Sunday, April 14, 2019

One Hour - or - Home to Home


Most of the day lies ahead, but in my first hour out of bed today:



7:50 a.m.  Mamie and I went sleepily outside for her morning pee. After she finished, we walked back to the house and a movement above caught my attention. A largish black bird was flying away from a hole birds had drilled into a piece of trim on our building with something in its talons. It was followed by several small brown birds who were shrieking and diving at it. They all landed on a garage roof, the object in question turning out to be a small bird that slid away down the tiles as the bigger bird tried to recapture it. He must have raided a nest secreted into one of the decorative supports.

         

8:00 a.m.    I put on sneakers for a longer walk without my slowpoke dog and went back outside. Just as I was firing up my audio book a thin woman who I’ve seen walking every morning came up to me. She was worried that the sprinklers on one side of the complex had been running since 6 a.m. and who should she call?

          Had she been walking the loop to nowhere around our complex for two hours?



8:10        I turned on David Sedaris’ Theft by Finding and began my walk, first through our complex, where the magnolias are just beginning to bloom. Magnolia blooms are probably my favorite smell in the entire world, all lemony and pure. My grandmother in Oklahoma used to float a flower in her big silver bowl on top of the cherry gate leg dining table and the smell would work its way all the way into the front hall and almost into the living room.



8:40      Home, bathed in sweat. It’s already over 75 out and humid. With my big cup of tea (Red Rose, my favorite brand) I settled in front of my laptop and watched John Oliver describe the latest phenomenon in trailer homes, aka manufactured homes, a popular choice here in Florida The residents own their homes but not the land on it, and are usually on limited or fixed incomes. Now huge corporations, one in fact, that Warren Buffett owns, are buying up these trailer parks and raising the rents as much as 60%. 

7 comments:

  1. I'm surprised Warren is doing that, actually. He's always seemed a pretty reasonable guy. I wonder if he's aware of it? I loved "Theft By Finding"! Glad the bird got away -- hope it survived. It's hard being a baby bird.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sounds like a lovey morning routine. And shame on Warren Buffett and all those other people who are pricing older people right out of their homes! :-(

    ReplyDelete
  3. I hope that small bird survived. I really hope it.
    Sigh on the rich determined to get richer, at the expense of those with much less.

    ReplyDelete
  4. No fun big birds gobbling up small birds...or people either:(

    ReplyDelete
  5. And we get 1% closer to the end of the rope.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Seems we aren't much better than the birds. Boy what a cruel way to take the ease out of retirement. How do these rich guys sleep at night.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Raising the rents by 60%?? That's outrageous! How do they expect people on limited incomes to cope?

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for stopping by and I'd love to hear what you think.