I found love for $1.50 at Target. This love comes in the form of socks with cute things on them (I'm easily pleased… some days): dachshunds wearing hot dog buns and mustard, octopi and — this was the best one — otters holding hands. Otters make me happy. Look, I'm sure in reality they smell like eviscerated fish and can be real jerks — anything that cute must be a jerk, right? — but I love the idea of them holding hands while they sleep so they don't float away from each other. I don't even care if it's true: Some weeks, I need to believe. And those socks at Target? Yup, otters holding hands. I bought a pair for me and a pair for a friend. She loves them. I love mine. In a text exchange, we expressed our mutual undying love for otters and otter socks. That's when we realized our iPhones don't have otter emoticons.
Sometimes life lets you down. It's OK; there's still the weekend. Seek ye your inner otter this weekend. Here's how.
Between now and Sunday night:
Look, summer's rapidly winding down and if you're still bitching about the heat, well, no fear — you'll be miserable and cold in January before you know it. Find a pool and get in it. No pool of your own? Head to the Epicurean for a dive-in movie (The Breakfast Club, Saturday), grab a cabana at the Hollander's pool bar or kick it old-school and sneak into the local Holiday Inn and pretend you're staying there. We don't judge.
Pirates of Penance. Think of it as Star Wars, the musical, maybe with a little Mel Brooks.
Jerry Uelsmann's surrealist non-Photoshopped photos at FMoPA.
Saturday
Clearwater's A Yoga Village has a charity yoga event with an end goal of raising money for Pack A Snack, a Pinellas program for feeding chronically hungry kids.
A used book sale at Ybor's Blind Tiger Cafe. Books!
"Where shall we go for brunch?" is the battle call of the bourgeois. Apparently I'm one of them. I'm always in search of a new place, but until then I'm happy to head to Red Mesa or the Hollander. This week, to shake it up, I may even go on Saturday. I live on the edge like that.
The Studio @620 has a nifty show (but hey, don't they always?), this one the annual UPA Showcase.It's free and it happens Friday and Saturday night.
It's Tampa Day. Get to Lot 1901. Now. Just do it.
Sunday
LocalShops1 Community Awards (to which I say, "Go Kate!") may not have a "Best Otter Socks" category, but hope springs eternal.
See you next week.
This article appears in Aug 11-18, 2016.