Povey Prattle

I'll be on another excellent adventure for a few days. I will be back in touch next Monday 19th April

SOUTHERN WOMEN o o Southern women Know their summer weather report: o Humidity o Humidity o Humidity o o Southern women know their vacation spots: o The beach o The rivuh o The crick o o Southern women know everybody's first name: o Honey o Darlin' o Shugah o o Southern women know the movies that speak to their hearts: o Fried Green Tomatoes o Driving Miss Daisy o Steel Magnolias o Gone With The Wind o o Southern women know their religions: o Baptist o Methodist o Football o o o Southern women know their cities dripping with Southern charm: o Chawl'stn o S'vanah o Foat Wuth o N'awlins o Addlanna o o Southern women know their elegant gentlemen: o Men in uniform o Men in tuxedos o Rhett Butler o o Southern girls know their prime real estate: o The Mall o The Country Club o The Beauty Salon o o Southern girls know the 3 deadly sins: o Having bad hair and nails o Having bad manners o Cooking bad food o o More Suthen-ism...

PAIN IN THE NECK I awoke about five weeks ago with what I thought was a stiff neck.  The pain (3 on a scale of 1- 10) lingered and it was enough to keep me awake at night. After a couple of weeks of interrupted sleep I began some physical therapy.  Now, after three weeks of therapy, the pain is reduced to 1 ½ on the scale of 1 - 10. I see the P.T. three times a week and he is pleased with my progress.   I have various home exercises which I repeat twice a day. There will be one more week of P.T., and then I will be on my own.  I’ll need to be disciplined and keep up those home exercises for the rest of my life.   It’s all about arthritis - the curse of those of us who are 60+. Shoot!!!!.   I’d always imagined that I would be the exception to the 60+ arthritis rule for in my mind I am less than 35 years old.   There is a clear disconnect between my body and my mind!

GREEN BEANS Sometime more than 30 years ago I visited with Good Shepherd, Fitchburg, MA parishioner Pat Beers at her home in Westminster MA.  Pat and her husband George had a bumper crop of green beans.   Pat was “topping and tailing” the beans to get them ready for blanching and freezing.  It seemed like very labour intensive work. I bought a pound of green beans the other day.  (One of the local supermarkets had them for sale at a bargain price).  I topped and tailed them, then blanched and froze them.  The operation took more than an hour!   I suspect that it is more energy efficient to purchase frozen beans from my local supermarket.  It would surely be much more time efficient!  But Pat Beers had inspired me from all those years ago! FLEAS My cats Adelaide and Ada show signs of being infested with fleas.       The same is true for my dog Penne.  The proprietary meds (Front Line etc) seem to be les...

After our late lunch at the Columbia Restaurant Ybor City last Thursday (April 8th 2010), Ben Morse, Bob Lewis, Ed Green and I hoved over to Tampa’s “Channelside Cinema” for a movie premiere. Yes, it was the world premiere for “The Fallen Faithful” – filmed in Tampa. We were at this premiere because Andrew “Drew” Wirtz (second son of the late Bruce Wirtz and Mary Virginia Wirtz) was one of the co-producers and financiers of this low budget movie. (After Bruce and Mary Virginia divorced, Bruce [a friend of mine since 1976] was partnered with Ben Morse.) This one million dollar “indy” movie uses such fine actors as Sonny Marinelli, Mark Margolis, and Obba Babtunde. (“Google” their names if you will!) The plot is more than plausible. The acting is super. (And it was lovely to see Drew Wirtz in a cameo role – the be-spectacled worshipper in a church scene at the sharing of the peace.). BUT ------ the movie includes so much violence . That the violence is integral to the ...

 Columbia  Restaurant, Ybor City You may remember that in an earlier blog entry I wrote about a book titled “Ybor City Chronicles” by Ferdie Pacheo.  Ybor City was the heart and soul of a vital Cuban/Spanish/Italian community from circa 1900 to circa 1950. In those years Ybor City was famous for its hand rolled cigars. The book is a tender and affectionate account of Ferdie’s upbringing in Ybor City (a district of Tampa, FL) between the years 1935 – 1945. In my earlier blog entry I remarked that the book made me wistful for a place and time which I never knew.    At the heart of that place was the Columbia Restaurant, est 1905. Here is the Columbia Restaurant story. http://www.columbiarestaurant.com/ourstory.asp After reading Pacheo’s book I became determined to travel the 60+ miles from Sarasota to Tampa and to dine at the Columbia. We have a branch of the Columbia in Sarasota – it was established in the 1950’s and claims to be the oldest ...