Goodbye to St. Petersburg (for Now)

I’ve been pretty quiet lately. Sorry to starve you <g>. As with so many things in my life—running comes to mind—it’s much harder to make myself get started on a blog entry than it is to actually write it once I’ve sat down and logged in.

Today is Friday, my last day in St. Petersburg, and I think I should do a wrap-up before I leave my winter home at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning. Dan is driving up with me because he has to be in Columbus for work next week. When I told him that I would pick him up before 7 a.m., his eyes bugged out. “You’re up by then,” I commented, to which he replied, “That doesn’t mean I’m ready to do anything!” He can sleep in the car.

I’ve done my laundry and cleaned the apartment. I gave Janie, my host, the last of my must-be-refrigerated food, and the fridge is now empty. I’ve taken down my computer setup and packed everything away except the laptop itself. My clothes are stowed; my books and CDs are stuffed in a big box I got from Penn State Press. My monitor is wrapped up in my bathrobe. (I figure that’s the best way to get it home without scratching it further.)

Fair warning: The balance of this post will not be in chronological order. I’m just adding bits as I recall them. If I can remember the order in which they happened, I’ll arrange them, but I make no promises.

The last couple of weeks have been filled mostly with work and—now that I’ve crossed the mental frontier to realize that this is now my winter home—daily routines like cleaning and cooking and watching TV (All of Farscape and as much Star Trek Voyager as I can squeeze in). Not much fun to report. I did, however, have a wonderful three days with Mark when he was last down. The weather was drier, and the mercury hovered around a temperature with which we could both live. We went down to Sarasota and walked around for much of his final day. After a great lunch at Red Clásico, we bought a painting at State of the Arts Gallery C. It’s our first truly abstract—a genre I’ve been becoming more and more interested in.

Here’s a photo he snuck of me when I wasn’t looking. (For those of you who are interested, I was reading the epic of Gilgamesh. I’m pleased to say that I got through the bulk of White Jacket, all of Gilgamesh [which is short], and Travels with Charley while I was here. I just started The Sheltering Sky; I seem to be on a literature-set-in-North-Africa kick.)

And some other shots from Sarasota. These orchids were growing in the crotch of a baobab tree about 10 feet above the ground.

I drove up to Clearwater a week or so back to check it out as a potentially more affordable place to buy a condo. I didn’t realize it, but apparently, Scientologists own much of the city. Clearwater (I subsequently learned) is a major headquarters; it may be fair to say that it is, in fact, their world administrative headquarters. The city itself seemed pleasant enough, though it’s perhaps too small to support the kind of life that I would want while living here. Downtown was positively dead on a Sunday afternoon. I was a bit surprised to find a Starbuck’s open. After I left, I drove over to Clearwater beach. I forgot that for some college students, spring break had begun. It took me 45 minutes to go about 2 miles over a bridge from the city to the beach, and then the place was crawling with spring breakers. I had to be very careful until I got out of the swarm. The drive down the barrier islands was nice enough, though. I actually didn’t realize that they were all connected. I’ve now driven from St. Pete Beach in the south to Clearwater beach in the north. The different areas and islands—Pass-a-Grill, Treasure Island, Indian Rocks Beach, Clearwater Beach—all have very different characters, which is kind of fun.

Clearwater was entirely palatable, but I didn’t find it photographically compelling for the most part. I did take a couple shots, but not much. The first one is part of the bridge to Clearwater Beach (which you can see in the distance).

I also made an excursion to Bradenton for the same reason. I didn’t spend as much time walking around there, but again, I think it might be too small. Still, it’s only about 30 minutes from downtown St. Petersburg (Clearwater is about 45 minutes), so if it has a restaurant/night-life district that Mark and I could walk to once or twice each week, it would be enough. It’s certainly more affordable.

The funnest thing I did in Bradenton was walk around their Village of the Arts, which is an artist colony. I took some pictures of the area because most of the houses/galleries/studios were decorated so whimsically.

There was also Gulfport, which has its charms but which is probably not the place for us.

Another momentous day included a walk to the downtown movie theater to watch The Lady in the Van. Love Maggie Smith! Love Alan Bennett! The best line from the movie: “There’s air freshener behind the Virgin.” I really liked the movie, but it’s very much my kind of movie. Dry. British. I know you all know Maggie Smith, but if you don’t know Alan Bennett, do yourself a favor and Google him. The Lady in the Van isn’t the first time he and Smith have worked together. You can see her amazing performance of his Bed among the Lentils online.

I also had lunch with Peter and Marc today one last time. They may be in Columbus for Easter, so I hope to see them then, too. Their condo is right on the course of the St. Petersburg Grand Prix, and time trials started today. I took a quick video of a few of the cars from their balcony. You’ll understand how loud the cars are when I remind you that we’re 29 stories up. We literally could not hear each other talking when we were on the balcony.

I think I’ll leave it there. I’m picking up Dan and Alex for dinner tonight. We’re going to Alex’s favorite ice cream parlor afterward. Tomorrow begins the long trek to Columbus. Apparently, a rock slide in Tennessee has closed I-75 north of Knoxville, so getting around that will be my next adventure.

Thanks for sticking around with me for my inaugural season as a snowbird.