Boob Tube Times

 

I’m grateful to have grown up in a time period when tv was so new, parents didn’t worry about what it might be doing to their kids. Granted, for me it also helped that I was mildly neglected by my mom and so was pretty much left to my own devices.

Playing in the Mud

 

First, to be clear – I have no, repeat, NO artistic ability. Even my handwriting is so poor that I used to avoid writing on the blackboard when I was a teacher.

But I may have found my medium.

Just as something for fun, a friend and I signed up for a pottery class. Outside of those ashtrays (did teachers in the 1950s think that everyone’s family smoked? Good thing mine did – like chimneys.) that we all made in elementary school, I haven’t willingly put a pinky in mud for the past umpteen years.

But I’m hooked.

We begin with a giant lump of clay. 

Kind of daunting. 

Then I rolled some of it between giant rollers remarkably like a big pasta machine. 

But now what to do with it? 

There was lots of guidance on technique, but we could make anything we wanted. 

After they've been fired in the kiln.

Then dipping in the glazes. 

And after another firing:

Now if I can just find a place for all the results. 

The family had better watch out at Christmas. 

The Girls

 Zoom call at 5:00 last night, as I kept repeating to myself all day, lest I forget.

I also kept checking email, because our organizer, Christine, still hadn’t sent the link. By 4:00, what with packing to head back to Massachusetts and cleaning and doing laundry, I’d forgotten. So at 4:45 I was out in the garage sorting the car and gathering up the DampRid (moisture-gathering bags to hang in closets) I’d stored there.

By the I’d wandered inside it was 5:15 and I had a text reminding me to join the gang. I had of course just turned off my computer, so I revved that up, checked its camera to see if I could be seen, and clicked “join Zoom”.

It was another of the every-few-months-or-so gatherings of my girl friends from Washington-Lee High School in Arlington, Va. No particular agenda, just a chance to catch up. The players are pretty diverse.

We know me – Massachusetts resident, visitor to Florida, retired teacher, writer, grandma of 5.

Chris – Maryland retired college prof and historian, so Irish her mom had had a faint brogue, Catholic elementary school and then enthusiastic convert to Judaism after marriage, Bat Mitzvah and all.

Sheila – West Virginian resident in a small art-colony sort of town, stained glass artist who has had one of her works on the White House Christmas tree, three husbands in the rear view mirror, and now barely eking out a living and on Medicare.

Andrea – Hawaii, resident of Lahaina, whose home thankfully sat above the August 2023 wildfires, former tv producer, and who looks very tired, likely from caring for a husband who recently turned 101.

          The conversation ran through politics – we’re all unabashedly liberal; travel – some of us can, some of us now can’t; watching old musicals with granddaughters; health (inevitably); and oddly, no reminiscences about the past.

          There may be time for that yet, because by the close of the call we’d vowed to each other to meet in person. We made plans to get together next fall, in California to simplify travel for Andrea, with the subtext that Chris and I would do whatever it took to get Sheila there, too.

          Exciting!!

Splurging

 

I figured one last indulgence before we leave would be a shopping trip. Florida clothes are different, and with all their bejeweling and glitter not the sort of thing that a Northerner like me would usually wear. Except for the fabrics. At home the tee shirts are heavier, thicker, and when Massachusetts hits the 90s, as it often does, it would be good to have something to cover as much of me as possible without buckling under the heat.

If I only had a brain

 

One small benefit of a bum knee and being unable to play pickleball is that I now lounge in the mornings instead of bounding onto the court at 8:30 a.m.

Knees and Hair

 

Today should have been a pickleball day but my knee is on the fritz. It’s been acting up since last Monday’s session and I finally realized that if I’m going to do my part in the roughly 1,500 mile road trip home, I’d better be sensible.

Bikes not Buggies

 

When we bought our home here in Venice years ago, I knew it wasn’t like Miami or any of the other party-central places on the east coast of Florida. Thank heaven. But it’s also far less glitzy than the big city of Sarasota just down the road.

          The area also has unexpected things like the equestrian center, with its jumping
competitions involving people from all over the country, that I could easily walk to from my place.

  

        And if you see someone on an adult tricycle wearing suspenders and a straw hat, they’re likely from Pinecraft, an Amish community on the outskirts of Sarasota, only 30 minutes from Venice.

          Yes, even some of the Plain people are snowbirds. I’ve even seen a few on the beach.

      

   In fact, in February they held their 7^th annual Seniors Softball
Showdown between Amish and Mennonite players versus non-Amish locals. 

    There were three competing teams, coming from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. And no real need for uniforms, since you can differentiate the teams by who’s wearing suspenders.

          There’s been an Amish and Mennonite community in Pinecraft since the 1920s. While there are a few year-round residents, many of the houses are rented out for short-term visits by the thousands of Amish that come from all over the country.

 It’s a destination for older folks, honeymooners, and some younger Amish come for seasonal work. Generally, though, the visitors come from more business-oriented locations in the mid-west.

          It can get iffy, though, because the more traditional communities would frown upon the use of electricity in the homes here, although apparently this is often allowed for temporary stays. And there does seem to be a range of observances of tradition. One Saturday, when My Guy and I were breakfasting on a patio next to a parking lot, I saw two women in long print skirts arrive in an SUV, pop on their bonnets and go in for some pastry.

