Typical Bostonians, Celebrating my Birthday

Florida Wrap-up

A manatee in Homosassas Springs. Note the gash from a boating accident.

Yes, again it’s been a while. The story this time is that my computer started hanging out with the wrong crowd, and crashed with them one too many times. It finally made some trendy new friends, and we’re now all on better terms. So finally, before it slips away, I can put down my thoughts and pics and scathing judgments on Florida.

The ladies who were cast as the Queen of the Night in Magic Flute. Angela Andrangna, Melissa Perez, and Natalie Polito.

So as a rule, everybody’s got be somewhere, right? And no matter where you go, there you are. So you can argue that it doesn’t really matter where you live.

This, I imagine, is what Floridians say to themselves every morning, to help them get through the day. Not that I’m ragging on the sunshine state, far be it from me to ever express a negative thought. But while driving around Florida this summer, past cow fields crowded out by soulless housing developments; past the big box stores that offer the only opportunities for civic interactions; past the roads designed expressly for trucks and cars, forcing away bicyclists and pedestrians; I couldn’t help but muse: did we really need to take all this land away from the Seminoles?

Here’s what I mean: once while being driven (on our daily 40-minute commute) by a Florida native, I asked what was being built on a vast block of dug-up land by the highway. “They’re building a new neighborhood.” A housing development of anonymous boxes that are produced overnight is what they call a neighborhood around here? Apparently. I realized after a while that we were witness to the American ex-urb, the stretches of land beyond suburban boundaries once used only for farmland and considered too far to commute. Across the country they’re cropping up......

The shot of the "bad guys" from Flute. Rebecca Conviser and Emmily Becker are the other ladies, Melissa Perez is the Queen, and Randyn Miller is Monostatos. Yes, I have to learn to do my makeup so I don't look like a clown.

For a bunch of opera divas cooped up on a small, dry, fundamentalist Christian campus, the exurbs yielded little fun. Going to Starbucks with a friend (Kate Fay, one of the Paminas) one evening was the peak of my social outings. And interestingly enough, the place was packed with locals, perhaps seeking a little camaraderie outside of their bedroom “neighborhoods.” My colleagues had other plans, often involving drinking and YouTube. And taunting the alligator living in a nearby pond. Their antics (and ubiquitous empty beer bottles) enraged the campus staff, who grew less enamored with us week by week.

Kate in a little "Italian" ice cream shop near the dorm. The wares more closely resembled Pennsylvanian water ice.

To burn off that hangover, our other diversion was a trip to the YMCA, which was located within walking distance. The place had the feel of a prison rec yard, as we would return again and again to channel our frustrations into more positive energy. I became rather buff, if I may say so. More entertaining than a jaunt on the treadmill was an observation of the clientele. Who knew that mullets were still in style? Maybe I should start wearing eye makeup to aerobics class too? Maybe fat really is the new thin?

Food was an ongoing conundrum. Our cafeteria produced some astonishing successes towards the beginning of our stay – tender roast pork, baked chicken, good soups – but seemed less interested in pleasing us as we grew more restless and obnoxious – hot dogs, mac and cheese, and take-out pizza. They also had interesting interpretations of nutrition. E.g., the salad bar consisted of mostly meat. After a week of fresh green beans, our evening vegetable was switched to frozen corn. This was usually served with mashed potatoes, which likely contained more butter than spud. Did anyone tell them that they’re both starches, not vegetables?

Here I am with the other singer named Amanda this summer. Others identified us in conversation as 'big Amanda' and 'little Amanda'. We are both barefoot in this picture.

To compensate, on Sundays after church I would buy peaches and vegetables from an old farmer with nine fingers and four teeth. He would set up shop by the side of the road near where we stayed (one saw many farmstands like this), and support the limited drive-by clientele who, like me, couldn’t bear the thought of buying their produce at Wal-Mart. He sold me a football-sized avocado, some disappointing hot house tomatoes, but his real treasures were the Georgia peaches. I would take them home, still warm from a day in the sun, and devour a ripe one with vanilla ice cream. The rest I let ripen on a shelf above my bed, and I often would fall asleep to wisps of peach fragrance.

