Between personas

I feel like I've been run over by a semi-truck. I got in early this morning. Before I left Florida, I suggested someone drop off my car at the airport since I wasn't arriving until almost midnight. My husband insisted he would get me. He was not very friendly when he arrived. 

I didn't notice right away because I was bitching about the Not-Navy-SEAL-Why-Couldn't-He-Have-Been-Sexy guy who sat next to me. By the end of the flight, I was ready to lay into that guy. Not only was he half in my lap, but he kept fidgeting every three minutes. He'd twitch his leg, and because it was up against mine, he'd hit me. Or he'd rearrange his body, and because it was practically on top of me, he'd hit me. Every time I would drift off, he'd wake me. I preferred The Kid shouting my name!

Once I got that out of my system, I realized how quiet the husband was. We didn't say anything on the way home, and when we got inside, he told me good night and promptly went to bed. Jeez, lovely welcome home. Not even the dog came out of the bedroom to greet me. 

Also? There is no Christmas tree. I'm told he put up lights outside, but they were not on when we got home. Unlike PA, Floridians do not leave their Christmas lights on all night. Well, some do, but only a few.

I showered, unpacked my clothes, and went to bed. I slept well. 

Coming back from vacation is always hard, but going from Nanny Cara to whatever I am here...hmm...Housewife Mommy Cara...is difficult. I always feel like in PA, I'm this different person. More a shade of who I was before I married and had children. Returning takes a while to morph into who these people know. Definitely, it will take longer than twenty-four hours!

I also bet these two expect dinner tonight.

Keep an eye out for predators

March in Florida is when live oaks, who have shed their leaves all winter, produce catkins. These slim, cylindrical flower clusters begin their annual flowering, letting loose pounds of yellow pollen that fall from the trees as new leaves push them out. The sound it makes as it falls is like rain. Stand on my front porch by the second or third week of March, and you will think the skies have opened up. 

Pollen coats everything nearby--cars, fences, driveways, windows--leaving behind yellow-green streaks. Clean it, and as quickly as you've finished, it's time to do it all over again. It's maddening, and by the end of April, we're over pollen. 

Spring also brings out the leafrollers, little green harmless worms, who get displaced from their oak homes by the wind and are left dangling, hanging on for dear life clinging to a silk line. They are pretty translucent, and often we walk through them without knowing we've dislodged them until we spot them in our hair or on our clothes.

After a week of 80-degree February temperatures (which is why our oak thinks spring has sprung), we got a respite with lows in the upper 50s. This coolness sends my dog outside to lounge on the front porch, and this morning I joined him. 

As we exited the door, a leafroller dangled directly in front of the entrance to my front porch, and had I not seen him, he would've ended up on me and probably would've been transported into the house. But, Elliot chose not to exit the porch, thus saving the silkworm--and me.

So, just in case Elliot did go into the yard, I sat in my porch chair and kept an eye on the little fellow as he swayed in the gentle breeze. He held on as the wind carried him to the right and back again, and then he began his climb up the silk thread. He'd work for several seconds, stop and hold on as the breeze carried him to the left, and when it died, he'd begin climbing again. He'd get several inches up in the air and then suddenly drop as if he'd lost his footing. I'd cringe, thinking of all the energy he'd expelled. Now he had to start all over again.

And he did--crawl, crawl, sway, sway, crawl, crawl.

It reminded me of the song High Hopes that Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams would sing on

Just what makes that little old ant

Think he'll move that rubber tree plant

Anyone knows an ant, can't

Move a rubber tree plant

But he's got high hopes

He's got high hopes

He's got high apple pie

In the sky hopes.

I had to give it to the little fellow. He was determined. After about ten minutes, he was probably six feet off the ground, and then BAM, down he went, hovering a mere inch from the ground. My heart hurt for the little fellow, and if I could've helped him, I would have. 

Instead, I thought I should be taking this as a metaphor for my own life. 

Get off my ass and get moving!

About the time this flitted through my brain, he'd struggled up, up, up to my eye level. He took a breather as the breeze did its thing, and then, just as he resumed his climb, a bird flew out of nowhere and gobbled him down.

Mid-flight.

It startled the hell out of me--a bird flying so near. So, I was a little slow on the uptake. 

When I realized my little silkworm was no longer anywhere to be found, I was horrified, then annoyed, and then I SnapChatted a video of the entire story, and I couldn't stop laughing.

So any time your feelin’ low stead of lettin’ go

Just remember that ant

Oops, there goes another rubber tree plant

Oops, there goes another rubber tree plant.

But keep one eye on the lookout for predators

Florida fruits

My neighbor across the street brought us a lemon from her backyard lemon tree. Behold a Florida homegrown lemon.

