Early September Sunset: Reason #246 Why I Live Here

On my walk last night.  6.3 miles around.

Next to Last Summer Weekend - Myakka State Park

It's hard to believe that the summer is almost gone.  WHEW!  And also hard to believe that this coming weekend will mark the sixth anniversary of my move to St. Pete.  Time flies when one is having soooooo much fun.

To begin the weekend, Steve and I went to one of our favorite cafes, Meze 119 Bistro.  It's Middle Eastern vegetarian and the food is delicious.

On Saturday we took a trip down to Myakka River State Park which is just east of Sarasota.  Since Steve moved here from San Francisco early this year, and being a park ranger in a previous life, he hasn't been to many places outside of St. Pete and was craving an outing to an area where he could see some of Florida's natural ecological systems.  And I can't say I've seen too many either beyond St. Pete proper.

It was a short drive to the Park.  It was magnificent!  It was amazingly quiet.  You could hear a whisper from a distance.  Those black buzzards in the tree could overhear our whispered conversation very easily.  :-)

We went to the Canopy Walkway which is suspended 25 feet about the ground and extends 100 feet through the hammock canopy.  A tower soars 74 feet in the air at one end, "to present a spectacular view of treetops, wetlands and the prairie/hammock interface.  You can look down on eagles, hawks, vultures and the tops of live oaks and palm trees."

We spent several hours there, then headed over to Siesta Key to have some dinner.  We made a pit stop for gas and some refreshments (a Big Gulp and a Slurpee!) on the way.  We walked around the Siesta Key Village for a little and had dinner at The Hub before heading back to St. Pete.

Sometime in the near future, we'd like to pack a picnic lunch and head back to the park.

A Day at Sunset Beach with the Rays

This summer Florida has been blessed with such beautiful weather!  And as some long timers have said to me, the almost daily afternoon or evening thunderstorms are the way things used to be more regularly in the not too distant past.  At the end of this month, it will mark six years that I have lived here in St. Pete, after living in Albany (NY) all of my life.  I am enjoying the majestic power of the storms.

For the past three weeks a small group of us who have the luxury of having the time, have gone to the beach one day each week.  Today was an unusual one in that there were many fevers of rays (I looked it up and that's what it's called!) swimming around the shallow waters at the beach.  We were trying to figure out if they were sting rays or manta rays (or maybe Cownose rays like the ones at the Tropicana where the Tampa Bay Rays play; I looked this up on Wikipedia).  At times when we were out in the water, we'd see a fever swimming towards us, then they split in two and pass us on both sides.  All afternoon they were swimming back and forth, sometimes almost up to the beach sand.

And we saw a manatee swim by too!  It's in that picture with the two guys, that long shadow is the manatee swimming close to Dave.

After heading home from the beach, Steve and I decided to swing by Georgie's for the happy hour special of half price appetizers.  We hadn't eaten all day, so ordered four different ones.  The Chicken Cordon Bleu Balls and the Provolone wedges were gone before I took a picture.  We ran into a couple of friends who snapped that picture of us.

Happy Birthday Joe!

Happy Birthday Joe!  Another great year and more great memories!  I'm looking forward to many more!  LOVE YOU!!!

Celebrating Our Birthdays - Ruby and G-Pa

My slideshow of my recent trip to NYC to celebrate Ruby's and my birthdays.

Joy's Blog on Huffington Post Parents

My daughter-in-law Joy has been posting to her blog for just over two and a half years now.  She has been writing beautiful entries about her journey through two pregnancies and becoming a Mama, and the ups and downs of parenthood.  Her most recent post was picked up by the Huffington Post Parents section as a featured blog.  We are all so proud of her!

Check it out:

Kate Middleton and the Mom in the Mirror

Celebrating Ruby's and G-Pa's Birthdays

Ruby celebrated Birthday #2 on July 9th, and I celebrated Birthday #65 on July 10th.  What fun to celebrate together! My original plans called for me to be in NYC for eleven days.

