a lot of planning

goes into our lives- LOL- travel planning, planning for social events (cultural and getting together with friends)  Last night we started discussing travel plans for 2019.  It's been a few years since we have been to Asia so we are going to focus on that next year. 

I may have mentioned that this year we are headed to Africa for the Great Migration in Kenya and Tanzania and we are also going to go to Europe to see friends and family. (England, Denmark and Amsterdam)

The calendar is a constant companion for this process... our friends are just as busy as we are - travel is common ground for us and many of our friends.  So juggling travel schedules and cultural schedules (theater, concerts etc..) makes planning ahead essential.  But- nothing ever tops the planning that goes into the process of attending the film festival held here in Sarasota each April. 

MovieMaker Magazine named SFF one of the Top 25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World. 

TravelPulse named Sarasota Film Festival one of the "5 Festivals You Must See This Year"! 

The program guide is almost a hundred pages long and the schedule is mind boggling... so deciding what to see and when to see it a real challenge and to top it off we sort of kind of try to coordinate with friends MA and Gene on a few films.  

Here is an example of the schedule for a single day - the weekends are of course more packed with options because there are additional venues over the theaters where most of the films are screened but still this is not unlike all the other nine days - it runs from Friday to Sunday of the following week....

Luckily we had a couple of matches with the four of us picking the same film... Phil and I have different schedules but have tickets for ten films together - seems like MA & Gene do all their viewing together... which gives you a built in "panel discussion" after the show LOL,

so what did we all decide on? 

and here is another-  and a third...

We met MA and Gene two years ago at a bar near the festival - and fell into conversation about what we were all seeing and travel (which evolved from a discussion about a film all four of us were seeing on Bhutan- they were going and we had been) - then about wine (the collect LOL) and politics (same) and we haven't stopped talking since----

since we met they have been to Antarctica and China and we have been to Denmark and the Baltics and to Republic of Georgia - we are both headed to Africa this summer at different times and on different trips but you can see - travel alone - without even wine and food and theater and films creates plenty of things to talk about when we are together which is why we usually end up closing the place we have chosen for the meal...LOL

more to follow on the festival as we get into it in roughly two weeks... this was just a taste of it -

oops - I did it again

LOL- OK this time it hasn't been quite as long but still.... I haven't kept up....

so last post we were at the Jewish Film Festival... the next day we had a lecture and that night we had the symphony- after the same day where I finished decorating the Florida room (furniture delivery.)

As with all of the move I used things I had and then filled in as needed- in this case I had the chairs and rug and pillows and throw and art work and lamps and plants and the round end table LOL- sounds like it should be finished right? Wrong... The room is sizable maybe twice the size of the previous Florida room so I purchased two love seats and a small center table to fill it out-

the new room views-

LOL the cat likes it!  she's already left lots of cat hair on the throw LOL

where the chairs and rug came from - below- the chests went to Phil's office and the lamp to the living room along with the small garden stool table - art work reworked for entry hall and bath

So let's see - that was Thursday morning and in the afternoon we went to a lecture on the Stratemeyer syndicate -

and while there were many interesting facts- one tidbit I should have put together in thinking of history but had not- was that the big surge in young adult books was due in part to the fact that Child Labor Laws had been passed and now kids were no longer slaving their days away in factories....

that night we had the symphony - with a mix of Mozart and Beethoven on the program - below shown tuning up before the performance....

Throughout the last few weeks we have had various projects going--- I installed a kick plate on the door to the garage - which entailed returning the first one due to poor measuring and buying a second one which was sized more appropriately LOL

and getting new garage door openers programmed and a key pad installed for exterior access-

and when the guy came to do the installation of the closet build outs I negotiated a jigsaw cut of the hall closet door to install the new cat portal into Lucy's "toilette" litter closet LOL- so the hall closet door can stay closed but she still has 24/7 access.... brilliant-

so after the Thursday night orchestra performance we moved into the weekend - Phil went to a ball game with CB- friend Chuck of CBGB "fame" LOL-  unfortunately GA (the GB of CBGB) broke her foot the day before and so she couldn't come down to visit with Chuck and rather than cancel our Michael's plans for dinner we just went later on our own after Chuck headed home to Tampa to pick up dinner for GA.... we managed to have two terrific wines for an excellent dinner- we had never tried the steaks at Michael's (Allen Brothers from Chicago) so we did that night and it was fabulous... and big enough to have for lunch on Saturday when Phil went off to a St Patrick's Day thing with friend Jean...