Me: "What am I suppose to do with it?"

Her: "I don't know. Make lemonade?"

How to behave in the new hood

Several years ago, my neighborhood changed drastically. Death took a majority, others downsized, and my favorite of all neighbors moved to another state to be closer to his children. Where I once had a hood of familiarity and friendships intimate enough to refer to the same as family, I now have strangers who want little or zero contact.

Major upheaval in life. Or at least in my life.

Because gone are the days of knocking on neighbor's doors for borrowed sugar. Now, according to one of the new neighbors, a knock brings a greeter carrying a gun.

Gone are the days of sitting in garages drinking coffee and chatting up those passing by. Now, the garage doors are tightly closed as soon as a car enters or exits. Gone are the days of dinner invitations, block parties, and general niceties. Now, we're lucky to get a smile, a wave, or a mumbled greeting, let alone a sentence or two.

Perhaps it is also my fault. While I did greet new neighbors as they moved in, I haven't gone out of my way to further a relationship, preferring to gripe instead of their lack of what I call, "Midwest neighborhood-ness." Meaning, as it was in my youth, welcoming neighbors and bringing them, or pushing them, into the fold. Making them a part of the established group.

Once, during one of our frenzied hurricane preparation periods, I remarked to a new neighbor about his parked boat having been moved.

Me: "I was holding on to hope that your boat would lead us out of the expected neighborhood flood."

I was joking, of course. We sit on a hill. There is little chance of flooding.

He, however, did not chuckle. He snarled and then went on a ten-minute rant concerning a letter he'd received from the neighborhood association board informing him he'd exceeded the seventy-two hour parking period. He commented on neighbors further down the street in error of the deed-restricted rules. I was treated to angry words and a tirade on "whatever busybody neighbor had turned me in."

Me: (to my husband later) "I assured him it wasn't us, but I wanted to respond with a dressing down on how if he spent more time interacting or exchanging hellos with the neighbors around him, they might not be so inclined to report him."

The next day the same neighbor invited me into his house to see his renovations. I was walking my dog, but he insisted I bring in Elliot, and as the two of us heading into the front door, I looked back into our hood, hoping someone was watching me entering this angry stranger's house in case Elliot and I were never seen again.

Yikes! If I think this about my neighbors, what must they think of us? I wasn't precisely channeling my "Midwest neighborhood-ness."

This whole introduction is leading up to a problem we are currently having with my next-door neighbor, who has started taking to throwing out chicken bones into his front yard. Or maybe it's a whole chicken, I'm not sure. All I know is that my dog really likes this new occurrence.

Now, back in the old days, we tossed out dinner bones for the neighborhood dogs. Because one, dogs roamed untethered, and because two, the damage bones did to animals' teeth, and stomachs hadn't been discovered yet.

But having had to take my dog to the emergency vet following his ingestion of a pork bone, we are very leery of giving Elliot any type of bone, dog-made or otherwise, and these bones next-door are making potty runs and walking trips quite tricky.

My dog is ten years old and does a relatively decent job of remaining in our yard without a leash. Others have pointed out that perhaps the neighbor doesn't agree with us on this, but seeing how the neighbor's yard is certainly not up to our association code, I doubt he cares a hoot about our playing loose and fancy with the leash law. Which I believe pertains only to dogs outside of their own yards. 

Sure, the neighbor could prefer to not have my dog in his yard, but other than sniffing a rabbit under his bush, Elliot doesn't usually set foot in the yard because well, it isn't much of a yard. And even if my dog spent hours in this yard, throwing whole chickens or bones is a bit passive-aggressive, in my opinion. Having vast experience in the "Midwest neighborhood-ness."

The question is, how do I handle this situation?

My experience says to speak with my neighbor. Find out why he throws dead animal carcasses into his front yard and ask nicely if he could stop doing so. Or approach him another way and ask him if he knows a chicken died in his front yard. I've thought up several different approaches, but our friends and family members cringe at these, offering the other side where I'm a terrible dog owner, and while I admit some fault, I'm still good with hearing it from my neighbor's lips. As long as the communication is respectful and friendly.

This is how we always handled things before in our hood. We communicated. Granted, there was one incident that wasn't so friendly, and many feelings were hurt, but for the most part, we always spoke kindly with one another and came to an agreement we could all live with peacefully. Then we had a cocktail.

This new hood? These new neighbors? These tumultuous days of pent-up rage? I'm at a loss. Any suggestions?

