gardening sigh.

Florida can be so harsh and cruel! 

Is Central Florida someplace I would have chosen to move given free will and full choice?  Absolutely not.  I only moved here to be near my grandkids and help our daughter and son-in-law out with the occasional babysitting gig.

On the other hand, yesterday (November 3rd) we took a dip in the pool. We are having a hot spell that is prolonging the pool season this year, much to our delight.  The water was 81 degrees (cold by our standards), but the temperature was 89 degrees outside.

Nearly every day throughout the year we are able to ride our bikes and see wildlife and wildflowers, or bike downtown to mail a package or drink a latte. I never have to do any white-knuckle driving on snowy roads.  People are friendly and drivers are courteous.  I see my daughter and her family on a regular basis. The grandkids will know me and have stories to tell of their old grandma. 

I am finding it hard to stay mad at Florida for too long.  

Pooka

Prior to retirement we lived out in the country and had a cat door so our cats could come and go as they pleased.  We have co-existed with and loved many cats over the years.  Our all-time favorite was named Pooka.  We got her from a friend who had a farm where Pooka was born to be a barn cat.  She was quite young when we took her in; however, unlike all the other cats we have had before and since, she never ceased being feral.  As a result, few friends or family ever saw her.  She would quickly skedaddle outside when strangers arrived, leaving the cat door flapping in her wake.

She was a bit uncanny in the way feral animals are.  She clearly went her own way and had her own thoughts.  She was also a mighty hunter who loved roaming the wetlands near our land and often brought “presents” home to us.  This was especially true in the spring, which we came to refer to as the "Killing Season."

One spring morning during the Pooka years I got up for work and as I walked into the living room a garter snake slithered by in front of me and went under the couch.  I don't know about you, but this is not something I want to deal with at 7:15 a.m. or ever, for that matter.  Garter snakes are perfectly harmless, but there is still that wild, uncanny aspect to them; the same as mice.  Ick.  I was NEVER the kind of kid who picked up snakes by their tails and tossed them about.  Sorry, but in our house that is a job for Super T.  He was still asleep that morning and did not need to leave for work until long after I was gone.  I thought I would just go to work and then call and tell him it was there.  Right?

I reached to pull my coat off the coat rack and a chipmunk jumped out of my coat sleeve, dropped to the floor, and also ran under the couch.  I jumped back, breathing heavy.  Then I put on my coat and hightailed it out of there. 

The snake and chipmunk were never seen again.  My husband swears he never saw them.

Pooka

Alligator Days

We have a friend from NYS coming to visit this weekend and I must clean, clean, clean this dirty house.  In lieu of writing a post I will share photos from a bike ride T and I took the other morning on the east side of Lake Apopka, a large lake near us in Orange County, Florida.  

There is a bike trail along that side of the lake and it is a good place to go if you want to see alligators in the wild. There are also snakes, bobcats, and coyotes living in this protected area around the lake. T has seen bobcats a couple of times. They are afraid of humans and run away when they hear us coming. It seems odd to me that there would be a public bike trail in a place with wild animals, but there is.

The animals seem to mind their own business. My hope is they perceive large fleshy creatures on wheels as too loud, fast, and big to bother with.  Sometimes I see people walking on this trail.  I don't think I would ever want to get off my bike there. I have a good healthy fear of predators.

First, here is my old man, T, biking up the trail in front of me. He is always way out in front, pedaling much faster than me. Now we have our smartphones with us so I if he gets too far ahead I can call him and tell him to slow down, for cryin' out loud!

We were having a great time, the weather was beautiful.

We saw an alligator’s head peaking out of the water.  Spotting an alligator is always exciting.  You can see it in the middle left section of the following photograph:

Here’s a cropped close-up in case you didn’t see the alligator's head in the first one:

We came to a rustic picnic area that has an overlook into a cove. 

Are you wondering what the sign says? Here is a close-up. Believe it or not there really are people foolish enough to try and feed the alligators. We have seen people do it despite the fact that feeding alligators is illegal and can result in a hefty fine. Plus it is just stupid to get that close to one.

Later we came to a crossroad and saw an alligator sunning itself out of the water on the bank of a canal.  It is hard to make out in the photo but it looks like a long black log smack dab in the middle of the photo below:

Here is another photo I took from nearly the same spot as the one above, but I took this one with my zoom lens, and then cropped the photo:

And finally here is the same photo even more cropped.  He seems to have curled his tail up around his body or he would appear much longer:

 It looks like it was a good day to be an alligator.

