24 hours

So yesterday evening we went to the "movies" at Asolo Theater.  A special showing was being held of Shakespeare in Love.  What a wonderful film! The theater company is doing a production of the PLAY of the same story and so they had arranged for the film to be shown before the run of the play.

What an absolute delight! Every performance was note perfect and there was so much fun amid the saddest love story ever told- Romeo & Juliet.  The ultimate tale of star-crossed lovers. Full of anachronistic jokes and mocking of contemporary Hollywood - the word play goes beyond the Bard's ever present genius, intertwining the modern day with 1593.

As Phil said afterward "more than four hundred years" and his words still have the ability to bring us to tears; they so touch the heart of the human condition. Fabulous use of three hours of our time.

The hits just kept on coming because then we went to the Blaze pizza place (seriously inconveniently located at UTC but close enough on a Monday night at 9PM with no traffic) and had really good - weirdly good - fast food pizza- Who knew???  It's like a Flat Top Grill for pizza- you pick the toppings and they blaze it in a 700* oven for a short time and it's yours to eat! Unexpectedly good!

And we got up today to a blue sky perfect day and since we are in the pre new year time (no school classes and most of our theater and ballet and symphony tickets start in earnest in January) we took the afternoon to sit at the dock and eat seafood.  then we brought home stone crab claws and wild line caught salmon from the fish market.  The ultimate #lifeisgood day!

so tonight we are eating outside - because the weather was warm today 85* and the courtyard is enclosed from the breeze that comes up after sunset-

photos of the Blaze experience

some stills from the movie

she was absolutely luminous! deserving of the Academy Award she won for this film "Best Actress" or more politically correctly "Best Performance by an Actress in a leading role" blah blah blah.... 

so life is very good and we are enjoying the calm of December before the hordes descend mid January to mid April... this is the absolute best time of year to be here- no lines - no traffic - great weather! what's not to love????

school days & holidays

It's the time of year when the kids are back in school and soon we will be as well.  And because we are in the school mentality we are also doing Holidays! We celebrated Thanksgiving with a visit from brother Larry (who came up from Miami) and our new neighbor and Phil's long time friend Jean who moved here in September.... Then we had a weekend of dining with Larry at favorites of his and ours... and we went to the beach and just relaxed. 

so here are some catch up photos since the last post-

We met up with CBGB at Mis En Place to celebrate Georgia's birthday! We had some really good wines and food but better conversation as we caught up with them after our summers up north (theirs in Michigan and ours in Chicago) two apps from that evening- pork belly and a tuna carpaccio with an empanada

the week of Thanksgiving had us at old favorite Columbia for tapas and cava sangria-

we also had some good food at Mediterraneo -

then on the night before Thanksgiving we stopped in at Kasa - our favorite sushi place -

and after Thanksgiving we did Star Fish and the beach and Blue Marlin on Friday and indigenous on Saturday  (below-  a view from our table followed by three beach scenes)

Larry's Thanksgiving flowers

our wines from indigenous-

The winter term catalogue has been delivered from our lifelong learning academy and we are looking at lecture dates and course description and if you have kids recently in college this sounds familiar we're sure...

And because we live in a community with many options for continuing education - especially in the arts - we also have classes at the Sarasota Arts Center (for what I would call "hands on production") and classes for all kinds of fine arts skills in media and film and animation etc. at the Ringling College of the Arts.

I have decided on two classes - one at the lifelong learning academy on Asian Art taught by the teacher I had last year for the Asian mysteries course and a second one at the Ringling College on architecture...

The Skyscraper from America to Asia
M/12:30-3:15 PM, 11 sessions  Christopher Wilson                                                                                         
This course surveys American architecture from the Great Fire of Chicago in 1871 (which is credited with giving birth to the skyscraper) to today.  The skyscraper, seen as a uniquely American architectural product even though it now appears throughout the world, will serve as the main point of reference.  Opposite views such as the "City Beautiful Movement," suburbanization, and recent "New Urbanism" will also be discussed.

and here is the description of the LLA course I will be taking

this upcoming week is a busy one with NTLive and the Asolo performance of Evita and the second ballet of the season (at the Opera House) plus we have the added delight (not) of buying a new toilet for one of our bathrooms - we have been having trouble since last summer and its innards finally failed over the holiday weekend...

so never a dull moment... I thought when I got our screening for the cage repaired last week we were done with home repairs for a while  but apparently I was wrong! More to follow- of course...

an eating odyssey

so it was Thanksgiving weekend-  weekend of eating - yes- we joined in the tradition and kept on eating after the actual holiday and the leftovers the following lunch... LOL-

We also got to go to the beach - it was 77* and sunny on Saturday - the first pic was made by google out of my photo... I think it is a nice emphasis of what I saw- if not 100% true to life...

but to back track to the eating part- LOL here is our meal at indigenous from Friday night- oh by the way we ate outside all weekend long-

both wines showed really well!

the mushroom bisque a MUST try!

the sturgeon tartine - terrific new addition to the menu!

Larry's amberjack with Thai green curry-

Phil's lamb meatball dish

my burger! with duck fat fried potatoes....

Then on Saturday we thought we would swing by Star Fish in Cortez Village and see if there was any space in the lot to park - if so we would go eat dockside--- which we did-

then we went to the beach (photos above) and then came home in time for sunset and then went out to dinner at Harry's on LBK-

the starters- Phil's scallops - Larry's chowder and my onion soup-

Larry's hog fish and Phil's duck and my scallop Rockefeller-

again outside! with some good wines-

By the end of Saturday we were all beyond the stuffed point and so, after Larry headed home to Miami this morning, we had two simple meals at home. And I might have mentioned LOL - we are still in al fresco dining mode... so lunch was outside and dinner too!

This week - final prep for Colombia trip and dinner with CBGB and the Symphony - this time with a favorite - Copland... among other works... keep you posted....