When You Were My Age

It was 1987.  Where were you then?  In a beautiful home in Florida.  Not too big, yet certainly not small.  Very comfortable in it's period details which you were careful to preserve.

You were happy, mostly.  Yes, you were discovering that Florida was not where you wanted to be, but that didn't matter so much.  You had a husband willing to sacrifice for you.  To try to make you happy.  You missed Rockport?  No problem, you got to spend summers there.  He drove you back and forth each year.  Yes, he too was happy.

You were retired.  From what?  No career.  You had worked a retail job while your husband was still in college, another for 'fun money' later.  After I left home for college, yet another job for extra spending money.  Never was it necessary that you work.  He provided as you both expected that he would.  When he retired, so did you.  You were 49 when that happened as you were ten years younger than him!

When you were my age you had a 5 year old grand-daughter.  Not the girl-y girl that you had dreamed of, but at least you could buy her dresses!  No dolls, though...a stuffed animal loving child.  Your only child, your daughter, had a home of her own.  Husband and child.  You were free to enjoy her companionship as a friend.

And your friends.  Yes, they were retired, too.  You living in Florida attracted them to visit and they did quite often so that you never felt abandoned or alone.  You enjoyed their company so much.  Just as you enjoyed your family from 'up north' coming to visit you.

Life was pretty good for you...when you were my age.

My life is so different at the age you were when you were my age.

A New Experience

Aerial of my neighborhood in FL

 I've been officially welcomed to the new century.  Yeah, I'm a bit slow.  Well, I was.  Now I have DSL service!  So...in the midst of having to do some changing around of emails and changing notifications on various accounts, I discovered that Blogger was moving ahead, too.  So this is my first post using yet another new, improved version of Blogger.  Over the next few posts I'll be checking out some of the features.  Back is the Strikethrough feature so I can change my mind as often as I want.  See?  And photos are supposed to be drag and drop, so the one I tried to insert here:   Should now be here:  Did it work?  Hmmm...Okay, I guess I don't get that one!  But I did get it to change from center to left and small to medium.  (My house is as close to center in the photo as you can get.)  Back to reading up on features.

Home for Sale

I just received an email from a friend in Florida. Seems my home is for sale. Yes, home. It will always be that for me. Looking at the pictures, I can see that some changes have been made. Mostly, I hate to see that the gorgeous, art deco lighting fixtures in the front hall and dining room are gone. I knew I should have taken them with me! Then there is the ugly drab wall-to-wall in the bedrooms, but after 8 years of being a rental property I'm sure it needed new. The other flooring looks nice, some wall colors have changed, the kitchen now needs an update. Some info in the listing isn't complete like it lists only a shower for the bathroom when the main bath has a tub, as well. And no picture of the workshop! Certainly they could have taken a better picture of the front of the house. If you want to see the listing you can go here. I'm homesick.

Minutes for Me

Wow! Those acrid keys have been shipped, 'A' is at work, and my mom is off on her own for the afternoon. I've time to myself. In actuality, I should be either working on the reed organ, finishing my taxes, cleaning the house, cleaning the workshop, or working on jewelry. I'm not. Maybe I will later. I found two pennies this morning and when I got home from that I found a box waiting at my door. It's all the stuff from the 50th anniversary celebration of San Jose' Elementary School, in Dunedin, FL. Remember they called about printing posters from my painting? The 'anniversary day' was on February 13th. Yep, Friday the 13th. Hope it went well for them.Included in the box were the program (I got an entire paragraph devoted to me!), a copy of the legislative recognition, two cups (one in photo), two tote bags, one gift bag, two pencils (one pictured), an alumni button for 'A', a copy of the "About the Artist" placard that they displayed with the original painting, AND... the celebration reprint that has my painting of the school as the background. (I gave them permission to make reproductions and sell them to support the PTA.) Mine has a message written in the upper left corner:

D____L____, What a beautiful picture you created for San Jose'. Thank you for supporting our 50th celebration. M____W____, Principal

A magnificent day. Doesn't take much to please me.

Fat Tuesday

Mardi Gras. We used to celebrate in Dunedin. It was a blast to make a total fool of oneself at the Mardi Gras parade. The parade consisted of folks dressed up in costume, most of them riding on floats that advertised local businesses. A mini Nawlins with none of the blatant exhibitionism. The big deal was screaming and begging for tacky, worthless, gaudy, beaded necklaces which had no other appeal than a feeling of exuberance at having amassed an enormous collection. My mom and dad, 'A' and I, and sometimes 'the other''S', a friend of my mom, would be there at the top of my parent's street. Front row for the parade. (In later years 'A' took off to the parade with a friend) We had a system. We'd all plead with the paraders for necklaces. Whenever my dad got any, he would give them to one of us. It quickly appeared that he had none while the folks (us) next to him had plenty. This seemed to cause the young ladies on the floats to feel sorry for him. They'd toss more his way. He'd hand them over to us girls and be back at the begging routine in no time. We'd end the evening with hundreds of beaded necklaces, all tangled together, around our necks! Except my dad, of course!

I wish I were there tonight.

