5 Days- 650 Miles

I’m back from a weekend in Jacksonville with a dinner trip to High Springs. It was a good but busy weekend with 1 big letdown.
Sophie was in a good mood all weekend. She has matured out of the terrible 2’s. Now she is a clever imaginative and cute almost-3-year-old. The funniest thing she did with me happened when we were reading her animal book. I would point to an animal and say what it was. Sometimes I would intentionally say the wrong name and she would correct me. Then we’d look at the page and make sure we named all the animals on it. On 1 page we missed the rhino. The picture said “rhino” and so I pointed at it and said that we missed the rhino. Sophie said “ No, that’s a rhinosercoserusus”. I laughed and asked her what it was again and she pronounced it exactly the same way again. The sweetest thing Sophie did was sing with me when I sang my special bedtime song. She’s beginning to remember the words. I was disappointed when we left this morning because she wouldn’t say goodbye or give me a hug. Karen, being the understanding mother of the 2-year-old said that it was just her way of being upset. She sure is an understanding parent (and I’m proud of her).

Lucy is still as cute and relaxing as ever. Penny taught her to do so big and find her nose. She likes to make clucking noises (Lucy not Penny) and will give you high fives. She was sick so we got to stay with her an extra day.

I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with her on Monday I was getting a car checked out at Karen’s mechanic. We are looking for some reliable transportation for Christy. The car is where the weekend’s disappointment came from. This car seemed perfect—until the check out showed it needed $1300 work to be reliable. The seller wouldn’t adjust his price at all. The search continues. It’s a good thing we got the car checked out—I could’t find any problem with it.

We were in Jax so K&T could have a date night and we could see the grandkids. We got a bonus on Monday night. C&C invited us down to a homemade eggplant parmesan dinner. Christian did the cooking and we did the enjoying. I did 2 helpings of enjoying. It was a very pleasant evening.

The drives over and back were mostly easy. Since we’ve been home I’ve unpacked, put stuff away and did all the laundry. C&C are coming over this weekend so I want to be caught up on everything so we can just relax and enjoy the visit.

Knight and Day Day

We had planned to have an “us” day this coming Friday but our plans changed. Penny was supposed to run off with Pam today and Pam called in sick. So we made today our “us” day and went to a movie and then to Dairy Queen for a treat.

We went to see Knight and Day at its premiere showing here in town. The movie is fun. To say it is an over-the-top action flick is almost understatement. But Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz have excellent chemistry and both give great performances. If you go to see it it’s probably a good idea to leave your brain and any real logic at home and just sit back, go with it and enjoy. The movie is strictly formula but still enjoyable because of the performances. Dairy Queen was enjoyable too.

The oil that has been threatening for so long finally started washing ashore in Pensacola. If you have the stomach for it here is the WEARTV.COM story on it: http://www.weartv.com/newsroom/top_stories/videos/wear_vid_9105.shtml

One of the news shows has a clip of a tourist attempting to rescue a small porpoise that was coated with oil.

My garden is fading rapidly with this heat and humidity. There are about 20 tomatoes ripening now but the plants they are on are withering. Many of the tomatoes begin to rot just as they reach maturity. I may have to pick them before they are fully ripe.

We talked to allot of family today; Kathy, Joe, Karen, Sophie, Lucy, Anne and Christy. That was nice.

100 K

Penny’s CRV reached the 100,000 mile mark about 2 weeks ago so we brought it in for its 100K maintenance today. The car is doing good. The only aging issue we didn’t address was the struts are going. The replacement of struts runs about $1300 so I’m waiting for our bank account to get a little fatter before we hit it with that one.
I got the replacement part in for the vacuum cleaner and it fixed the problem.

Our thunderstorms rolled through today about 1 o’clock. That messed up any plans I had outside so I focused on indoor stuff today. Not a super productive day.

5 Guys on Father’s Day

No, this is not a sappy story about 5 fantastic fathers. Rather it is a story of a celebratory lunch NOT at Harbordocks. Our town now has a 5 Guys hamburger joint and I thought it would be fun to make our 1st visit there for my father’s day lunch. Both Penny and I enjoyed it. They don’t yell out the orders at our 5 Guys like they do in Jax.
I spent part of my morning on yard work and part on taking the wheels off my bike. I discovered I had 3 broken spokes on each wheel. I don’t know when they broke but most likely in transit back from the wedding. Now I have to replace the spokes, tension them and true the wheels (a time consuming adventure). I didn’t realize how delicate my better quality than I’m accustomed to bike was.

