The Meandering Manatees Volkssport Club

Biking to breakfast on Saturdays with the Yacht Clubs folks isn't only an opportunity to get some early morning exercise offset by pork fat, it's also a chance to gather some great ideas on things to do in the area.  Yesterday morning I got talking with a woman about walks organized by the AVA (which was quite confusing at first because my lawyer brain kicked in and I thought we were talking about the American Bar Association).   It turns out that AVA stands for American Volkssport Association, a non-profit that sponsors walking clubs and walking events across the United States. 

The basic idea is that organizers develop 10K walks within their area.   Some of the walks are  organized events but many are self-guided.  For self-guided walks, a start/finish location is selected and a "box" is housed there with a map of the route and information on the local Volkssport Club.  As I understand it, people who are members of AVA (or the local equivalent) have a book with "stamps" in it evidencing the walks that they've taken.  Eleanor, my breakfast companion, told us that she has completed walks in the capitals of all 50 states--what an accomplishment!  She developed a walk in Punta Gorda for the Meandering Manatees, the local branch of the AVA, and I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather today to take the walk with a friend.

With our maps in hand, we started our walk at Fisherman's Village, a colorful complex of shops and restaurants on Charlotte Harbor.  We followed the directions (which have tidbits of info about fun things you see along the way) and shortly found ourselves in History Park.  I have never been to History Park before, and on Sundays you can shop at a farmers' market in addition to viewing some historic buildings.  The Trabue Land Sales office is a neat old building built by Colonel Isaac Trabue, who was the developer of Punta Gorda.  (I learned on this week's bike ride that Punta Gorda was originally named Trabue and that there was some litigation that lead to the name change, but that's a subject for another post!)  The Land Sales office houses a little gift shop that has for sale, among other things, photos taken by a local birdwatcher.  It turns out that there is an eagles' nest in History Park and the photographer managed to get an incredible shot of an adult male eagle in his roost with a large fish that he'd caught.  The photographer was working in the shop today and she told us about the events leading up to the picture.  She was outside in the park and looked up to see an adult male eagle with a fish in its mouth being chased by a juvenile eagle who apparently thought that fish looked mighty tasty.  The photographer watched the chase with her camera in hand as the adult eagle fended off the juvenile and came to rest in his roost.  She told us that the adult eagle was panting so hard that she could literally see his tongue hanging out of his mouth!  It took him about half an hour to recover sufficiently to enjoy his catch, which gave her an opportunity to take the picture we were admiring.   After perusing her photos (which are pretty amazing) and checking out the wares at the market, we continued on. 

The walk took us onto some streets I'd never been on before and past many of the murals that adorn the walls of the buildings in downtown Punta Gorda.   Eventually, we ended up at the carving of Calostimucu, number 10 in the series of Whispering Giants done by Hungarian sculptor Peter "Wolf" Toth.   I've always thought that this carving was cool, but I like it even more now that I know that Toth carved a series of sculptures depicting Native Americans and Canadian First People and donated one or more to each U.S. state and Canadian Province. (Here's a fascinating article about Toth and the relocation of Calostimucu after Hurricane Charley in 2004:    
http://scc.eed.sunnewspapers.net/Olive/ODE/charlotte_sun/LandingPage/LandingPage.aspx?href=U0NDLzIwMDUvMDMvMjA.&pageno=MjA.&entity=QXIwMjAwMA..&view=ZW50aXR5 )


Two hours after starting out, we ended up back at Fisherman's Village, my feet a bit worse for wear but the rest of me happy to have spent a nice morning outside learning a bit more about my community.  I have added several things to my "to do around Punta Gorda" list (which seems to be getting longer by the day), including taking a more formal tour of the murals, visiting the Blanchard House Museum of African American History and Culture of Charlotte County and going on a birding walk with the local Audobon Society.  I'm looking forward to using the AVA's guides to explore other cities and parks in Florida.  And I can't wait until my next bike to breakfast to learn about more fun things to do and places to explore in Southwest Florida.  Who knew that retirement required so much stamina???      

