Yesterday, the Sarasota Herald Tribune ran an article I wrote about all the fun, completely FREE, things to do during the dog days of summer.

It’s got everything from free “street” music to where to find a summer-ending splash bash for your kids, complete with a free dinner from Lee Roy Selmon’s, free movies, free ways to fire up your brain cells, to getting your thrills watching Nik Wallenda doing a high wire act and maybe being filmed by the Discovery Channel in the process …

Photography by Herb Booth Booth Studio, Inc. Sarasota Florida; courtesy of Lazy Fairy Improv

including how to get free lessons in “improv” — with the Lazy Fairy Improv teaching you how to make ‘em laugh — yes, all for free.

The story was the cover story in the paper’s TICKET section. You can read it online at: Free Fun!

New local radio host, Sherman L. Baldwin, has invited me to return to his program today — Talk Sarasota — 1280 AM on the radio dial (WTMY), or streaming to your computer at www.talksarasota.com (though I have noticed the streaming seems spotty).

Callers are welcome — and I hope people call in! The show runs from 3 to 6 pm, but I’ll only be on from 5:05 to roughly 6 pm — that’s today — the studio line is 954.1280. Read more »

New local radio host, Sherman L. Baldwin, has invited me to come on his program today for my fifteen minutes (literally) of fame. He hosts a program called Talk Sarasota — 1280 AM on the radio dial (WTMY), or streaming to your computer at www.talksarasota.com (though I have noticed the streaming seems spotty). Callers are welcome — and I hope people call in! The show runs from 3 to 6 pm, but I’ll only be on from 415 to 430 — that’s today — the studio line is 954.1280. Read more »

So tonight I moseyed on down to Bentley’s Resort Hotel in Osprey to see what kind of crowd Nancy Feehan — candidate for State House Representative District 70 –

would draw out on a rainy Wednesday in the dead dog days of late July.

It was a stellar turnout. Estimate of over a hundred people — including VIPers Sarasota Mayor Kelly Kirshner, Read more »

Want to join me at a campaign kick-off party for Nancy Feehan, District 70 next week?

Many of my readers both of this blog and from the days of my Reality Chick column with the Pelican Press live in South Sarasota, Venice, Nokomis, and Osprey – Florida State House District 70. The District includes most of the southern half of Sarasota County, from Clark Road and State Road 72 at the north and South Venice and part of Englewood at the south. It extends from Siesta Key and part of Manasota Key on the west to the Myakka River.

Nancy Feehan is running for State House Representative for the District — against Republican Doug Holder. And I’m betting on Feehan to take the race. Read more »

I went to a relatively new restaurant in Sarasota a couple of weeks back — Veg. It’s a vegetarian and seafood kind of place; located in a little strip mall right across from the Gulf Gate Mall (2164 Gulf Gate Drive). Read more »

One of the greatest things about doing this blog is when I hear about people helping each other because of connections they make or hear about here on this site. We’ve had people donating to All Faiths Food Bank — to the tune of thousands of dollars. We’ve had readers in other states giving me advice and following up on Tony the Tiger. We’ve had local doctors trying to help me get a stray kitty cat into a good home. And now, one of my readers read a blog last week, and took action about the Pennsylvania cats rescued by Sarasota’s Cat Depot story I posted and look, now I’ve received a really super nice blog comment below from the folks at Cat Depot to round the story out. Read more »

The local Cat Depot is helping save the lives of 12 Pennsylvania felines (read below for how you can help them too!) who were rescued last week in a raid on a Pennsylvania so-called “sanctuary” known as the Animal Friends of Elk and Cameron Counties. Some friends — the conditions at the I-can’t-even-use-the-word-sanctuary-SLUM were so deplorable, inhumane, and overcrowded that 387 cats — including numerous kittens — were removed by a team of more than 50 first-responders, aided by the American Humane Association and PetSmart Charities.

The Sarasota 12 — as I’m calling them now — after their traumatic (but welcome) rescue Read more »

I’ve been pretty lucky to see some pretty gorgeous fireworks from some pretty inspired places — at the Shell in Boston with about a million other people; gliding slowly on a bateau-mouche down the Seine during a July 4th American Embassy party in Paris; and my personal favorite was in Ashland, New Hampshire, a gazillion years ago with fireworks that I still haven’t forgotten — I think it was literally some sort of display that enacted a scene of two boats firing missiles at each other.

Last night I went to see some fireworks in Sarasota. And though they were pretty subdued … the end of the show was, as they always are, ahhhh-inspiring. Read more »

Last night, I had a few people — men and women — over for food and drink and conversation. I’ve been so crazy-busy the past year, it seems as if I just never take the time to be social anymore, so last night was wayyyyyyyyyyy overdue. Read more »