On being disconnected

We gave up our landline phone recently.  We disconnected it and now we rely on our iPhones to communicate with the outside world. I have had a smartphone for almost 2 years, but I rarely turned it on before. 

I liked having a landline telephone. I do not particularly like talking on a cell phone.  The sound quality is not as good and I have this nagging fear that talking on wireless will eventually give me a brain tumor. But having the landline had become so unpleasant that we really had to get rid of it.

The people who owned this house before us went bankrupt and defaulted on their mortgage. Apparently they skipped out on a lot of other debt, too. After we moved in (a little over a year ago) and got our landline phone installed we started getting harassing and threatening phone calls from their creditors demanding to talk to those people who lived here before us. They asked for the previous owners by name, and they would not believe me when I said I was not that person nor did that person live here.

I could not figure out why the horrid bill collectors were calling OUR telephone number. We neither kept nor received the same number the previous owners used.  I guess the creditors must have used a reverse phone lookup, looking up the house number to find out what the current phone was for this address? That is the only thing I can think of.  But if those bill collectors are so clever with the Internet why couldn’t they find the telephone number for the previous owners?

For over a year we lived with the previous owners’ problems. We stopped answering the landline phone when it rang, instead relying on Caller ID to screen our calls. We continued to get creditor-related calls for the previous owners almost every day. Of course we also got the usual scam telephone calls daily simply because we are retired people who are home during the day. We were under siege.  Over time our phone situation began to drive me a little crazy.

One evening a few weeks ago I had to scramble out of the pool and run dripping wet into the house to grab the landline phone, thinking it must be a family member or a friend.  Who else would call in the evening? I did not make it in time, but the caller left a message.  My reward was a message from a nasty bill collector threatening me (actually not me, but you get the picture) with all sorts of legal actions. She left a return phone number. I usually know better than to call back – it gives them the idea that I am an easy mark. But I snapped.  Like a raving maniac I called her screaming and yelling, roaring that the people they wanted did not live here (and plenty more). I am not proud of myself.  I know it did no good, but I had a year's worth of pent up rage.  I was shaking when I hung up. It took me a long time to get to sleep that night.  Life is way too short for this kind of nonsense.  The next day I called our service provider and had the landline disconnected.

Disconnecting the landline phone did not save all that much money, so there is no windfall incentive to make me happy it is gone. I am only happy not to get the damn calls all day. I hate being forced to do something against my will. I resent not having the landline, but there you go.

I am adjusting to the iPhone. Now I charge it every night, turn it on every day (!), and keep it close by me at all times. I text now, too.  My daughter is delighted that I read and answer her texts in a more timely manner.  My tween granddaughter, who reportedly still exists but has not been seen in weeks, recently texted me from the depths of her darkened bedroom. It was thrilling. T texted me at the grocery store to pick up something he forgot to put on the list.  I messaged him some photos of our grandson riding a horse at the pumpkin farm yesterday.  And I took the *@!# picture with the phone!  If I get in an argument I can prove I am right wherever I may be as long as I can get a signal to google the question.  This is pure magic, people!  I urge oldsters everywhere to make the leap.  I have even texted a question and received an answer from my son-in-law, MV.  My grandson, N, will occasionally FaceTime me. This whole smartphone thing is much better than I thought it would be. I suppose it was past time for me to enter the modern world. Of course I entered it against my will, kicking and screaming all the way. But what else is new?

A Bald Faced Lie

The little girl in me wanted to believe in Pope Francis, but she also wants to believe in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy. I try to keep her in check because she is still a child and liable to get us in trouble. Still, I have to admit I have liked a lot of what Pope Francis has said and done since becoming Pope. I was following Francis in the media, with hope even, wondering what he would do next. Many of us ex-Catholics had been keeping an eye on him. Then he met with Kim Davis. 

For those of you from outside the States who may wonder what I am talking about, Kim Davis is an Evangelical Christian who is a minor elected official, a county clerk.  Among other things she is responsible for issuing marriage licenses in Rowan County, Kentucky.  In June, the U.S. Supreme court made the decision allowing gay people in all 50 States to get married. That has been problematic for Evangelical Christians in the so-called Bible Belt. After the ruling, Kim Davis refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples in Rowan County because she would have to sign her name to the official document. She decided to break the law and ignore that fact that she was elected to perform a specific job because she does not want to break “God’s Law.” Hmmm, I do have an awful lot to say about religious arrogance and know-it-all-ism, but not right now.

