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Recent Reading: To Kill a Mockingbird

Here in the Fiftieth Anniversary year of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, I celebrated by finally reading it. I know you are shocked to hear that I have lived this long without reading it and think I must be pulling one over on you. But it is true. And now I lament that it took me so long. The characters were like family or old friends to me.

First of all, my mother's family is from Alabama two counties east of Monroe County (or Maycomb County, if you please). So I know Lee's characters very well--the way they talk and act and love and fight and protect. Second, Lee was born just six years after my grandmother, making her a contemporary of my grandmother and very familiar-feeling to me. Even so, Scout's sassy mouth and tomboy ways are more like my mother than my grandmother.

I think that I, even though I am really a non-re-reader, will read To Kill a Mockingbird many more times in my life. I bonded with the characters, became enraged with the hateful, pitied (and became enraged with) the ignorant, and loved every minute of it.

A Tale of Two World Cups

Four years ago, we moved into this house. (Please note what a considerable record it is that 1. Keith has had the same job for four-and-a-half years now, and 2. We've lived in the same house for four years.) When we moved in, we had an air mattress, two dogs, some clothes, and a borrowed 13-inch television. For two weeks we camped out like this in our new home while we replaced carpet, painted, and generally spruced up the place.

During our infrequent rests, we watched World Cup Soccer. On a 13-inch TV.

Fast forward four years. Now we are down a dog and have done a nice job of filling the house and making it a home.

And this year we can watch World Cup Soccer in high-definition on a 47-inch TV. What a difference!

Recent Reading: Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. We read Fahrenheit 451 for our last book club meeting. Since we are meeting next week to discuss another book, the time seems right to finally say something about the last book. For weeks now, I've wondered what my block is, why I can't form any cohesive comments about Fahrenheit. I still have no answer to that.

Every time I read this book, I am stunned by what a compelling story it is. Keith and I have a fair number of books, and the number keeps growing all the time. To immerse myself into a world where books are forbidden is agonizing. To imagine a life with no books, no imagination, no education is frightening. I wonder if I'd rather burn myself with my books than allow someone to deny me a life with them. I certainly hope I never have to find out.

Perhaps the biggest surprise for me in this reading was finding out that Keith had never read Fahrenheit before. Perhaps the biggest joy for me in this reading was watching him read the book and talk to the book and enjoy talking about the book. It's a wonderful thing to share something you love with someone you love.

Yes, I'm 40

Last Saturday was my birthday. It was a big deal kind of birthday. To celebrate, Keith and I trekked to Florida's Gulf Coast, to the origins of me.

On Friday, we went to Honeymoon Island State Park with the intention of enjoying it and Caladesi Island. Since a storm front was rolling in and a small craft advisory was in effect, the ferry to Caladesi was not running, so we had to settle for Honeymoon Island. We walked up the beach as far as we could, looking for shells and other interesting sea life. It wasn't so bad with the wind to our backs. When we turned around, the wind and sand weren't very pleasant. When the pelting, stinging rain started, I was pretty much done with Honeymoon Island.

After we de-sanded and -salted ourselves, we headed to downtown Dunedin for dinner at a neat little Mexican restaurant and some window shopping at some cute little shops. When we walked out to the municipal marina, the sun finally shone just long enough to set. Then, we made a detour--literally; the road was closed--around the hospital where I was born.

Saturday we went into Tarpon Springs to buy a clean sponge and to enjoy a yummy lunch of Greek food before heading back to Orlando.

Our Saturday evening small group turned into a social event/birthday party later that night. It's just difficult to be serious when you're having so much fun turning 40.

Roger in Moving Pictures

Thirty-nine seconds into this video on the web site of The Ledger, Roger is marching in place almost in the middle of the video screen. And at 3:57, Kim's sister and nephew can be seen watching the buses pull away from The Lakeland Center.

Down Range

Yesterday was the official ceremony sending my brother's unit of the Florida National Guard off to Fort Hood en route to the Middle East.

