Livin' Easy in the Tropics

Life really is different in Florida. There's a different quality to the air, to the sun, and to the flora. For those of us who live north of Florence, South Carolina, it's like living in a dish garden on steroids - big time steroids!

Think of any dish garden you've had, or the ubiquitous indoor plants in your office lobby - you know philodendron spilling over something, a few palms or dracaena somewhere, an umbrella plant stuck in the back... now multiply that by 1,000 and you have Florida. Here in the Orlando area they are trees - you know Umbrella tree, philodendron that four feet tall, dracaena trees, and those little 10-inch palms are 20 feet tall.

In central Florida you can throw in some pine trees, but as you go farther south there of fewer of them and more types of palms. Likewise the blooming plants jump out and surprise you. I know Crown-of-Thorns, just not as a three-foot tall foundation plant! It boggles the mind and adds to the feeling of magic that exists well outside the Magic Kingdom.

We drove from Naples to Orlando on Monday in the rain, but when we arrived it was still warm enough to sit on the porch and enjoy the warm, rainy afternoon. Children were playing in the swimming pool outside, and I saw plenty of adults coming from the heated pool, too. Yesterday it poured rain all morning, while Mitchell slept in. I grabbed the opportunity to pamper myself and sought out a pedicure nearby. Was it the vacation spirit, or really the best one I've ever had? It's all in the perception!

When it cleared up after lunch we drove to nearby Lake Wales to visit the Bok Tower and Gardens. Very interesting, but you will have to visit It's My Garden next week for the details and pictures.

Back in Orlando, we spent the early evening scoping out the roads to the various places we need to go today and tomorrow for the conference. Our first event is tonight, so we only have one more day to enjoy the sun, and we plan to make the most of it.

What is it about one's "old" friends that makes them so special? I guess it's the long shared history, but it's that ability to walk into the room and pick up right where we left off that makes the relationship so special.

We just spent four days with Elizabeth and her husband in Naples, Florida. Altho we had only seen them a few nights over the past few years, it was like a continuation of our last visit nearly four years ago and for the two of us it was a continuation of a friendship of 45 years. We have been friends since college - rooming together from time to time and staying in touch all those years by mail, phone, email and cell. I never thought of "us" in terms of modes of communication before, but our first summers were spent in letter-writing - certainly not the expense of calling long distance!

Naples is a lovely city. One can see how the early Italian settlers thought it resembled their city of Napoli, and modern builders have done all they can to enhance that look. Mediterranean buildings predominate in all the new development, and even many of the older structures are painted a light terra cotta or the pastels that we all consider Floridian.

It's a lovely place in other ways, too, with little ponds and pools everywhere and the wonderful variety of palms and plants that grow in delightful profusion. When it sun is shining it's the kind of light that sparkles and makes everything glow - not Virginia light at all! Altho we were there in the coldest, most winter month there were still plenty of lovely plants to see. I'll post photos from the botanical garden at It's My Garden in the next couple of days.

We had time enough to start exploring the area this trip, with a visit to the county museum as well as the botanical garden. The museum is a charming little space on the grounds of the county administrative center. They have collected historical structures from various cultures and time periods and brought them together into an historical village surrounded by small ponds and shaded walks. There's an early train engine and a very well done exhibit on the history of Collier County, Florida. The most interesting exhibit, tho, is about the Big Cypress Swamp - which is next to (and perhaps considered by many to be part of) the Everglades. If you check a map, you will see that about half of Collier County is Everglades and Big Cypress, so they play a huge role in the decision-making and life of that county. The exhibit contains both photos and a great video of the swamp. It explains the unique ecological system found there and its role in keeping many plants and animals alive in our world. Made me want to take a walk (slog?) in the swamp!

The highlight of our trip - eventwise - was a concert in the downtown park by the Naples Concert Band. Elizabeth's husband is an accomplished drummer, who not only played, but also gave me my first drum lesson - theory, not practice!

