“Life is a great big canvas. Let’s throw all the paint on it we can!” The slight modification of Danny Kaye’s famous quote serves to inspire Linda Ciston, not only to work on her water color painting, but to enjoy her life. An Oracle database programmer by profession and a clown called Bling-A-Loo by occasion, Linda’s life is busy and fun.
Since she was three weeks old, when her family left New Jersey for Guatemala, Linda has been on the move, locating next to Venezuela and from there to the Philippines because of her father’s job in international sales. She was 11 when they moved to the states. Until a 1987 move to Virginia Beach for a job that ended quickly with a layoff, she lived in Ohio. For two reasons—employment and the water—she came here in 1988. “I like to think I was meant to move to Florida, but I don’t think I would have moved all that way in one go,” she says.
“In a former life in the 80s,” Linda says, “I was an accountant—not good since I really dislike paperwork.” She discovered that she did like computers after taking a required class in computer auditing/programming in her senior year and began taking classes to qualify as an IT auditor, then advanced to computer programming full time.
Linda’s interest in clowning originated with her clown sister’s instructing her and another sister in balloon art. Since joining Uptown Clowns at the encouragement of a friend, she has come to love the children’s glee when she makes them laugh, gives them balloons or shows them the results of her face painting. A special annual event is Florida Clown Day when clowns from all over the state come to entertain young and old alike at Pinellas Park Performing Arts Center each February. Bling-A-Loo is Linda’s very fitting clown name; she is all about the bling in real life, too.
Linda has welcomed various volunteer opportunities, including a previous association with Literacy Council of St. Petersburg. Currently, she is teaching in the Y.O.U. program, which she loves and finds intensely gratifying. Introduced to Unity in Ohio, after moving to Florida, she visited several Unity churches, searching for the right one. “Once I found Leddy and Dell, that was it,” she said. “It was home, where I wanted to be.” She recalls enjoying the closeness and camaraderie of worshiping in the tent after the 2003 fire, has participated in Service Saturdays, and attended classes and seminars, as well as the annual PosiPalooza.
While most of Linda’s biological family live in or near Ohio, she has created with her partner, Elmer, a loving Florida home for rescues Jasmine, an energetic Yorkie mix, and an older brother dog Tommy, along with a Persian cat named Gracie.