Staycation 2019 - Day 5 and 6

Very few people during the week. Most of the summer crowd has headed home to begin getting ready for school, leaving us the beach. It's nice. We went to our beach not far from my house. SueG had never parked anywhere besides the park and was quite happy to learn she could park down a side street for free. New Things!

The water was even choppier than the day before. Susan and SueG's daughter went for a walk since we hadn't gone to the gym. I attempted the water, but fighting the waves wore me out, and so I went on my own walk so that my steps wouldn't be too far off of Susan's. I walked a little over a mile, and Susan wasn't back when I finally found SueG. So much for my steps.

The weather has been great, so the waves were a mystery. On our beach, it 's possible to stand way out to the buoys, but even that far were waves. I attempted to get out far beyond them, but it was crazy. If my Apple Watch were the latest, I could've probably counted my swim as exercise. I was sorry I didn't have a board or a raft to ride the waves.

The sun was relentless. Susan decided we would only spend a few hours every day on the beach, and by the time they returned from their walk, we were all ready to head back to the pool. So far, we'd done well with the sunscreen. Usually, just a sunburnt nose or an ear tip or the tops of feet were burned each night.

The next day we hit the gym again, and then we went to the grocery. Susan is a big salmon eater and has always told me that I just needed to learn how to cook it correctly. We bought salmon and other things to celebrate Tom's birthday later that night, then we went to the beach, parking this time in the lot so that we could get an umbrella as we were all feeling the heat by Day 6.

More choppy water again but not as crazy. I spent a lot of time in the water far out beyond the higher waves. The Susans stayed near shore. The umbrella helped. We stayed longer than our two hours and only left when we knew we had to start cooking for the birthday guy.

Susan did all of the work, and I never saw how she cooked it because I was pooped. She talked me through it from the kitchen. I think I can maybe attempt it later down the road. We had dinner and then celebrated with presents and a carrot cake.

Susan and the girls then went shopping while Tom and I chilled. My SIL can really wear me out. But I'm getting in my steps!

Staycation 2019 - Day 4

Early morning rising. Coffee and conversation. Gym. That was the routine and we stuck with that for Tuesday although Susan also would walk the hood and sit by the pool. The girls' summer jobs ended the day before so we found them at the gym too. I sat down to lift some weights and this was my view. I worried after I took the photo that someone would report me but I was ready with the response of: "Listen, I use to wipe those butts!" Thankfully, no one noticed my secretive photography taking.

As we left the gym, Susan insisted I stop at this market where she'd spied a mural. She wanted her photo taken there and I suggested that we pick up Cuban sandwiches while we were there for lunch.

Susan: "What's a Cuban sandwich?"

NEW THING! I pulled over.

We decided to split the sandwich as they were big but then I spied a Greek salad and decided that would go well with the sandwich. Susan told me no. She reminded me of the plan to eat pizza for an early dinner on the beach. I said that I was trying to eat a salad every day. She told me I could have a salad with my pizza at dinner.

A woman standing next to me leaned over and whispered in my ear.

Her: "Wow, she is adamant that you not have that."

Me: "That's because she walks over 10,000 steps a day and doesn't have to worry about eating salads."

Her: "Salads are healthy."

Susan: "We're going to have one tonight. We don't need two."

Her: "You'd better not get it."

I did. But only because Susan relented when she saw the salad. I left the lady and paid for our lunch. We had to step back from the counter to wait for our Cuban to be pressed. We watched the people with their purchases as they strode to the counter. Susan kept up a running commentary on everyone's choices. When the lady arrived, she went right to Susan.

Her: "I'm getting this roasted chicken but it's only half a chicken and I'm getting a side of veggies."

Susan: "Very healthy choice. Good for you. Unlike that guy whose opting for a bag of Doritos. Not a healthy choice."

Me: "I bet our Cuban is going to be ready any minute now just to get you out of here."

Susan: "Well, he is a construction guy. He probably works that off in an hour so I'm going to allow him that purchase."

Sure enough, our Cuban was handed to us and out the door, we went right behind Mr. Construction Guy with his family size bag of Doritos.

Me: "I apologize for her behavior. She's not normally this way."

Susan: "But his week I'm trying new things."

He ignored us as if we hadn't spoken. Susan posed again for another picture. We left for home and enjoyed Susan's first Cuban.

SueG joined us for a pool day where we played volleyball. The Susan Team was beating the Mother and Daughters Team when lightning forced us inside. We showered, picked up SueG's kids, and headed to Clearwater Beach and our pizza place that SueG had never been to before. Not new to Susan, but still new to those of us in the group. From there we walked the beach to the boardwalk and the pier to watch the sun set.

Day 4 in the bag.

