The 25th Annual Feast Of Little Italy

I attended the 25th annual Feast of Little Italy in the Abacoa neighborhood of Jupiter, Florida this past Saturday afternoon. This is an annual event that celebrates all things Italian, including food, music, and art, and attracts a very large crowd. And everyone seemed to be very enthusiastic about being Italian - it looked to me like half the crowd was wearing Italian themed tee-shirts or hats to show their pride. I suspect - but cannot swear - that a lot of people from New York and New Jersey, many of Italian heritage, have moved to South Florida over the years, accounting for the huge turnout every year. The only other Italian festival I have attended was Festival Italiano in Lakewood, Colorado, just to the west of Denver. Lakewood, to me, is an ugly suburb, but does have two things going for it - Belmar Park, a 20th Century history park, and Belmar, a mixed-use development similar to Abacoa that now functions as Lakewood's downtown area. Belmar is located on the site where a shopping mall called Villa Italia once stood, hence the origins of Festival Italiano. This was also a very popular festival but was discontinued during the pandemic and never came back. Belmar has been facing foreclosure due to financial struggles (evidently the people of Lakewood prefer tacky West Colfax Avenue to Belmar for their shopping needs), which perhaps explains why Festival Italiano has never returned.

But back to the Feast of Little Italy. The entertainment part of this festival took place at the Abacoa Amphitheater, which includes a stage where singer Philippe Harari, a singer and real estate developer, no less, along with his wife Bobbi Rae, were performing, and a greenspace where there was a beer garden, as well as tables and chairs for people to sit and enjoy the music. And bordering the amphitheater was an entire block of food vendors selling every kind of Italian food you can think of, although, as you can see in the photograph on the right, a French Macarons booth was allowed in, too. I'm not exactly sure how that happened. They should be more careful next time. In any case, it was a fun way to spend a couple of hours on a pleasant, sunny day in South Florida.

Rushing The Season - A South Florida Tradition

This past August I went into the Home Depot here in Stuart, Florida, and noticed that the entire front of the store was filled with Halloween items, ranging from skeletons to cackling, full-sized witches to God knows what else, a full 3 months before that scary holiday. And this past Wednesday, I was driving down Rosemary Street in West Palm Beach's CityPlace neighborhood when I saw that they were putting up Christmas decorations, including the tree in the photograph on the left, three full weeks before Thanksgiving. Let's face it - it is all about making money. The commercialization of Christmas is not a new thing, but all those decorations, Christmas trees, and Christmas Muzak seem to appear earlier and earlier each year. I also noticed that that tree at CityPlace has a large entrance, and I suspect that inside there is where Santa Claus will be setting up shop.

And that is the exact spot where what they call the Water Pavilion is located, where children go to play in the water, while their parents sit in chairs on the lawn and watch, as seen in the photograph on the right. Far be it from me to question the judgement of a major mixed-use development like CityPlace, but if Santa Claus's workshop is located over what is a fountain the rest of the year, is it too far-fetched to think that some grinch might discover where the controls to that Water Pavilion are located, and on one particularly busy day turn that water back on, soaking Santa, his helpers, and all those kids and their parents? Kind of like that scene in "It's a Wonderful Life" when some kid opens up the retractable floor on the basketball court during the senior dance to expose the swimming pool underneath, and Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed fall right in. If it was up to me, I would move that tree off to the side, onto the lawn, to avoid tempting a prankster from doing just that. But that's just me - I always tend to look for that dark cloud behind every silver lining.

The November Mutt of the Month

I took the photograph above of the November Mutt of the Month at the Tennyson Fall Fest in Denver's Berkeley neighborhood last month. This was a really nice street festival, but what made it even better were all the dogs walking up and down Tennyson Street past the vendor booths. And why so many dogs? Because they had a costume contest for dogs earlier that morning, bringing out all those mutts in force. And why wasn't this dog wearing its costume? I think because the day was so warm and sunny that the animals would have suffered if they had kept those costumes on after the contest. In any case, this dog seemed perfectly happy to pose for a portrait and even gave me a big smile. And so, thank you for your cooperation, Mutt of the Month!

The November Issue Of Chicago Magazine

I just finished reading the November issue of Chicago Magazine - the online edition, of course, since only people still living in the Chicago area can get an actual physical copy - and have come to a startling conclusion: Chicago Magazine and its readers are obsessed with food. Four of the last eight issues have had cover stories about food, with the latest, the November issue, being "Breakfast." Besides this article, which goes on for many pages, there are also articles on "Table Settings," "Why do Chicagoans despise Ketchup?" and "Tableside Carts Making a Comeback." There is also a review of a Puerto Rican restaurant called Culebra, and another review for Muhajir, which serves south and southeast Asian cuisine (dinner for two averages $250, a real bargain!), with a suggestion by the author to request the waiter to secure you a seat at Bobo, the adjacent speakeasy, for afterwards. Regular Chicago Magazine readers must spend their entire lives doing nothing but eating and drinking.

