#adriatica

6.49 am,

( adriatica by me x 4 )

This morning i was driving into McKinney (thinking of applying for a "Quad-C" job), when suddenly a tower straight out of medieval Prague rose above the wooded, slightly rolling horizon.

It turned out to be not a church but a spanking new development (much in the Santa Barbara-reminiscent, blatantly unreal neo-Mediterranean style*) called Adriatica Village. There appeared to be condos as well as retail; the streets were faux-cobblestone; & parking was, well, at a premium. I found out when i got home the apartment part is Bell Tower Flats (formerly St Paul's Square), & the rents range from $1463 to $5704 a month.

The view across that artificial lake (with more Mediterranean architecture on the other side, prettier at a distance than close-up) is certainly charming, although the giant sculpture of what looks for all the world like a pigeon with a broken neck, with its explicitly Christian mottos on two sides, proved somewhat unsettling.

On the morning that the Supreme Court's unsurprising anti-Roe ruling was finally announced, my heart was heavy but the sun was bright. I didn't stay for coffee at the crowded but appetizing Starwood Cafe, as at first i thought i might. My fear of being towed got the better of me, & i was soon on my way.

     Jupiter that eats other planets      come & get      this one      we are turning back our clocks      we are turning back our clocks

     we are turning back our clocks

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * "Modeled after the village of Supetar, nestled on the Adriatic coast of Croatia," the website says; "Slobodna Dalmacija daily reported in 2009 that a housing development called Adriatica is being built in McKinney, Texas, United States, by real estate developer Jeff Blackard as a partial faithful replica of Supetar," according to the Wikipedia article on Supetar itself: (titled--in translation--'A Million Dollars for a Villa in American Supetar')... I wonder how much an actual villa in Supetar costs? surely a small fraction of this...

By the way, 31 years ago, just off that same coast, occurred a minor sea battle in the Yugoslavian civil war now called the Croatian War of Independence. So if you are in the mood, you can stand by the 'Peace statue' at Adriatica, & imagine battleships out there exchanging fire.