Even though this is Roger's second deployment to that area of the world, this is different from the last time. In 2003, he was deployed with just a handful of soldiers; this year, about 2500 Florida National Guardsmen deployed. Several months after Roger deployed to Iraq in 2003, Keith and I undertook our own deployment-of-sorts and moved to Texas; right now, we don't even have an inkling of a desire to move. In 2003, Roger was married and spent a good deal of time worrying about his wife (now ex); this time, his girlfriend is on the same deployment, which may present its own special set of worries.

This year, we will pray for Roger daily, send lots of care packages, proudly support him from a distance, and yearn for the day when he comes home. If God lays it on your heart, we would appreciate your prayers, too.

Three Things That Kept Christmas From Being Perfect

1. Food Poisoning. On Wednesday, we went out to dinner. Thursday, Christmas Eve, was bad.
2. No Internet. My web site and e-mail were down from Friday to Sunday. I couldn't keep up electronically.
3. A Cold. I awoke from my Christmas afternoon nap with the beginnings of a cold. Hopefully yesterday was the worst of it.

Other than those little things, our Christmas was spectacular. I hope yours was, too.

A Shower A Day

Sunday morning, Keith and I went to a co-ed baby shower in honor of the newest addition to the Cooper family, a little girl schedule to be delivered into this world on December 14. Not only was it fun to get a head-start on celebrating this little life, it was also fun to watch the men squirm and be uncomfortable at a shower. They quickly got over it when the games began and their competitiveness overshadowed the discomfort. But as it turns out, I'm pretty good at baby shower games that don't involve not saying the word "baby" and tied for first place in two of the three games we played.

One of the games our lovely hostess, Danielle, coordinated was the always-entertaining "Guess the Baby" game. It's fun to see your friends a million years ago, either looking exactly the same but smaller or looking like totally different people. Unfortunately, if your name is David, you might mistake an adult woman for a male child. And then the adult woman would have to give you a very hard time about that.

I thought it would be fun to share our pictures from the game. So that no one is embarrassed by confusing us one for the other, Keith is on the little four-wheeler, and I am wearing the red dress and holding the Easter basket. Keith's picture was taken in El Paso (see all the sand?) in 1969, and mine was taken in Florida in 1971.

Now that I think about it maybe this photo shoot started Keith's fascination with motorcycles. Maybe mine started my fascination with bags.

Oh My Darling Clemmonses

This past weekend, we had the great joy of seeing some friends from Texas. David and Stephanie Clemmons, who have this very infrequently updated blog, are in Orlando this week introducing Parker and Caroline to the wonders of Disney World. To our utter delight, they flew in a day early to spend time with us. Not only did we get to just enjoy one another's company, but they met some of our friends here, Stephanie experienced Publix for the first time ever, and they introduced us to Geocaching.

I'm no expert at geocaching, but I'll do my best to provide a brief primer. Normal, everyday people put together fairly weather-tight little treasure parcels and cleverly hide them in remote and even frequented areas. They then post the coordinates of the cache on a web site, which allows people to use a GPS and possibly some hints to locate the cache. Inside is a logbook to sign, maybe some trinkets to trade, and perhaps even a travel bug that would like to make its way to another cache somewhere. After a treasure hunter finds a cache and signs the logbook, he or she then goes back to the web site and makes note of the find.

On Saturday afternoon, we walked to two nearby caches, which Keith found. Ta-da! (The photo is of Steph returning the logbook to the first cache before Parker returned it to its hiding place.) Then on Sunday morning, as we were headed to Disney, we decided to scout out another nearby cache. Stephanie found it. I didn't find a geocache, but I did stumble upon another, more low-tech treasure known as a Letterbox. Ta-da!

On the way home from Disney, Keith was playing with the Geocaching iPhone app (yes, there's an app for that) and said, "There's a cache just up here on the right." So we pulled into a city park and traipsed through the woods to find our first solo cache. Ta-da!

Who knew there was so much cheap fun to be had so close to home?

The Great Faith Debate

On last Thursday, September 17, which happens to have been my little brother's birthday, my two Keiths (husband and uncle), myself, and a couple of friends met up with about 7,000 more people at UCF Arena to watch The Great Faith Debate between atheist Christopher Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, and Christian apologist Dinesh D'Souza, author of What's So Great About Christianity and What's So Great About America.

