A lack of sunshine in the Sunshine State, a wedding in the Andes, a championship in Foxboro … Today’s post will touch on a variety of unrelated topics. Come along for the ride, if you like.

When one lives in Florida, one becomes used to afternoon thunderstorms, which are rather common, at least from June through September. But this past week, during a time of year when it’s normally very dry here, our rain gauges were filled to overflowing. Apparently, a storm system stalled over the central part of the state, and here in the Jacksonville area, we received heavy rains for all of last week. An average May means perhaps 5 inches of rain in Jacksonville for the month, but that amount fell daily much of last week. Ponds, streams, and rivers are noticeably higher than usual, but at least the danger of wildfires has dropped to almost nil, and lawns are green and lush, at least those that weren’t covered by standing water. The forecast for this coming weekend shows some promise, especially for Sunday. But then Monday marks the beginning of hurricane season. Oh well, at least we don’t have to shovel this form of precipitation.

Earlier this month, the family and I had the pleasure of heading to Ecuador for five days, where we celebrated the wedding of one of the exchange students that we had formerly hosted. We had a wonderful time with Paola and her family, and the wedding was, well, an amazing experience. After a noon wedding ceremony and mass at the cathedral in Latacunga (about 50 miles south of Quito), we and about 270 other invited guests headed to a local country club for the reception. The party started around 2:00 PM. When we left, a bit after midnight, there were still a couple dozen hard-core celebrants singing, dancing, and imbibing. We don’t do many 10-hour wedding receptions in the USA, now do we? The dance floor was packed throughout, with everyone, regardless of age, dancing to the Latin salsa beat music. And the wait staff, which was quite formal in appearance and service, kept circling throughout the afternoon and evening, first with champagne, then with wine, and for the last 8 hours or so, with never-ending trays of scotch and whiskey. Quite the celebration!

I often compare the weather here with our former residence in Syracuse, New York (even with thunderstorms and hurricanes, it’s much, much better here – trust me!). But we did live in the ‘Cuse for 20 years, and thereby gained an association with Syracuse University sports. Thus, even though none of us ever took a class there or paid any tuition, we felt it quite appropriate to celebrate when the SU basketball team won the national title in 2003. Syracuse has enjoyed great success on the basketball court, and on the football field as well, although certainly not recently. But the one sport that the Orange has been most dominant in is lacrosse. This past Monday, at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts (home, of course, of the New England Patriots), the Syracuse lacrosse team won its 11th national championship, more than any other school. They did it with an incredible comeback against New York state rival Cornell, scoring three goals in the final 3:37 to tie the game in regulation, the equalizer coming with just 4.5 seconds on the clock, and then winning it 80 seconds into sudden-death overtime. It’s nice to see some good news for an area that’s been hard hit by the economic challenges of the times.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 at 2:54 pm and is filed under Al. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.