If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting Suncoast Scribe!

As I teach my own daughter to write, I am focusing on helping her develop clear, tidy script. And, it is making me think about how many people I know who have handwriting that is so bad I cannot generally puzzle out what they are writing.

At school, there are kids who hate to write longhand so much that they will do just about anything to gain access to a computer to do their work. Of course, there are those students who are permitted to use a computer as an accommodation, but more often that not the student in question simply hates to write and had atrocious writing.

I had five pages of names I needed to transcribe this afternoon and when I was halfway through the first page I had a shocking realization. These names were not written by students; they were written by teachers. It was shocking how few names I could decipher. It was like trying to get through pages and pages of the worst physician handwriting you can imagine.

Where has the art of penmanship gone? Does it matter to anyone anymore? — aside from the fact that it matters to me?

I had head from a few friends that it was considered one of the better public elementary schools in the north end of the county. It’s not in a particularly bad neighborhood, and the stats show a lot of two-family homes feed the school. Even so, Friday was still a pretty frightening day for everyone at Leila G. Davis Elementary School in Clearwater, Florida.

A LOADED handgun was found in the backpack of a KINDERGARTEN student by a teacher’s assistant.

A loaded handgun in a kindergartner’s backpack.

Wow.

It turns out that the six-year-old found the loaded gun in his grandparents’ bedroom and brought the gun to school to show his friends.

So far, the word is that criminal charges will not be filed. Even so, the school district does have a policy that any child who possesses or exhibits a gun at school will be suspended and recommended for expulsion.

I know a lot of people might keep a loaded handgun in their bedside table, but that is one of those things you need to change once you have a child living in your home. I know when my daughter was born; guns in my hone were moved and stored differently. It seemed a like a no-brainer.

Isn’t there some sort of penalty for the grandparents who have the child living with htem? This seems like the logical thing to me.

As we close in on tonight’s World Series game, people around the Tampa Bay area are alive with the excitement that tends to unify a region. It’s funny to think about last season or even the beginning of this season and how people all over the area looked at the Tampa Bay Rays as a colossal joke. You never saw Rays t-shirts being worn. They could not even give away tickets to the game. And now…, now everyone is their biggest fan.

The irony amuses me.

At the same time, I love seeing the excitement in the kids at school. Even at my daughter’s elementary school I can find signs that say “Go Rays!” nearly everywhere I look. At the high school, the kids are more subtle, but the excitement is surely bubbling underneath the surface.

I haven’t watched any of the games, but I do wish the Rays the best of luck,. It would be thrilling to see them win the big one. This is such a young, enthusiastic team. They know they have a lot to prove and it’s been encouraging watching all that pay off for them.

I thought it might be nice to go back to my roots and just write a blog article on one of the many merits of Florida in general.

People ask me all of the time when is the best time to visit Florida. I’ve got a few answers to that question, based on what you want to get out of your trip. In general, though, I would have to say that there is pretty much nothing more pleasant and paradise-like than October in Florida.

At the beginning of this past week, the humidity all of the sudden just dropped off the map. The skies took on that deep blue color that you only find over large bodies of water. The citrus trees let forth more fragrant blossoms and the daytime temperatures cooled off just enough so that shorts are still comfortable, but a cool breeze still baths your exposed skin.

People who maintain one home in Florida and one up north are called “snowbirds”. There is a reason that most snowbirds find themselves back in Florida in October. The white hot of summer is past us, but we still have a couple of months of warm weather ahead. It’s marvelous.

Today I opened all of the windows in the house. It’s cooler than usual right now and a chill breeze is wandering through the house. I can smell orange blossoms on the breezes and in a couple of hours; the night blooming jasmine will join the symphony of fragrance.

Sometimes I miss living back up near Washington, DC. I suppose it’s the deep of summer that makes me most nostalgic, or when someone up there tells me they just had their first show of the winter. Other than that, I have no regrets about moving to Florida. You just cannot get this kind of perfect weather up north, ever.