I arrived in NYC the day after the Fourth of July (I guess that would make it the fifth)  :-)  Joe, Joy, Ruby and Red were away visiting family for the long 4th holiday in Albany and Syracuse, so after a brief rest stop at their place and lunch at the foodcellar, I took my luggage and hopped the subway (can you call it hop?  Maybe if I had used HopStop?) down to Mia's place in Greenwich Village to meet up with her after she got out of work.  Mia is in NYC for the summer doing an internship in public relations.  (See previous post)  I stayed with Mia for the week that I was in NYC.

On Saturday morning we did a little shopping downtown and then up to midtown.  We stopped into Uni Qlo  where we were handed scratch off contest cards as we entered.  Mia had won a 'second prize' of AIRism innerwear.  I won a third prize of a hand fan.  Mia had wanted to get one of those hand held motorized fans for Ruby, so we thought we had hit the jackpot!  On our way out, after making some purchases, we headed over to the counter to claim our prizes.  First, Mia got her receipt for the one she had chosen from the tons of shirts and she was told, "no returns".  No problem.  Next, I looked forward to getting the hand fan.  See photo for my prize.  Hee! Haw!  Funny, the clerk didn't say anything about no returns.

So, in mid afternoon we headed over to the Js and Rs place after they had arrived back home.  I couldn't wait to see Ruby and Red!  It's been almost three months!  And in G-Pa / grandbaby terms, that's a looooooonnnnngggg time!

On Monday morning Ruby and I headed over to the 'rainbow' playground for some play time.  Bubbles in hand, we caught the attention of many of the day care kids there that morning.  The day care adults brought plenty of water things to help cool the kids down, water balloons, bigger bags filled with water for "sprinklers" and a wagon load of their drinking water bottles.  Ruby kept going over to hang out with all those kids.  When it was time for them to sit on the spread out parachute for birthday party celebrations, Ruby joined right in and kept re-positioning herself to be right at the center!  Party crasher!  So funny!  The head teacher said she was welcome to stay.  But soon, another activity a short distance away caught Ruby's eye, a bubble machine, and we were off!

Finally, Ruby's big day arrived.  Since Mia didn't get out of work until 6:00 PM, we decided to head over to LIC so that Mia could see the Birthday Girl before she headed off to work.  What fun!  Ruby was enthralled with the new "Second Year" video from her Daddy Dad and we immediately were welcomed to join her in watching it non-stop!  And what a beautiful video, beginning at her first Birthday party up to the day before her second.  She loved the polka dot shirt with the red 'R' that Mia got her, and ran right to the mirror to check it out!

Joe was still in the throes of assembling the kitchen, so we played around him.  Off to the playground again, and then back for Ruby's favorite meal later in the day:  risotto with bacon and peas, followed by a 'bubble' cake by Mama and ice cream!

I looked forward to spending my birthday with Ruby and Red.  When I arrived at their place I was greeted with lots of smiles from the Rs!  And also a beautiful drawing by Ruby and dark chocolate chunk coconut muffins by Chef Joy!  She knows the way to my heart!

More bubbles and playground and hanging out made for a perfect day!

I loved spending my birthday with Ruby and Red!  It was the best present ever!  I have so much fun when I am with them.  At one point, as I was holding Red and playing with Ruby, I thought to myself, "it doesn't get any better!"

Later in the evening I met up with Mia and we made plans to go out for my birthday dinner.  With the heat of the past week (in the mid 90s) we were not very hungry for a big meal, so we opted for something light at Ellary's Greens in the West Village.  During the dinner we received a call from Gina.  Her news was not good.  Adele (my oldest daughter) was in transit from a hospital in Cellebration to the Neuro Critical Care Unit at Florida Hospital in Orlando.  Things did not look good at that moment and both Mia and I were crying at the table, and on the walk home.  I cut my visit short and headed back down to Florida the following night.  Fortunately all turned out well after spending a week in the critical care unit.  All brought on by dangerously low sodium levels.  An education for all of us. Now some career roles and life changes and on to a good future!

