Tall Dreams, Trees and the New Year

I think it's impossible to capture the grandeur of an oak tree in a photograph.  You'll have to trust me. These tangled branches of the Cummer Oak in Jacksonville, Florida are far-reaching.  They extend towards blue and they plunge back into the earth, root themselves where they began. 

Trees are my favorite, favorite. I love them.  The way they reach, it's like racing towards a dream.  A kind of restless hunger.  I have it too.  

It's a new year and, like the goddess statue below, my hunt points toward the moon.  I've never been good at resolutions so I make only one each year.  Some years I meet the goal.  Some years I don't. But, each year, January comes and I make it mine again:

Write a book.

It's my forever-goal. It's my version of dreaming.  

Happy New Year to all my friends here.  Keep your dreams tall.

The Time I Ate Gator

I spent the weekend in Jacksonville, Florida where I was taken to Clark's Fish Camp.

There is nothing I love more than kitsch and Clark's is rumored to have the largest private collection of taxidermy in the nation.  I was in heaven upon walking in the door.  

I could have eaten yak, crocodile, llama...even python.  There were choices to be made. Fried. Or chargrilled.  Did I prefer gator tail, toe, or rib?

I settled on gator tail.  It tasted a lot like chicken.  

I enjoyed eating it amidst the twinkling lights underneath a canopy of stuffed animal skin.

I was not kidding.

I really was not kidding.

Fried gator tail.

This one time, in Jacksonville, I ate your friend.