Willow, our dog, has never been afraid of storms. She ignores them, unlike other dogs I’ve had. (My childhood dog, a dalmation, used to try to squeeze behind the toilet bowl, under the tank.) Willow, takes storms in stride. But here in Florida, the thunderstorms are really something. We’ve had several. Last night was the loudest. It crashed and boomed for a couple hours. Things are a little soggy. Even Willow has wanted to be held when the thunder rolls. The storms we’ve experienced have been really severe.

Actually they’ve had a lot of rain this week (about 6″). Ditches are filled, puddles are deep.

The other day, we took our golf cart and headed to Walmart. It was a pleasant, cloudy late afternoon. We parked at Publix, which is as far as you can legally drive your cart. Walmart is just across the highway. Carts can’t legally cross the highway but we walked, so we were ok. It’s a little distance, but it was nice out and we didn’t mind. John even thought to bring along a little wheeled shopping cart so we could haul our purchases back to the golf cart. But while we were shopping, it started to rain. We were ready to head back at about 4:40. As I waited by the door for the shower to let up, a pleasant gentleman headed out in the direction of the Publix parking lot. He said he’d done the same as us… walked over. He commented that he had a towel to wipe off the seats and he’d be fine. He asked if we had “sides” and I said, yes, but they weren’t rolled down.

When we finally dashed for the cart, the curtains were down and the seat had been dried off. That’s the kind of folks we meet all the time down here.

Today a gentleman at Taco Bell held the door for us. I thanked him but paused to let his wife go ahead of us. We were all trying to be polite. It was funny.. “you go first, no you, no you.” It sure isn’t this way most places, but Sun City Center seems to have an over-abundance of nice folks.