Babies, scooter, snakes, and rainbow

 

You would think that walking the around our complex would be tedious. I mean, it’s just a circle. About the only variety you can achieve is in which way you take it. Admittedly, I’m always listening to a book on my phone since I always feel like a hamster on her wheel by the time I’m in the second loop to gain some steps.

But something usually pops up to grab my attention.

Like this mama moorhen and her teensy babies. Mama herself isn’t much larger than a tennis ball.

 There's always that one kid who doesn't listen to instructions, isn't there?

I couldn’t help but ponder the dissonance of this combination. 

Would this person take his mobility scooter on the golf course?

 Why not just rent a golf cart like everyone else. 

Would a course even let him drive his scooter from hole to hole?

This plant, while showy on top, has roots and runners that give me the willies.

And this was the view from our back door last night.

Double rainbow!

Day Trip

           So, just to get up and out, we took a drive to Matlacha, Florida, only a little over an hour away from us. Against all logic, it’s pronounced “mat-lah-SHAY.”

Limping and Blinking

There I was, on my way to bash that pickleball, when my sneaker hit the ground at an angle, my ankle did an unpleasant turn, and my knee was suddenly unhappy.

For Peg

   What with food prices on their alpine climb, I’m determined to eat down whatever we already have before the next trip. I’m one of the probably select few who doesn’t mind a trip to the grocery store, it combining two of my favorite things – shopping and food.

Clear-conscience shopping

          For the rest of the year, I live in a small town in Massachusetts that while lovely, isn’t close to much of anything. We have a couple of nearby good restaurants, but eating out usually means a drive of 45 minutes or an hour.

First came the goats . . .

 

I’d played pickleball for two hours in the morning, but then spent the afternoon just sitting, so it was time for a walk around the complex.

Mystery solved

 

Yesterday meandered by – up later than my usual leap-out-of-bed-at-7:00 to rush off and play pickleball. This meant comfy time on the couch with my cup of tea and latest mystery. Then a walk of two times around the complex, more reading, then to the pool to lounge and chat with people. Hedonist heaven.

          Like other days, when I didn’t actually have a book in my hand, I had one in my head. I truly love my airpods. I can listen while I’m changing beds, walking, making dinner, or for more of a challenge, while I’m also completing a crossword puzzle. I use them so much, and they and their case are so small, that I’m careful, careful about where I leave them.

          So, I came home from the pool, fiddled around with a few things, and then fixed dinner (Roasted shrimp & asparagus, caprese salad, box noodle mix), all while still listening to my book.

          When dinner was ready, I unplugged my head and then couldn’t find the case to put the airpods away. After dinner the search began in earnest: countertops, bedroom dresser top, beach bag, purse, bathroom counter. Twice. Then under chairs, bed, dresser; inside underwear drawer, kitchen junk drawer, office junk drawer, box where I throw my sunglasses after walking. Repeat. Nothing.

Homeless

          I finally ended up ordering a replacement case, knowing in my heart that that would ensure that the original case would magically appear. Except it didn’t last night.

          Today I poked around in the freezer, wondering what to make for dinner. Wasn’t there a chicken recipe I wanted to try? How many cans of tomatoes did it call for?

          Off to the office to pull out my big loose-leaf binder of clipped recipes.

          When I opened it – you guessed it – out fell the missing case.

The Loaner

 

My Guy needed my car for a lone day trip, since we thought it would be nice if he actually got to where he was going. His car, which we leave here in Florida, used to be my car.

Four out of four

 

If only I could say that the reason for this latest surge of images on the blog is that I’ve used up all my words through my writing.

While I did make some inroads on book 5 yesterday (finally!), accomplishing a couple of scenes and giving some thought to tying various characters into the happenings,

for the past several weeks I’ve been incredibly lazy. Fortunately, I’ve found one way to outwit myself: Get so far into the book that I can’t possibly walk away, leaving it unfinished and abandoning all that work I’d put into it.

          But never mind all that – in lieu of some deep thoughts on my part, here’s what My Guy entered into the latest modeling society competition. (A reader had expressed interest and requested more of these the last time I posted one of his entries, so here ya go.) 

       

 Usually not much taller than 4 or 5 inches, these are what is known in that world as “flats.” 

He buys the sculpted figure and then paints it, sometimes creating a backdrop for it. I think it was the backdrops that brought him into his other love - painting on canvas. 

This one of Robin Hood earned him a silver.

He won a bronze with the milkmaid:

This one earned him a silver:

And this brought home the gold:

Fabric Joy

(Warning - many pictures ahead.)

I went to an art show on Saturday. 

This show may have awakened that old urge to pore over bolts of fabric and thumb through quilting patterns. 

Aging Report

          I had a Zoom call with my three friends from high school – Washington-Lee in Arlington, VA to be exact. Truly a forgotten era, seeing as how not only is the building gone, a shiny new one replacing it probably decades ago, but the name exists no longer, either. It’s now Washington Liberty, which I suppose means the football team is no longer the Washington Generals. And in domino-style, I imagine the team colors are no longer blue and gray. . . and therefore, I imagine the yearbook I used to work on is no longer called the Blue and Gray either.

          Whew – I hadn’t followed all that to its logical end before.

          I envy those of you who are near your roots and see friends from long ago on a regular basis. As I’ve written before, the three of us are scattered over Massachusetts, West Virginia, Maryland, and Hawaii. Unsurprisingly, we haven’t gotten together in years. I haven’t seen our Hawaii member in decades.

