It is natural on a gloomy day when approaching the end of the year to be drawn into remorse. The drizzly mist hangs upon the low ceiling; the dampened buildings and sidewalks are reduced to taupe. The prospect of ending one year and starting another promotes pangs of conscience, a broad reflective disposition perhaps enhanced by an element of reconstruction.

The spirited provocation of youth is undeniable! So is the attraction of reposing by the fire in an armchair. During our evening on St Armands Circle over dinner we spanned the resources of the two seductions. First though we had to find a place to park. Round we drove in search of a spot, through a bank parking lot and round again repeating our exploration, then at last discovering the perfect location – between two driveways suitable for one car only. The night was off to a fortuitous start! We walked noiselessly in the blue evening air along the boulevard, ducking the pendulous viridescent ferns folded against the towering white gates, allowing the enthusiastic young families to pass. It was still only 6:18 pm; we may have arrived ahead of our dining companions. But no! From the front desk of the restaurant we spotted them – looking resplendent – at a corner table! The youngest of the gaggle was quick to approach. She was was sylph-like, the colour of fine porcelain and had the unspoken generosity of her parents. We embraced, hugged and kissed the others, gripped a handshake with the paternal member and the evening was off in a swirl of animation!

Longboat Key is a town in Manatee and Sarasota counties along the central west coast of the U.S. state of Florida, located on and coterminous with the barrier island of the same name. Longboat Key is south of Anna Maria Island between Sarasota Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.

On November 13, 1955 the town was incorporated by a 186–13 vote. At the time only about a third of Longboat Key was developed and roughly 215 people lived on the key. When the town was incorporated it changed its name from Longbeach to Longboat Key.

In the 1960s and 1970s the Arvida corporation purchased the south end of Longboat Key and developed it for $13.5 million. President Bush had arrived on Longboat Key on September 10, 2001 the day before the September 11 Attacks to read to second graders in a campaign at the Emma E. Booker School in Sarasota. On November 14, 2015 the town of Longboat Key celebrated its 60-year anniversary.

On February 1, 1958, the name of the Longbeach post office was changed to Longboat Key. 

The median income for a household in the town was $290,251, and the median income for a family was $307,983. Males had a median income of $261,157 versus $230,104 for females. The per capita income for the town was $280,963. 

The upcoming 2020 presidential election in the United States of America hasn’t as much to do with getting rid of Trump as it does with changing the face of America. And I don’t mean the colour – red or blue. The historic money-grubbing theme which has predominated political argument is being replaced by what the so-called conservative Republicans would prefer to abrade as socialism but what Americans of every stripe have recognized as humanitarian – health care, climate change, energy alternatives, employment fairness, equality between men and women, toleration of sexual diversity and gun control.

“I’m Afraid of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”
Murder by Death, Album “Like the Exorcist, but more Breakdancing“

I didn’t mean to make you feel out of place
By the comments on your clothing
Or the makeup on your face
I didn’t mean to pre-empt the chase
You’re the drama queen of every scene
Perfectly out of place

So you cry yourself to sleep
On your blanket of snow
With your tiara of barbie doll heads
And your arms crossed for a pillow

If you can’t make up your mind just how different you should be
Reorganize your priorities to expect more sympathy

Only cynicism can get through to you
Expand the image up the insults negativism through and through
All of this pretending makes me feel a bit confused
You’ve spent your life losing yourself and now you’re marked as used

As my dear old pal Johnnie (an addlepated alcoholic) was wont to detail, “Well, I got up“. If I recall correctly it was around 9:30 am this morning that I first stirred beneath the enveloping duvet. I had that satisfying sense of recovery from a pleasant dream. Removing my sleep mask it required tactical effort to descry the weather. Bright sunshine happily streamed into the bedroom through the drape on the door and the cracks in the window shades. The footling intelligence instantly buoyed my percolation.

We have in the studio Bertrand Russell, who talked to us in the series “Sense Perception and Nonsense: Number 7, Is this a dagger I see before me?” Bertrand Russell.

Russell: One of the advantages of living in Great Court, Trinity I seem to recall, was the fact that one could pop across at any time of the day or night and trap the then young G. E. Moore into a logical falsehood by means of a cunning semantic subterfuge. I recall one occasion with particular vividness. I had popped across and had knocked upon his door. “Come in,” he said. I decided to wait awhile in order to test the validity of his proposition. “Come in,” he said once again. “Very well,” I replied, “if that is in fact truly what you wish.”

I opened the door accordingly and went in, and there was Moore seated by the fire with a basket upon his knees. “Moore,” I said, “do you have any apples in that basket?” “No,” he replied, and smiled seraphically, as was his wont. I decided to try a different logical tack. “Moore,” I said, “do you then have some apples in that basket?” “No,” he replied, leaving me in a logical cleft stick from which I had but one way out. “Moore,” I said, “do you then have apples in that basket?” “Yes,” he replied. And from that day forth, we remained the very closest of friends.

Classic text on bare plurals

Between 1963 – 1967 while attending St. Andrew’s College in Aurora, Ontario one of my classmates and colleagues was Nicholas Glassow. He is the son of the late Dr. and Mrs. Frank Glassow of Thornhill, Ontario where Dr. Glassow was one of the senior (if not in fact the senior) surgeon at Shouldice Hospital, a private clinic.

“The facility was the subject of a 1983 business case by the Harvard Business School. Written by James Heskett, the report is the school’s fourth-best-selling business case, selling over 259,000 copies. The case study focuses on Shouldice’s unique three-day hernia repair process. The popularity of the business case is responsible for the hospital’s process becoming known outside of Canada.“

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The sky over Sarasota Bay is a foggy grey. The palm fronds are twisting in the forceful wind coming from the west across the Gulf of Mexico. The American flag “red-white-and-blue” is fluttering in alternate directions at the top of its pole. We have the front door of the apartment open and the wind is howling through it to the open windows of the drawing room overlooking the boat slip. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, December 24, 2019 on Longboat Key.

I hesitate to record this particular incident. Not because there’s anything either wrong or strange about the detail. But it is nonetheless mildly embarrassing. Here it is in a nutshell. Immediately following brunch with friends on Anna Maria Island, on our way home through Bradenton Beach we detoured across the bridge at Cortez to Tide Tables for lunch!

Casual seafood eatery overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway, with a marina & outdoor tiki bar.