Back in New York City - Greenwich Village Style

Being that I now have two grandchildren, I'm planning on making more frequent visits to the Big Apple to visit them.  July is a good month because both Ruby and I celebrate our birthdays a day apart.  For this visit I stayed with my daughter Mia who is doing an internship in public relations in the city for the summer.  She is subleasing (with several others) an apartment down in NoHo (North Houston, pronounced 'how ston' here).  Her place is directly on Houston, bordering NYU in Greenwich Village.  And on the 18th floor, what a view!

I arrived on Friday afternoon.  I first stopped off at the Js and Little Rs, who were away for several days, traveling to see family in Upstate NY.  I caught my breath and then later in the afternoon, took the subway down to Mia's place to meet her after she got out of work.
We did a little walking around her neighborhood checking out Washington Square, and then headed over for dinner at Trattoria Spaghetto.  Since it was so hot I started out with gazpacho and Mia had a summer salad before moving ahead to  pasta!

The next morning I was up early, partly because the sun comes up so much earlier here than in Florida and with such a spectacular view from the apartment, we kept the drapes open!  All of the pictures with the World Trade Center tower were taken from the apartment.  I walked around the West Village, still showing remnants from the previous weekend's Pride celebrations.

The white building in the center below, was the "Cynthia Swann Griffin Crisis Center" in the movie "The First Wives Club".  It's two blocks from Mia's apartment.

Mia is getting to spend part of her summer living in an amazing, vibrant neighborhood!  And for me it was the first time I've ever roomed there, even though I visited it many times during my college years when my summer job brought me to the city for several days at a time.

We headed to midtown to do some shopping before heading over to the Js and Rs, who arrived back at their place in Long Island City on Saturday afternoon. The photo of the workers on the crane was taken there several days later.  With every visit this year I have seen that condo (orange color netting) get taller and taller!

Being G-Pa

I am visiting New York City for 10 days to celebrate Ruby's 2nd Birthday and my 65th. Ruby's is the day before mine. I'm staying with Mia, who is here for the summer doing an internship in public relations. What a fun time I'm having with Mia and with Ruby and Red!

Supermoon

Met up with some friends tonight to welcome back Evan and Lonnie, returning for the week.  We had a thunderstorm pass through the area earlier around 8:00 PM.  A bolt of lightning hit very close to my place but the power didn't flicker at all.  So once it died down I headed over to Georgie's to meet up with the group.

Shortly after midnight a transformer nearby blew out and Georgie's was left in darkness except for the emergency lighting.  We hung around inside for a while, but could feel the air heating up so we headed outside to wait for the power to return.  The full supermoon was shining brightly overhead.

When I returned to my apartment I checked out some information online about the moon and saw some instructions about setting the camera to get decent pictures.  So, out to the balcony in the back of my apartment building I went.  I snapped the above image of the moon.  I was surprised at the detail I managed to capture!  Woot!

Father's Day Weekend

This was the first Father's Day in a long while, that I had one of my children with me.  Gina came to visit for a short weekend.  It was her break between graduation, unpacking, purchasing a new car and starting work again at Disney.

First, some nostalgia.  The first picture is of an electronic card I received from the Js and Rs.  I'm loving being a G-Pa now!  Several friends on Facebook posted pictures of their dads, so I decided to hunt a picture down.  The one picture is a picture on one of my birthdays, I'm thinking around my 43rd or 44th.  I like it because I'm both a son and a father in it.

I love the picture taken on this Father's Day, of Joe and Ruby and Red!  Ruby looks so much like both her Mama and Daddy, but in this expression she looks a lot like Joe when he was little.  That's a picture of Joe and me when he was about Ruby's age.

Gina arrived just after noon on Saturday and we had big plans for the short time she was visiting.  I love her new car!  Carrying on in the tradition of a VW and in the color red!