Personally, I would recommend the Beacon Pub, located just down the block from my first apartment, a studio in west suburban Forest Park. I used to walk past this place all the time on my way to the "L." I never ate there, but since it appears to have survived the 50 years since I last lived in the neighborhood, has an online rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars, and costs an average of $10-$20 per person, how can you go wrong? I took the photograph on the right of the place in 2010, the last time I went back to Chicago. But I digress. This month there is also an article titled "Bike Lane Backlash," about the controversy of eliminating car lanes and parking along Chicago's streets to put in bike lanes. Besides the traffic and parking problems this causes, it appears that conservatives feel bike lanes are another form of DEI and strongly oppose them. Is there anything that isn't political anymore? However, I do have sympathy for the anti-bike lane people. All the parking spaces on the block where my condo building in Denver is located were eliminated for bike lanes, and now there is nowhere for guests to park, as well as for me when some idiot parks in my spot. Finally, there is a feature article titled "American Pope," which is an excerpt from a new biography recounting Pope Leo's early years in South Suburban Dolton, Illinois and how the Catholic community there shaped him. Basically, Pope Leo grew up in a very religious Catholic family, went to mass twice a week at St. Mary of the Assumption in Riverdale and soon became very involved with the church. No surprises there. The most interesting part was reading about all the places in the South Suburbs of Chicago I am so familiar with - Dolton, Riverdale, Glenwood, Chicago Heights - from when I lived in nearby Country Club Hills for 10 years, before finally making an escape. All in all, an interesting issue. Be sure to pick up a copy if you are lucky enough to have access to one. Of course, there is always the online edition as a last resort. Just deal with it, as have I. Kind of.

The Sun Has Returned At Last! - Time For Paragliding!

The sun has returned to South Florida after days of heavy rains and widespread flooding, and so I decided to take a drive down to Jupiter to check out the beach, which is miles long and really quite impressive. And found that there were a bunch of paragliders in the air over the shoreline, one of whom can be seen in the photograph on the left. The wind was quite strong along the water, providing perfect conditions for them. And I wasn't the only one taking photographs of the action - there were a number of beach goers taking photos, too, talking about how much fun it must be, and wondering what it would be like to try it themselves. It looked to me like those paragliders were all by themselves, and not part of an organized group, and so if someone wanted to try out that sport on the beach, you might very well be on your own. Which would be scary. However, back in Colorado, I know that Lookout Mountain, just above Golden, is a pretty popular spot for paragliding, and there are companies like Golden Paragliding that provide lessons for beginners, which is kind of tempting. It does look like a fun sport, after all. However, I imagine they charge money for those lessons. Probably a lot. That and the fact that I might die are the only two things holding me back.

Attending The Fall Fun Fest In Port St. Lucie

This past Saturday, during a rare break in the near constant tropical downpours that have been occurring here in South Florida as of late, my sister Susan and I visited the Fall Fun Fest taking place at the MIDFLORIDA Event Center in Port St. Lucie, Florida. Port St. Lucie is not my favorite town here on what is called the Treasure Coast, which stretches from Jupiter on the south to Sebastian on the north. It is the 6th largest city in Florida and is more or less just one humongous suburb. There is no downtown, just endless businesses along US 1. There is also no port. They do have nice parks and walkways along the still undeveloped North Fork of the St. Lucie River, but hanging out there all the time can get pretty old pretty quick. In any case, the Fun Fest had a lot of carnival rides, as seen in the photograph above, a midway with carnival games to play, live music, and lots of food booths. You could also head into the events center itself and do early voting. We did go inside, but did not vote, since we are residents of Colorado and already voted, and don't want poor Donald Trump to have still another thing to complain about. No doubt he would have found out. The Fall Fun Fest was family friendly and very well attended, which is not surprising, given the limited things to do in Port St. Lucie. It was fun to walk around and do a bit of peoplewatching, but we did avoid going on any of those rides, which would be very unadvisable if you just had lunch. A pleasant way to spend an hour, but no more, unless you wanted to take your chance on those rides.

Election Day!

Today is Election Day, the day we have all been waiting for, if not to learn the direction this country will be taking over the next 2 years and beyond, but at least to finally see the end of all those damn political ads that have been on the television for what seems like forever. Down here in Florida, those ads have been particularly vicious. It seems like everyone running for office down here is hopelessly corrupt, out to harm the middle class, seniors, and families through punishing taxes, or simply wants to destroy the country they hate so much, since they are socialists or communists. Political ads for Pia Dandiya, a Democrat, and Casey Askar, a Republican, who are running for a seat in Florida's 22nd Congressional District, have been on television non-stop lately. One of Askar's ads, seen in the photograph above, starts by showing what I believe is Fidel Castro marching through the jungle, and then switches to a banner saying "Businesses Seized!," accusing Dandiya of being a Socialist. For her part, one of Dandiya's ads shows her saying that she wants to lower costs and preserve Medicare and Social Security, all of which I never considered to be socialist. And to think only a few weeks ago my main concern was whether the Chicago White Sox would make it to the next level of the Major League Baseball playoffs (they didn't). In any case, I very much want to see what the end result of this election will be. Will Trump's Golden Age for America continue? Will the Democrats gain control of the House and Senate and put the brakes on his iron-fisted rule? Will America become a socialist state? And more importantly, will there be a Major League Baseball lockout starting December 1st, when the MLB collective bargaining agreement expires, endangering the 2027 baseball season, just when the White Sox have become competitive again? Many of these questions could be answered tonight. Or not.