My mother will not like this post at all, and it would even annoy me if he wasn’t so cute and adorably persistent, but since we got our new afghan for Christmas, Luke will not sleep anywhere else.
I’ve written before about my mother’s, what she would say is indifference, and I say is utter disgust for any animals outside of a zoo, so this is surely the last thing she’ll ever knit for me again. Glad I have the photos to remember it…thanks, Luke!
After two days of delays and one flat tire, we laughed Saturday afternoon away with spitting apes and peeing alligators at the Suncoast Primate Sanctuary. It was well worth the wait and the $20 Groupon price…love those Groupons! Just like letterboxing, they’re always taking us to new places.
Now some pictures of the other monkeys…
If you’re in the Palm Harbor area, stop by the sanctuary…they’ve been around for 60 years and need the funding. The sanctuary was different from what I imagined…although my expectations could have been a bit out of whack. When the Groupon read “admission for four and one bag of monkey feed,” I actually thought we’d be hand-feeding monkeys as if 275-pound apes were suitable for a petting zoo atmosphere. Instead you put the feed into chutes made from PVC or in cups attached to pulley systems.
Another expectation was that the monkey feed would come in some sort of pellet form, but it was Chex mix…literally. It was a Ziplock snack bag full of Chex mix, Cheez-its, popcorn, and animal crackers. It took us a few feedings to realize this guy would only eat popcorn. 
It’s weird to see animals eating processed food, especially when showing a preference toward one type versus another. Humans make the choice to eat or not eat unhealthy food. At the same time, funding is always an issue with non-profits. If the Suncoast Primate Sanctuary didn’t take these animals in, many would be put down. The primates come from zoos, research labs, TV sets, and even private residences. There are a few other animals the sanctuary takes in as well. We saw snakes, alligators, birds, and lemurs. 
When John held the alligator, a crowd quickly formed. It wrested a bit, but John got it flipped over on its back.
John was rubbing its belly saying, “Watch, I’ll get it to go to sleep.” One guy laughed at him and said, “Yeah, I don’t think that works with alligators.” And then a little kid ran up and yelled, “You’re killing it!” When John replied, “It’s not dying; it’s just going to sleep,” the kid shouted again, “You’re making it go to sleep!”
The next thing you know, the alligator’s head and tail are pointed to the ground and that baby was peeing a river. The skeptic from earlier says, “Well, you definitely relaxed him.” It was hilarious to the point of a stomach ache. This is the best picture from the moment; the others are blurred from shaking laughter. 
Dinner was on Cooper last night…
Not only did he catch it, he cooked it!
He fried the grouper and smoked the little fish on the hibachi.
The grouper was divine. The other three got mixed reviews.
Cooper was clearly a fan. His grin and the leftovers reminded me of the old cartoon cat that puts the fish in its mouth and pulls it out with nothing left but the spine. As for me, I don’t care much for heads on my plate. It started at the hibachi…their mouths were opened too wide and looked too circular. It was as if they were pleading with us, “Nooooooo!” Plus it’s a lot of work to eat a whole fish like that. You have to pull the skin back and watch for bones. Cooper looked like he knew what he was doing; John did not. Big men shouldn’t eat small fish…he was spitting out bones every other bite. Still, life and dinners are good when you live by the water.
Lucky for me, honey is sweet and tasty and it’s the thought that counts…my honey bee cake for John’s birthday party last night was a total disaster. This is what it was supposed to look like courtesy of http://aristolafood.blogspot.com…
And this is what it actually looked like…
Wha-wha 
The only redeeming aesthetic quality was the fondant and almond honey bees. They were very cute, but had they been placed in the center of the cake, they would have drowned. John suggested poking a hole in the center to drain the pool. It’s hard to even say what caused the pool in the first place. It was either the burning or the scraping.
As a child, I thought my mother was this great cook who never burnt anything. Then one day I caught her bent over the sink with a serrated knife scraping a black piece of toast brown again. I had been duped for years; why couldn’t I pull this off for one night? So taking a page from my mother’s waste-not cookbook, I scraped the top right off that cake.
And beyond a burnt bite here and there, the cake tasted nothing like it looked. What was left of the cake was moist and chocolaty with the added and distinct flavor of honey. Slightly different from the average chocolate cake, it was extremely sweet but delicious. I’ll definitely take another crack at it. And everyone with the exception of my father, who kept asking what was with that pool in the center, tried a piece. But who really cares about cake when the company is so cute?
We had all seen the parade before but never from the water. It was front-row, and it was fun. We tied up in a line of boats along the parade’s route at Marina Jack. 
There was dancing…
There was boat-hopping…
And there were lots of lights…
I don’t know who won the contest; although you can find out at Marina Jack restaurant. The trophy will be on display for the next year. But the birthday boy’s pick for the winner was this 1957 Chevy.
John’s birthday was yesterday, but since we love him so much, the celebration is being extended to include the whole weekend. That being said, it didn’t have the most glamorous start. They both start with a “g” but a garage sale is anything but glamorous. Unless, you spend some of your earnings on lobster.
And one was free! Lotsa Lobster is just South of the Sarasota Square Mall, and they’ll give you a free lobster on your birthday…but sorry, kiddies, you have to be 18 to indulge. You also have to spend $10, which is no problem considering their selection of fresh scallops, clams and fish.
With our bellies full of lobster and drawn butter practically seeping from our skin, we floated off to the Sarasota Boat Parade of Lights. The weather was perfect and the sun was setting as we made our way over to Marina Jack.
Sidebar for the house Katherine Harris is building. The word on the street is that it’s a house for entertaining not living. There’s supposedly multiple fireplaces and a large ballroom surrounded by balconies.
Now back to the joys of nature not inheritance…
I haven’t sorted through my pictures of the boat parade yet. To be continued…
Since I just posted a photo of a baby raccoon, I just had to post this photo of a baby…
It was an adorable treat delivered to my inbox courtesy of my sister-in-law. This is her three month-old baby boy’s hand next to a raccoon track, and only her husband and God know where they were walking to come across that track. Tie a cape around her neck, and she is Adventure Girl Adventure Mom now. But when she was still Adventure Girl, she and her husband macheted their way through the jungles of Thailand for fun. Thank God there are different types of people in the world because if I am ever macheteing my way through a jungle, my plane went down. They had a guide and still managed to trek so far into the thicket that they accidentally hiked into another country!
But back to the photo, raccoons and babies have strangely similar tracks – size and shape. Could it have been a baby crawling around my pineapple? I do see them around the neighborhood.
Lately I’ve been buying from King Farm at the Phillippi Farmhouse Market on Wednesdays. They don’t have a stand, but another farmer there buys from them. It’s convenient buying my heirloom tomatoes in Sarasota, but the Phillippi market can’t deliver this…
Smiling Ella! By happy coincidence, Cooper and I ran into my sister and niece at King Family Farm and Market yesterday after school. Sisters think alike, and we both love King Farm.
My favorite part of shopping local markets is finding fruit and vegetables passed over by supermarkets. Variety took a serious hit with mass production. There are hundreds of different tomatoes in the world; I see about three types at my local grocery store.
Yesterday’s discovery was Rangpur limes. They look like tangerines and taste like limes, but they’re not limes. They’re a hybrid of Mandarin oranges and lemons.
I wanted to test the sourness because my eyes couldn’t believe these bright orange balls could taste like sour limes, so I told Cooper to take a bite and grabbed the camera.
Yep, Rangpur limes are sour. The juice went into some mango salsa and I took a bite myself to be fair and because his first words after regaining the ability to speak were, “Now I get to hold the camera.” He didn’t get the camera out of me, but a sour bite, he did.