We first stopped at the Dairy Inn for lunch.  Always good, and the most delicious chocolate malts!  Then off to the beach.  It was a gorgeous day!  The water was perfect, comfortable, nice waves (for the Gulf!) and a nice breeze.  While we were there three separate areas were being set up for wedding ceremonies.

After spending three relaxing hours at the beach, we headed back to freshen up then went to dinner at Little Greek.

On Sunday morning we had reservations for brunch at Cassis Brasserie in the Ovation building.  This is the third year that Cassis has set up a "Beach Party" in the restaurant and bar.  I thought after trucking in all that beach sand the first year, that they would not be repeating it!  It was fun!  There was so much 'beach' there that you could hardly see the regular restaurant!  And the food was delicious!

We made a quick stop next door at the Cassis Bakery for some mini pastries.  Yes, they were as good as they look!

Next, we headed further downtown to the Coast Guard Station just south of the Albert Whitted Airport.  We waited just over an hour in line to get onboard.  It was a free, self guided tour, and was worth the wait.  I watched the ship as it came into Saint Petersburg (using motor power) on Friday morning.

After touring the ship we headed back to my apartment to rehydrate and have some ice cream (salty pretzel caramel and birthday cake flavors).  We went up to Coffee Pot Bayou for a photo shoot of the new Beetle before Gina headed back home.  It was a fun weekend; lots of activity packed into a short time!  And in between, we watched the Neverland two part miniseries on Netflix streaming.

See the pattern here:

Now . . . on to summer!  (Although we've already been having 90 degree weather!)

Red at Two Months!

Baby Red is two months old already!  He's growing so fast!  He looks a lot like his Daddy when his Daddy was a baby, and he looks a lot like his sister Ruby.

And here's a shot of Ruby having fun with Auntie Adele when she visited this past week.

North Saga Part III

I spent three days with my immediate family after arriving in Albany.  I stayed with Linda and Louie.  On Saturday night  Louie cooked hamburgers and hot dogs outside on the grill  and I had my first corn on the cob for this year!

On Sunday morning we stopped over Ray's and Iz's to see The Twinkies, my great niece and nephew, Gabriella and Lucas.  They are so cute!  Lucas was performing and Gabby was a little more reserved, checking me out.  Iz had mentioned making them grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch and that put the bug in our ears!  So when Linda and I left, we swung by Grandma's Pie Shop to get grilled cheese sandwiches for ourselves; I got one with tomato and bacon, Linda got the tuna melt.

Later Sunday afternoon we went back to Ray's and Iz's for dinner.  And Gabriella was getting brave with me and even sat on my lap to look at family photos with her!   Andrea and Taras returned before dinner from their weekend getaway.  The twins were happy to see them!

On Monday morning Linda, Isabelle and I drove out to Manlius near Syracuse to visit with my nephew Michael and his wife Katie and to meet (well, Linda and I to meet here,  Nonna Isabelle already met her!) their new baby Annabelle Louise.  Of course, we had to stop at the nearby Wegman's to load up on snacks and goodies!

It was my first time visiting their 'farm'.  They've done so much work on the house and yards.  They have a meadow with buttercups as their back yard.  And beautiful Annabelle is the newest cutie to join our family!

We had a very nice time visiting.  I wish our families weren't so scattered.  Growing up, we had lots of family, grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins on both sides, living close by.  Now it seems that we are all over the place!

Gina's Graduation from Wellesley

The time has arrived!  Wellesley College Commencement 2013!  Adele and I arrived at our hotel just after 6:00 AM, just time enough for a nap before heading over to the Wellesley campus.  Lucretia had gotten up and out earlier to head over to meet up with Gina and to take care of a few things.  They came back for Adele and me and we all headed back over to the campus for the Baccalaurate Celebration at 2:00 PM in the Houghton Chapel.  That's Gina in the emerald beanie in the center of that group.  They were all senior members of the a Capella groups.  It was a warm afternoon, in the low 90s.  Every so often we caught a breeze blowing across the chapel.  After the celebration we headed over to the Lulu Chow Wang Campus Center for the President's Reception.  Lots of delicious sweets!!!

