So, this weekend, I got to see a lot of Tramm Hudson signs. We went on a family outing to Sarasota. And there he was, the fellow I'd just been writing about, with signs on nearly every street corner.

(Oh, and I promise there'll be photos up to accompany this thing sometime soon. Can we pretend the film is at the developers instead of inside a digital camera that is currently somewhere this computer is not?)

My Altruistic Spouse was doing a social worky/adoption class/workshop thing (you can see how involved I am in her career), so we decided to make a family weekend of it. This was son (son!)'s first hotel that wasn't in China, and he loved it. Daughter, meanwhile, is an old hotel hand by now, racing with The Boy (now 12) to press the elevator buttons and to be the first one to jump on the bed.

Jumping on hotel beds is essential for growing bodies.

Before we left, My Aforementioned Spouse sent me the following email, under the subject heading: "Yes, we are a conspicuous family."

> I'm sure the chinese kids white mom plays a part in
> this but nothing stands out more than pushing 2 cute
> kids in the truck cart at publix while one is wearing
> a pink puffy headband and is chanting "HELLO KITTY,
> HELLO KITTY" while she thrusts her fists in the air.

The "Hello Kitty" war-chant is indeed a stirring thing, but one of the things I always find myself bracing for when we leave town is the feeling of conspicuousness, and that was remarkably absent this time. I don't know why.

We had a couple lunches in some pretty rural byways (if you're ever in Arcadia, get the pea salad at Nancy's Restaurant salad bar), but never really felt the Curious Stare or even the Raised Eyebrow. Maybe I was too swept up in the chanting.

Anyway, it's a thing I'm used to feeling and hadn't even realized it until I didn't. (Actually, not even until right now.)

North Lido Beach was brutally hot but idyllic once I stopped the death march through the dunes, and Sarasota had transformed radically since the last time I'd been there, but my old college, New College, was still standing placidly by the bay, failing to impress jaded adolescents with its gorgeous Gilded Age architecture.

Fried fish, ice cream and cable TV. Kids are happy.

And on the way home, Florida being the place that it is (two coastal urban sprawls divided by a swath of swamp and cow country), we got to stop at a miniature horse show at the Okeechobee Agri-Civic Center. I had no idea they put little steeplechase wagons on those tiny horses... now that's something to attract some stares.