Disappointing Reads by Favored Authors - Winter 2010-2011

Sometimes I stumble upon a book when perusing the library shelves and think, "Oh, I've read some things by that author that I really enjoyed.  What a treat it will be to read something else that she's written."  Sadly, sometimes things just don't turn out that way.  Here's a short list of some recent reading disappointments:

--Anne Tyler's Back When We Were Grown-Ups.  This books starts in a promising fashion.  "Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person."   Like the protagonist, I'm at that mid-century mark and am spending some time thinking about my life, where I've come from and where I'm going.  So I guess I might have been hoping that this book would provide some illumination -- or at least would stir a few thoughts.  Nope.  Tyler tells the story of a woman who was widowed very young and is now running the family party business and living with a family that she doesn't seem to feel part of, even after 25+ years.  She starts thinking of what might have been and decides to look up her old beau--she was her "authentic" person then, and she decides that being with him (and resuming her college research on Robert E. Lee) might be just what she needs.  Conveniently, he is recently divorced and when she meets him for dinner, she learns, among other unappealing tidbits, that he cooks a pot of chili every Sunday and parcels it out into seven servings for the week.  OK, I'd be lacing up my running shoes right then but she persists.  Bottom line, she decides at the end of the day, in a Dorothy-like manner, that there's no place like home.  Maybe some of Tyler's earlier works like The Accidental Tourist and Digging to America wouldn't hold up for me now, but I remember them as having interesting quirky characters that I enjoyed reading about.  Not so in this missive.  Enough said. 

--Laura Lippman's Another Thing to Fall.  I generally like Lippman's books, most of which feature Baltimore-based private investigator Tess Monaghan.  I love getting into a series featuring a character, learning about him or her as I go from book to book.  (Think Lee Childs and his Jack Reacher character or, to a lesser degree, Harlan Coben and his Myron Bolitar character.)   In this book, Lippman takes us onto the set of a TV show being filmed in Baltimore.  Things are not running smoothly, however, with acts of sabotage occurring on set.  Monaghan is brought in to act as body guard for one of the stars and does some sideline investigation of what's going on.  Suffice it to say that I returned this book to the library a few days ago and I couldn't remember the title when I sat down to write this (even after looking at a list!)   A big "who cares?" is in order.

--Dennis Lehane's Moonlight Mile.  Even more of a "who cares" is in order for this very disappointing book by an author I love.  Both Mystic River and Shutter Island were powerful, engaging stories.  Moonlight Mile--not so much.  In fact, I would have quit reading this book if I hadn't taken it on Playmobil with me for a day long cruise with no other reading material available.  It tells the story of a case taken on by Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro, the protagonists from some of his other books, including Gone, Baby, Gone which was made into a movie with Ben Affleck.   I don't even want to talk about the plot, which was hard to follow.  The good news is that (spoiler alert) at the end of the book, they decided to give up the investigation business for good.  Hopefully Lehane will stick with this promise and get back to writing the stand alone books that have made his reputation.

I'm heading on a road trip on Monday and have three audio books packed for the ride.  Hopefully one of them will be "worthy" about writing about upon my return!  Happy reading!

Biking to Breakfast

IYC bikers at Cape Haze Pioneer Trail

One of the things that attracted us to Punta Gorda was the active lifestyle here.    Nice weather and a group of people who like to get out there and try new things is a great combination!    We joined the Isles Yacht Club and it has a monthly newsletter that runs almost 30 pages long with all of the activities you have to choose from.   There are boating related groups (obviously) but almost every other activity you can think of as well from a book club to a kayaking group to card games to billiards to, you guessed it, a biking group.  

The group gets together almost every Saturday morning and bikes to a local breakfast spot.   I've only been once so far and we went to The Smokehouse.  It was a cold and blustery day (for Punta Gorda--it's all relative but I do think it was in the low 50s and windy) and I was happy to get to the restaurant.  We all piled in, with the women sitting at one table and the men at another.  People immediately started telling me that the biscuit with sausage gravy was the way to go so that's what I ordered.  Delicious and extremely hearty.  I didn't feel like I needed to eat the rest of the day.  Conceptually it reminded me of poutine in Nova Scotia--an occasional "treat" but a heart attack--and serious love handles--waiting to happen.  (In case you haven't had the pleasure of experiencing poutine, it's french fries topped with cheese curds and brown gravy.  Sounds disgusting, I know, but it's actually very tasty.)

