Oh, what will this year bring?

Good day, pie day (part 3)

June 30, 2007 on 3:40 pm | In Uncategorized | 1 Comment

As if visiting the Mecca of key lime pie wasn’t enough excitement for the day, I also toured the sponge docks of Tarpon Springs. It is, as I’m sure you know, the sponge capital of the world.

Didn’t know that, you say?

Did you know that there are several different kinds of natural sponges, each one is best for a different purpose?

Did you know that the sponge is actually a critter, if you can call a gelationous membrane covering the soft smooshy interior a critter?

I did because I’m a sponge expert. Or so I claimed in order to get a 10% discount when purchasing sponges.

I’m glad I waited until late afternoon to visit the sponge docks of Tarpon Springs. The crowds had thinned and it wasn’t so ungodly hot. I could wander around at my leisure learning all I could soak up about sponges.

But first, some pie.

Yep, I had more pie. Spinach pie and cheese pie on the combo platter at Hella’s, a greek restaurant on the docks. See, the Greeks settled in this area en masse when they discovered this was a better place to harvest sponges than in their native Greece.

After my savory pie slices, I headed to the Sponge Factory where I watched an extremely dated film about sponges, what they are, how they grow, how they are harvested, and what types are used for what. If you made it all the way to the end of the film, the last frames advised viewers to claim to be a sponge expert at the attached shop for a 10% discount.

I picked out a soft but textured wool sponge which is good for the body when bathing, an incredibly soft silk sponge which is good for the face, and a hardy yellow sponge which is good for cleaning. The Greek woman helping me showed me two different yellow sponges, pointing to one as being a little bit finer.

“My teenage son is going to use it for washing windows,” I informed her. She snatched the finer one from my hand and stabbed a wise finger at the other one.

“More tougher,” she said. And I bought it. At a 10% discount. Because I’m an expert.

A bit further down the docks, I stopped in another sponge shop. On my way north on the dock, I remembered seeing an elephant ear sponge there I wanted to check out on my way back. It turned out that kind of sponge is used for pottery which I was not in need of. But I got an idea of buying one of the unbelievably soft silk sponges for my daughter-in-law Jill . It’s so nice having a girl in the family to buy for. I hope she likes the sponge and doesn’t think it’s weird that I’m sending her the innards of a membrane creature to rub on her face.

I took my sponges and headed back to the hotel. I hung around the room, watched a movie, then remembered a Starbucks I had spied on the way to the sponge docks and thought a coffee might be tasty, especially if I felt the urge to work on those three slices of pie in my room. I drove to the plaza, got distracted by TJ Maxx, wandered around in there for awhile, then, by the time I was heading to Starbucks, I was feeling a bit peckish. For pizza. So I stopped in the local pizzeria for, you guessed it, a piece of da pizza pie.

 All pie, all the time. That’s the way I roll.