All the Good People

This is a song for all the good people, All the good people who've touched up my life. This is a song for all the good people, People I'm thanking my stars tor tonight.

This is a song for all the good people
Who knew what I needed was something they had:
Food on the table, a heart that was able,
Able to keep me just this side of sad.

And this is a song for all the good fellows
Who shared up my times, the good and the bad.
We sang in the kitchen, held no competition,
Each knowing the other was a good friend lo have.

And this is a song I sing for my sweetie, I sing for the sweet man who puts up with me, My rambling my roaming my late-night come-homin; he is the sunshine that shines down on me.So grateful.

Music and lyrics by Ken Hicks

Juggling

Week one is a wrap and I survived with my wits mostly intact! I feel like I've juggled swords, clubs and fire this week but in reality it was just a two hour lecture, a four hour concerto competition, twelve eager viola students, four anxious advisees and a partridge in a pear tree... I'm happy to report no one was injured in the juggling display, all students are still present and accounted for and all I'm missing is a few hours of sleep and maybe a couple of good brain cells. Now it's on to a day's worth of entrance auditions followed by the big sale at FOUND this weekend! Never a dull moment around here that's for sure.

The big excitement of our morning was the presentation of a very dead mouse from Pippa. Our little predator, so cute and so very proud of herself.

Brrrrrrr

We are freezing our butts off these days but at least we've had a proper snow!

Seed and garden catalogs are coming fast and furious right now.
Is it too early to start the count down to summer?

Our sunrise walks have been replaced by vigorous shoveling...
even the grill needs a path shoveled these days.Inside all is cozy.

Dr.

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind."

Gotta love the wisdom of Dr. Seuss...

I posted this as my facebook status a few days ago and am still thinking about the wisdom of it today. This is the last week of winter break which means soon I'll once again be back in the juggling business full time. I am ready to be back in the studio, ready to be with my students, ready to be a mentor again. I feel better than I've felt in months (maybe even years) and am looking forward to getting reacquainted with my viola. I will miss the daily desktop snuggling though...

The Wisdom of Ruby C. Williams

Can't seem to get Ruby off my mind...

I can still hear her voice and see her hands.
So real
Her work and her words speak for themselves
So I'll just step out of the way now....

Thank you Ruby.

Devotion

Mom's condo is situated in a little manicured haven off Highway 27 and her backyard is bordered by an enormous orange grove.It's illegal to pick the fruit, but let me tell you I gave it a thought or too. Who's gonna know right?


After years and years of encouragement mom finally succumbed and adopted a cat.
Max was my sister's cat for a brief time but it seemed he really bonded with mom so that's where he's been ever since. This is one spoiled kitty. He gets handfuls of treats, bowls of people food and is allowed to sit on the kitchen table with mom while she eats.

He's a lovely boy and they are one devoted pair.

Mom and I poked around a large antique mall in Sebring on Saturday morning and in the afternoon I headed up to Lake Wales to see what was going on in that neck of the woods. I was especially taken with a small one-dealer shop, Ingelnook Antiques located in a turn of the century Tudor/Arts and Crafts bungalow. The outside drew me in but it was nothing compared to the inside. Lots of original details - thick stucco plaster walls, high gabled ceilings,

original doors, windows and woodwork
and all kinds of lovely little details including this window high up in the gable.

I found a few things for myself, mom and Ken.

Dad's been gone since May 2005 but mom still wears her wedding ring and speaks about him every day. He is very much still here with us.

Old Florida

Where am I?

I actually blurted out these words in the car on the drive from the Tampa Airport to visit my mom in Avon Park. After scanning the radio for more than thirty minutes and getting nothing but the rantings of conservative talk show hosts and evangelical preachers I suddenly felt as though I'd been deposited in a foreign land. Oh yeah, I forgot...I have. I'm from Ithaca - Ten square miles surrounded by reality as the bumper sticker says...

Old Florida

I remember my dad talking longingly about Old Florida and how he'd seen it disappear. How at first the old grand hotels and steam boat landings were torn down and/or abandoned and then the old downtown storefronts were boarded up. In dad's Old Florida there were endless stretches of undeveloped beachfront, creaky old wooden docks, boat yards, smelly fish houses and seedy bars. Cedar-shingled bungalows housed fishermen, boat builders and rum runners, and the pungent smells of salt, beans and rice, and fish permeated everyone and everything. The water was inhabited by lively pelicans and manatees who took food right from your hand! Old Florida – I'm thinking about his version and longing for my own right now.

I have a few scant pictures of my Old Florida in my mind. Within walking distance of my childhood home are Spanish style stucco houses with red tile roofs, towering Australian pines, the neighborhood school, Kelsey Park and the marina. There are single story cinder block houses painted bright white with colorful doors and shutters. The small strip mall a few blocks away houses a shoe store (Park Avenue Shoes), a kid's clothing store (Kiddie Korner) and Johnson's Five and Dime (I learned to count change and work an old cash register at Johnson's). The Old Florida of my past has quiet side streets with wide sidewalks, street lamps on most corners and kids everywhere outside playing. I think my version of Old Florida might've disappeared too. In fact these days Florida just looks old and a little worn out to me. I know it's been this way for some time, especially in the more rural parts of the state, but somehow this time it just looks worse – fast food joints on every corner, abandoned strip malls, payday loan offices, liquor stores and of course Walmart. A lot of storefronts are boarded up and what's not empty is fortified with iron bars on the windows and doors. I wonder what or who they're trying to keep out. Don't see many kids outside playing here these days.

I travel on Highway 60 and 27 to get to Avon Park. Once I'm out of the concrete maze that is Tampa I find long stretches of undeveloped land. The land is flat and scrubby. Scrawny dairy cows and bony long-horned steers occasionally dot the dry landscape. I used to think it ugly but now I'm quite enjoying how big the sky looks. It is sunny and breezy – upper 60's. Quite a change from Ithaca where it'll barely hit 20 degrees today and it's snowing (of course).

I'm getting pretty hungry and I soon find that this is no place for a gluten-free, non-dairy, non-sugar-eating-granola-type-person like myself from upstate NY. I've never seen so many different kinds of fast food places in my entire life. After passing a number of fruit stands peddling Plant City strawberries and local tomatoes I start thinking I should stop for fresh fruit. I pass several dilapidated stands and then in the little town of Bealsville I come across this...

I drove by and then I just couldn't help myself. I made an abrupt u-turn on the highway and went back in for a closer look. As I got closer I could see that the fruit stand was literally shingled with colorful paintings. As soon as I got out of the car I was greeted by a little old black woman with a twinkle in her eye and a sweet smile. She introduced herself to me as Ruby C. Williams and said she loved to paint. I asked if I could see her work and she said yes! Ruby led me over a plywood covered path and in the direction of the ramshackle vegetable stand she called her “art house”. It was stuffed full with her paintings.

They were on the walls,on the groundand in the rafters. She agreed to a few photos and told me about her paintings in the Smithsonian. I could've stayed all day but my mom was expecting me so I told her I'd be back the next day...stay tuned!