Porch & Pool Party

Join your neighbors for a neighborhood porch and pool party Friday, May 17 at 7:00 pm.  The party will be hosted by Chania & Blake Allen and will be located at 823 26th Ave N. Bring a dish to share and be ready to have some fun! We hope that you’ll join us!

Feel free to bring your swimsuits!

When: Fri, May 17
Time: 7-9 PM
Where: 823 26th Ave N
Host: Chania & Blake Allen

Book Nook | Mama Makes Up Her Mind

Mama Makes Up Her Mind – by Bailey White

Review by Maureen Camphire

The May book club selection is a compilation of short stories which is a departure from previous novels that we’ve discussed. Besides wishing for lighter fare for a change, and with Mother’s Day this month, we thought it appropriate to read Mama Makes Up Her Mind and Other Dangers Of Southern Living.

The author, Bailey White, graduated from FSU in the 70’s and was a first grade teacher for twenty years before starting her writing career. She was a regular contributor to NPR where she entertained listeners with quirky and colorful accounts of life in rural Southern Georgia. Among her other books are Quite A Year For Plums, Sleeping At The Starlite Motel, and Nothing With Strings.

Mama Makes Up Her Mind is a memoir humorously recounting a series of stories about everyday life in White’s small Georgia home town. She has a knack for turning mundane events into hilarious vignettes. The stories all feature reflections about her eccentric mother, but are not otherwise in sequence. According to Amazon reviews there are lots of laughs in this charming little book. There are crazy characters including Mama who dishes out a strange brand of maternal philosophy.

One review on Goodreads.com states that, “The book seeks to show the influence of mothers, and the power they wield in shaping their children’s inner lives and the way they respond to the world around them. Mama appears to be a benign, traditional wife and mother who makes her home the center of her universe. However, Mama White consciously or unconsciously rebels against the system she has been born into . . . Her daughter Bailey attempts to explain her complicated relationship with her mother and family throughout the essays in the book.”

This book should be fun to discuss and different from some of the more serious issues we’ve talked about with the past several book selections. Another reviewer remarked that it’s a book to read, even just one story, before bedtime as a cure for insomnia. And with recent headline news, who can’t use a change of pace with this amusing remedy?

Please join the book discussion for Mama Makes Up Her Mind on Tuesday, May 28 at 7 PM. We will meet at 835 26th Avenue, N. For more information please contact me at maurcamp@verizon.net.

New Watering Restrictions

SWFWMD has enacted Water Shortage Order #2013-006. It orders water use restrictions that include once-a-week watering, hour limits on hand-watering and micro-irrigation, a 4 hour limit for large aesthetic fountains and waterfalls, once a week car washing, prohibition on charity car washes and restaurant service of water. The new rules start March 13, 2013.

An important change starting March 27th is that, when City-trained enforcement patrollers identify a violation, instead of getting the usual educational reminder with a Warning Notice, all violations will lead to a Violation Citation, which carries a $193 fine and court costs.

Please check out the “Water Restrictions Fact Sheet” as much as possible. The website www.stpete.org/WaterRestrictions has been updated, and the Water Watch Phone Line (727-892-5300) is now updated.