Okay, when I offered to take friend up for a medical appointment/procedure, I forgot there would be a major bureaucratic angle. Well, not forget as much as not think of. So, first sunny Florida is not so much today; although it may be clearing as I write this. At least I didn’t have to drive during rush hour and we’ll see what happens on the return. We get in and get parked and now we discover the restriction on no family or friends with the patient is still very much in place. Oh, and the usual nice waiting areas are no longer available. I did bring the notebook computer anticipating a long wait. What I did not expect was the wait would be outside where chairs – not what one would call comfortable – and a couple of tables are. No access to the cafeteria, but there are small bottles of water in a chiller. No outlet and I’m not sure how long the charge on the computer will last. I should be able to make it at least through this post. I did also charge up my little recharger for the phone in case I need to resort to that. Since the table I’m sitting at is wet and I don’t have many tissues in my bag, I could only wipe off a portion and can’t get my mouse out. This little notebook is a bit tricky with using the cursor. I’ll have to be careful not to inadvertently delete items as I type. Anyway, it’s working for now and that’s what matters. I found it interesting that even though we had our masks on, they handed us new ones. I suppose that does make sense from their perspective. After all, they don’t know where ours have been, how often they are washed, etc.

The next issue will be when I am supposed to go join my friend as she has never been to this place before and the other times I have been were in other parts of the very large building. At this point I am outside on the ground floor and she is upstairs somewhere on the second floor. Added to that, she may have more than one procedure and I don’t know if that will be in the same area. As I said in the title; a new experience. Close out; the rain held off for a while, we did reconnect and there will be a follow-up appointment at a later date.

On the other hand, despite rain all the way back. there was a late lunch – well, more like a Happy Hour that included wine.

A comment from a friend triggered another memory from many, many years ago. I’ve explained how I was what I call “an inadvertent pioneer” during my Army career and that I was part of the Army Ordnance Corps by basically an odd set of circumstances. In case you didn’t read that post, that was the maintenance side of the Ordnance Corps. My initial official category was as a “Tank, Ground Mobility Material Management Officer”. Anyway, after leaving Fort McCellan, AL where they put us through what was essentially a Basic Course, I went to Aberdeen Proving Grounds, MD for two separate courses. The Ordnance Officers Basic Course was where all of us were together. That was three months; then those who were in Ammunition, Missile Maintenance, and Explosive Ordnance Disposal went off to other locations for the second part of training. That meant I was at Aberdeen for six months. The staff (called a cadre) obviously got to know us well in that amount of time.

Our post office boxes were in the same building as the company headquarters and so the cadre (who were all Captains and Majors) often crossed paths with us between training sessions. One of my girlfriends and I were standing outside the building talking on a day with quite a few clouds and it was just starting to sprinkle. We were almost through with our conversation and one of the cadre hurried past to get into the building. We saluted smartly and he turned as he was under the overhang and said in tone between amusement and exasperation, “You two do realize don’t you, they say second lieutenants don’t have enough sense to come in out of the rain.”

There really wasn’t much we could say in response, so merely saluted again and didn’t get too wet as we finished talking.

Many people reading this blog are already familiar with me being in Homestead Center for the Arts. If someone is new, our situation is we lost all our art galleries in the Real Estate Bust that started in 2008. We held onto a couple and then they relocated as well. We then partnered first with the Capri Restaurant and their Gallery Room to do exhibits about every three months, then one other restaurant which unfortunately didn’t survive the COVID-19 closures. There is also a City of Homestead Artist in the Spotlight program that uses the extensive wall space in the Seminole Theatre and our artists are often featured.

Anyway, our very talented volunteer Ellen Reese suggested we try Facebook Live for one Capri exhibit since we had not been able to hold receptions during COVID. It worked fairly well and even though we had our first in-person Meet the Artist reception Thursday (May 15th) for the exhibit, “Birds”, Ellen suggested we do another Facebook Live show 30 minutes before the in-person. Other than we didn’t appropriately take into account background noise as some people came early, it went well. We had three of our artists on camera and I gave a quick bit about each artist for the others. We would have had two more on camera, but a heavy rain storm blew through delaying them. They did arrive for the in-person portion so that was the most important thing. This format is allowing a greater reach, especially as we have a number of artists in Kendall and Miami and the drive down can be a real pain at times. I think we’ll maintain this and see if our reach continues to increase.

The two pieces shown here are Hubby’s photo of three white pelicans in the Everglades (we usually see only the brown ones), and a parrot by Ada Catala done in a technique of “piecing”. It is what it sounds like of doing a collage with tiny pieces of paper. Most of our artists have a page in our Gallery at https://homesteadcenterdorthearts.com

Two Pieces HCA “Birds”Exhibit at Capri Restaurant May 2021