Bucket List with a Big Helping of Comfort and Stability

American popular culture has made it  fashionable to have a bucket list as a requiem for one's youth. And to then go out and do whatever crazy dang thing is on the list.

This presumably shows character.

I did as many of the dang crazy things I could afford when I was younger. Quite a few are X-rated and others I refuse to acknowledge because my answer may incriminate me. My adventures have been naughty enough so that I am not going to tell them, and on the other side, sufficiently intellectual and fantasist to bore you.

A bucket list, it seems, benefits from the inclusion of extreme sports — parachute jumping, rock climbing, deep sea diving — as proof one is going to live every moment.

Even packing off to the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel in India is acceptable, showing adventurousness and intercultural curiosity.

My bucket list does not have an extreme sports or jaw-dropping excursions. I will jump out of an airplane wearing a parachute the day a terrorist points a gun at me and says, “Jump or I’ll shoot.”

My bucket list is simple.

I want to live in a house in Florida where I can have dogs. I want to have two or three, and I want to rescue dogs, particularly poodles.

I would love to have purebreds; they are such a joy. But at this point in aging and maturity, I feel called to relieve some suffering.

I want the house to be energy efficient, secure, in a neighborhood with some businesses and nice vintage homes, perhaps a few mid-century modern buildings that are such a delightful part of Florida architecture.

I want to be part of a dog training and/or rescue group, attend Jung and Sufi events here and on the Eastern seaboard, perhaps other places. Find someone with whom to attend jazz concerts.

I’d like to visit a friend in England, visit Glastonbury and other places known for their ley lines, get into Ireland and Scotland, explore for a month at least. Visit France one last time. Not sure if I want to return to Spain. Would like to see Jung’s home in Switzerland and experience that country.

I’d like to make a good friend or two.

I’d like to spend more time on my health, make exercise a priority.

Get away from the TV. Spend more time with music, reading, writing.

The simple life.

Quaint Lake Worth Has Art Deco Supermarket, Shops, Restaurants

On my most recent day trip to Lake Worth, I discovered Publix has given its supermarket an Art Deco flare, in keeping with many of the historic homes in that city.

Even the loading dock has decorative elements. Notice the Key West style home in the rear at left. I love the colors of our subtropical environment.

 This block of shops once housed a Church of Religious Science that was a source of great support and friendship during my early time in South Florida in the 1980s.

 Facing toward City Hall are the great trees in which I often observed a large flock of parrots make their evening stop.

I noticed this shop door on the main street; do people really need to be coached to experience gratitude?

I enjoyed seeing this Christmas village in one shop window. It reminded me of the one I inherited from my mother and grandmother. I gave it away some time ago, when it back pain made it too challenging to put up each year.



Murals seem to be cropping up everywhere. I caught the next two in Lantana, slightly south of Lake Worth. One is on a Greek restaurant on U.S. 1.

The patriotic mural, declaring Freedom Is Not Free, was on the side of a municipal recreation center building.

Mid-Century Modern Buildings -- Fort Lauderdale Things-To-Do

Walk a few blocks from the beach at Oakland Park Boulevard to see some fine mid-century modern architecture.

Architectural sightseeing is free and one of the interesting Fort Lauderdale things-to-do.

One area, a few blocks that looks forlorn, reminds of gaudy former times when then beach was populated by low-rise buildings with details that perpetuate some of the clean lines of the Art Deco buildings for which Miami South Beach is famous.

Many of these architectural gems are being replaced by tall, architecturally undistinguished highrises that blot the shore from view.


Some projects apparently failed in the real estate market belly flop.

That leaves many treasures standing. A few are meticulously maintained and painted in authentic colors of the mid-century era.

A Fort-Lauderdale-Things-to-Do list ought to include a walk around this area before the mid-century modern buildings have been destroyed and replaced.


Another design influence of the mid-century modern beach residences is the clean lines of Scandinavian modern exterior and interior design.

Manhattan Beach has an interesting spiral tower that simultaneously hides the stairs and reminds of the steel skyscrapers of the real Manhattan Isle.

Windows are emphasized with boxes similar to the graphic lines of Art Deco – which in turn borrowed some of these graphic stylistics from Egyptian design elements.



The ochre yellow building also incorporates a circular design element, similar to the steamboat gothic feature of some Victorian homes.

These porches provide a place where residents could sit and chat in the gently cooling alternation of the sea and land breezes that sweep the barrier island.

Fort Lauderdale Things to Do: Walk Seven Isles

Your Fort-Lauderdale-Things-to-Do list may not include taking a walk around Seven Isles.

Isle of Venice, a street branching North off Las Olas Boulevard, has some gems of mid-century modern architecture.




Mid-century modern is an outgrowth of Art Deco, for which South Beach in Miami is so popular.

It features clean lines and sherbert colors, such as aquamarine, peach, pink, and lemon yellow. Whitewash also is popular.



If you are looking for Fort Lauderdale things to do that are completely free and you enjoy getting away from the beach tourist zone to see how residents live, Seven Isles is accessible by bus, bike or scooter rental, or walking if you are up to it.

Some features of mid-century modern architecture are:

• Soaring roof lines with clean angles.

• Eyebrow windows – that is, windows have a detail above them.

• Details, such as relief palms or tropical-themed murals.

• Louvre windows.

Having lived in a 100-year-old building with these, I know how drafty they are in winter. Buildings were designed to let in the sea breezes back then, however. Now you will see air-conditioning units protruding from walls where they have been cut to accommodate this technology.



Seven Isles was dredged with navigable canals. This makes homes and condominiums among the pricier real estate.

Here are buildings on Isle of Venice you will see during your Fort-Lauderdale-things-to-do-walk.