Mama Maneuvers

 

It was just to be a small walk around our complex.

Pioneer Skills

 

When we had friends over the other night, I brought out a bottle of a wine I’d enjoyed at someone else’s house and I bought a bottle of my own for that evening.

We opened it up, poured a small taste, and then collectively reeled back.

          It was awful. It smelled ghastly and our one brave taste confirmed it. Something had gone horribly wrong with it. So, I poured it out and put the bottle in the recycling.

 

We were having beef stew last night and I wanted to have something more than just a bowl plonked down on the table. Not in the mood for another salad (yes, I know, a healthier choice) and needing to use up the flour, I made baking powder biscuits.

          Kind of.

          No shortening. Since anyone knows that butter makes everything better, I substituted that. Like so many times before, I mixed the dry ingredients, cut in the butter, and added the milk. Next step, a quick knead and then roll it out.

          No rolling pin. When outfitting your place in the land of sun and fun, a rolling pin is rarely top of anyone’s list.

          But wait.

          A quick rifling through the seltzer cans, tonic bottles, and wine discards and eureka! There it was, only needing a good washing.

          The bottler may have screwed up the contents somehow but they designed a perfectly
shaped container.

         

Massachusetts here I come

 

We won’t be heading home till the end of the month, but my urge to be there is growing and it’s not just because of the impending 90 degree temps here.

Pressure

 

I’ve been spending the past few days selectively deaf. My AirPods have become almost a permanent fixture in my head, and My Guy is getting used to waiting for me to tap my left ear twice (to pause the recording) until he can speak to me.  There are a couple of reasons for this.

Bags or Circles?

 

I remember being mortified as a child when my mother would strike up conversations with complete strangers. We’d be out somewhere shopping and the next thing I knew she’d be sharing observations or worse – some kind of comment about me.

Dreary Drama

 

The play Dancing at Lughnasa, a biographical work by Brian Friel, was described as a “lyrical, effervescent portrait of five fierce sisters holding onto each other through the joys and sorrows of life in rural Ireland.”

Bittersweet sunset

 

Living as we do in western Massachusetts, an area packed with mountains and tall trees, spotting a sunset is a rare and magical thing. Here on the Gulf Coast, sunsets are easy to come by but everyone still appreciates them. 

Many beaches are noted for their late afternoon gatherings, known as drum circles, in which people dance and celebrate the end of the day. There could just possibly be some beverages, too.

Another way to view the sunset is from a boat, and we were on one recently to say farewell to a couple we’ve become friendly with but who – darn it - are moving away.

We’ve gone out with this captain before and we enjoyed her inside information on some of the fancy houses by the water and we also saw the after effects that still remain from the two hurricanes of this past fall.

She always brings us to a rookery, a grouping of mangroves that houses a colossal variety birds. 

The pink spoonbills are my absolute fav.

A couple of dolphins spun in the water for us, and the sun did its thing again.

Big men, small men, and great food

 

You may recall that My Guy not only has painted more than one living room wall in his time, he also has a couple of other mediums. He took up oils not all that long ago to great success.

Oddments

 No deep thoughts here today. 

Just some photo snippets of things around me. 

I picked up a new travel organizer, seeing as how mine is possibly 30 years old. And no, that's no exaggeration. 

Except when I cut the price tag off, I found this:

It makes you wonder how a cosmetic tote could be potentially responsible for reproductive harm, but at least we've all been warned. 

Here's our resident eagle at his post, ever vigilant over our small lagoons.

 Someone told me that eagles really aren't the best fishermen in the world so their strategy is often to wait around for an osprey to get lucky and then he swoops in to carry off dinner. 

And a trip to my local Publix supermarket gave me a golden opportunity to broaden my culinary world. 

Small Victory

 

It’s officially been a month since I’ve put anything here. Wish I could say that life has been so merrily madcap that I just didn’t have time. Or that I’d been achieving something hugely important: curing athlete’s foot or saving the economy from the impending recession. Nope. I’ve got nothing.

 

Meanwhile, after my perfectly ordinary trip to Goodwill today, I’m happy to be alive.

 

As usual, I took a right onto the road that takes me there. Goodwill is on the left, only about three blocks away so I – as usual – immediately popped into the left lane, the traffic in this stretch being challenging to get across at the last minute.

 

And just as immediately, a woman in a boxy red (matching her mood) car was in my rear view mirror. On my bumper. On my bumper. On my bumper.

 

So of course I slowed down.

 

Long hooooooonnnnnnnk. Followed by a long hoooooooonnnk.

 

Really, I thought? My turn off was coming up.

Since there was also a convenient truck on my right, I did what any small and petty person would do – I stayed side-by-side with him so the idiot behind me couldn’t shift lanes to pass.

 

More hoooooooonnnnnk. Hoooooooooooooooonk.

 

The truck and I were not dawdling, both of us traveling at or slightly above the speed limit. And I don’t know if he was in cahoots with me, but we drove in tandem until it was time for me to make my turn.

You know, all of perhaps two blocks.

 

When I made the turn I rolled down my window and gave her a big wave.

And to my credit, I used all the digits on my hand.