(Here, I must mention the Albert Herring “sex” scene jumps into mind. Poor Albert resents the flirting lovers in his shop, and what’s Sid really offering?)

Sid: Have a niiiice peach
Nancy: Oooooh, can I really?
Albert: Those are six pence each!
Sid: Here take two, I’ll stand the damage.
Albert: Two peaches at six pence, that’s a shilling please!
Sid: I think I can just about manage to squeeze out a bob from the firm’s petty cash.
Nancy: I won’t eat them now, they’re so ripe they might splash.
Sid: You can bring them tonight, and we’ll each take a bite, to flavor our kisses with a dash of peach bitters.
Nancy: That sounds just delicious.

And here's the production's very own Sid (Bryan Martinez) and Nancy (Liz Bouk).

To break the monotony of the caf, we would take ourselves out for local samplings. Naturally, the problem with this strategy was that there were hardly any local places to patronize! As in most places in America, towns that are developed overnight are offered up to the highest bidding chain establishments, which is almost exclusively what we found along the highways. Decent dining has yet to hit most places of the country, I concluded, so people feed themselves without knowing what they’re missing. The pack of Midwestern girls who had been giving me a ride to the theater were craving Taco Bell, so I drove the additional 45 minutes with them while they ate their “just add water” beef, and I rustled up a wilted salad from the local Kash n’ Karry. They also introduced me to my first Steak n’ Shake, whose products were greasy and lackluster, respectively.

Though I did have quite an impressive experience at a Chick-fil-A, whose name I’d been mispronouncing all along. Happy staff, clean place, packed with people, and fairly decent food that seemed less evil than most fast food fare. I later found the reason for this. According to their website:

Our official statement of corporate purpose says that we exist “to glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us and to have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A.”

That wasn’t a chicken sandwich I had that day. It was the cutlet of salvation.

After a closer look, there are some pockets of local color. Most significantly is Tarpon Springs, a Greek community that had started growing in the early 1900’s, when sponge fisherman started coming to the area to profit off of the burgeoning natural sponge industry. I went with Kate, who is from rural Pennsylvania, and after we poked around the touristy shops I introduced her to her very first taste of Greek food- spanikopitas. At a nearby strip mall, I found a Maryland crab restaurant that had never left the 1950’s. In the same place, the 2 Chef’s Cafe, run by a pair of portly cousins, kept me happy with barbeque pork sandwiches, sweet tea, and “cheese crusted chicken.” (Hey, when in Rome.)

The people, for the most part, were notably friendlier and more helpful than Northern inhabitants. Towards the end of my stay there I thought it would be entertaining if I tried to go out and find me some fine Floridian man. “What????” Gasped all my colleagues in horror, for they had all met my beau, and no doubt knew that I couldn’t find finer than him. I assured them that any manhunt on my part would simply be a jest, an exercise, a challenge, a lark destined to go nowhere. I actually looked at it as a charitable act: what local boy in rural Florida wouldn’t count himself lucky to be showered with attention by an opera singer?

In the end, my mission failed. No one noticed me. Not the tattooed, mulleted, baseball-capped gym monkeys populating the YMCA in the middle of the day. Not the good Christian men, loosening their ties at a chain restaurant on a Friday night. Not the big jobs in grimy T-shirts in a smoky bowling alley. But really, I can only blame myself: I didn’t pursue them either! While it was fun to joke about, I knew that any conversation with the local dudes would be pretty, freaking, BORING.

The meatheads who rejected me, outside a strip mall bar on my last night.

The beautiful blue flowerbushes I saw everywhere.

It's Amandatee! More pics and a link to my nature photo collection coming soon!