Not so perfect, but...

It is still 78 degrees. The rain has stopped and perhaps I won't have to water all the plants today.

 The "tropical downpour' has stopped all work, in truth I had stopped before the rain. After all, I am supposedly retired. About one third of my front yard is complete with the second third in the ground and the final third purchased and waiting. Waiting for divine intervention or a sudden burst of energy. Good luck on that!

 Red Cuban Banana plant, Canna Lily and White Bird of Paradise, with Iris, Jasmine, Copperleaf and two grasses in the background.

 My new walk (50%) complete and the before and after sides of the front yard.

 One of the "Ti" plants.

 Another Ti, a Canna and a Cassia plant...waiting patiently

for the rain to end and me to return to work. To quote Annie, "Tomorrow!"

Sadly, many of my friends are nearing the day of departure. They are all busy trying to find their muk-luks, parkas, keys to their snow-blowers and not least the GPS co-ordinates for their homes...so they will know where to commence shoveling when they get home. The good news is that by the time they find the front door it will be time to return here to the place where everyone knows their names. I will miss you all, but I might be able to win  a card game or two now.

My main priority at this time is completing the outside landscape before it becomes absolutely too miserable to work outside. As you can see it is progressing well. With some luck the front will be complete this week and the back yard is no where near as ambitious...only a few vines along the fence and two/three tall shade plants (white birds or seagrapes.)

More pix as I proceed. Ciao a tutti!

This wasn't built in a day either

Many of you are wondering where I have been, what have I been doing, when would I reappear? These photos are of my house ("The project"). My seemingly sole task in life, something that I originally thought was an easy patch, paste and paste makeover...wrong! 

I have moved in, about a six weeks ago and the remaining tasks still boggle my mind. The shift from interior to exterior is more of a sanity break than  any claim to completion. Their are many incomplete jobs remaining inside, but I can put them aside for the moment. Soon it will be too damn hot outside to work. So the outside is my focus now. Plants, plants, plants...and COLOR! And then return to complete the interior.

As the pictures show this project  became a total "gut job." At one point I was standing on a floor joist looking down at the earth beneath me, out through the aluminum siding that was more a sieve than a protective wall or up at a ceiling waiting to be destroyed. The more recent shots show a better, more livable atmosphere. Between trips to IKEA, Lowe's, various hardware stores and unknown quantities of furniture stores my sanity and budget are at all-time low levels. And yet, after this is posted I need to go find closet doors.

My hope is to post the job completion photos prior to my demise...at least I now perceive a completion.

I would love to hear from all of you, your thoughts, ideas, advice....donations?

What's a vagary?

Something that doesn't seem to follow a proscribed pattern or path, such as life to this point.

There is no such thing as a straight, narrow and easy way through life. A more apt description of my path at least would bring back memories of old roller coasters, two in particular. First the Virginia Reel, where some genius created a round car that spun in circles as it careened up and down the track at break neck speed and secondly, the Wild Mouse, where an individual car for two ran madly around a narrow gauge track trying to flip you out into the world at high speed. 

When I entered the Navy at age seventeen it was because there did not appear to a future in front of me. Of course now I am seventy-one and the same logic applies. There isn't a twist or a turn along the way that doesn't remind me of those old "coasters" or was any more comfortable or any more direct. But, here I am now thousands of miles from where I live, which in turn is thousands of miles from where I grew up and thousands of miles from my birthplace. Roots? Perhaps not, wonderful memories regardless. 

So for me a GPS is simply a gizmo with an atlas crunched onto a silicon chip and a voice to tell me where to go. Not the first to try and tell me where to go, but my reaction to them has always been, "if you know the way, you lead...I'm turning here!" In one week a stewardess will have the dubious pleasure of showing me my seat as I once more leave Rome to return stateside. I am never at my best on those days, but at least I am quiet Dougie. 

Then, like the new year, I'll start anew, another path and another wait until I write the next yearly episode of this adventure. I must give thanks that money is not my driving force, because obviously my prayers were answered. 

The "driven ones" are the ones I feel saddest about, perhaps even pity, because what they want, desire and seek is unattainable...more. More of this, more of that...just more. Once they get more, they want more. It's a self-perpetuating panic driven dream. What about people, after all, you are here because of them and without them you can't even gloat!

Off for the next turn on my own "Wild Reel" of a ride...ciao!

2015

Day one; shiver and shake. Rome is more like Boston than Florida in  that there is a real winter here. Perhaps more-so than usual. That being said, I am exactly where I want to be to start the new year. 

It is certainly cold, but it's a "warm" cold. What? If  it was climate I was looking for I would have stayed in Ft. Myers. Warm and open hearted, kind friends that are happy to see me and put up with me being an American are what describes the warm cold I am writing about. I am surrounded by friends and lots of hot coffee. 

last night's noise is gone and many are awakening to their own internal din and clamor of last night. Not for me a wine induced hangover. I intend to travel back and forth from this site to the coffee bar today. This message the only effort to be put forth.

To catch this city in the bright early hours sans people is a wonderful experience. The few that are up and about are on the way to work and can't understand why on earth I am so happy. I have my camera, splendid blue skylight, reflections and photos to take. Make my day!

Reflection is a large aspect of my photo taking and a smaller part of life. Just for this moment I bask in the times that I have been able to spend here with a family chosen, not just by me, but by Grace and more importantly the ones I spend so much time talking about. While we in the states grouse about how bad things are it only takes a few minutes of observation and conversation to see just how well off we still are. Read an European newspaper as opposed to one of our doom-slinging American rags just for a different slant.

Despite their horrible economy and political mish-mash of characters the thing I admire most about my friends is their ever-positive approach to life...as if Bill Belichick quoted their life mantra, "It is, what it it!"  Hopefully that mantra is what I will utilize and follow this year. I am positive about one thing, the universal disdain of politicians is well earned and well deserved. In a country where any job is respected, the politician is the exception to the rule...also well deserved.

How we won the minds,etc.

Cliches  become what they are because of what they try to convey. War inspires cliches, almost as if that was the prime reason that war exists.

The last war that seems to have an unequivocal winner was WW2. Why, because after that we started inserting parameters...rules of engagement and all that accomplished was to make great advances in modern medicine. 

World war two was fought to be won. We won because we could make more weapons, better weapons, faster weapons and send them against the enemy without restraint...we did, ergo a winner.

The following weapons were what we used, but what we lost was our brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers. Now we enjoy all these rules and still manage to lose our young. Is that the reason education takes second place to the military? So that old men wearing ribbons and bows can send more of our young out to be lost for more glory? More baubles? More pretty ribbons? Slow learners aren't we?

"C" this...all from artists beginning with the letter C.

Meandering through the "M"s