As I have mentioned, I’m heavily involved in the nonprofit Homestead Center for the Arts. We have up to 30 artists and they are in a range of amateur to professional and work in different mediums. A couple are former art teachers and one artist took up painting because her mother was adamant she quit smoking and she was looking for something to substitute. Anyway, a little over a year ago, a couple moved here for the husband half to take a job with the Florida City government. (Florida City adjoins Homestead and is the last municipality before reaching the Keys). Terre Rybovich was an established artist in West Palm Beach and they had quite a bit to relocate not to mention her losing her studio. She’s shown all over Florida, in NY, and overseas. She hoped there would be available space to rent, but we lost that capability several years ago when we lost the last art gallery. With their decision to buy and remodel a home in Redland, they only recently became fairly settled.

One of the aspects of restoring the Seminole Theatre was to dedicate its considerable wall space to the Artist in the Spotlight program. Although the program is run by the City, HCA artists are frequently featured and the exhibits change about every two months. Terre was scheduled for last March when everything was shut down. So, she’s the first artist to re-start the program. She and her husband described her unique art and the fact it’s really big, but I didn’t honestly understand until I helped them hang the exhibit last week. In essence, she takes a huge canvas, covers it with charcoal, and applies part or all of her body. She then decides what part to leave or add and often also adds a bird to inject some color. Here’s a link to her website to get a better understanding. (https://www.terrerybovich.com)

I knew it had been extra hectic lately and didn’t realize I was days behind on posting. Yes, it’s the “usual suspects” as the popular line goes. Today will be only marginally better as I head out to cover a local event for the paper, but another thing I had lined up occurred yesterday instead. That, of course, wound up taking a few hours longer than expected even though it was a good deed. Anyway, among my tasks was getting the word out about the release of Idyllic Islands, now available on Amazon and B&N as well as posted to my website. I’ll get my copies in about another week; those I have earmarked for the ones who always receive signed copies plus a few extra to keep on hand for direct sales.

This is the fourth of the Chris Green books; the character I created in Shades of Truth and liked her so much I decided to spin her off into a separate series. That was why I featured her as the dual protagonist in Shades of Gold. I included a subplot to make it reasonable for her to leave Verde Key and go off on her own. I had already developed her character to be more of a “wandering type” and while not free-spirited, definitely more open to certain things than the character of Detective Bev Henderson. In fact,  when I wrote False Front (second Chris Green book after Deadly Doubloons) I did check with a friend and fan about Chris consistently entering into short flings. Not having been single for quite some time I wasn’t sure how that would play in my target audience. I was assured that didn’t mar her as a character. While a new interest isn’t quite the case in Idyllic Islands, there is a bit of a reflection about it as it applies to her relationship with Jeff. (No, I’m not going to say any more about that). This one is somewhat like False Front in that the clues to potential sinister events are not completely clear. Oh, and this is also a case where I actually made a major change toward the end based on my editor’s view. After you read the book, I’ll let you in on it.

It seems as if I have once again allowed extra days to zip past without posting. This is another case of having a full schedule and then, oops – gee, can’t you fit in this one other task? Oh, well, I guess I meant two; or really I suppose it’s three, etc., Not to mention I’m trying to manage to get a dive in before the end of the month. Okay, with that said, I’ll move on to the topic of the day which is I managed to not get reservations for an Eagles Tribute band performance at the Seminole Theatre as I had intended. In all fairness, I tried to get tickets a couple of weeks ago, but with the reduced attendance capacity of the theatre due to on-going COVID restrictions, the on-line seating function wasn’t working. I even went by in person a couple of days later to no avail. Alas, when I tried earlier this week, the site was functioning correctly along with the notice the show was sold out.

However, there is a potential silver lining. It so happens there was another performance I was interested in, but it’s for Apr 2d, and as there are already one (now two) more events scheduled for April we have to attend, I passed on the Swon Brothers. I decided on them as our back-up: “The Swon Brothers became the first duo to make it to a season finale with the help of their coach, Blake Shelton on the hit TV show, The Voice. In October 2014, The Swon Brothers released their self-titled album and received a nomination for CMA Vocal Duo of the Year. Shortly after, in 2016, they released their EP, Timeless and spent the year touring coast to coast in the United States and Canada with Carrie Underwood on The Storytellers Tour.”

I’m sure we will enjoy them and the only potential drawback is Hubby has been teaching a lot lately due to the usually busy spring break crowds. He may have full day on the 2d which means a late dinner after the show instead of dining beforehand as I prefer. Ah well, that’s easy enough to handle.

The word may not yet be familiar, but Homestead now has one. The full article about the grand opening of the Cybrarium will be in next week’s paper. I have of course written multiple posts about how deeply I feel about the value of libraries. When government at different levels look to cut funds, unfortunately, they can be prone to view libraries as a target. Our county did cut back some hours a few years ago during a crunch and thankfully were able to restore them. Our library here has always been modest and in an older building, but the County has a robust program for getting materials from other branches so it wasn’t bad. A few years ago, the City Manager envisioned something much more ambitious with the intent of making the Cybrarium appeal to the digital generation.

The new building opened yesterday, bright and airy and nearly 24,000 square feet with two stories. “Regular books” are available, but also Virtual Reality capability, a Children’s Theater complete with a digital “wall” atop the stage to allow for special effects such as rain falling if that is part of the story/play.(Yes, they will have adult shows, too). Later in the summer, there will be a Book Mountain, which is a two-story high interactive sculpture where apparently a young astronaut will read books or talk about them or something (I’m a little unclear on this). Then there is the Steampunk area, complete with more books, art, displays, and a special lounge where they have 3-D printers.