Since it is Star Fruit season once again, I want to start posting some new recipes. I’ve been taking bags and bags of ripe Star Fruit into the school and the students are going nuts for it. I learned my lesson, though, and now they have to come to me either at lunch or after school to get the fruit. Otherwise, they are eating it all day and it’s distracting.

Sweet Star Fruit Relish

8 cups thinly sliced star fruit
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups cider vinegar
1 tablespoon whole cloves
4 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Wash and thinly slice star fruit. Make sure you remove all seeds and tougher skin or membrane. Cover with cider vinegar and let stand overnight.

Drain off vinegar. Combine star fruit with sugar and salt. Add cloves. Cook gently to the consistency of preserves. Let stand overnight.

Remove spice bag and reheat mixture to boiling. Pack into hot pint jars. Wipe jar mouths and adjust lids. Process in boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes.

Makes about 5 pints.

We all know what the Amber Alert. It’s the very successful child abduction alert system used when the police confirm that a child has been abducted.
We can now welcome the Silver Alert. It was enacted today in Florida and will function much like the Amber Alert broadcast system, but it is specifically intended to be used when a person age 60 or older with dementia or another cognitive impairment goes missing. It can also be used for people between the ages of 18 to 59 if they have “irreversible deterioration of intellectual faculties”.

Florida has a large elderly population and I am very happy to see the Silver Alert finally be put into play. I hear about local alerts concerning missing elderly people all of the time and this system will give law enforcement the tools they need to better communicate across regions and between agencies.

You know that super cheap gas I blogged about yesterday? Well, it’s drawn a lot of attention all around the Tampa Bay area.

The local papers ran a story about the low price at this particular station. And, due to all the people who wanted to get in on the deal blocking traffic in the area, the local police ended up stepping in and giving the management three options:
1. devise a traffic plan
2. hire off-duty officers to direct traffic
3. let the police impose a traffic strategy

The station’s management did not choose any of those options. According to police, their corporate offices told them to raise the price per gallon. Management for the gas station, however, said the price increase was due to getting a new shipment at a higher price.

Bummer. I guess that’s why it was higher when I went by this afternoon. (When I went by at 6 a.m. today, they were out of everything except diesel.)

In any event, it’s still the best price in the area.

I know that gas prices are way down all over the place, but today I was on my way to pick up my daughter from school and I saw up a head a few blocks a snarl of cars in the road. I looked a little harder and realized it was a backup of people trying to get into a gas station. I looked at the sign for the gas prices and saw they were selling regular gas for $2.89 a gallon. No wonder everyone was crazy to get in on the deal.

So, here is my dilemma. Is the price that station is offering worth my time and effort to get in the car snarl for my turn at the pumps? I am considering leaving early tomorrow morning to see if I can get there before 6 a.m. and avoid a line. Of course, I am not even sure they will be open then.

What would you do?

I have not worked outside the home five days a week in about eight years now. I’m absolutely, positively worn out. Being a stay-at-home mom to an infant and toddler tired me out, as well – but it was a different sort of tired.

Either way, this is a new chapter of my life, much anticipated, much appreciated, and just a little bit fraught with the unknown. My daughter will be in before and after school programs for the first time in her life and we will both be waking up around 5 a.m. Of course, the early wake up time will be a lot like when she was an infant, so I am not all that unprepared.

It wasn’t so long ago that people here in the Tampa Bay area did nothing but complain about the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team. That was back when they were still called the Devil Rays, before the days of Evan Longoria (brother to Eva) and other newly lauded players. People dissed them, they were the butt of jokes and it seemed like there was absolutely nothing they could do to sell seats to the games.

Things have changed now. I suppose the locals are fair weather friends. Now that the Rays have made it to the playoffs, people are taking off work and skipping school to watch the team in action just a couple hours from now. Start time is 2:30 pm.