I’m finally back on the treadmill. I’m so out of shape that I can barely do anything outside in the heat without having to stop and rest. I finally find myself with no cold or pains bad enough to prevent walking so I’ll see if I cant begin to build some stamina back up (or if it’s lost for good).

For 3 nights in a row there had been no cats. I was only feeding birds and tomcats and thinking maybe the feeder was going to go. Then last night a gleeful Meredith and placid Marmalade showed up together. I fed them double rations. Later just before bedtime a cool, collected Buzz strolled up. When I fed him the other 2 showed up and tried for more food. I held them off ‘till Buzz had his fill. Velcro hasn’t shown for weeks now.

Karen made my day with a touching father’s day comment.

Father's Day 2010

We didn’t do anything special for Father’s Day. I used the day to catch up on the laundry—Penny worked on her quilt. We’ll pick a day this week and go to lunch to celebrate.


I did take a break and take a sunset beach walk. The beach is mostly clean. There are tar balls in the sand, well aged and widely scattered. They are easy to avoid. It would be nice if this is the worst we got but the 60 days of oil that have gushed into the Gulf has to go somewhere.

The beach was relaxing. Sunset, people and airplanes.

June Think

It’s been one of those days that gives me much to ponder. Starting a couple weeks ago with Kitty’s death and ending up today with 4 or 5 items clustered into the day there have been many separate instances of life and death and the importance of different people in our lives all swirling around in coincidental slurry.


In rummaging through the storage shed a couple of days ago I came across Mom’s death certificate. She died this time in June. It also happens to be Dad’s birthday yesterday and of course Father’s Day tomorrow.

We’ve had 3 couples here this week for FOCCUS sessions and our discussions with them highlighted the influence and importance of our family members and religion (or lack of religion) on our lives.

Tonight at church there was a baptism and the announcement that one of our parishioners, young and in her prime, simply dropped dead this morning at an athletic event. She attended our mass but I had a hard time picturing what she looked like.

Part of our discussions with the couples is explaining the importance of knowing your partner’s family history as well as telling them yours. Everything from how money was handled and holidays celebrated to their attitudes about sex. Medical issues were also important. We marry each other’s families and a lot of luggage goes with that. Well, that meant talking about our families 3 times this week, explaining Mom, Dad, Sally and Patty are all dead, my relationship with family members and related health issues that have affected my life and our marriage.

I haven’t discovered any new revelations about what life the universe and all that is about. I’ve just found the density of theses topics occurring here in the middle of June interesting. Even my dreams this week were populated with family and many of them set on Alfred St where I grew up. It’ interesting that Mom and Dad can be alive in a dream and your mind just accepts it. When Karen and Christy are in my dreams they are usually around 5 yrs old. My dreams are rarely set in the present.

The underlying theme of all this June Think is the value of all those people in your life. Whether they are family or someone you can’t remember precisely in church. We are all intertwined in our lives. Each person is unique and valuable and irreplaceable. Some mean more than others to us. Just appreciate those you have.

Our 15-year-old

I took Brie to the Vet’s today for her annual checkup. She’s healthy. She hates to go there and was physically shaking from the moment I got in the door.


When the exam was over the vet told me that Brie was in super shape for a 15-year-old. I explained that Brie was only 5 and she said, well, in that case she’s in good shape. She also said Brie had beautiful eyes

We’ve Been Busy

I just read Penny’s blog and I can’t describe this weeks events better—So here are her words :
“The last few days have been hectic and I have pushed beyond my health limit repeatedly. Monday I shopped and then made portabello mushroom ravioli. Tuesday I went to lunch and then made spaghetti and meatballs, sausage and chicken to take to Malcolm’s house for dinner. Oh I also made Chocolate Cherry Cannoli cake. Paul and I took everything we needed and then we brought home everything. Malcolm said don't leave leftovers so I didn't. It was good to spend a few minutes talking to him and reassuring myself that he was okay.

Wednesday was spent preparing for a FOCCUS couple and Then we had another couple coming this morning. Yet another couple will be coming on Saturday.”