I have been a fan of D'Souza's since reading What's So Great About America many years ago in a book club. He made a compelling, logical argument to support his thesis and won me over, which maybe wasn't so difficult since I was already in the camp that believes America is great.

My familiarity with D'Souza's logical thinking made me very excited about the debate, which sought to pose three questions (What about God?; What about Christianity and other religions?; and What about science and reason?). It was a fairly lively debate, much of which you can easily find with a quick YouTube search.

D'Souza did not disappoint, stating clearly that he was making his arguments based on reason and not on Biblical revelation. Anyone who knows me will certainly know that I am a Christian and, therefore, inclined to automatically side with D'Souza. Likewise, anyone who knows me well will certainly know that I like to be intellectually challenged and am not afraid to look at two or more sides of an argument, regardless of whether I believe them or consider them to have any truth. So knowing very little about Hitchens except that he had written this book whose title alone makes me cringe, I approached this event assuming that Hitchens is (and, yes, he is) a very intelligent man and was looking forward to a logical argument to support his identification with atheism. I was disappointed. Aside from calling Isaac Newton a "raging crackpot," the most profound thing Hitchens said all night was that his primary belief system is that people should risk thinking for themselves and assume all responsibility and consequences for that risk. He believes that is the most important thing about being human.

Maybe the best part of the evening was meeting D'Souza and getting my books autographed. He was a bit surprised to see my copy of What's So Great About America, and now I have two more autographed books on my shelves.

Happy Birthday, Keith

Today is Keith's birthday. Please join me in wishing him a good day with many many many more years to follow.

The Maine Event

Last week, Keith and I were in Maine enjoying ourselves immensely. Our friend, Rebekah, is from Freeport; she, her husband (Joe), and their daughter (Libby) were there for vacation and invited us to join them. We are certainly glad we did. Here's a sum-up:

Day 1

• Arrived in Portland to rainy weather.
• Spent about two minutes meeting Rebekah's parents before they went into the airport to board a plane for Fiji, which seems far more exotic than Maine.
• Had lunch at The Lobster Shack at Two Lights, where I had my first Maine seafood, a Fish Burger.
• Went to the Portland Head Light and did our best to enjoy and photograph it in the pouring rain. I, of course, had no rain jacket.
• Drove to Freeport and went almost directly to L.L. Bean, where I purchased a much-needed rain jacket and fleece.

Day 2

• Ate breakfast at Moody's Diner, a Maine institution.
• Had a picnic lunch and sailed around Frenchman Bay on a four-masted schooner, The Margaret Todd. We were fortunate the foggy weather cleared up long enough for us to have a beautiful day on the water. And the fleece came in very handy.
• Drove the loop road at Acadia National Park and enjoyed some of the beautiful sights the park has to offer.
• Ate more seafood at Geddy's (apparently pronounced "jetty's") in Bar Harbor.

Day 3

• Took a foggy drive back into Acadia National Park and drove to the top of Cadillac Mountain, where we did a little hiking in the fog.
• Went to Camden Hills State Park, where more fog obstructed our view of anything. I also gave Keith a scare: We dropped him off at the bottom of Mt. Battie so that he could climb to the top while we took the more leisurely mini-van route. At the top, I thought I'd be clever and climb down from the top to meet him. Little did I know that I was on the wrong trail. Fortunately, two things happened in our favor: 1. I told Rebekah exactly which trail I was taking, and 2. I turned around after not meeting Keith in 20 minutes. Unfortunately, I didn't have my phone with me, which caused my husband to have a little increased heart rate. The best thing was that I got far enough down the mountain to be below the fog and see the view I was supposed to see from the top.
• Ate more seafood.

Day 4

• Took a day to do some resting and shopping in Freeport.
• Partook of yet more seafood.

Day 5

• Went kayaking on the Harraseeket River, which is really a bay. Keith and I signed up for an L.L. Bean Outdoor Discovery School and did a little adventuring. Even though I was apprehensive, I found that floating on the water, propelled by my own power, was calming and invigorating.
• Chowed on more seafood.
• Took a brief hike at Winslow Park, which is a favorite of Rebekah, who used to run there. The park had excellent views of the harbor.

