Sanibel Shout Out

Well, I've just returned from four days in Sanibel Island, Florida, where I was on the I guess you would call it "faculty" of the Sanibel Island Writer's Conference.  It was truly an amazing conference, and I wanted to give a public thank you to Tom DeMarchi, my old nursery school classmate, for inviting me, and a public "you guys did an awesome, I mean truly impressive, job" shoutout to Tom and his wife Karen Tolchin (is it a coincidence that both Tom and I dated Karen S. when we were kids and ended up marrying Karens?  I don't think so), who did an awesome, and I mean truly impressive job with the conference.  The place was chock full of incredible writers, poets, musicians, and terrific fun students, and I had a great time there.  It was really an honor hanging out with these people, and they were all so nice to me, which was much appreciated because, let's face it, I may pretend to be a writer but really I'm a lawyer, and if the near-ovation which broke out when Ishmael Beah mentioned, during his beautiful reading, that his mom is trying to convince him not to go to law school, is any indication, this was not a group of people who put lawyers at the top of their "I admire these kind of people" lists (though actually it turns out that nearly everybody has a close relative who is a lawyer, and since they typically love these close relatives, they in fact have an appreciation for lawyers and don't actually, in their heart of hearts, hate us).  One highlight of the weekend was giving a reading along with Sidney Wade, who has written five books of poetry, Abby Sher, a Second City alum whose memoir Amen, Amen, Amen looks terrific and is currently in route to me from Amazon, and Steve Almond, who is one of my favorite writers and whose Candyfreak was one of the main inspirations for Holy Hullabaloos.  Did I mention this was a great conference?

But the conference was only part of the fun of the weekend.  Also, there were the frickin' birds.  I've never seen so many crazy ass looking birds in my whole life.  Sanibel is known for its shelling, and while I did come across one giant ridiculous shell which may have been a whelk (but which I couldn't take with me because it had a little guy in it--not actually a little man but some sort of little animal I guess), I found the shelling thing a little overrated.  But the birds, dear lord, have I brought up the birds yet?  There's a huge wildlife refuge on the island called Ding Darling, and I went kayaking in it one afternoon and took a guided naturalist tour another day, and I think it's safe to say that they have nicer birds there than in Boston.  Ibis, egrets, this weird thing I've put a picture up of called a spoonbill, pelicans, cormorants, herons (including one that marched within a foot of a sleeping alligator, which I thought was frankly a bad move on the heron's part), and who knows what else.  Add to this the dolphin that swam right by me on the kayak, and it all adds up to: Sanibel Island is a fun place to see funny animals.  Yay, Sanibel.

Comments

[Dave]

Whelks have giant penises.

[twitter.com/bob_calder]

Apropos to Dave's comment... they also come in left handed and right handed twirled varieties. The whelks' shells, that is.

Roseate Spoonbills are awesome. On the East coast we have merely a handful. I recommend kayaking on the Loxahatchee in Jupiter for a great jungle-ish experience.