The true highlight was, of course, spending time with my old friend - catching up on her family and seeing her new home, but touching base on all those things that women do. Asking the hard questions about health or plans for the future, relearning how tough the band is that unites us, and knowing that we will do this again. But until we do, being sure that our hearts will lie close together ... even at at distance.

Now, off to Orlando for a conference. More tomorrow.

Technical note: Cannot get photos to upload properly this morning. It may be a weak wireless connection or just the technology gods are unhappy with me this morning. So, no pretty buildings or palms today. Maybe tomorrow.

R & R Coming Up!

I keep letting work interfere with life. Too much work right now, and not nearly enough life! That ends mid-week when we hop on the silver bird and wing our way to Florida. Mitchell has a conference, but first four days with Elizabeth and her husband and then three days to rest in Orlando before the meeting begins.

Lord only knows if I am ready to go. This morning I finally started packing, but have

doing it in dribs and drabs, so... who knows what will end up in the bag! We are staying in two different condos, so will have laundry facilities (if not in the unit, at least near by) so I am planning to under-take and do laundry at least once. The conference ends with a fancy dinner and dance, so am also taking cocktail dress, new high heels and all the fixins.

Unfortunately, we'll have to get my dress and his suit pressed after stuffing them into the suitcases. Whatever happened to the good old days of taking a hanging bag on a flight? Oh, now I remember - terrorists.

The resolve to lose 10 pounds seems to have gone out the window. I'll worry about that when I get home.

That other little resolution - you remember, the one about writing weekly - well, it's gone out the window, too. Am hoping to see some gardens for my garden blog, and find some scintillating thoughts to share with you here.

Do what you can for Haitian relief. Goodness knows they need all we can do. Hang in there, winter has to end sometime!

A Fork in the Road

In the early '90s Greg Mortenson attempted to summit K-2 in Pakistan. His attempt failed, and on the way down the mountain he became lost and ended up in a Pakistani village where he stayed long enough to make friends, learn a bit about the culture and problems of the people, and eventually embark on a new career raising awareness of the need for education in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and raising money to build schools there. He recounted the early story in "Three Cups of Tea" and has recently released a second book that tells about the school-building endeavors of the past 10 years. The new book is "Stones into Schools".

At a lecture last evening he told the audience that there are no words in the Balti mountain language for "success" or "failure". The closest equivalents are a word that means "reaching the end of the journey" for success, and "fork in the road" for failure.

If you look at Greg's own story it seems to fit those words. His original goal was to summit K-2, but a fork in the road brought him to this remote village where he began a very different journey in life. Over the years he has certainly reached the end of that first new journey - and many more.

Vice President Al Gore may well have felt that he reached a fork in the road at the end of the 2000 presidential election process, but he certainly found another route which has led him very successfully in another direction. Senator Clinton seems to be on a similar new journey. I'm not much of a sports fan, but I am guessing there are examples galore in that arena, too.

For those of us who are not famous, the examples may not be so public, but they exist. Most of us can think of a job we didn't get [or perhaps one we lost] that caused us to move on to something different. Nearly 20 years ago I was invited by my employer to find another job [I think we call that fired!] and I found something that paid half what I was making, but which has led to a career that I love with people who are top notch. I certainly have always thought of that experience as a failure, but looking at it in Balti, it truly was a fork in the road. When I retire in a few years, I will definitely feel that I have come to the end of a happy journey.

The current economic mess certainly feels like a lot of nationwide failure, but perhaps it

will cause our whole economy to take a different fork. They say we are spending less, saving more and paying off our credit cards now. That's certainly not new advice, but apparently we are now taking that fork instead of the "put it on the card" fork.

I like this positive way of looking at the seeming ups and downs of life. I believe that as a people Americans are hard on themselves and others when it comes to success and failure. We tend to measure success in monetary terms, and to regard failure as permanent. Perhaps we need to ease up and see both as steps along the way - forks in the road that lead to the ends of new journeys.