Once a month the group gets together for a longer bike ride.  The ride this week was to Cape Haze Pioneer Trail in Rotunda.  This "trail" is part of the national rails-to-trails conservancy and is in the process of being extended so that it will go all the way to Boca Grande, which will be nice.  For now, though, the ride was a disappointment--basically riding on a sidewalk through a neighborhood and back.   It was a beautiful morning, though, and I met some great people.  The gentleman who organized this particular outing is 76 years old and bikes or kayaks every day.  His bike odometer showed 5500 miles and he told us that he was disappointed that he wasn't able to adjust the odometer when he got it to add the 1700 miles he'd previously logged to the mileage.  Another rider of the same vintage showed over 24,000 miles on his odometer.  What????   I know these guys have had a long time to log these miles but I was told that they routinely bike 10-15 miles at a clip and they are in great shape so I don't think we're talking mileage accumulated over a lifetime.  I was pleased with the measly 13.8 miles that we rode that day and have to admit that my legs felt it when we got off our bikes.  (Note to self:  Training is required before March bike trip with the ladies.)

After the ride most of us gathered for lunch at a local Olive Garden.  (I do find that it's important to counteract the benefit of exercise almost immediately by eating so this worked well for me.)  I had a chance to talk with some people and add to my ever-growing list of things to do in the area.  A thoroughly enjoyable way to spend a day.

The ride in February is to Myakka River State Park (http://www.myakkariver.org/) and should be much more scenic.   We were told that we'll have lunch at a concession stand in the park that offers alligator stew.  Now that's one experience that I don't want to miss!

Resistance by Anita Shreve

Sometimes you unwittingly get into a pattern of reading books related to a particular topic.  I found this happened with the trio of 9/11 books that I read last fall and now seem to have fallen into this same pattern with respect to WWII.   Anita Shreve is an author known primarily for her tales of women surviving difficult personal issues--be it a bigamist husband in The Pilot's Wife or the responsibility of a newfound baby in Light on Snow .   Her books generally are categorized as "chick lit," a characterization that does not give her writing the credit it deserves.  In any event, I just finished Resistance and it is a powerful novel that goes beyond her traditional tales of domestic lives, telling the story of Belgian resistance fighters during WWII.

This book is really a gem.  As always, Shreve's writing is lyrical and drew me in from the start.  The story begins on December 30, 1943 when an American bomber crashes near a Belgian village.  You immediately are introduced to Ted, the pilot of the bomber, who is full of self-recrimination about the choices he made that led to the plane's crash landing.  Shreve works small facts into the story that give the book an authenticity.  For instance, you learn that there were two types of flight suits in use by airmen at the time to battle the cold of the high altitudes--traditional leather suits (think bomber jackets) and electric suits.  Electric suits worked well while flying but airmen who had to bail out of their planes (or whose planes crashed) who were wearing old fashioned leather flight suits had a better chance of surviving the elements than those wearing electric suits.   

As the village becomes aware of the disaster, people begin arriving at the crash site--some with the simple curiosity that causes drivers to slow down on the highway to peer at an accident, others with more complicated motives.  One of the heroes of the story is a ten year old boy named Jean, the son of a local "collabo" who is ashamed of his father's support of the Nazis.  Jean skips school to search the woods for survivors of the crash and finds Ted,  moving him in a wheelbarrow from the woods to his father's barn where he hides him in a trough and covers him with potatoes until he can find help to move him to safety.
 
Enter Claire and Henri, a couple who hide Jews and airmen in a secret room in their home until they can be moved to the Maquis, the guerilla bands of the French Resistance.  (I have to admit that this is a term I had never heard of before and apparently one other reader hadn't either as she helpfully wrote the definition in the margin of the book.)  Shreve says of Claire:  "She knew the beginnings of many stories, but not their endings."  Those few words say so much to me about the generosity of the people who provided sanctuary and how difficult it must have been for them to never know the fate of the people they had sheltered.     

