We have more juicy local “celebrity” news here in the Tampa Bay area than you can shake a stick at, proverbially speaking.

Can you believe two years have passed since the sentencing of Debra Lafave? She is the former Hillsborough County (Tampa, FL area) English teacher who pled guilty on November 22, 2005 to committing lewd and lascivious acts after admitting to having sex with a 14-year-old student.

Lafave was 24 when all of that happened. Now, at 26, she is finished with two years of house arrest with no violations. The deal she struck with prosecutors would have had her under house arrest for three years followed by seven years of sex-offender probation. At the time she was looking at a possible 15 years behind bars.

The deal was enabled by the fact that the kid’s mom decided she did not want her son to testify or to be subject to the trial being broadcast on Court TV. A psychiatrist examined the teen said he suffered extreme anxiety from the media coverage of the case. I suppose before the media attention he was just suffering extreme bragging rights

Part of that deal allowed her to ask the courts to commute her last year of house arrest to probation if she completed the first two years without incident. She and her attorney are expected to file the request in the next couple of weeks, though it is also expected that her request will be met by an objection by both prosecutors and the victim’s mother.

She spent her time working at a Danny Boy’s restaurant in Sun City Center and then at her mother’s barber shop in Ruskin, both here in Florida.

Lafave is never far from controversy. Former Backstreet Boy Nick Carter (yet another disappointing Floridian who grew up in the Tampa area) claimed on The Howard Stern Show that he lost his virginity to Debra Lafave when they went to school together.

Well, she is a virtual doll. My daughter loves loves loves the Cartoon Doll Emporium and their virtual dress up dolls. She recently hit a new pinnacle of excitement when we discovered that CDE has a Rachel Ray doll. You see, my 4-year-old is a Food Network junkie. She discovered cooking shows a couple of months ago and now she often chooses the Food Network over Noggin or the Disney Channel. The, she asks me to cook what she has watched being prepared. My little foodie in the making.

You’ve heard of monthly wine clubs before, but have you ever tried one? Has someone gifted you with wine? If not, I’m here to give you a small taste of what the clubs offer. I was able to sample this month’s offerings from the Gold Medal Wine Club’s Gold Medal Series. This subscription gives you a monthly taste of California’s best small premium vineyards. The wines always come from family-owned boutique wineries and would be close to impossible to get otherwise. I’m certainly not going to find these gems on a Florida market shelf.

I was impressed at how carefully packed the wines were. They arrived in impeccable shape, in compartmentalized cartons, and wrapped in bows to boot. They were accompanied by literature that assisted me in learning more about the wines. Most impressive is the 8-page newsletter The Wine Press, which entirely dedicated to the bottles I was given. Both the 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon and the 2004 Merlot came to me from Madroña Vineyards, in the Sierra Foothills of California. This family-owned endeavor has been producing wine for their own label since 1978.

When I first tasted the Merlot, oaky was my first thought, but then when I read a little about the wine I see that it is aged 20 months in oak. Well done, that. But the oak quickly subsided as I found the flavors warm and rich, densely fruity and absolutely bringing the characteristics of raspberry and sweet pipe-tobacco, as it so claims. Most pleasing is that there is little to no aftertaste. This is a dry, clean wine. I credit the flavor of the grapes in this wine to the fact that Madroña is probably the vineyard at the highest elevation in the entire United States (which makes me think I would love to try their Reisling).

The Cabernet Sauvignon is spicy, herbed, and musky. It is absolutely perfect for pairing with a steak. In fact, the suggestion is strong that it is making me want to fire up the grill and serve some heavily spiced filets. Remember that our sense of taste depends so very much on our sense of smell. I have a *highly* developed sense of smell and that affords me a sensitive palate as well. For that I am grateful. For me, tasting anything (especially wine) starts with the ability to take a minute and smell the nuances of the item in question.

What I can tell you is that the wine is high quality, the pricing is more than fair, and the opportunity to try a wine from a boutique vineyard is thrilling. For a very reasonable price, you can give someone you want to spoil a gift that lasts 3, 6, or 12 months. The selections are varied and exciting, and you can count on the quality and low production rate.

If you are looking for a Christmas gift and cannot zero in on the perfect thing to give that hard-to-buy-for individual, I seriously recommend you think about wine.

We don’t have basements here in Florida. So, as much as I want to use the garage for my cars, I just cannot do it right now. We had one car in the 2-car garage in my last two homes, but now that I am sharing a house with my mother space is tight.

So, the garage acts much like your northern basement – storage and crafting and sometimes even our sewing room. I got some great heavy-duty plastic utility shelves (no issues with rusting if they are plastic) and we have them lined up in rows, like at a store. It’s nice and tidy out there. The real coup, though, is that one of the medical offices down the road put a healthcare cart out in the trash last week. They are in perfect shape, so I can only assume they got the budget for upgraded versions. You know what I’m talking about? They are the heavy rolling carts that either have multiple shelves or sometimes drawers. You see nurses pushing them around and they are usually for medical gear and lab equipment. I asked if I could take it from the curb and it turned out they had several they wanted to toss, so now we have some spiffy new carts for storing smaller items, tools, and household cleaners. Niiice.

Do you have any storage tricks you use in your basement or garage?

It’s that time of year again. I was sitting here in front of my computer last night, pouring over the information on the new health insurance plans I have to choose from (my current plan is being phased out by WebMD), crunching numbers, and trying to make sure I get similar coverage – when the phone rang. It was my ex and he was doing the same thing on his end. He was trying to figure out what plan to take from his employer for himself and our daughter. I offered the best advice I could, since my opinion was that his plan would have been much better for a single adult who never gets sick and never needs travel insurance or expensive medications. And it looks like he will be switching plans as well in the end.

I’m grateful to have access to a group health plan. Once this timeframe runs out for me, I will need to either pick up an individual policy or work out of the home full time. That last option might just be fine, because by then Gigi will be in school all day and my reasons for being at home with her will be slightly different. As hard as it is around here financially right now, I will be able to look back and say without a shadow of a doubt that I was there for my daughter when she was young. I choose to give her me over giving her a big house right now. She has love and time and health and nurturing. That’s more than I ever expected to be able to give her as a single-mom.

Man, VH1 Classic is running Ramones Raw right now. I had to finally turn it off and make myself get my computer in order for the night so I can head off to bed. It was hard. The Ramones are my absolutely most iconic rock group. They personify my youth, my teens, my innocence. I cried for 8 hours straight the day Joey died. I just sat in front of my computer listening to Ramones songs and bawling. That signified an end of an era for me.

It’s so hard for me to look at concert footage and remember that Joey, Johnny, and Dee Dee are all gone. In my heart, they are so alive that I almost forget sometimes. They’re my boys. I feel young and happy and free and alive when I am listening to the Ramones.

God bless them.