Four-fifty-three a.m. and still pitch black dark outside; cool, forty-something Fahrenheit. The Fahrenheit scale (/ˈfærənˌhaɪt, ˈfɑːr-/) is a temperature scale based on one proposed in 1724 by the physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686–1736) and we're stuck with it, too obtuse to think Centigrade, which makes a lot more sense to an orderly mind, Celsius after a Swedish astronomer. Or would we rather do Kelvin after a Scots-Irish baron? At eighty-seven and losing count, I'm sticking with °F and miles, feet, yards, inches, ounces and pounds. Inside: Bubba with a lap robe blanket and a mug of hot & black.  Ship passing inbound. Per the vessel schedule, it's Bahama Spirit 614x105 bringing aggregates from Freeport. Loaded, she's always so heavy and deep draft that the pilot picks up a tug at her stern to help with steering and forward motion. Boarding three miles out in the open Gulf in the darkest wee hours, that pilot captain earns his keep, I hope they pay him a ...

  The world is discouraging - - not life itself, "Life is Good" as my orange hat reads, nor "Life Itself: A Memoir" as film critic Roger Ebert summed up his own life story that I loved because it took me to so many places of the heart where I also had been in my own life. No, the world around me - - not Creation, Earth and the Universe, but the world of people. Genesis 6:5-7 and, as my seminary theology professor put it, "How does God stand us?" Already for many years not a television viewer, now it's to scrolling past the online newsfeeds that come to my computer desktop, how much discouraging news does a person need, can a person take. Throw in the towel on life, or tune out; and life itself is too good to miss, so it's tune out.  In the world of man, hatred and violence are so discouraging that it's Time to take refuge in a hermitage, not as The Hermitage of Andrew Jackson, but a hermitage: the remote, small, quiet dwelling place of a hermi...

  David, who has been taking care of Harbour Village since its beginning twenty-something years ago, walked up yesterday just as we parked the car at the lobby door and got out to start unloading. While we were away, David was overseeing the work going on in 7H and above us as HOA's contractor, a leak specialist, worked to identify the source of the water leak that's been plaguing us since Hurricane Michael. David said the contractor did indeed find where the water has been coming in, and that it is scheduled for repair. This was good news and a tremendous relief to us. During earlier work by a different contractor, the shutters had been taken down, then reinstalled upside down. Which is not exactly a major problem when Russia is bullying Ukraine and folks in Fort Meyers are in shock after Hurricane Ian.  Still to be repaired is the hole that, a couple years ago, was cut over the window where the water was intruding, but the piece is here on the floor beside me, so l...

  For a couple whose home is 7H, arriving home is always a joy, today concluding our happiest little vacation Time in years! Not a moment's stress except for me with Tass driving from Wakulla Springs to her home in north Tallahassee alone dark night, until her text "home safe & sound". Being a father is a lifetime work of love.  Tass had it planned out by the hour, from lunch at the Lodge, the river jungle cruise at Wakulla Springs, supper at a Greek cafe, with Tass, Charlotte & Jeremy at the football game, sitting next to the Trojan Band and enjoying their superior halftime show, lunch with Tass & Caroline at a Japanese restaurant with most excellent sushi, shopping stop at Trader Joe's, shopping at an enormous new wine shop the size of any supermarket, visit to their home where we'd not been since covid or the hurricane.  Sunday dinner at Angelo's classy seafood restaurant by the Ochlockonee Bay Bridge near Panacea,  beginning with a doze...

  Xaipete &  in Greek, "greetings" and other glad welcoming feelings.  Hebrew, "shalom" generally taken as "peace" but a range of glad senses and feelings, harmony, wholeness, completeness, prosperity, welfare and tranquility, ultimately perhaps, to destroy the authority of chaos - - when messiah returns we will have this kind of peace on Earth. What? on the wall, those two and a dozen or so more foreign language welcomes to folks at Yasou ("cheers"), the Greek style Mediterranean cafe in Tallahassee where Tass took us last evening before the football game. I had a bowl of their excellent chicken and lemon soup but brought a takeaway order of dolmades, rolled grape leaves stuffed with ground lamb, and had that and some of Linda's lamb on a skewer for breakfast this morning. And, yes, I would go there again and possibly even make it my go-to place if we lived in Tallahassee.  Which we considered before moving to 7H, and I considered again ...

  We saw a manatee! The Florida Park Service man who drove our jungle cruise boat maneuvered up close for pictures and a good look. I remembered them as gray, but this one looked white to me. We had the most fun yesterday! Tass came at eleven, we visited in the lobby, had noon-day dinner in the Lodge dining room, then walked down the path to the boat dock, sat on a park bench under trees, enjoyed the dark blue sky, the trees, and people walking by, until Time for our boat ride. Years ago, a meteorologist friend told me that a white blue sky signaled high humidity and a dark blue sky low humidity, and sure enough. Low humidity, mild Florida fall temperature, an idyllic day. Wakulla Springs is loaded with visitors on summer days, but October is perfect, fine weather, and almost nobody here. Peace and tranquility. Tass snapped most of these pics, all of them on the boat ride. The tour boat captain explained how nature controls the alligator population. The birds eat the baby alli...

  Eight o'clock in the morning, Wednesday, 12 October we left 7H and Harbour Village on our first vakaschönische* adventure in years, after Tuesday's adventure watching and listening to the contractor engaged by our HOA to locate the source of the leak that's allowing water into 7H over the front window. On the premise that everyone's a character of one sort or other, his rapid, high volume chatter was fascinating. Least, his lengthy testimony, once he realized I am a retired priest, about having been saved by the Holy Ghost years ago and Scripture guiding his life; most, his stories of growing up in Louisiana swamp country, shrimping in the Gulf, and, unlike here in Florida where the fried mullet is scrumptious, never eating Louisiana mullet, because its taste is mud, strongly muddy. He worked until six o'clock Tuesday evening, left heavies behind, so was to return and continue work in our absence. Leaving 7H at 8:00, we were down the elevator, Linda's car load...