Ocean Mall, Singer Island.

Mal and I met here, on the barrier island north of Palm Beach, back in 1991.  We later lived and worked on the island too.  He in condo maintenance especially enjoying taking care of the pools, me at the front-desk at Embassy Suites, checking in/welcoming escapees from the East Coast snowstorms...

Boy they came down crabby!  Always stole the desk pens when they learned there was a $20 daily fee tacked on to park their rental cars in the lot, that hadn't been calculated into their quoted price... That I remember.  So easy, when young and pretty, to send them up to their rooms happy though with an efficient check in, some kind words for their children, and a non-combative attitude that de-escalated them.  

They were here!  In South Florida.  On the beach.  For a few days at least, their troubles were on hold.  Their rooms were ready, and they escaped the city and the storms...  You sell some of yourself in those customer service jobs, of course, but when you're young, your cup overfloweth with kindness and pity too for those living lesser lifestyles who needed the peace of the place we lived in to find balance.

The teardrop traveller sends pictures of Ocean Mall and the looming condos today.  Be well, everyone!  The whole world is not warring, and God help those need this extreme excitement to arouse themselves.  It's a war we cannot contemplate, nor I hope, will we ever have to, where I live...

We have to stop electing leaders who put us in these situations, again and again and again.  The planet, and the peoples of the planet, absorb these losses while the American people -- who didn't have much to cheer for this year at the Olympics -- move on quickly after "helping" devestate other people's homelands with our mighty mighty military (advisors, technology, and weaponry only, of course.  No troops needed, for now.)

"Pray for Peace, people everywhere?"  You can't cling to violence and keep pushing people past their comfort zones then shriek in terror when they respond in kind.  This I know.