Day 6 (aka Independence Day)

• Got up early to cheer Keith on as he ran the L.L. Bean 10k Road Race. I'm very proud of him.
• Sat on the steps of the church where Rebekah's dad pastors and watched Freeport's Fourth of July parade.
• Enjoyed a good, old-fashioned Maine lobster boil at Rebekah's parents' house.
• Went to the free Patty Loveless concert at L.L. Bean.
• Watched the fireworks.

Day 7

• Learned that TSA doesn't care if the blueberry jam and syrup in your carry-on are just gifts for the people who babysat your dog while you were on vacation.

Photos from top: The Portland Head Light, Keith on the Margaret Todd, Rita at Thunder Hole in Acadia National Park, the Fanas at Thunder Hole, and Rebekah and Rita at Winslow Park.

I Love Alligators

We've lived in this house almost three years now. During that time, I've often wondered, even suspected, that we have alligators living in the two big retention ponds at the front of our neighborhood. Since every body of water in Florida has an alligator, it's a safe bet that these do, too. In all this time, though, I've never seen one here.

On Friday afternoon, Keith and I were returning home from an errand and saw a beautiful alligator crawling out of the water to do a little sunning. He was good-sized for our little retention pond, maybe four-feet long.

On Saturday afternoon when Keith went for a run, he was startled by a much smaller alligator hanging out in a storm drain.

Last night as we were returning really late--think midnight-thirty--from our Small Group, we turned into the neighborhood to find the little guy on a midnight stroll. He was kind enough to pose for my iPhone camera before running off before I could get out of the car and in his face.

Staffing Up

A great and celebration-worthy thing happened this week: Roger was promoted to Staff Sergeant. Congratulations, little brother, on moving on up in the world. I'm very proud of you.

Space Shuttle Atlantis Launches for 30th Space Mission

This afternoon, the Space Shuttle Atlantis left for its thirtieth mission in space. For the 2:01 p.m. flight, Monty and I hustled ourselves to the top of the church's hill property to get a good unobstructed view of the launch. Unobstructed except for the massive wall of clouds formed by the sea breeze just before 2 p.m. this afternoon. Just in time to interfere with our shuttle viewing.

We arrived just a few moments before actual lift-off. Jeff Cooper was there with a couple of his relatives.

Even though it wasn't the most visually impressive launch I've ever seen, there is something terribly powerful about the sheer force necessary to send those astronauts to the Hubble Telescope. We're cheering them on to another successful mission.

A Saturday Morning, Good Friends, and A Hotel Implosion

Keith and I gave up a good Saturday morning sleep-in to leave the house at 6 a.m. to go camp out on the side of the highway and watch the implosion of a giant pink skeleton of a hotel.

The hotel was built before Disney World was in existence, and Disney executives used the Colony Plaza Resort in Ocoee, Florida as sort of a headquarters while they were buying up property and planning the empire. The picture at the right is what the resort looked like in its glamorous hey-day. The picture at the left is what it looked like in the middle of its implosion.

When we moved to this area in 1999-2000, the hotel-turned-timeshare wasn't nearly as run-down as it is now, possibly because it hadn't been sitting condemned for eleven years yet. In 2005, when we returned from our time in Dallas, I think the hotel had already become home to West Orange County's homeless population. (Here's some guy's flickr account with pictures of the hotel he uploaded in April 2008 to give you an idea of what it has recently looked like.)

At 7:10 this morning, thousands of people--including Keith, Rita, our friends Rebekah and Joe Fana and their daughter Libby, and Jeff Cooper with his son Johnathan--gathered along the corner of Highway 50 and Maguire Road to watch the end of the once-glorious hotel. After the demolition crew's countdown, charges exploded throughout the second floor of the hotel, and then it collapsed in a roar and cloud of dust. (Here's somebody's YouTube video of the implosion.) A very dramatic beginning to our day.

