What I haven't mentioned enough are the clouds. This week, I have no pictures. Next week, I promise to post some. The clouds are majestic here. Towering into the stratosphere through the afternoon and catching all of the various reds and oranges as the sun falls behind the curve. I find myself dangerously turning my head as I drive along the highway to see spectacular erupting water vapor. I went back and looked at some of the Maynard My Backyards and decided that this back yard photo has to go. There are other views that make more sense. Tune in next week for that one (and, btw akb:
escribo una vez cada semana...o, voy a prober, [wink]). This week has been a good one. We attended a pot luck for faculty and students Sunday night. On Monday, the emergency committee at the school initiated an evacuation order - NOAA was saying Ernesto would reignite as a hurricane on the other side of Cuba. On Tuesday, they
rescinded. Ms. Wester said the public schools would evacuate on Tuesday or Wednesday in the event that the hurricane winds returned to Ernesto and he was heading toward us. They didn't, he wasn't. He saved his biggest fury for the mid-Atlantic states. On Thursday, we dropped off Maxim at school and Ms. Wester wasn't there. When Maxim discovered that she would have to be in a classroom with other students and only a few of her own classmates - they split the kids up among the other kindergarten classes - she panicked. She cried and grabbed Marcela and said she wanted to go home. Marcela, bless her heart, overcame her Italian mother instincts and told Maxim she would have to stay, that this was real
school now and that they expected you to be there every day. Then Maxim's friend Jada arrived and the two took their new desks together. I was proud of both mom and daughter. For his part, Noah seems a bit out of sorts. He is staying home all day and there aren't young kids in the neighborhood. When Maxim comes home from school, she is often either crabby or feeling a need to boss someone around and either way Noah gets the brunt of that. Quiet play never last more than a half an hour and then the fussy whining and aggressive fighting begins. We are thinking up ways to get Noah into playgroups. On Wednesday after school we all went to the beach in Pass-a-Grille. The water was a touch warm, but everyone had a great time. Noah's floaty suit ended up irritating his underarms and he howled for a while at the end, but we got to see laughing
seagulls - they look and sound like their name - and what I am pretty certain was a ruddy turnstone (you can see it in the background of the gull photo). Friday, Lloyd Chapin, the Dean of Faculty at Eckerd, threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Devil Rays/Mariners game - given their names, this one should have been a cinch for Seattle. The school got a bunch of free tickets and everyone decided that the game would be more fun than the Tavern, and we went with hordes of students and faculty. We are suddenly part of a vibrant community. It is nice, but also exhausting. We lived a relatively quiet life in comparison in Massachusetts. On Saturday, Marcela, her parents and the kids went to the St. Pete Museum of Fine Arts, which Marcela reports is a very good museum all things considered. Marcela said that the kids did well for quite a while, but
eventually started running and jumping on things in the museum causing one woman to ask the docent to ask Marcela to take the kids outside. At the end of the day we took a drive to Ft. De Soto Park, a Pinellas County park comprised of a couple of keys and a long stretch of beach. It was just stunning. Maxim is learning to navigate waves and starting to swim underwater. Noah is getting even more used to the water. We are in the midst of a life transition, we all feel a little bit lost and anxious to have our bearings. But we are grateful to have arrived amidst the people and in the landscape where we are. We miss our home in Massachusetts and our friends and the pattern of our life, but we feel a growing sense of home among the cabbage palms.
We have also discovered the quiet secret of St. Petersburg, Florida; it contains more New Englanders than just about anywhere outside of New England itself. The largest cohort of freshemen at Eckerd, after the Florida cohort, are from Massachusetts. If I could just get over the fact that there is no soil anywhere. It is one huge sand pile from start to finish. And for the second time, the Rays won a game that I attended by driving in a walk-off run (2-1 in 9). They should pay me to go to the games. Until next week...
What I haven't mentioned enough are the clouds. This week, I have no pictures. Next week, I promise to post some. The clouds are majestic here. Towering into the stratosphere through the afternoon and catching all of the various reds and oranges as the sun falls behind the curve. I find myself dangerously turning my head as I drive along the highway to see spectacular erupting water vapor. I went back and looked at some of the Maynard My Backyards and decided that this back yard photo has to go. There are other views that make more sense. Tune in next week for that one (and, btw akb: escribo una vez cada semana...o, voy a prober, [wink]). This week has been a good one. We attended a pot luck for faculty and students Sunday night. On Monday, the emergency committee at the school initiated an evacuation order - NOAA was saying Ernesto would reignite as a hurricane on the other side of Cuba. On Tuesday, they 
rescinded. Ms. Wester said the public schools would evacuate on Tuesday or Wednesday in the event that the hurricane winds returned to Ernesto and he was heading toward us. They didn't, he wasn't. He saved his biggest fury for the mid-Atlantic states. On Thursday, we dropped off Maxim at school and Ms. Wester wasn't there. When Maxim discovered that she would have to be in a classroom with other students and only a few of her own classmates - they split the kids up among the other kindergarten classes - she panicked. She cried and grabbed Marcela and said she wanted to go home. Marcela, bless her heart, overcame her Italian mother instincts and told Maxim she would have to stay, that this was real 
school now and that they expected you to be there every day. Then Maxim's friend Jada arrived and the two took their new desks together. I was proud of both mom and daughter. For his part, Noah seems a bit out of sorts. He is staying home all day and there aren't young kids in the neighborhood. When Maxim comes home from school, she is often either crabby or feeling a need to boss someone around and either way Noah gets the brunt of that. Quiet play never last more than a half an hour and then the fussy whining and aggressive fighting begins. We are thinking up ways to get Noah into playgroups. On Wednesday after school we all went to the beach in Pass-a-Grille. The water was a touch warm, but everyone had a great time. Noah's floaty suit ended up irritating his underarms and he howled for a while at the end, but we got to see laughing 
seagulls - they look and sound like their name - and what I am pretty certain was a ruddy turnstone (you can see it in the background of the gull photo). Friday, Lloyd Chapin, the Dean of Faculty at Eckerd, threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Devil Rays/Mariners game - given their names, this one should have been a cinch for Seattle. The school got a bunch of free tickets and everyone decided that the game would be more fun than the Tavern, and we went with hordes of students and faculty. We are suddenly part of a vibrant community. It is nice, but also exhausting. We lived a relatively quiet life in comparison in Massachusetts. On Saturday, Marcela, her parents and the kids went to the St. Pete Museum of Fine Arts, which Marcela reports is a very good museum all things considered. Marcela said that the kids did well for quite a while, but 
eventually started running and jumping on things in the museum causing one woman to ask the docent to ask Marcela to take the kids outside. At the end of the day we took a drive to Ft. De Soto Park, a Pinellas County park comprised of a couple of keys and a long stretch of beach. It was just stunning. Maxim is learning to navigate waves and starting to swim underwater. Noah is getting even more used to the water. We are in the midst of a life transition, we all feel a little bit lost and anxious to have our bearings. But we are grateful to have arrived amidst the people and in the landscape where we are. We miss our home in Massachusetts and our friends and the pattern of our life, but we feel a growing sense of home among the cabbage palms.
We have also discovered the quiet secret of St. Petersburg, Florida; it contains more New Englanders than just about anywhere outside of New England itself. The largest cohort of freshemen at Eckerd, after the Florida cohort, are from Massachusetts. If I could just get over the fact that there is no soil anywhere. It is one huge sand pile from start to finish. And for the second time, the Rays won a game that I attended by driving in a walk-off run (2-1 in 9). They should pay me to go to the games. Until next week...
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