My sorrow, when she's here with me

Oh how I hate Robert Frost.

It's been an interesting week of ups and down. To begin with my uncle nearly died. His appendix ruptured and infection spread through out his entire intestinal area. He was held over night before being operated on and is very lucky to still be alive. We went to visit him in the hospital and it was a heartbreaking thing to witness. My uncle is mentally ill and didn't seem to have a real grasp on what was going on. It was sad to see him there with tubes running all around his body, but he did keep calling the nurses "waitress" so I suppose there's a little humor to be found in everything. He'll be there for a week for two depending on how well he recovers.

Most of the last week was spent outside of the house and in the southern tip of Florida. We went to Holiday Park which is an RV park where you can watch alligator wrestling and camp over night. A herd of peacocks lives in the park and you can see them wandering around the tourists or perched on the railings above the picnic tables crowing at each other. Hearing the sound of a peacock's cry when you're walking through the reeds and swamp ground can be oddly unnerving.


Twice we went to Everglades National Park which is one of the large national parks like Yosemite or Yellow Stone. The place is massive and can take hours to drive around. I liked this place the most out of all the destination's I've visited recently. There's all kind of paths and detours that seem somehow separate from each other. There's Flamingo Key where you can sit by the docks and watch Crocodiles sunbath. You could take a tour down an elevated walkway that cuts through a half mile of swamp land filled with alligators. I saw dozens and dozens of them laying asleep on the shore. Tourists from around the world come here. I heard English, German, Japanese, Chinese, and Australian accents to name a few. But then in the midst of all that you can drive down an empty dirt road tucked away in a side path, and end up by a small lake that casts a blue tint on the canopy above and nothing moves. Even the wind seems to hang in the air. A place like that makes you feel like you're the only person left in the world.

We went Friday and then back again on Sunday because we missed the tour of the Nike Missile Silo. It's a decommissioned nuclear launch sight that was build during the Cold War should we have needed to launch missiles at Cuba. We were informed by the guide that the missiles formerly housed there were of the 40 kiloton variety. That figure may sound abstract, but consider that the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were only 15 kilotons and you get the idea. The nature of sin is a funny thing. You have this tiny island that gets taken over by greedy men with silly ideas and decades later this tiny little island threatens to cause a nuclear war. Had we had to bomb them most of the southern tip of Florida would have had to be evacuated due to the fall out drifting back towards us, and most of the animal life in the glades could have been killed. All in the name of socialism.


After we took the tour my parents went back to the alligator pit and I went off by myself down the Gumbo Limbo nature trail. The whole mile long or so stretch runs under a canopy of fern trees and thick strands of hanging moss. I was mostly alone there, passing only a few older couples going in the opposite direction. The place was sort of incredible. It was strangely cool there. Not the dull sort of cold that of everywhere else, but an unusual cold that seemed to have a tinge if warmth hidden it, and there was no breeze so the woods remained still and silent. It was kind of like walking through some enchanted forest in a movie. It was all very haunting in a sort of way.

Speaking of haunting I was going through some emails last night when some kind of suggestion thing popped up on the right hand side along with a name. In my owned buzzed sense of interest I went over to Facebook, popped in the name, and there was that pair of equally haunting eyes. That marked my second sentimental intrusion involving a woman that day. I sat for a long while and just looked into her eyes and traced her features with mine. She never seemed to like the way she looked, but I always thought she was stunning. If or when she reads this she'll probably be angry. I've always found that despite women's constant attempts to intrude into a man's emotional center they always seem to find sentimentality in a man repulsive. At least my every attempt at the emotion has always been treated with a certain contempt as if the act of thought was intentionally perverse. I toyed with the idea of sending a friend request, but everything I just wrote slowly began to occur to me, and I decided not to. That person decided to stop speaking to me, and I may never know exactly why, but then maybe she doesn't either. It's just funny how something as simple as a pop up in your email box can lead to a rush of conflicting emotions. Still I wonder at times when I'm alone and I get just a little sad. I'm not sure how this sounds to any one else, but it's a compliment in a way. A person makes a certain kind of impression on you, a very unique one in fact, and sometimes things just linger in the back of your mind. Like those eyes.



Beyond this I seem to be sort of between hobbies. I've been doing a lot of reading lately, playing games sporadically here and there, working on music and movie reviews, and using my shortwave radio. I brought the radio with me out to the park where there would be little interference. I had a little luck the first time, but on the second trip I pulled it out by a small lake and got signals from all around the world. Parts of Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Canada, and I even found an English language station coming out of India. I go home and bookmark these sights after I find them. Many of the international stations have live streaming as well as audio on demand. It's fascinating how something I spent ten dollars on has opened up my world so much. I've learned about famous Ukrainian citizens, heard aboriginal Cuban music, listened to readings of Italian short stories, and of course it's always interesting to hear a foreign perspective on American news. For instance no one in Germany seems to understand why Barack Obama hasn't been able to accomplish most of his pre election agenda or why he hasn't started walking on water yet.

It goes to show you that even though things in the United States seem fairly silly at times the rest of the world is just as, if not more so, silly. Try looking up the Chinese peoples concern over the red envelopes children receive during the spring festival. As funny news items go apparently thanks to the recession Florida has seen a decrease in annual shark attacks. Less money means less people at the beach and less people at the beach means less people to be attacked by sharks. I suppose it makes sense.


On a different note as far as my new movie reviews are concerned I should have a half dozen up by the end of the day. Like I mentioned I've decided to write something like short hand reviews so none of them will be more than two paragraphs for the most park. I'm also trying to teach myself Morse Code! I downloaded a program for it. Who would have thought? Now if only we can survive this month.

Lets remain sentimental together.