Interestingly, because of the way the law works in Kentucky she cannot be fired for refusing to perform her duties.  She earns a lot of money for that relatively underprivileged part of the county ($80,000/year!) and refuses to just do the right thing and simply quit a job she feels she cannot perform.  Instead she wanted the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky to allow her to refuse to perform that portion of her job based on religious liberty.  The court refused and ultimately threw her in jail for contempt of court when she continued to deny gay couples marriage licenses.  She was released when she agreed to allow her underlings to issue licenses without her signature.  Unfortunately, she has not just gone away.  She is hanging on to the notoriety and keeps working her 15 minutes of fame. 

Perhaps most troubling is that she has allowed herself to become a poster child for the political aspirations of the extreme end of the religious right. Her lawyers belong to a firm that is officially listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.  

Before I go on let me just say that I am absolutely in favor of religious freedom.  I disagree with her refusal to issue marriage licenses to gay people, but I support her right to believe otherwise.  However, we live in a country that believes in the separation of church and state. She cannot choose to disobey the law of the land because of her religious beliefs. Polygamist sects would have a fit if she got do do that and they didn't.

In my humble opinion, since her job duties have lawfully changed and the job now offends her religious sensibilities she should quit the job. I think that would be the honorable and obvious thing for her to do.

Instead, Kim and her legal counsel used the recent visit of Pope Francis to the U.S.A. to manipulate the American public, to disrespect and embarrass both the Pope and the Catholic Church, and to further her cause. How did they do it? They tricked and blindsided the Grand Poobah of a major international religious institution. Wow!

Because of the liberal ideas Francis has been spewing there are many conservative elements within the Church hierarchy who dislike him.  Apparently they are also actively working against him.  A treacherous priest in charge of arranging meetings for him while he was in the USA seems to have colluded with Kim’s lawyers and got her a meeting with Francis. Then Kim and the lawyers went public with the meeting, making it appear that Pope Francis agreed with and was supportive of Kim. It is possible he did not even know who she was.

They lied and ruthlessly used the head of a world religion to further their cause.  Why would they feel comfortable doing something like that?  With all their self-righteous God talk, didn't they feel even a smidgeon of guilt about lying to millions of people?  How would they feel if a Catholic lied and used the Grand Poobah of their religion in a similar way?

In my opinion that is not their biggest transgression. Their biggest "accomplishment" was sewing seeds of doubt in the minds of untold numbers of non or ex-Catholic people about Pope Francis. Some will never fully believe in his sincerity again.  Some, like me, continue to feel foolish and gullible even after the revelation that Francis had been deceived and used. It was a bit of a wake-up call.

I will admit I was charmed by the pre-Kim Davis Pope Francis. That little girl in me really wanted to like him.  She wanted to forget that he was the head of a religion that does not allow women to become priests, sees human sexuality as a necessary evil, is adamantly against birth control, and more things I do not agree with. What was I thinking?  Well, of course I was not thinking.  I was letting the little girl inside my head take charge, which is never a good idea.  I’m thinking she might have some Daddy issues…

When the lie first hit the media, Francis-friendly liberals all over the country were howling with indignation that they had been "played" by Pope Francis.  Smug conservatives kept saying, “What did you liberals expect?  This is the Catholic Church.  Francis is the head of it.  He has not changed any Church Doctrine.”  Yeah, well, you made your point. Shut up already! I hear you!

So anyway, if Kim and her lawyers had not met with the Pope and tried to use his words to manipulate the media, the modern world might have become a little different.  Imagine!  Some people may have continued believing Pope Francis was a sincere holy man, a heroic figure.  Some might eventually have found their way back to the Church, for better or for worse.  But The Vatican would have us believe that Kim and her lawyers did lie.  If that is true, as a direct result of Team Kim lying and deceiving us the world has now changed in an altogether different way.  Standards have been lowered.  The ministry of Pope Francis has been diminished after his ambush by Kim Davis and her Merry Men.

For the fun of it, let us imagine there is life after death and we will all have to account for our actions while we were on earth.  Man, I would hate to be in their shoes and try to explain and justify THOSE particular sins to St. Peter at the pearly gates.  I am waiting for the graphic novel.  It should be epic.

 

Strip Malls

When you move someplace new you are adrift.  Nothing is familiar and everything involves taking a risk.  This is especially true with food.  It takes a long time to find the best places to eat. 

I guess you have heard there are many transplanted New Yorkers in Florida.  Central Florida is no different.  And yes, we realize native Floridians dislike and resent us.  Apparently we have a reputation for being rude.  Probably because we are hungry and we cannot find good food!  Whoops, there I go with my rude self again.  It takes so little for me to be off and running.