When LOST Becomes Your (Okay, My) Life

Last night during LOST, when Eloise Hawking gave Daniel Faraday the fancy-wrapped box as a graduation present, I knew it was the journal he is always flipping through. I love journals; I knew.

But when he opened the box, I jumped from my chair and told Keith to pause the show. A brief rummage through my shelves of journals yielded this beauty and the ensuing photo opportunity.

Keith said, "Only in this house would we have that exact journal."

As of yet, my journal isn't filled with scientific scribblings and notations to find Desmond when my life starts zipping through space and time. It's not even filled with a loving inscription from a murderous mother. But it has so many possibilities, especially now that it feels it has a kindred spirit that contains all the answers to the island.

What Once Was Broken

Four things around here have been on the fritz in the past few weeks (or more, in some cases), so we've recently been about the business of getting everything fixed up and running smoothly again.

• Monty. In my opinion, this is the most important thing on this list. He's been ill with a variety of maladies for almost two months now and on antibiotics for about seven weeks. It's been difficult and sad to watch him suffer so. He should be running around the back yard enjoying himself, not moping and limping around like he's going to keel over any minute. We are well on the way to having most of the temporary issues remedied, which will only leave us with learning how to deal with the arthritis in his back.


• Car. Yes, my beloved mode of transportation started acting up a couple of weeks ago. Bad coils and/or coil wires. I got it back from the shop yesterday. It--and I--are both very happy now. Though, Keith and I don't have nearly as much money as we did yesterday morning.


• Sink Faucet. If you'll remember back to spring of last year, you may recall our kitchen makeover. After we installed that lovely kitchen sink and its equally lovely faucet, the faucet started leaking. Not a heavy, environment-killing leak but a slow, occasional drip kind of a leak. But we were so exhausted from three months of rebuilding the kitchen that Keith and I just decided to wait a bit before taking care of the thing. That was a year ago. Last weekend, we uninstalled the faucet and returned to Ikea armed with the faucet and the original receipt. Thanks to the original receipt and the ten-year warranty on the faucet, we now have a brand-new and leak-free faucet.


• Solar Panels. These are last on the list, because they're not fixed yet. They, too, have developed several leaks, which will require Keith to climb onto the roof and do some patching this weekend.

The Many Exciting Things We Did to Celebrate Easter

Usually holidays of all kinds are set aside for family around here. For some reason, we let it slip away this year with no regrets. But since it was such an out-of-the-ordinary Easter, I thought it should be documented.

• Awoke in the five o'clock hour (on a Sunday!) to attend a beautiful sunrise service on the hill property owned by our church, Avalon Presbyterian.


• Went to Wal-Mart to purchase ink cartridges so that I could finish printing the worship guides for last night's church service.


• Ate a nutritious breakfast of hot cakes and sausage (Rita) and breakfast burritos (Keith) from McDonald's.


• Attempted to diagnose why my car was misbehaving. Went to Advance Discount Auto Parts in search of spark plugs and an air filter. (Based on a conversation I just had with Roger, we chose the right place. Apparently, they are some of the only folks around who will carry in-stock various parts for my very cool car.)


• Keith took a nap while I did the print-and-fold job on the worship guides.


• I took a nap while Keith got started watching early Masters play.


• Keith took my car apart.


• Went to an Easter sunset service (not really). (If and when a photograph should become available, I will post it here.)


• Put my car back together and gave it a test drive around the block that got a thumbs-up and many atta-boys for Keith.


• Finished watching the Masters. It was a great day of high drama on the course, even if there wasn't much high drama at the Devlin house.
  

Discovery Launch

Tonight's Space Shuttle launch was spectacular. While our friends were congregating on top of our church property to have a nice hilltop view of the launch, Keith and I played loner so that we could come home and grab a camera. While I missed the fun of watching the launch with our friends, it was worth taking the effort to get the camera, don't you think?

Sunset launches are fairly rare and oh-so-beautiful. The sun's rays play dramatically against the smoke trail to great effect.

Each shuttle launch gives me a thrill and a pride in the human race, our country, and all the Floridians who work so hard to make this program a success.

Here's hoping and praying for a very successful mission.