Belles of Montebello Place

Cheers, y'all from the gals in my neighborhood, Nedy, Dee, Yvonne and Billie. Billie called one Saturday morning and asked if I could come over for an impromptu luncheon. You betcha! (said I.) We live in a wonderful neighborhood with caring, generous neighbors. We cover the gamut of races, religions, politics and ethnicity but (surprise!!!) we get along.

We periodically have gatherings on the green across the street from our houses. Everyone brings food to share and the beverage of their choice. The last one we did was a Halloween costume cocktail party! What a hoot! Most of the women showed up in some kind of costume and some of the men did as well. Nedy organized the party and had a bunch of us come to her house for cookies and punch to plan the event and make decorations!

Some people may find all this togetherness a little much and prefer their privacy. That's OK, but if there is another hurricane season like we had in 04 and 05, I want to be with my Montebello neighbors through it! In '04, Bob and I were returning from Maine and heard about the storm. We stopped in St. Augustine on our way and it was like a ghost town. That was a really scary warning. After a nearly sleepless night Bob insisted that he wanted to be home. I guess he thought we could protect our house if anything happened. We stopped in a Winn Dixie on the way out of St. Augustine, bought a few (very few) supplies, gassed up and hit the road. We were driving south and saw the near standstill traffic driving north. What is wrong with this picture???? Well, we got home, stopped at the cash machine (They tell you to have cash 'cause the power could be out. What they don't mention is that the stores probably won't be open either!)

I digress...after the storm, Billie and some of the other neighbors pulled all the food out of their freezers and had a huge barbecue in their driveway. Anybody who stopped by got a burger, some ribs or whatever. It was incredible. A lot of screen enclosures got blown apart and trees were down. All the neighbors pitched in to remove the debris.

Anyway, in this season of thanksgiving, blessings and thoughtfulness, I'm so grateful for the folks in my neighborhood.

Book Worms Take a Road Trip

My book group is made up of five women. It's a closed group because five is the number that best fits into most standard sedan-style cars.
And, although we all love to read, we also like to do
other things. Recently we decided to take a road trip to
Epcot Center at the suggestion of the sister of one of our
members. The plan was to take in Epcot for the day,
enjoy the "Candlelight Dinner" package and go to the concert at the end of the day, followed by the end of the day fireworks.

It's a two hour ride to Epcot from where we live so we left at 7:30 a.m. TS and KL (I promised them I wouldn't use their
names) hardly slept a wink they were so excited! TS, who is
always late (we call her the late Mrs. S) was sitting in her
garage when JB pulled up in her Chrysler whatever (I don't
know much about cars and I don't care much about cars
as long as they don't look too hideous, don't break
down and get me from point A to B.)

We arrived at our hotel in Lake Buena vista by 9:30 a.m. without incident or getting lost (JB has a GPS but that's another blog entry...) It was my job to check in since I'd booked the hotel with AAA and pre-paid it with my credit card (yeah points). I told the "girls" to stay with the car while I checked in. Although I had told the AAA travel agent that we were interested in all staying in one room, she didn't think it would be a good idea for us to all show up at the counter. Our reservation did say 5 people, by the way. Our room was ready and we moved in. We had enough provisions to survive a hurricane!

We hopped on the bus and spent the next 12 hours walking "around the world" as my granddaughter said on her first visit to Epcot. We had purchased the candlelight dinner package and, alas, were sadly disappointed that we were unable to get the restaurant of our choice. We settled on Chinese food and realized it was among the few remaining choices because people don't typically pay a lot of money for Chinese food. Unfortunately this Chinese food was extremely disappointing so perhaps those "in the know" realized this.

The concert was very nice and done in typical Disney style. Our ticket entitled us to preferred standing room to view the fireworks. We were getting pretty tired by fireworks time, which were amazing, and we still had to find our bus back to the hotel. We did although we had a bit of a wait. We didn't talk much on the way back. But upon entering our room, we managed to get a second wind and enjoy our snacks, apple-tinis, exchange gifts with one another and laugh a good bit. JB made a toast to our road trip ...may this not be our last!

We are already thinking about our next trip.

On the way home we talked about a book
that several of us had read Still Alice a story
about a woman with early onset Alzheimer's

disease.

Here we are: me, MA, JB, TS and KL.

We are "BFFs"!

Bob's Big Birthday Bash

Bob had a big birthday December 12th. So, I planned a big birthday bash. Martin Downs Sports Resort provided the food, Publix did the BD cake and Joe Renta of Show Time Entertainment did an awesome job as DJ. (See below!) Who knew "old folks" could dance like that!!!!

Betty Boop, Stained Glass and Stuff

Hi - someone got an e-mail from me and sent me a note to cease and desist. I apologize. I don't know who he is and I did not deliberately send him one, many or any e-mails. Sometimes I share these postings with Facebook and I haven't a clue how they could 'screw' up who sees these items I post. If you don't like what I post, A) don't read my blog, B) let me know, C) let your ISP know that you are receiving e-mails from someone you don't know and you couldn't care less about hearing from. I hope I've handled this issue!

Now, more important matters. The Stuart Branch of AAUW (look it up if you don't know what AAUW is... you know Google, don't you??? ) had a meeting today at the picturesque Dolphin Restaurant in Jensen Beach/Sewall's Point. The place was decorated for the holidays and the staff couldn't have been more helpful. The featured speaker was Margie Murphy. If you have read this blog, you will recall me making references to Margie back in October when I first met her. Well, Margie came loaded with stained glass pieces to educate, elucidate and sell. And, she didn't do too bad! A number of the women bought pieces, including me. Who knows where it might go from here. Anyway, I NOW have a picture of Margie's wonderful Betty Boop piece and here it is (See above).

AAUW also took in 100 pounds of food for House of Hope and over $600 in miscellaneous contributions for SafeSpace (for battered women) and House of Hope. Way to go ladies!!! Our community is awesome!

Read Anything Good Lately?

A member of my book group picked Smoke Screen by Sandra Brown as our opening book for the 'season'. (Remember, I live in Florida where the seasons correspond to the travels of snow birds.) I got into reading SB and found I liked her style. She writes murder mysteries but her style is not totally predictable and her stories don't always occur in the same place.

Then I read Still Alice, a heartbreaking story of a woman who develops early onset Alzheimer's Disease at age 50! Scary stuff!!! The author, Lisa Genova, holds a Harvard PhD in neuroscience and is an online columnist for the National Alzheimer's Association.

My husband gave me a book with the suggestion that I might like it, it's brief. It's Mitch Albom's for one more day. Humm...it looks very interesting. This is a library book so it'll be my next read.

When that's done I'll read The Color of Lightning by Paulette Jiles. My husband and I will be her escort for BookMania, an event held annually (since forever!) at the Blake Library in Stuart. This year BookMania will be held Saturday, January 23rd at the Blake, of course. Check out the Martin County Library System's website (www.library.martin.fl.us) for more details about the program, authors and the schedule. Books will be available to buy or bring your already purchased books for the author to sign and personalize. Oh, BookMania is FREE. Is that awesome or what!!!!

If you love rubbing shoulders with authors, and love your cocktails as well, spring for the $75 to attend the Library Foundation's Signature Event (www.libraryfoundationmc.org) the night before (Jan. 22nd) also at the Blake. The theme for the 'pre' event is Hot Havana Nights!

Let me hear what you love to read! I need suggestions!