The story has a number of twists and turns that keep the reader engaged until the end.  While a novel, it is an educational and thought provoking story.   Reading this book brought back memories of my high school French teacher, Madame Crutchfield.  Madame Crutchfield was a tiny wisp of a woman with gray hair, granny glasses and an amazing wit.  I took private classes from her to work on my French.  (I don't remember the reason why the regular classes didn't work nor do I remember very much French, as my husband likes to remind me whenever the fact that I was president of the French Club comes up for some bizarre reason.)   From time to time, Madame Crutchfield would mention that she worked in the Resistance.  Being the self-absorbed teenager that I was, I didn't take advantage of the opportunity to hear her stories, something that I now deeply regret.  As I was reading the book, though, I thought of Madame Crutchfield as one of the Maquis waiting for the Jews and airmen to be transported to her.   Thanks to Anita Shreve for writing this book and reminding me of this special woman.   

Take a Vinyasa

I've been practicing yoga the past couple of years and find it both a good work-out and very centering.  (One definition of yoga is actually "controlling the mind" so this makes sense.)  So I was very excited to check out the Yoga Sanctuary in Punta Gorda--with a name like that, how could I go wrong?  Just to backtrack a bit, in Chester, my yoga instructor teaches in the Iyengar method, which focuses on holding postures for a period of time so that you can really get into the pose.  In NJ, I enjoyed flow classes, which had a nice pace and involved some inversions (head stands, head stands and backbends).   I actually learned how to do a free standing head stand, which was quite satisfying!  The class that I seem to have become a regular at here is yet another type of yoga--Ashtanga.

It was with some trepidation that I went to my first class.  I was told just to follow along as best as I could, which I did for the next 90 minutes.  Each class starts by singing a chant in Sanskrit.  (In Chester, we do call and response so you at least have some idea what it's supposed to sound like.  Here most of the students actually have the chant memorized but I follow along on a laminated sheet.)   The class then goes into a series of "asanas" or postures, starting with five sets of each of the Sun Salutations.  According to one website, "In Hindu mythology, the sun god is worshiped as a symbol of health and immortal life.  The Sun Salutation gives reverence to the internal sun as well as to the external sun, the creative life force of the universe..."  Pretty powerful stuff.

Chataranga--I'm sure I look just like this!

After saluting the sun, we move on to the rest of the asanas.  I don't think I can even aspire to doing the poses to their full degree in the time I have left on this planet--my shoulders and hips just aren't that flexible--but the instructor gives modifications that are more or less manageable.  As you become more familiar with the poses, you can begin to pay attention to your breath and use it in the proper way (again, something I aspire to).  At the end of many poses, the instructor says, "Take a vinyasa."  This is your cue to go through a routine that includes "chataranga," a modification of a plank, followed by upward and downward dog positions.  At the end of the class, I feel like I've had a good work-out (having done more than 50 "chatarangas," you do feel it!) and I'm ready to face the world.

One cool thing about an Ashtanga practice is that it's the same the world around.  There are a couple of different "routines" (for lack of a better word) but the one we do here is the most common practice.   I was looking on the web at yoga classes in Nova Scotia yesterday and noticed that a woman I've taken a few classes with in a nearby community teaches an Ashtanga class one night a week.  Her studio is in a boat house extended over Mahone Bay and is an amazing place to do yoga.  It has been added to my "to do" list of things for the summer--yet another reason to look forward to getting back to Chester!

Namaste!

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman

I frequently jot down names of books that friends have recommended to me in a little notebook that I carry, often never to be looked at again.  When I was perusing the lists of the best books of 2010, The Imperfectionists was one of the titles listed, and it sounded familiar.   I paged through my notebook and, sure enough, there it was.  I can't remember who suggested it to me, but I'm glad they did because it prompted me to read this interesting work.

