Gkikas, as in Chris Gkikas.
My first SCOTS show…. amazing! Skipper’s Smokehouse is an intimate little venue with a few bars, heated chiki-huts, and barnyard style seating for smallish shows, though I’m sure the place can pack up pretty well. Southern Culture on the Skids is an amazing band, and we got to chat briefly with them after the show. I LOVE small venues for reasons like this. The Demolition String Band was the opener, and they rocked pretty good, too!
Well, it was our first Bowl Game experience. It wasn’t what we had hoped, unfortunately, and the reason only occurred to us after the fact, after we’d wondered what was missing. The game took place in Orlando — not Gainesville. Had we been in the Swamp, the game would’ve likely had more of its desired, characteristic craziness, that thing we’d been longing to experience. Overall, we had a good time, but next time it’ll be in the Swamp, with REALLY LOUD Gator fans.
I let the dog out just now. It’s 7:45pm, and the sun has just dipped below the horizon. The sky is a shade of steeled blue, gradually fading from a soft powder, zigzagged with telephone wires strung from poles, up to a nighttime brand of grayishness. There’s been weather lately — the intense, wet kind. This cool, slightly breezy dusk has me standing in the backyard looking upwards, as usual.
I’d seen them before, the bats. Every once in a while I’d see something zip across the evening sky, and I thought it to be a bat. But I haven’t lived here all that long to know whether I’m seeing things or not. In Gainesville, there was an official “Bat House” run by UF on their campus to house several trillion bats that had heretofore been living inside the cavernous vaulted ceilings of the football cathedral, terrorizing the fans. I was expecting to see bats in Gainesville. Sarasota… I didn’t know.
But tonight (tonight, whoa-whoa ~Phil Collins) they are everywhere. Zigging and swooping and divebombing and careening and chirping their little sonar blips of “where’s the bug” as they come out for breakfast. Dozens of them. These little rubber birds (much like moths are dusty butterflies) that live somewhere else, who knows where, overlap my life in the briefest of fleeting moments. It’s this little window, when the light is right, that we cross paths. And it’s nice.
The tree in front of our house blooms like this. No leaves, just flowers. It’s beautiful.
In unrelated news, I’ve heard back from one of my oldest friends, Mike. We haven’t spoken in probably 7 years, I’m guessing. Out of the blue i get an email from him, and we’re planning on having the inevitable marathon chat soon. Seems like all sorts of things are abloom.
So my little sister’s visiting this weekend, and she’s never seen the house before so I want the place lookin’ tight. Lawn needed mowing, so I hopped to it, but remnants (bands, they’re calling them lately) of Tropical Disappointment Ernesto arrived quickly and cut my efforts short. Only the front got finished, and no whacking or blowing (I love the multi-entendre of lawn care parlance). Enough lightning to make me answer the question, “Nope, I’m not a gamblin’ man.” And the pool looked so inviting.