The websites for our local television stations are all decked out in Rays colors, with most of the front page information devoted to the team. Fans have been showing their support this week by getting “Rayhawks” – essentially Mohawks – on the sidewalks outside of Tropicana Field.

Fan loyalty is a delicate thing, though. I have to wonder what will happen in the future if there are bad season ahead.

This afternoon I went into my daughter’s Kindergarten class to volunteer. Her teacher was introducing the October book box and had a lot of Halloween and autumn decorations out on a table. Halloween! October has crept right up on me and I suppose now it is finally time to give in and buy the costume my daughter has been haranguing me about.

Gigi wants to go as Hannah Montana this year. I’m still mentally mourning the fact that this is the first year she did not want to be a Disney princess. I dressed her as an angel for her first Halloween, but she has been a princess since her second Halloween. Not only was aI hoping to reuse one of the costumes in her dress-up chest, I also think I have been holding onto the innocence and youth of the princess obsession.

I broke down and bought a long, blonde wig last month for the Hannah Montana costume, and I have some funky tights and shorts to make up some of the other aspect of her costume. Gigi has a cute pair of old school black high-top Chucks, too. But, I want to consult some online Halloween Costume Stores to see if there isn’t anything cute I can add to the costume that I do not already have.

I have Gigi the weekend before Halloween as well as Halloween itself this year. My sister and my best friend and I will take our kids to one of the massive, annual Halloween community celebrations here in the south part of the county the weekend before. Hundreds of businesses set up in a gigantic loop and give out the coolest candy and freebies. The, Halloween night I will go up near where her Dad lives and meet up with some of my friends and go trick-or-treating in my old neighborhood. That way I can just drop her at her Dad’s afterwards for his weekend.

By the way, I skip the local Halloween stores in favor of shopping online. I have found that the prices and the selection are just unbeatable when I stick with online stores. Besides the better shopping selections, there are generally easy returns and free shipping available when you order a certain amount of merchandise. Why drive to the stores and spend my precious time going from shop to shop looking for the just he right items when I can do it all from my comfy computer chair?

I regret that I do not have more time to seek out the wisdom of those around me who have the benefit of having lived many years. I lived in Florida where we are surrounded by the aged. However, my life generally feels too busy to stop and listen.

Last night I was at the library with my daughter. I lost track of her and finally found her having a grand old time with an older man in the DVD section. They were laughing and trading stories and making movie recommendations for one another. When I walked over, he introduced himself and I was gladly invited into the conversation. Mr. Stein is 82, it turns out, and as we stood chatting I heartily appreciated his stories. As we talked about today’s economic crisis, he relayed his own memories of being a child during the Great Depression. He remembered the men on his street who hung themselves after losing jobs, he remembered the people who took jobs digging ditches, only to keel over dead from heat and exhaustion. He remembered the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) and people putting in vegetable gardens. He learned a way of life that lasted all his years, and that he passed to his own children.

We talked also about life up North, day trips to enjoy the Civil War Battlefields, the museums in Washington, DC and cool fall weather.

My daughter has a particular affinity for the elderly. A friend of mine says that it’s a gift. I hope she will glean more wisdom from her interactions with the aged than I have so far.

My daughter is really taking off academically. I have had her in preschools for two years where they had an advanced curriculum and lots of structure, but until now she was just not ready to focus on reading, writing, and such.

Two weeks ago I noticed she was showing an extraordinary interest in math. I bought some workbooks so we can work past the stuff they are doing in Kindergarten and she is positively excelling. Math might just be her gig, which makes me pretty happy. Her fther and I were both more geared toward reading and writing. For us, math was something we were good at, but it took some extra work.

This past weekend, though, Gigi broke down and started writing out her full first name. Until now she would just write Gigi, because her real name intimidated here – it has 9 letters. She just suddenly broke through a barrier, though, and announced she is ready to use that name all of the time. She is also spending hours upon hours with a pencil and paper just sitting and sounding out words. Of course, she is using invented spelling, but you can totally tell what she is trying to write. It shows her phonemic awareness in blossoming.