Sanibel 2018 - Day 2

Susan was up early. The woman doesn't sleep much after beating cancer, so once I joined her for coffee on the balcony, she woke up her sister--no sleeping in on this vacation. We did the breakfast buffet, sitting outside overlooking the pool, and then I insisted we bike ride so that I could get in my exercise. They agreed, and the nice girls running the equipment shack gave us a map to the lighthouse, a 3.6-mile bike ride. That almost put off Susan because that would be a round trip of seven miles, but I convinced her we wouldn't have to go the whole way if we thought it too much.

The weather was beautiful. It was only about 71 degrees, and we had a nice breeze and the sun the entire trip. I went first because my legs were the longest, and after a shaky start, I got into a nice rhythm. I've ridden enough with my biker husband, and so as I passed other bikers and walkers, I said, "Bike left" as I rode around them. I also used a lot of energy, saying good morning to everyone coming toward me from the opposite direction. Everyone was out either biking or hiking, so I bet I said that over a hundred times. It got exhausting. At one point, I wondered aloud if it were still morning and a walker assured me it was.

Her: "It's 10:45 a.m. You're still good."

I probably had gone a mile before I realized I had left the other two far behind. I had to pull over and wait for Susan and Gina to catch up and ask for directions, but Susan had left the map behind, so we decided to just wing it. I set off again and periodically pulled over to wait for them. We made it to the lighthouse, which turned out to be one of the top ten destinations on Sanibel. We parked the bikes and hiked around the lighthouse and the beach, chatting with people we met.

Sanibel is known for its shells. They are everywhere on the beach, but I kept making them put them back as they picked them up. I still have two containers of my mom's shells sitting on my front porch, and that's after we got rid of the other boxes she owned. I know they snuck some in their luggage, but I may or may not have tossed some back. 

We were wearing our matching shirts that said we were part of Susan's 50th crew, so we met many people who wanted to read our shirts. Gina and I always pointed to Susan as the oldest. She always let them know she wasn't 50 yet. People were so nice, wishing her a happy birthday and chatting with us. It was a great bike trip. It was so great I'm looking to move to Sanibel because I would be skinny if I lived here and biked everywhere.

I made it back to the resort before the others, so I circled the parking lot a couple of times. There was a gentleman worried about his convertible. He kept walking back to it as if someone was going to steal it. I passed him twice and then again as he finally decided to leave the car and walked two rows over toward the resort. He stopped abruptly.

Me: "Don't worry, I won't run you over. I've got the hang of it now. I just biked 7 miles."

He laughed and moved on. I circled the lot again until the girls arrived. 

We rode back to the return area, and as I came around the corner to the shack, the same man was standing there.

Him: "This woman tried to hit me in the parking lot!"

Me: "Please. I let you get away, but I think I may have dinged your car."

He stared at me and then threw back his head and laughed and laughed. People were so friendly on this island, I tell ya. I loved biking. I could have biked to the other end of the island, but my back was aching from sitting up straight for so long, so I didn't chance it. We changed into our suits and hiked to the beach, where our island boy, Omario, got us chairs and umbrellas. We also got a beverage from the tiki bar. It was 5 o'clock somewhere.

The weather was perfect. We had lunch, we sunbathed., and then we walked the beach. I got into the water. 

Later that evening, we drove to Captiva Island thirty minutes away, to take a sunset cruise. It was chilly, but we were prepared for that, and the crew had blankets aboard. The cruise was about an hour and a half. It wasn't anything great. We only saw one dolphin, and some man kept getting in our way during the setting of the sun, but it was fun nonetheless. We learned a little history of the islands and met a bunch of nice people.

We ate at a restaurant in Captiva with a waiter that apparently had a bug up his ass. We tried our best to woo him over to the good side, but either we had lost our charm, or he was just too far gone, or we pissed him off regarding something.

Me: "I'll have a Captain Morgan and a coke."

Kyle: "Beer or wine."

**

Me: "What do you recommend for dinner?"

Kyle: "Seafood or no seafood."

**

Me: "Which dessert do you recommend? Never mind, I know. Dessert or no dessert."

We gave him his 20 percent, but I think I'm going to need to mention his behavior on my Yelp review. Jeez, buddy. He was the only unfriendly person we encountered the entire trip, and that includes the guy we were sure was stalking us. Of course, stalkers are always friendly because, well, they are trying to get into your good graces. I learned that in the FBI. FYI.

We ended the night the same way we had the previous night--we played cards. Gina won this night. We contemplated rearranging the furniture as the maid had put back a chair and an ottoman we had moved. We thought it might be funny to set up a camera to see her reaction the next day if we put our mattresses on the dining room floor and the dining table in the living room. But it was too much work, and we hadn't had enough to drink. 50 years and over, you know.

