Niece of the Week: Divinity Everlasting
Divinity grew up in South Florida. She now calls Ybor City her home, and is a popular diva throughout the area. When she’s not on stage or helping friends, she can be found at Hamburger Mary’s in Ybor. facebook.com/divinity.everlasting
You Just Can’t Make This Stuff Up!
We all know who Queen Elizabeth is, right? We also know that her mom was the Queen Mum. The Queen Mum’s nickname was “The Old English Rose”. The Queen Mum’s father was Albert. So The Royal Albert China has the most famous pattern in the world, called “Old Country Rose,” named after the Queen Mum. Are you with me so far? Every afternoon at tea time, the Queen Mum did a social no-no. She preferred to use a morning breakfast cup and not a tea cup. The breakfast cup was larger and was also called a dunking cup. (You could dunk your toast into this cup.) When asked why she prefers this morning cup, the Queen Mum said with a big smile, “When you put ice cubes into a regular tea cup, there is not enough room for the Beefeater gin.” So I got to thinking…if this cup is good enough for that old queen, it’s good enough for this old queen! Cheers, Tea Cup
Sarasota Finishes This Year’s “Corridor of Prides”
Ever since we put together Tampa Pride last year, we looked around and noticed all the Central Florida Pride events. I came up with the title of “Corridor of Prides” along the I-4 and I-75 routes. Tampa Pride has been proud to have been a part of the annual GLBTA city pride events across Central Florida. We wanted to show our diversity in neighborhoods and in large and small city communities. We offered our assistance to cooperative associations in areas where many city pride festivals do not receive positive support. Pride events this past spring/summer were held in Lakeland, Melbourne, St. Pete, Orlando, Sarasota and of course ours in Tampa.
This past weekend, Sarasota Pride took the spotlight. A full variety of festive events took place, minus the parade. Their Pride setting was in a park along the downtown parkway across from the Gulf of Mexico. The Pride chair was Cindy Barnes, and her group of volunteers helped her put on a wonderful festival. It was a time for reconnecting with new and old friends from near and far. I enjoyed seeing friends from Sarasota I haven’t seen since the old Suncoast Resort days in St. Pete. The warm, clear, slightly breezy day turned out to provide for a spectacular social event. The hundreds of vendors were mobbed by the large fall crowd. There were colorful costumes, great singing groups performing in the great outdoors, lots of networking, and sharing some of the same ideas that we have and exhibit.
The event provided a large political arena for many organized local and presidential campaigns, a huge number of area church groups, health incubators and mobile units for health screenings, community businesses expanding their demographics, and an array of merchants selling rainbow gifts and crafts.
We hope that you have enjoyed the many Pride events this past year along the reknowned “Corridor of 
Prides!”
Baxter’s Closing
The last weekend ever for Baxter’s went out with a bang. They hosted a leather fetish party. There were hundreds of people there. In the parking lot behind Baxter’s, there were tents comprising a big vendor show. Baxter’s will be missed by many in our community. The only good thing is that they are going to be knocking down the building! Thank goodness…if those walls could talk!