Sunday we went to Craftsman House in St Pete for a concert by Pat Donahue - who apparently is semi famous from Prairie Home Companion shows - he was charming and funny and an excellent guitar player. So well worth seeing/hearing....

and then had dinner at the delicious Sea Salt after the concert! Three terrific crudos to start along with an excellent Caesar salad which was rolled like sushi (we split it easily as it had four sections LOL) I had the crispy whole fish (yellowtail snapper) served with broccolini, wakame seaweed, crispy gnocchi, and lobster cappuccino. Phil had the red snapper with tuscan black kale, artichokes, red grapes, and truffle vinaigrette. For sweet endings Phil had the Milk Chocolate Dome with warm caramel sauce and murray river salt and I had the Vanilla Gelato with warm salted caramel sauce.  All a big yum

Oh and I went to a couple more classes - in my Skyscraper class- both interesting and we are down to only four more weeks and lectures- it has really been a good class- happy I decided to attend-

And we went to see Roe at the Asolo Rep Theater- we had mixed reviews of - the acting was good and the script was fast paced - packing a lot into the two hours and twenty minutes of stage time. I found it less than it could be and a disservice to both the complexity of the cause and of the law. 

Then we reached the point of the year where we furiously juggle papers and computer screens and sharpies to come up with our schedule for the Sarasota Film Festival.  The tickets went on sale to members on Saturday, just as we entered the Center for Great Apes for their quarterly open house.
It was not exactly convenient but there was enough of a phone signal to get mostly what we wanted. We finished it when we got home and were able to sort out what we got and what we still wanted tickets for...

We ended up with tickets to nearly thirty films with about a third of them together and the remainder divided between us. I ended up with more because Phil is headed north before the festival ends so I have two extra days to catch more goodies after he leaves and before I begin the process of closing the place for the summer. 

Yesterday then -  fun fun fun- we went to see the apes.  John, Barb and Beth went along.  As we have gotten to know the various residents and their stories, and even recognize them by sight in some cases, it was even more enjoyable than the last visit. 

Once we began our walk around the grounds in earnest I headed directly to my favorite guy Louie who lives with Allie who was paralyzed by an infection and who has no use of her legs- and restricted use of her hands.  Louie helps her out and takes good care of her.  I like him so much that we became the birthday sponsor for Louie's birthday party.  He has a December birthday so his birthday will be while we are here in Florida and I am sure we will see all his goodies on FB posts!

here are few photos from yesterday and some info from the Center-

first a lovely photo of Harry - handsome guy he is described in detail below because he is among the newer residents at the Center-

Harry in full regal mode-

I think this is Christopher- not a good photo so identification is a bit more difficult - they each are very unique and so it doesn't take too long to start learning which one is which -

 Below is Archie- what a cutie- he also is pretty new here and has more info below-

Knuckles is a chimp with CP (cerebral palsy) who lost his companion Toddy last year - everyone was soooo sad because she had been his caring friend for all his time at the Center (he lives alone now and is one of just a few apes that has human interaction inside his enclosure in an effort to stimulate his intellectual and physical development. 

this is Linus- a shy guy who never the less likes to watch everything going on around him.

and Radcliffe-

and Sunshine (another relative newbie)

While I like the Orangs the best, Phil is a  big fan of the chimps to balance out any potential hurt feelings LOL!

so while I haven't been very good at keeping up the posting I have gotten a number of things done and have stayed very very busy..... much on the calendar between now and the end of the film festival... #keepingbusy