While some older people may be a bit reluctant to enter initially, there’s no questions kids of all ages through teens (and of course their parents) are going to be drawn in. This is a City initiative and so people will need to have a separate card, but there is a reciprocal agreement with the County and everyone will still have access to the county library system.

Have a peak: www.cybrarium.org

The other day, we – as in a group of friends – had the discussion about e-readers versus real books. I’ve posted about this before, but it’s been a while and I will add an extra note at the end. We did hold off on buying Kindles for a few years after they came out and are a couple of generations “behind” the newest versions. Although the original reason to do so was because I had a fan who insisted I publish an e-book edition of my books, we quickly appreciated what others had been telling us all along. I don’t own a tablet as I have my regular laptop and a smaller laptop for travel. The point about tablets is because the Kindle app and I think now Nook (Barnes and Nobles e-reader) can be downloaded onto a tablet as well as a smart phone. That eliminates the need for a separate e-reader if someone already has a tablet.

Storage space and travel (notwithstanding all the restrictions of 2020 and into 2021) are what I like about the Kindle.With our many bookcases filled to capacity and the difficulty in finding a place to take used books, being able to store hundreds electronically has definite benefits. Yes, I do still like the feel of a “real book”, but that doesn’t take priority over practicality. The other thing though about real books is the ability to quickly flip back through if I want to re-read a passage. I haven’t found an easy way to do that with Kindle. Oh yes, being able to increase the size of the font with an e-reader is handy,  too.

E-books have also opened the way for many authors who decide to self-publish because costs to do only an e-book are significantly less than to do even a trade (paperback). That of course can lead to the debate of all those books that probably shouldn’t be published, but that’s not the point of this post. And speaking of costs, I refuse to read newly released best sellers on Kindle because the price of $14.99 (standard) is ridiculous. I know what it costs to do a Kindle conversion. What you are paying for at that price is the name recognition. Wait a few months and it will drop.

Yes, I have owned two Mercedes, a Saab, and a Jaguar. Now in all fairness, they were all “previously owned”, three of the four purchased through Carmax. The first Mercedes was when we were in Germany and it was a “European Spec” which meant certain things would have to be modified to bring it back to the U.S. Rather than bother with that was when we bought the Saab convertible. Not only bought it, but did the deal where we went to Guttenberg Sweden to pick it up. We had transferred to Italy at that point. So here was the deal. The price of the car included delivery from Sweden or the other option. Train from Italy to port of Hamburg (I think it was). overnight ferry to Guttenberg, pick up the car, overnight stay, then drive back. Daytime ferry for return trip. Since we went on a Saturday and the factory wasn’t open, a lady from the factory delivered the car to the hotel. This was all very civilized. It was also the first time we’d done a high-speed train which was a nice experience, too. It was winter though so a bit on the chilly side. Clear, however, which meant we did walk around and Guttenberg is a charming place. Our son enjoyed it because the TV shows were in English with Swedish subtitles. Yes, he did walk around with us, too. The drive from the port back to Italy allowed Hubby to get a good feel for the car and we spent the night in some hotel in Switzerland close to the highway.

As much as I loved the Saab, unfortunately, it was not designed for hot climates and I had serious mechanical issues with it when we left Virginia for Hubby’s last assignment in Puerto Rico. I went with the second Mercedes when we came back from there and then had a most unfortunate accident on the Turnpike. No injury thanks to great Mercedes engineering, but car was totaled. That led to the Jaguar. Again, loved the car, but I erroneously thought we had a dealership closer than we did. Getting service and repairs became truly annoying. There was also the matter of running premium gas. At that stage, I said, “enough”, and returned to my Ford roots. What brought all this to mind was the two-day Porsche events this weekend. Yesterday (Friday) was at the Homestead-Miami Speedway and today is car show at Schnebly Winery. We aren’t going due to some other things scheduled, but if it’s successful and they return next year, it might work out for us.

I think I’ve previously posted about my love of reading which of course led me to the desire to write. We didn’t have a lot of extra money, but the library was easily accessible and my maternal grandfather (the judge) had a wonderful library. While there were lots of legal/law books, he had plenty of others. Everyone in the family read to at least some degree. My favorite aunt was a librarian and specialized in children’s literature. She sent a copy of “Pat the Bunny” to me when son was born and that was the first book I ever read to him. In her card, she said it made no difference he wouldn’t be able to understand for a long time; reading to him was important.

Jump ahead a few years as he was learning to read on his own, yet he went through a time when he didn’t seem interested. I turned to my same aunt either during a phone call or a visit and said this puzzled me. She said that children will sometimes hold back from reading on their own because they think it will mean no more “parent-child story time”. I took that to heart and kept up the shared reading until one summer not long after when son became an avid reader and basically said he was too old for story time.

Jumping ahead many more years, a few weeks ago, my daughter-in-law sent a video of her with granddaughter as she was making her way through a little book. She was doing pretty well and only needed help with a couple of words. The other day, daughter-in-law posted this to Facebook, “I’m pretty proud of my kid’s reading skills. We’ve read to her every day since birth and now she’s a master.” They don’t have a very large condo and as much as I would love to shower her with books, I’ll see what they want to do about some sort of e-reader to supplement “real” books.