We’ve been extra busy with the FOCCUS couples because it is wedding season and the one other couple that does this takes a 3-month vacation every year and so we are the only ones to do this. The good news is that most of the couples do not require more than 1 or 2 sessions each.

For my part I’ve gotten little accomplished apart from supporting Penny’s cooking and quilting adventures, keeping up with the house and doing FOCCUS. The garage still doesn’t have my car in it, the lawn needs mowing and 2 weeks of laundry await.

We do have a break tomorrow and we will use it for our usual Target run.

The oil has reached us with tar balls along the beach. There are large patches of oil offshore waiting to be blown in. The local nightly news programs are mostly depressing.  This is just the beginning.  The oil and the torturous death of wildlfe will continue for months.

Slow Monday

I made a little more progress on reclaiming the garage today. 1 more good day and I should get the car back in there. The key word is “good”. I only got a couple hours in today. I ended up tired again and took a nap. That was followed by a spectacular thunderstorm that wiped out any outside work for the afternoon. The cold is gone. I’m tired because I’m not sleeping well because of my thumbs (I think).


Our vacuum cleaner quit working a couple of days ago so I took it apart and troubleshot it down to the power switch. The switch itself is a square device on a small circuit board. I went on line and after a little searching found a place that sold the part. With shipping it costs $15. Hopefully it will fix the problem and we will have the vacuum back.

Penny is busy making ravioli for tomorrow night and she looks like she is enjoying herself. The house has the wonderful aroma of portabella ravioli. Malcolm has had so much food in his house that he made Penny promise to leave no food. That means I may be forced to have leftovers this week. But life is rough everywhere, right?

Kayak, Kitty

This Sunday began with a kayak trip up the bayou for Penny and I.  We saw a pod of porpoise and the pair of osprey that live there.  The heat wave continues and even with it being early morning and on the water it was uncomfortably warm.

At 3 we went over to Malcolm’s house to have a short Kitty remembrance.  It was her friend’s idea.  We all went out on her dock and released a red balloon either with a silent or spoken thought of Kitty.  Then we watched the balloons fly away.  I swear it looked like they formed a “K” in the sky as they flew away in the strong breeze.

Penny volunteered to provide an Italian meal for everyone on Tuesday.

Tonight after being absent for a week or so Meredith showed up as the sole cat tonight.

Yes, We Have Tomatoes

BLTs, Pasta Cruda, home grown tomatoes, cucumber and peppers in our salads—we are in the harvest season. I counted 26 tomatoes on 1 plant today, 15 on another and 10 on a third. The only issue is that we are currently in a prolonged hot spell. It’s been 95 plus degrees feeling like 105 and tomatoes don’t do well in that heat. Now the question is how many tomatoes will ripen before the heat gets to the plants.
1 kitty was here today, Buzz.

Tomorrow we may kayak.

FOCCUS Friday

Today was centered on the FOCCUS couple we were seeing at 4:30. Yes we did other things, but everything was done keeping that appointment in mind. The house is in good shape so the big thing was the meal Penny was cooking.


The session with the couple was interesting. We actually were able to help them with a special problem they are facing. It was a good session and Penny’s baked chicken was fantastic.

We will likely see this couple again next week. We also have a second couple that we are working with. FOCCUS is keeping us busy.

Tomorrow is Waffle House.

Thursday

I’m still sluggish from the cold I had. Now that most of the symptoms are gone I think I’m feeling the effects of the medication. I’ve got 3 more days of that left then I’ll see if I get some energy back.


Since the kayak was already on the car, I decided to take a late afternoon kayak adventure. I went up to the end of the bayou to my secret blackberry patch to see if any were growing this year. The answer is no. I don’t know what caused that area to be loaded with the plants 2 years ago. Maybe some boater had a picnic raided by birds that ate all his blackberries and then “planted” them along the stream. Why they were there just that 1 year who knows.

I did get to see an osprey flying lazy circles above the bayou, circling and then floating perfectly stationary as he faced the wind and then making another loop. As he circled he called to his mate who would answer him each time he circled.

The kitties have once more disappeared. Marmalade showed up 2 days ago but no other cats since. I haven’t even had a raccoon show up. Maybe it’s the heat.