We headed back to Gina's room and pitched in to start the packing.  Before long we headed back to the Houghton Chapel for the  Baccalaureate Concert.  Gina had two numbers  (A Simple Song from Leonard Bernstein's MASS, and The Music That Makes Me Dance from Funny Girl) as the final performer before the choir closed.  Gina brought down the house!  What an amazing voice!

Then . . . back to the dorm to do some more packing!

Friday morning dawned sunny and warm.  We headed back over to the campus so Gina could take part in the preparation events and we could get our seats for the Commencement Exercises.  Just after we parked the car in a little known spot, we saw this snapping turtle.  Two security guards had just arrived to check it out.  They were funny; they laughed, saying "who shall we call to take care of this?"  They were going no where near it!

We then headed over to the Academic Quad.  It was a hot day, 94 degrees, so we were sure to get seats under the shade trees scattered around most of the Quad.  Linda and Louie and Raymond and Isabelle arrived shortly after we did and joined us as we waited for the Procession.

The Senior and Academic Procession seemed to go on forever!  But finally, the addresses began.  The Commencement address was given by Valerie B. Jerrett, Senior Advisor to President Obama.  The reading of the names of the graduates was done in a brisk pace.  There were about 600 graduates and it went quickly!

After the ceremonies we headed over to the reception nearby in a giant tent on the Chapel lawn.  Long tables of a selection of fancy sandwiches and tables of desserts.  We tried not to fill up too much since we made reservations for all of us at the Cheesecake Factory nearby at the Natick Mall.

And we Gabriels do what we do best!  Mangia!  After dinner, Adele and I rode back to Albany with Louie, et. al.  Lucretia and Gina headed back to the dorm to finish up and load up the car for the trip back to Florida.  We were a bit nervous about all of Gina's stuff fitting in the car, so I took two pieces of her luggage with me to bring on my Southwest flight back on the following Tuesday.  Since I was flying back to Orlando to pick up my car, I dropped the luggage off at their home in Winter Park.  The car was packed to the roof, but everything but the garbage can fit!

Lucretia and Gina stayed overnight at their friend Nancy's house nearby and headed down to NYC on Saturday to spend a few days with the Js and Rs.  On Saturday morning we dropped Adele off at the train station so she could head down to NYC to also visit several days with the Js and Rs.  It was the first time for them all to meet Red!

It was a beautiful time at the Commencement activities.  It's hard to believe that Gina's four years there have ended!

Next Stop: Willoughby

Our plans to attend Gina's graduation from Wellesley involved some complex and not yet clear steps in pulling it all off.  The scheme involved me driving to Orlando to meet up with Adele.  Then Adele and I would head north on the Amtrak Auto Train with Lucretia's car.  Our train ride would begin at 4:00 PM from Sanford, Florida, just north of Orlando and end up the following morning at 9:30 AM in Lorton, Virginia, just outside of Washington DC.  This would allow Lucretia and Gina to load up the car with Gina's dorm room possessions after graduation and head back to Florida with stops in NYC to visit the Js and Rs, and a stop in Virginia to visit old family friends.  I was to head to Albany to visit family, and Adele would spend some time in NYC visiting Js and Rs and then spend some time visiting friends in Albany.

Our trip began beautifully!  Pulling into the station, we were greeted at the booth.  After giving the woman our name, she attached a magnetized number on the driver door after writing the number in a booklet which she handed to us.  She told us to pull ahead into one of the lanes near the station entrance.  We did, and were instructed to take the things we wanted to bring with us on the train and leave the key in the ignition.  We then left the car and headed into the station to check in.  The woman at the desk asked us which dinner seating we would like, and since the 7:00 PM was fully booked, and the 9:00 PM was a bit late for our tastes, we selected the 5:00 PM seating.  She told us which car we were assigned to and which seats were ours.  She thanked us (Mr. and Mrs. Gabriel.  Adele thought maybe she thought that Adele was a gold digger!) and said we could go to the platform and board.  This whole process was so quick and efficient, I don't think it took 10 minutes!

