Suncoast Scene: Out and About

Visitors from the North You know it’s winter up north when your friends and relatives start showing up in Florida.  Over the past few weeks, we’ve enjoyed getting together with a former colleague from San Francisco, entertaining two of the Chief Penguin’s former graduate students and their three almost adult children (do we feel old?), …

Sarasota Scene: Songs & Salt

AMERICAN MUSIC This was the last week of our Sarasota Institute of Lifelong Learning programs for the year so no more Monday and Wednesday morning commitments.  Music Mondays, in particular, ended on a high note, or perhaps I should say, on a dissonant note, with American composer of contemporary music, Libby Larsen.  Larsen’s work ranges from songs and …

Tidy Tidbits: A Melange

WILDLIFE One of the pleasures of living on the coast overlooking the water is having nature all around us.  Not only is it  peaceful, but I love seeing the variety of birds that live or find their way here:  Great Egrets, White Ibis, scaups and other ducks, wood storks, herons of several hues, white pelicans, …

Tidy Tidbits: Mothers & Meals

NOVEL PAIRING The Expatriates by Janice Y. K. Lee I really enjoyed Lee’s first novel, The Piano Teacher, and so approached her new one with enthusiasm.  It too is wonderful, but in a different way.  Set in the present rather than the past, it details the daily lives over the course of a year of …