Photo Pest: Double Rainbows

We saw lots of rainbows during our 2022 stay at the Folly.

You'll have to take my word for it that this one was double. I couldn't quite capture it on camera.

Thom and I drove down the day after Christmas. Chris flew in from Boston after spending the holiday with his family in New Hampshire.

Somehow, the holiday decorations didn't seem quite so pervasive as last year, although many people did light up their palm trees.

Poor Chris and Thom had to see my arms during an intense dermatological treatment that continued for nearly six weeks of ugly discomfort.

This isn't a close up of my skin. It's tree bark.

More abstractions.

Other than some major pruning, we didn't accomplish much this year in terms of home improvement. Before

. . . and after. Our new, young neighbors weren't nearly as happy with the early-morning job which called for a chain saw and a landscaper as light and nimble as a monkey. After falling branches broke one of their flower pots, Thom suggested we buy them a rose bush.

We treated ourselves to a Valentine's Day orchid, too. Chris had returned to Prague by then, with less than two months before retirement

Aside from an afternoon trips to Superblue Miami and Lake Okeechobee, Florida's largest body of freshwater, Thom and I stuck pretty close to home.

After hiking two miles along an elevated berm, we got to a point where we couldn't see the other side of the lake.

It looks almost as big as the sky.

Covid vaccines helped us up our hospitality game. The cabana got more visitor use than it has since 2019.

Randy was the first guest to arrive.

We took a nature walk in the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge where I got this sunning gator to say "cheese."

Randy treated us to dinner at Oceano Kitchen, where we had to wait 90 minutes for a table, no hardship on a night as pretty as this one.

It took me a couple of weeks to finish the wine he left in the fridge. I hadn't had box wine since my father and I toured Australia in the 80s.

Magda, Joe, Dagny and Della blew in like a happy hurricane.

Anthony arrived a week before we left. We celebrated his first-ever Folly visit with cocktails. More than once. Thaikyo makes the best lemon drop martini in Palm Beach County.

Anthony's grand tour included both Worth Avenue and Wynwood.

Otherwise, Thom and I mostly cooked. He made "Erin go bragh" his traditional St. Patrick's Day meal.

Chris says we eat a lot of lamb. Why not, at Walmart prices? Too bad we have to go to Whole Foods for the farro.

Paul, an old friend from Columbia, took me out to dinner in Mizner Park. I met Sam, his youngest son, for the first time.

Local attractions this season included an exhibit of Frida Kahlo's and Diego Rivera's art at the Norton Museum

. . . the Reptilian Nation Expo

. . . the Street Painting Festival

. . . the wife-carrying contest at the Midnight Sun Festival

and the Palm Beach County Pride Parade.

On Martin Luther King Day, Mayor Betty Resch spoke to schoolchildren in Bryant Park about Lake Worth's African American origins.

In another nod to our mostly blue community, Lake Worth Beach installed manatee trash cans to raise environmental consciousness about the threat posed by plastic. Thom thinks they're ridiculous.