Rocket Rescue

I now take periodic “pain breaks”. They are basically water breaks with the application of ointment to my thumbs then resting 15 minutes until the stuff takes the edge off the pain.
On my way in I hear shouting from the schoolyard. There are 8 kids at the fence wanting to talk. They explain that one of their rockets is up in my magnolia tree. This wasn’t a surprise because earlier today one of the kids’ mothers came down and told us about it. It was too high up for me to get right away so I got her address—she lives 4 houses up and she has the fine name , Karen—and told her when I got it I would return it.

Well, with the kids at the fence I decided to try to retrieve it now. It took standing on my 10 ft ladder and poking with a (literal) 10 ft pole to get the little rocket down. This was a school project. They made the rockets in class and then launched them in the school yard. They must have gone higher than expected. You know how these things always say things like “goes up to 100 ft”. Well theses must have worked to spec. The trouble was the wind made the rockets land in the trees outside the schoolyard.

The kids were excited to get the rocket back. They were nice and polite too. They also said that 2 of the rockets were in our neighbor’s yard. I got those, too.

There are still a couple in the oak tree in the school yard. I can’t do anything about those. At least I did my good deed for the day.

Well, pain break is over. Back to work I go. At least I’m feeling well enough to do something today. Maybe I should start every day on the kayak.

Kayak

We kayaked this morning. It’s been a long time since we’ve both been out.

We were given a beautiful cloudless morning to explore and we decided to go up Don’s Bayou.

The first sight on the water was a sky full of purple martins. Many of the homeowners have those multifamily martin houses on their docks and dozens of the birds were cruising around the open sky provided by the bayou. I can watch martins all day. They are talented flyers and seem to enjoy circling and soaring.

Next we came to a dock where a large heron had landed and literally strutted up the dock, turned and strutted back. I didn’t have my camera ready to catch it all but I did get 1 shot in before he stopped strutting. The reason for his strut we found as we rounded the dock. A female heron on the shoreline watching the show.

We ventured up into the bayou, the air fragrant with jasmine and magnolia blossoms. There sure are lots of beautiful (and huge) waterfront homes along this bayou. We reached the head of the bayou—the bridge on Mooney RD and then headed back.

That's Penny off in the distance ahead of me in the picture below.

I may return to the bayou this evening to see if any blackberries are growing this year.

Garden Update

My vegetable garden is doing OK this year. Everything didn’t turn out but we are now structuring some meals around produce from the garden.

I was successful with cucumbers this year. We’ve had half a dozen good ones. Squash on the other hand was a bust. The plants grow and blossom. The little squash forms and then withers and dies. Bell Peppers have done well but not eggplant. The eggplants grew, flowered and then one plant died and the other was ravaged by insects. We got about a dozen nice and large blackberries and a few blueberries.

I may have finally cracked the code for growing tomatoes here. We’ve picked about 10 so far and there are at least 50 more coming along. Appropriately, the first to produce was the Early Girl variety. Now the Better Boy and Bush Goliath have dozens of fruits growing in clusters on them. I found I have to use a garden pesticide or else the bugs will get in the fruit right when it ripens. I also have to toss a plastic bird net over the plants because if I don’t the birds will peck holes in and eat the fruit just before I would want to pick it. I’ve been fertilizing once a week with a liquid fertilizer and my plants are watered automatically by my sprinkler system. Most of the plants are in containers that hold a reservoir of water at the base.  Water is always available to the plant from the bottom of the container as the plant needs it. The reservoir is replenished daily with any excess draining out the side of the container and not soaking the potting soil. We have had so much rain in the past week that some of the tomatoes got too much water and split—even with the good drainage. I’ve also had to reapply pesticide after each heavy rain because the bugs show up in quantity as soon as the stuff washes off.

Penny and I are finally recovering from our colds but our appetites have been lagging. This may be a result of the medication we are on or the effect of the cold itself. In any event we have not had pasta cruda or BLTs yet this year. It won’t be long though—the tomatoes won’t last forever.

Go to Someplace You Are Happy

When I came out of surgery many years ago I was in severe pain and morphine was not dealing with it well. I was still coming out of he anesthesia, I hurt and I was in a nasty mood. The nurse said you need to think about something that makes you happy. I said that I didn’t want to. She insisted that it would help. In my mind I tried to go to the beach. It did help some.
Since that experience I do often think about the beach as a pick-me-up. Today at Kitty’s memorial service I thought of the beach but it was not there as a happy place any more. It has oil on it.