          Last year we made noises about getting together, possibly near or at the West Coast to simplify travel for our island dweller. However, our Maryland friend fell while on a trip and broke her femur, resulting in months of recovery.

          We’re going to try again this fall, this time aiming for the Southwest – Santa Fe? Sedona? Somewhere artsy with good views, anyway.

We’ll see.

          The thing is, Hawaii friend seems none too healthy – diabetes, arthritis – and her husband just turned 102. Yes. Really. 102. So, I imagine she’ll have to line up care for him.

          It seems as though West Virginia friend can now barely walk, but she cheerily extolled the possibilities of airport wheelchairs. Okaaaay . . . . .

          Maryland friend is all healed up, and is probably just fine for the trip. Hard to tell, though. She has definite hypochondriacal tendencies.

          As the only one of the group with my own knees, whose only medication is a low-dose statin, I feel a bit like Wonder Woman, arthritis aside.

Sunday Stroll

 This morning's walk through the complex was full of the usual fauna:

A crabby crow

The Heavens

 

Sweet daughter managed to tear herself away from the tropical climes of northwestern New Jersey for a long weekend here in Florida. I’m sure it was a wrench, having to leave behind the scene of this last week’s blizzard. It’s a rare treat to have one of our kids all to ourselves, something you don’t realize how much you’ll miss it when they get married and have kids and a life of their own.

Sad Soles

          So as you may know, I’ve been playing pickleball quite a bit lately, sometimes three times a week. And if you’re envisioning me dashing gracefully side to side and then whizzing from the net to the back of the court – don’t.

          My game is now fairly stationary; I play close to the net as much as I can and depend on fast reflexes and a long reach. I learned the hard way that running backwards will often guarantee that you’ll land on your keister, or worse.

          Running anywhere pretty much left my life several years ago.

          And yet, I’ve still managed to come home with aching legs. Thinking it was all about arch support issues, I got orthotics, which didn’t solve things completely. I finally realized I probably just needed a new pair of sneakers, which I now need to take for a walk. Or do I?

          Do people still “break in” their shoes? I remember as a kid, a period of band-aids on my heels before that year’s school shoes softened up.

          And another thing – I also remember every September my father taking the beer can opener’s pointy end and scratching up the smooth soles of my new saddle shoes to prevent me slipping. In this world of sneakers everywhere except the shower, I guess that’s gone, too.

Quiet Weekend

          My Guy is away for the weekend, and I should be accomplishing no end of productive projects. It’s not as though I couldn’t do these things when he’s home, but something about having a silent house makes me feel both guilty and free.

          I’ve at least finished one audio book and I’m halfway throug

Mulch Madness

 

       In spite of being old enough to have a 23 year-old grandson, and having bought a condo (and paying a hefty HOA fee for the landscaping), I found myself outside spreading mulch.

Valentine Cuisine

 

Our Valentine’s Day festivities were just as dull as they usually are. And we’re just fine with that.

Fuzzy Memories

 If one purpose of a blog is to record events and memories from our lives, it occurred to me that perhaps I could list all the animals from my life.

Snippets

 

Yup, still here. And it’s not as though there’s been such a cavalcade of events that I’ve been too busy to post. Although there was that thrilling trip to Costco to re-stock our Glucosamine, and perhaps I could have written about how often I’ve been out to sweep the common hallway due to all the leaves blown in by the wind.

 

Almost parallel universes

 

          Here we are in the ‘sunshine state’. And sunshine we’ve got- plenty of it – but last night’s forecast included snow for parts of Florida.

Familiar Skills

          Last night was dinner out – not in an exciting-culinary-kind of way, but just a gathering of fellow residents contributing to the meal.

          I didn’t have much else going on, so I decided to make bread.

Holding Pattern

        I should be writing. Scads of time, but I’ve only achieved seven chapters so far and the procrastination is growing by the day.

Snowfall to sunset

        I remember Mama recounting tales from the days when we lived in Amherst, Massachusetts. I was barely there, being only two. My father was teaching at University of Mass – Poly Sci I think – but only briefly, before we all moved to Arlington, Va. after he was hired by CIA.

Food Fun

 

We’ve had a couple of Aldi food stores open our area. WinnDixie finally conceded the supermarket title to the omnipresent Publix, but apparently WinnDixie were bought by Aldi, who are now almost as ubiquitous around here as the big P.

          You can’t really go there with your full shopping list in your hand, but it’s fun if you like treasure hunting for bargains. And finding anything name-brand is a challenge, but I did snag that old standby Campbell’s tomato soup for 99 cents a can and then later saw it at Publix for $2.09.

          And I’m broadening my horizons

There was a row of mysterious brown root vegetables:

          Okay, yucas I know.  

         

And these apparently are balanca malangas.

  

      

And at first I figured the store was stumped here, just writing “name”.

 

But after looking it up later, I learned the
'name root' is a form of yam.

       

   But Whoa, Mama! Just look at this egg price.

Produce and pooches

 

With Sunday’s weather looming on the horizon, (today it was 74 in the morning, then dropped to 52 with high winds and rain in a span of one hour) My Guy and I figured we’d better get out and enjoy the day.

Tale from the slow lane

          We have a fully outfitted home here. You know – sheets, plates, pots, actual furniture to sit one. So why do I so often find myself at Home Goods?

          Or as I like to call it, Mecca.

Florida and fluids

         I’m not too sure where the last two weeks went.