Looking to Consonance
This Friday, Kathryn and I travel to San Jose for a filk convention where I'm a guest. I guess I've been hanging around filk long enough (and even have a web page, Filk Fatale, for my stuff), so someone figures I can entertain a crowd. My travel and room are paid, and Kathryn's flying on a Southwest frequent-flier ticket.
More seriously, this is a chance—and obligation—to represent filk from the Southeast. So about half of my concert set is other people's material, and I'm bringing a bunch of other stuff to sing at other points (open filk) in the con. This bard stuff is tough, but fun.
Other news:
- Vincent had bloodwork a week ago to test for celiac disease. He'd been complaining of non-specific abdominal pains, and since Elizabeth is celiac, it makes sense to check. Celiac disease (see http://www.celiac.org for more information) does have a genetic component.
- I had to miss Kathryn's class wax museum on Friday—Vincent was sick when he stepped off the bus, so I stayed home. Darn!
- Elizabeth is now six weeks into her final internship in her masters program (special education). That plus two classes (and compiling her portfolio) is a rather heavy load. It inspired an unusual song for Valentine's Day.
- The weekend routine now: make a list of chores and hew to it! Now, if only my week could be as organized ...
posted by Sherman Dorn 8:43 AM
Friday, February 15, 2002
Sanibel
Okay, this report on a trip is almost two months late! In December, we traveled to the Fort Myers area, to Sanibel Island. It was gorgeous.
We arrived on a Friday, early in the afternoon, and after spending some time at a beach, went to a hotel in Fort Myers (with a long wait on the single road leading off the island during rush hour). The next morning, we hit the J.N. "Ding" Darling Wildlife Refuge and started off on a walk. We saw an egret just a few feet away from the path.
Kathryn snapped this photograph of an osprey flying overhead. (There were loads and loads of birds, including one bald eagle sitting atop a power pole.)
I snapped these pictures of Elizabeth and Kathryn on the path, shortly before a float of ibises flew through the trees in front of us, and before Vincent spotted an alligator on the other side of a stream. (No, no photographs: the camera focused on the foliage closest to us.)
There were plenty of oceanside plants that you don't find in Tampa, like the sea grape that Vincent was standing near, in this photograph. Then it rained. It drizzled first, and then poured, and we ran back to the visitor's center.
Everyone except for me changed clothing, and we looked at the exhibits. To the left, Vincent and Kathryn are at the rubbings table. J.N. "Ding" Darling was a cartoonist who worked with the federal wildlife service (I don't know what its name was when he was alive), and so this refuge is named after him.
Then, after the downburst was over, we started driving through the refuge. The sun came out. We stopped at various points, looking at the birds. The pelican in the tree was amazing. Two other birders with huge telephoto lenses were waiting for it to fly (presumably to catch it as it opened its wings), but it never did while we were there (for 15 minutes). Vincent or Kathryn may have taken this photograph.
Elizabeth snapped this photograph of birds in the tree over water. Where she grew up, she says, she never saw waterbirds over the water—she recalls them always sitting in the water. I think the Darling Wildlife Refuge birds are smart.
posted by Sherman Dorn 5:11 PM
