some random thoughts

volunteering updates: we planned to volunteer at an animal shelter today and maybe some other days this week, but we found out this morning that the humane society holds orientations for volunteering. the next orientation isn’t until mid January. super snark called some other shelters, leaving messages this morning, but it’s evening and we haven’t heard back (yet). we also want to volunteer with the tiny hands foundation on Saturday, helping them put together food and gift baskets for families needing financial help during the holidays. super snark left messages saying we could help out earlier in the week, too, if they needed our help with anything. last week, I emailed Sarasota’s women center about volunteering short term, but I haven’t heard back from them either. waah! I feel like this whole volunteering thing is a lot harder to start doing than it should be (that’s probably just my privileged self thinking that though…maybe I merely need to develop a capacity for patience).

yesterday I went for a bike ride to the south end of siesta key. nothing special in the scenery: lots of tall trees, private residences, condominiums, and no beach access. a little hazardous as I tried to dodge a constant supply of salamanders running into hiding as I biked by. early on I passed a section of sidewalk littered with dark red, dropped hibiscus blossoms (I picked some up on the way back). later on, a dragonfly flew into my bike bell causing it to ding.

I also finished two books yesterday. one was by Alice Walker. the other, The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean, had some cool factual snippets about florida, the areas we’ve visited and the area we’re in now. speaking of cool info, late last week super snark introduced me to the fascinating world of string theory; we watched The Elegant Universe hosted by brian greene. I recommend this to anyone who is not a science geek but may have a closet desire to be one. (real life science geeks will probably like it too, though maybe it will seem a bit more simplified to them.)

this afternoon we went on a long walk with veggie dog. we picked some more sour oranges to add to the bags of sweet oranges we already have. we met a man named Al who let us pick some of his grapefruit. apparently, he used to have 28 fruit trees on his property and now he’s down to 6 because the other trees died from various diseases and insects (e.g. wasps that inject their eggs into all the papaya fruits). it’s a beautiful day today, warm and sunshiney. after our walk we rode our bikes to the northern side of the key to get online at the “old salty dog” (where we are now). I feel grateful to be here (here as in florida, not necessarily the salty dog) and I’m thinking of all the people we love who are in cold, snowy or foggy, damp places. we wish they all could be enjoying this too.