It is sickening to see what the oil is doing. As I walked the beach yesterday I savored it as much as I could. After seeing how the oil comes ashore I fear it will just about eliminate all the birds—pelicans, plovers, gulls, skimmers, etc. If the oil doesn’t directly kill the birds it will poison or kill their food. The clams, sand fleas, fish and crabs all will not escape the oil. They have booms up at the Destin Pass. Booms don’t seem to stop the oil. Look at Louisiana.

We are now in the area of uncertainty for the slick. The wind is blowing the main slick our way and is supposed to stay that way through the weekend.

I need a new happy place.

See Ya

That’s what Kitty preferred to say when leaving, not good-bye. Today we went to her memorial service. It was emotional, with the priest choking up as he talked about his friend Kitty. There was a slide show showing pictures of Kitty in all the roles she filled during her life; daughter, sister, wife, mother, friend and of course a classy lady.
I knew Kitty was loved by all. I learned more about her today and it was all remarkable.

Her house was packed for the reception while an angry thunderstorm raged outside. When the power went out there were murmurs of Kitty playing around with us.

Mal, her husband, is still trying to cope. He seemed OK but he and the family got so emotional at the service that they had to have some time to themselves after the ceremony.

Penny has lost a good friend and her Tuesday lunch partner. That upsets me because Kitty was always a bright spot in Penny’s week. She has another friend who she sees regularly that is an emotional drain on her so Kitty will be dearly missed.

I usually don’t like being around old people even though they are my peer group but I don’t think anyone could dislike being around Kitty. She truly was a class act.

See ya Kitty.

No Oil

There was no oil on the beach tonight.  I took a nice long look (and smell) before I left.

An Interesting Day

Today began with the possibility of driving to Gainesville to look at a car for C & C. We got up early and got on the road by about 6:00 AM. We had coordinated with Christy so she would do some leg work while we were on the road. She would call us and let us know if we were needed in Gainesville.
It turned out that the car wasn’t a good deal so Christy called and told us we need not to come.

We were close to Tallahassee so we went to the local Jo-Ann’s to look at fabric for Penny. Penny found some great fabric for binding a quilt she is making.

Next we went to lunch. We went to a place a woman in Jo-Ann’s recommended guided by our GPS. The only trouble was the restaurant was not where the GPS told us it was. That turned out to be great because the place that was there was a wonderful find. It’s called the Brooma Country Grille ( http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/302/1280175/restaurant/Brooma-Grille-Tallahassee ) and it had great food and very pleasant service. Penny got country fried steak that she said her Dad could have cooked. I had today’s special which was a huge double burger. I now have half of it in the fridge.

We got back home around 2.

The oil in the Gulf is beginning to show up in Florida—as close as Navarre. I’m going to the beach tonight for 1 last visit before the major oil arrives and the beach is changed for who knows how long. This summer is shot—that’s for sure. Seeing the birds coated with oil and dying in Louisiana is disheartening. We know it’s coming here and wont be gone for years.

…And Coming, And Coming

Every time I tried to do something outside today it stared to rain or rumble—so I did inside things. Tomorrow has an even greater rain probability so it looks like a good laundry day (as long as the lightning stays away).

So tonight I’m sitting in my recliner ordering a gift for the Shockley wedding when some motion outside catches my eye. I’m surprised to see another raccoon moseying toward the feeder. He saw me move my head so he stopped and tried to see what I was. I wiggled my hand and that made him stand on his rear legs to get a better look. He turned away, took a step and then turned back toward the feeder actually licking his chops. I got out of the chair and this caused him to skidaddle. The raccoons just keep coming. I can’t believe the size of the raccoon population in this well established neighborhood—especially with all the dogs around. Maybe the proximity of the wide open schoolyard has something to do with it.

Once again my trap is set.

Sad Shocking News

We learned today that Kitty Page, Penny’s friend and weekly lunch buddy, died last night.  Yes, she was old but she was a young old and this was a complete shock.

I  tried to comfort Penny by taking her to lunch (Harbordocks) and Fresh Market as a distraction  until the sting of the news wore off some.  She’s doing OK.