Yeast

At first I was a little sad, traveling about Florida on my own. A little lonely and homesick. It feels strange to have such open horizons - nothing but treetops - no mountains, no smog hiding the mountains, no hills... And then I had a great session in Tampa. Nice, friendly ladies. One of the ladies invited me to lunch and we talked shop for an hour.

After lunch I hit the road - in my rental car, a Chrysler Sebring Touring CONVERTIBLE. Yep, cruising across the alien Florida landscape, scattered clouds and even a few raindrops (expain how they hit the windshield, but never me?), wind whipping my hair about, sun warming me to the perfect temperature - and then I smell something delicious - the smell of yeasty, baking, mouth-watering bread. What the heck??? I continue driving for another mile and now the smell is distinctly cinnamon and raisin and yeast. Cinnamon raisin bread? How could an entire area smell like baking bread? How does this entire area bring this miraculous gift to the people of Florida? And then, in the distance, I see it - Pepperidge Farms factory. Can you imagine working INSIDE that building? If I lived near that place I would be eating bread ALL THE TIME. Wait. I eat bread all the time anyway.

Now I am in Orlando. I expected there to be more "city" - maybe it is off somewhere else. This just seems to be the land of clever shopping centers and ridiculous hotels (I'm staying at a pink DoubleTree "Castle" - my headboard has strange gold spires that resemble horns on an antelope, everything is gilded with gold and embedded plastic jewels - everything).

So, I've had a smile on my face all day. And better yet, my perm looks GREAT when it is seriously windblown for an hour. Really. Absolutely no sarcasm. Man, saying that makes it sound like I am being sarcastic - and I'm NOT. For some reason the wind made my curls separate into perfect ringlets with lots of flirty bounce. I think I need to buy a convertible. Although sitting in congested LA traffic probably won't have the same effect on my coif. Or on my mood. I feel effervescent. And by "effervescent", I do not mean gassy.