Sometimes You Just Never Know...

who's going to be on the other end of that phone line!

Today was a busy day. 'A' wanted to go to Target to pick up some things to amuse herself while stuck home after having her wisdom teeth extracted tomorrow. I was expecting a guy to be picking up a set of keys around noontime, so we made the dash to the mall mid-morning and were back home by 11 a.m. When I got in the house there was a message on the machine from the key guy. He was going to be a little early and hoped that would be convenient. So, got him in and out and then had lunch and checked email. There were a couple messages that needed semi-urgent replies, so I took care of that. 'A' worked at 3 p.m. and we arrived there to a full parking lot. Why? Well, we're due to get another 8 or so inches of snow tomorrow. Yep, here we go again and I've got to get her to the oral surgeon and back, then pick up prescriptions for her. What fun.

Anyway, I was having a leisurely afternoon, working on some necklaces, eating ice cream, and watching some DIY on television when the phone rang.

I looked at the caller id. Florida. Pinellas County (where we lived). But the number wasn't familiar. I answered in my best business voice thinking maybe it was some tech with key work.

Nope.

You'll never guess this one in a million years.

It was the community liaison and volunteer coordinator for San Jose Elementary School, in Dunedin, FL. This is the school 'A' attended and where I was a volunteer. So what's up with this call, I thought.

The woman carried on and on about it being the 50th anniversary year of the school. She told me about all the special events that would be happening. (I get it! She's going to ask for money, right?)

Wrong.

They had decided to use a painting that I had done depicting the school (and I had donated to the school) as the feature in their program. Some people had requested that it be made in to art prints, to be sold to benefit the school PTA. And, they needed my permission.

WOW! Sure go for it! Just please would you send me a copy?

So there you go. How totally unexpected. I asked how they found me and she said that she had not really known how to start, other than to call everyone in the county phone book with my last name. She came across 'A's dad by doing that, and he gave her my phone number and address. They are also printing up a bio for the program taken from my staff bio on the WHOA web site, which they found while searching for me. She's going to send a packet to me with everything from the celebration. They had hoped I could be there, but of course that's a no-go.

Oh yeah, she said that the school's media center (library) was being renovated and she hoped to have a plaque made to go along with the painting as it is displayed in the media center.

How cool is that?

The Wild Life

I've been noticing the increase in wildlife this year. That also has me thinking about the differences between here on Cape Ann and "back home" in Florida. I like Florida wildlife. I don't mean 'gators. We didn't have many of those in our neighborhood! We frequently saw nifty things like possum and armadillo. The possum were naturally curious and would peer in the screen door at night. Sort of startling to see this HUGE, white, ratlike face staring at you with it's pink beady eyes. Armadillo have to be one of the strangest. Just like little, slow moving tanks until they argued with traffic. Armadillo were possibly the most often seen "road-kill".

Then, of course, the birds. My favorite was Eubie, "our" white heron. Eubie was named after Eubie Blake, the famous piano player. That's because every time I had a piano in the workshop that I was playing, Eubie (the bird) would walk right in and listen. He'd stand a bit sideways to me and tilt his head in the direction of the music.

Here's a picture of Eubie standing on the roof rack of my mini-van.

We found out that white herons really enjoy hot dogs! They will walk right in to the kitchen if you let them. We also found out that they will NOT eat giant grasshoppers. Seems that nothing will. Yep, folks, we had grasshoppers sooooo big and sooooo brightly colored that we called them "Nukers". They hatched by the thousands in the garden each June as cute little black hoppers. By July they were as big as a cat and ugly. They were bright green and red and yellow, with just a few spots of black. And guess what? They could even fly a short distance....very short, and okay, they weren't quite as big as a cat, but I challenge you to have the nerve to squish one. They liked to munch on broad-leafed plants like philodendron.

So ......more birds.....our woodpeckers were giants, too. Our street was lined with Washingtonian palms. You can see the better part of one behind Eubie. The woodpeckers loved them. Too much! These trees were about 80 years old and near the end of their life. Woodpeckers would attack them, repeatedly drilling holes around and around the trunk. The next big storm would come along and over the tree would go! Most everyone on the street had planted new palms in anticipation of the demise of the old.

Not all the critters in Florida were big. Squirrels were scrawny compared to their northern counterparts. I guess it's because they don't need insulation from the cold. Here's a picture of the squirrel that comes for breakfast each morning in Rockport. "Squirt" had finished his meal and had decided to put his butt in the dish and relax. In this picture he is watching the sparrows, and Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal, flitting to the bird feeder that is beyond his capabilities to dine from. Eventually he fell asleep with his butt in the dish.

I wish there was a way to have my camera ready and then to be able to take photos while I'm driving. Probably not a good idea, though. In the last week or so I've seen 3 wild turkeys along Nugent Stretch. Two, on separate occasions, ran across the road in front of me, and today, there was a large male turkey walking alongside the road. Yesterday, on my way home from a tuning job near the golf course in East Gloucester, a cute little bunny ran in front of me. Then of course last Fall was the large buck.

Now, all of this wildlife talk is just a preview for my next post. AND.....that post will be about the surprise.