Day 2 in the bag!

Sanibel 2018 - Day 1

Last fall, my SIL Susan's niece, Leeandra, began planning a 50th birthday celebration for her aunt. First, she thought about a cruise and contacted me to include me in their family. While I was touched, I declined due to financial reasons, but when it was changed to a trip to Florida, well, that was easier as I'm already in Florida. Her niece planned the whole trip, including matching shirts, and we kept it a surprise until the reveal. Susan was very shocked.

Being the person in charge came with some drama (unintentional on her part) and, in the end, some trauma. Her mother went into the hospital two days before the trip, and because she is an only child, Leeandra had to forgo the trip to take care of her mother. Ugh, I know that feeling. But the trip was paid for, and heavy hearts Susan, her sister Gina, and I went on without her. We did include her every day as we enjoyed the trip she had planned. We toasted her, we thanked her, we wore our shirts, and we kept in touch. It was a nice thing to have done for her aunt, and I was thrilled that she included me as part of it.

Sanibel Island 2018 began for Susan and her sister on Wednesday in a hotel in Indianapolis. Their plane left the next morning at 5:20 a.m. I left my house at 7:00 a.m. for the two and a half-hour drive to pick them up at the Ft. Myers airport. The weather held, they made their connecting flight and arrived on time. I came a few minutes later, and we met up to begin the fun.

We ate breakfast and shopped for supplies in Ft. Myers and then headed across the bridge to the island, about a forty-minute drive. Because it was a Thursday, traffic wasn't bad, but I would hate to be arriving on a Friday, and I would hate to be a local during a hurricane.

I'd been to Sanibel before with my mother and her friend when I first moved here. It wasn't anything like I remembered. Sanibel is true to old Florida with no big businesses and minimal high rises. If you want gas or a grocery, you have mom and pop shops or go over the bridge. Bike and walking paths run along the road and have the right of way, and everyone is very pleasant. I could see myself living there.

Our resort was a beautiful place directly on the beach that had once been a condominium division. It went through a bankruptcy, and the resort came in and helped pick up the pieces. We had a two-bedroom condo package, and everything came with it, including chairs, umbrellas, bikes, kayaks, paddleboards, etc. We had wristbands and agreed we would try everything. Our room wasn't ready, so we got chairs and an umbrella and sat on the beach in our clothes and had cocktails from the tiki bar.

Our room was large and spacious. Susan and her sister took the master room because it overlooked the beach, and I got a room and bathroom to myself across the way. We had two living rooms, a kitchen, and a beautiful balcony that overlooked our pool and the beach. We took a lot of pictures from this balcony where we enjoyed our coffee every morning.

Our package included a $70 credit to the resort's Japanese restaurant, and we agreed we would go there that night. The room had four tables that allowed seating for eight. We went early and were joined by a couple from Canada. We chatted with them and the wait staff and had the room to ourselves for the first hour.

I'm not a fan of this type of place because I swear I got sick at our local Japanese restaurant, which has since closed. But this place was small and clean. Susan had lobster and scallops. Gina had chicken. I had chicken and shrimp. The lobster was from Maine and had arrived the day before, and the shrimp was from Louisiana and HUGE. It was the freshest shrimp I have ever put into my mouth, and I live in Florida. It still tasted of the ocean, I swear. The meal was delicious, and afterward, they brought Susan a piece of chocolate cake, and we all sang Happy Birthday to her. The triple chocolate cake was SO GOOD. 

We were stuffed after the meal, and so we walked around the resort. We discovered that breakfast was a buffet in the morning, starting at 6:00 a.m. We all agreed we would not be there at that time. Who goes on vacation and gets up before six to eat? Crazy people, that's who.

Me: "And old people."

Susan: "Well, I am turning, 50."

Me: "We aren't eating at 6:00 a.m. Forget it. We aren't crazy old people just yet."

The pool closed at dusk, but we did get to play some corn hole. I won. I'm letting everyone know that because, according to everyone that knows me, winning is important to me. I believe it is when competing because, uh, why wouldn't it be, but I don't get depressed if I don't win. Hmmm...well, maybe in certain games. 

We ended the night by shopping in the little store at the resort with a few tourist things. Susan bought a coffee cup with palm trees. I left the store without my phone, and so we visited the store twice that night. We also outwitted a guy we were sure was following us. I used my FBI training to make him think we lived in a different resort. 

Despite having been up most of the twenty-four hours, we stayed up late playing cards, laughing, and talking. We only had three days, so we were determined to make the most of every little second. We headed off to bed with plans to be up early to grasp Day 2, and all it would have to offer.