Days Seven and Eight

Drove to Tampa to visit my Aunt Carmen. She's the quilter. I think the photos will say it all:

She collects sewing machines, and has about 7 or 8 of them. Here are 3. This is one of the projects she is working on now. This is all done by hand. No machine work at all. You can see more pics at my Flickr.

Then we drove to another town to see my other aunt, Emi. She's the golfer, as you can tell by her skin color.

Day Eight: My Lamp. We went to a local thrift store. I was carrying around a bunch of stuff and walked out the store with this lamp and book. A total of $3.00. The lamp was marked for $4.00, but I was charged $2.00 because of a crack it had, and a buck for the book. What a find! The problem was that I couldn't bring the lamp home. I was afraid of bringing it home on the plane. I'll bring it home the next time I drive back to NY. My dad's girlfriend plugged it in for me and made sure both sockets worked. I didn't want to do it at their house in case it blew a fuse... I just don't know what kind of shades I'm going to get for it. Now I wish I would have taken a couple of better photos too.

This is what Scott bought. This is the perfect example of his personality:

After that we went to a Super-Joann's. That is what the lady at the cutting station told me. I love that store and it's only half a mile from my dad's house. I bought so much there it was obscene. No photos allowed. Then we drove to Ybor City in Tampa. It's an old neighborhood in Tampa where most of my family and I grew up. It got real run down and has had a rebirth, so to speak. There are a lot of clubs and bars there. The police have such trouble with the nightlife. But when I visit I go for lunch. There is a restaurant we go to everytime, as long as we catch it still open. It's called La Tropicana. I don't know how many years it's been open, but my maternal grandfather used to take me there when he would go buy his cigar making supplies. The food still tastes the same after 35 years. I think that's the mark of a great restaurant. I think Scott is starting to love it as much as much as I do.

Then it was back to the house for another evening at the pool. I decided to take some shots in the back yard.