The Imperfectionists tells the story of a newpaper that is run out of Rome.  Each chapter is told from the perspective of a different person who works for the paper.  The history of the paper itself and the family that runs it is told in two or three page snippets between each chapter.  This construct gives Rachman the opportunity to create interesting characters without having to worry too much about advancing a unified story.  And each character definitely is interesting!   One of my personal favorites is Herman Cohen, the corrections editor (what can I say, after all those years of proofing documents, I can relate!)   Cohen is up to entry 18,238 in the "Bible," his name for the paper's style guide.   When Cohen is reminiscing about how he became the corrections editor, he muses that he had a knack for it--finally, "arcane knowledge and pedantry came in handy."  Here's an excerpt from his "Bible":

"literally.  This word should be deleted.  All too often, actions described as 'literally' did not happen at all.  As in, 'He literally jumped out of his skin.'  No, he did not.  Though if he literally had, I'd suggest raising the element and proposing the piece for page one.  Inserting 'literally' willy-nilly reinforces the notion that breathless nitwits lurk within this newsroom.  Eliminate on sight--the usage, not the nitwits.  The nitwits are to be captured and places in the cages i have set up in the subbasement.  See also:  Excessive Dashes; Exclamation Points; and Nitwits."

Some of the characters have a single phrase that defines their jobs.  Cohen's catch phrase, of course, is "credibility" (his attitude being similar to that of a partner at the law firm I worked at as a baby lawyer who flipped out--literally--if there was a typo in a 100 page document.)  The catch phrase for the obituary writer is "preparedness"; i.e., having a luminary's obit written in advance of their passing.  (As an aside, this is something that I've heard talked about at the dinner table here in Punta Gorda--I am not even kidding!)

I was enjoying the book so much that it took me some time to realize that each character experiences unhappiness at some level in his or her story.  In some cases this unhappiness stems from the choices made in day-to-day life; in others, it's a by product of life itself.  In this way, Rachman adds an unexpected depth to each character. 

Rachman's style of writing chapters that could stand alone is similar to that of Elizabeth Strout in Olive Kitteredge, which won the Pulitzer prize for fiction.  In my opinion, The Imperfectionists is a much more enjoyable book , and I'm looking forward to seeing what Rachman has in store for his readers in the future.

Canadian Brass, eh?

Canadian Brass

As people who know me will attest, I am pretty much a neophyte when it comes to music.  But I do love hearing Scott play the trumpet and was bowled over when I saw his brass quintet, C Street Brass (http://www.cstreetbrass.com/), play last year with organist extraordinaire Donald Sutherland.  Scott's trumpet instructor at Peabody is Joe Burgstoller.  Joe has been instrumental (pun intended) in Scott's development as a musician, helping him to become more centered and focused on his music.

Instructors at conservatories don't give up performing in order to teach (if they did, the students wouldn't be nearly as inspired) and Joe spent 7 1/2 years with Canadian Brass, a brass quintet that has been in existence since 1970.  So when I found out that Canadian Brass was playing at the Van Wezel Center in Sarasota, we got tickets, even though Joe is no longer with them.  Among other things, I thought this would be a good opportunity to understand more about what C Street Brass is hoping to do.  

The concert started with the musicians parading into the theater playing an upbeat number.  This is one way to launch a performance that seems to always take the audience by surprise and make them smile.  (C Street Brass has done this as well.)   The quintet then played a variety of compositions, with a bit of patter from the musicians introducing the numbers.   There was some Bach (including Air on a G String, which I realized was the processional at our wedding), some "Well Tampered Bach" arranged by Luther Henderson, who took Bach compositions and jazzed them up,  a suite of numbers from Porgy and Bess and even some Beatles.   Some numbers were great--the encore featured 24 year old Brandon Ridenour on the trumpet playing Amazing Grace and was, well, amazing--but there were a number of missed notes, some arrangements that we didn't care for (the Beatles numbers fell flat for me and the arrangement of Summertime for the French horn was a disappointment) and the patter felt a bit contrived in places.  Jay and I wondered afterwards if the sound in the hall was an issue as the group didn't have the power that we had expected.   I couldn't help but think that the performance would have been different if Joe were still in the group rather than Chris Coletti (who I think Scott could take in a blind audition).  At the end of the performance, I leaned over to Jay and mentioned that the trombone player had not had any solos.  Chuck Daellenbach, the only original member of the group, seemed to have heard me and made his way to the mike to thank the audience for attending.  He told us then that their trombone player was stuck in Toronto with the snow storms so a local trombone player had joined him.  I don't know if this threw the group off--he didn't seem to be a weak link to me--but it probably had some impact.