We headed to our car, walking along the platform amongst a wide array of people, many (most?) of them elderly and slow . . . (just sayin').  Our seats were on the upper level, to the front of the car.  The car ahead of us was the last car of the ones with the sleeping berths.  There was a sign on the door indicating that only those with berths were allowed past that door.  That meant that there was very little traffic past our seats.  The club car and the dining cars for we coach passengers were to the rear of the passenger cars, so all of the traffic was back that way.  The people with berths had their own dining cars in their section of the train.  We had three restrooms located down the steps on the first level.  There was always availability throughout the entire trip.  It was a very long train.  Someone had said that it was about a mile long!

OK.  So our troubles began shortly after leaving Lorton.  The train stopped dead on the tracks.  Seems this indicator light came on which signaled that there may be a problem with the wheels/axle on one of the empty auto cars (we were pulling two of them).  For safety reasons and by Federal regulations, the axles needed to be inspected, for if allowed to continue they could heat up and disintegrate.  OK, no problem.  We could live with that.  But . . . we soon learned that we had to stop every 100 miles if the indicator light flashed again and another inspection had to be done.  We also learned that because we were traveling on CSX Corporation's tracks, we couldn't drop those two cars in question for later pickup.

Our dinner, breakfast, and snacks throughout the trip (apples, bananas, cookies, coffee) were included in the price of our ticket.  I did get to enjoy my first ever dinner in a dining car.  Adele and I shared our table with the couple who were sitting behind us in our coach.  They were very nice!  Little did we know how close we would become to those sitting around us!

We got to watch the sunset later in the evening, and the sunrise the next morning at breakfast.  The down side:  by breakfast we had not quite reached the half way mark!

So, every 100 miles we got to get a very close look at our scenery.  And, we got to watch the sunset the next day as we were riding through Fredericksburg.  At least we were in Virginia!  We were beginning to feel like we were in an episode of The Twilight Zone, one where this train ride would never end!

We arrived at our destination in Lorton at 9:30 PM, twelve hours after we were scheduled to arrive.  There were a couple tables of cheeses and crackers and cookies and vegetable platters for us in the station.  We also were instructed to check at the checkin desk to get information about compensation being offered by Amtrak.  Fortunately for us, our car was one of the earlier ones to be unloaded!  By 10:00 PM we were pulling out of the station!

Adele and I still had our drive to Boston ahead of us!  Our original plans called for us to pick Lucretia up when her flight came in just before midnight at Logan in Boston.  Fortunately, Gina was able to borrow a car to pick her up and bring her to the motel in Framingham where we were staying.  So Adele and I headed through the most densely populated corridor of the U.S.  The good news:  there wasn't much traffic in the middle of the night!  Kudos to Adele!  She put on her rockin' music and drove the entire way.  Through DC, Baltimore, Delaware, New Jersey, New York City, Connecticut and into Massachusetts.  We were driving across the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan at 3:00 AM.  By 3:17 AM we were exiting the Bronx on the NY Thruway!  We got to witness the sunrise again, soooooo much earlier than in Florida, as we drove through Connecticut.  We pulled into our Red Roof at 6:10 AM!  Talk about Gulliver's Travels!

Some people have asked me if I would ever take the Auto Train again.  My first choice would be to fly.  I mean, my flight back to Florida from Albany was just under three hours.  No contest.  But . . . if I had to take a car with me, I would definitely do the Auto Train again.  Some of our co-travelers said they have taken the train many times and this was a first.  So, yes, if my situation called for a car to accompany me, I would do it again!  And I wouldn't trade the time spent with Adele on this adventure for anything!  It was much nicer sitting in a rail car then sitting in traffic!

Next chapter:  Wellesley 2013 Commencement Events