Sweaty and dressed like Stanley Kuwalski - minus the shoes.

So I am sitting in my parents living room in their rented house in Florida. The lovely mid-Florida vacation community of Lake Placid, which as I found out today is indeed named after Lake Placid New York, and was named as such by none other than Mr. Thomas Dewey, of the Dewey Decimal System. Go figure!

I am sitting here in bright pink crocs, underwear and a white tank top all alone. Everyone has gone to bed but me. This is my first real blog post in a LONG time. I have a number written, some from earlier in this trip, some from a previous trip to Boston, but I have never bothered to post them, and I have wondered why. I think I just figured it out. This blog is almost entirely written from me to my beloved. I started it for her, and even though she isn't the "reader" I imagine listening to me, I am always imagine she is there too. So when I go on a trip with her, it seems silly to write to her with a list of the days activities. She lived them.

That said, she isn't here right now. She left yesterday. Her nibs and I are still here for two more days, and I know she will be wondering what we were up to today.

Sleeping in, until Missy was too hungry to wait and demanded I feed her. She ate cottage cheese, and Frosted Lucky Charms. "What are you talking about? These are delicious!" We went out to buy me shoes from Bells, but ended up in a Mall staffed entirely by geriatrics who seemed half in the bag with dementia and teens who I am sure spent the previous evening huffing gasoline, they were all so clueless (Quick aside - This does not count Britteny at the Foot Locker, Britteny you were very helpful and pleasant.) . I thought this was the land of customer service? I didn't get anything for myself but tiny got ridiculous metallic pink sandals and a swim shirt and 6 pairs of neon tennis socks.

After lunch we went with my Parents to a depressing private zoo/alligator farm. Run down, smelly and today at least staffed by the poorly trained (perhaps it is something about the interior of Florida). Did get to hold a squirmy baby gator, and see two really old Florida Panthers. All the vultures were impressive, some of the Gators and Crocs were freaking huge, and saw lots of pretty wild birds. The woman who fed the crocs and panthers got sprayed with Chick Juice not once, but twice. (She hands panther dead limp baby chicken, panther chomps into juicy crunchy top end of dead bird, every thing inside little fluffy yellow bag of dead animal gets squeezed down to the bottom, and guess what comes shooting out of the cloaca? MMMMM Chick Juice - Dr. Pepper, this is not a flavour we need in Canada) Jemima seemed to enjoy it, she laughed at the squirting and wanted to know why they weren't using live chicks (she is a weird vegetarian some times), wouldn't hold the gator, and then became fixated on buying her teacher a candy of some sort as a souvenir. I suggested buying the teacher some specifically floridian honey - mangrove or orange blossom - and she took that to mean any and every crappy piece of junk made in China plastic candy dispenser thing, or maybe salt water taffy "Salt Water Taffy! She won't believe it!"

On the way home we stopped to get a picture of her with some orange trees, but our cameras weren't really up to the late afternoon sun/blinding white sand/walls of green task, and my ability to get satisfactory results from Picassa is sadly lacking, so a shitty photo will have to suffice.

After dinner she had a great bath that involved lots of "experimenting" with a bar of soap and a Tupperware container of water. We followed that up with ice cream and then two old black and white Porky Pig cartoons.

A great day.

For me, i just want to say. Hey Dr. Pepper! When are we going to get diet Vanilla Cherry Dr. Pepper in cans in Canada? I can't take a case on the plane, and oh, how I will miss it.

Also, do you think Jay-Z will ease up on the B bombs now that he has a daughter? Do you think Kanye will ever stop sounding creepy and sex-offendery? Do you think I should really be wasting my time listening to last weeks Billboard Hot One Hundred when most of it just annoys me? Never mind, I'll find something I like to listen to.