First of all, not every New Yorker is from New York City.  It is a big state.  Secondly, when I meet other New Yorkers the very first thing we talk about is the dearth of good, inexpensive restaurants in Central Florida.  Sometimes we whisper this to each other so that the locals do not hear us.  See, we are not really all THAT rude. 

The truth is T and I live near Disney World, the Land of Mouse, a place where French fries and chain restaurants reign supreme.  The challenge lies in hunting down the Mom and Pop owned restaurants.  They ARE here, they are simply hidden away in strip malls - a place I would never have thought to look for good restaurants before moving down here.

I have not located a bagelry. I miss fresh, crusty bagels. Perhaps if we travel to one of the Florida retirement havens on the Atlantic coast we might find a Northeast style bagelry?  We would definitely make the drive to get there if we knew FOR SURE a good bagelry existed.  I might even abandon the grandkids and move there permanently if I could buy a decent bagel.

The bagels they sell at Publix, our ubiquitous regional grocery store, are soft.  I assume they are made from a prepackaged mix Publix probably distributes to all its in-store bakeries?  Anyway, I see my granddaughter chowing down on one of those for breakfast and my heart hurts.  I feel like we have all let her down on a deep, cultural level. 

Chinese take-out can be found at virtually every strip mall, and there are plenty of strip malls.  In fact, it seems like every few blocks there is a strip mall with a Publix, a hair salon, a liquor store, and a Chinese take-out.  I am only exaggerating the teeniest little bit. 

Unfortunately, the Chinese restaurants here serve a milder version of what is served up north, and without shitake mushrooms.  I guess shitake is too weird?  Needless to say, we stopped ordering Chinese take-out early on.  I mean, who wants Hunan Chicken that has no zing and includes white button mushrooms instead of shitake?  I experience cognitive dissonance over this one. 

Pizza?  Well, we are lucky with pizza.  There is a place where the owners are from Buffalo, NY.  Although it nicely approximates NY-style pizza, the crust is not exactly the same.  The owners bemoan this fact and claim it is because of the water.  I understand.  Hey, the crust is good enough for me and I am grateful for this pizzeria.  The sauce is flavorful.  Thankfully they do not serve pizza with raw, chopped green peppers on top. Good thing, too, because my rallying cry regarding green peppers on pizza is: "Give me greasy roasted green pepper strips or give me none."

Happily, there is a lovely Thai Restaurant in town, and they are not afraid to spice things up. I have no complaints there. There are lots and lots of really good Mexican restaurants everywhere. And at a new strip mall down the road we discovered a Cajun place that makes a mean shrimp and grits. Yum.

There is a barbeque joint downtown that we like.  Part of what I like is that it is downtown instead of in a strip mall.  Of course their BBQ is not half as good you might find in South Carolina, but hey - half as good as South Carolina BBQ is pretty darn good. I hear there is another good BBQ place at one of the local strip malls, the one with the medium-sized Publix.  We need to check that out.

South Carolina style BBQ with collard greens, stewed tomatoes, coleslaw, and sweet potato

We found several interesting Cuban restaurants in the area. We frequent a Cuban place in a charming tourist town less than a half hour north of us. The picadillo is sublime.  

Picadillo with fried plantains and yellow rice

As far as the Greek experience, I live in hope. We may have to drive to Tarpon Springs on the Gulf Coast for an authentic Greek food experience. Tarpon Springs has the highest percentage of Greek Americans of any city in the US because of their sponge diving industry. I am looking forward to going there soon.

I am grateful to the Ancient Greeks for all the things they did well including democracy, philosophy, medicine, theatre, sculpture, and architecture.  But I think they reached the apex of their ancient civilization when they adapted baklava from the Ottoman Turks and made it their own.  Without the Greeks we may only be eating syrup with pancakes! Think about the perfect baklava, oozing honey syrup and melted butter with each bite.  It is so moist, almost like eating and drinking at the same time.

We stumbled upon a fabulous Greek Restaurant with our granddaughter the last time we went to St. Augustine.  She had avgolemono (egg and lemon) soup for the first time and fell in love with it. Of course the restaurant was in one of those homogenous strip malls that have no distinct sense of place, so I am not sure I can find it again.  The other two Greek restaurants we found are both about 30 minutes away in opposite directions.  Also in strip malls...  Neither of these two restaurants make their own baklava, they use the same pre-packaged variety they must purchase from their distributor.  I was disappointed, but I still ate the baklava.   

Anyway, the good, cheap restaurants we have found to date are only the tip of the iceberg.  They are out there and they are in strip malls.  The search continues.