Month: April 2015

I was in Boca last weekend, driving to my daughter’s house after having stopped at the store. The driver in the right lane decided she needed to change to my lane. No big deal, but what was a big deal was she seemed uncertain about her decision. She was driving slowly and getting slower all the time. Why was this a big deal to me, besides being a road hazard?!  I had no time for slow-moving vehicles! I had ice cream! Shouldn’t there be a fast lane for ice cream? Perhaps an ice cream flashing light that you put on the roof. There is a finite amount of time you have between store and home before ice cream reverts back to milk and sugar. You’ve got to go! Get out-of-the-way!!!

Since this woman seemed to be unsure of her next move and I had melting ice cream in a warm car, I changed lanes. Just as I was coming up on her right flank she began her drift in front of me again. I honked the horn. I didn’t lay on it. That would have been overkill, but I didn’t need to add crumpled left fender to melted ice cream. She swerved back to where she came from and then stopped!

Stopped! You can’t stop in the left lane, or even the right lane for that matter! Cars were coming up on her and I can assure you it was going to be an unpleasant surprise for them to realize she wasn’t moving!!! From my rearview mirror I could see everyone was now dodging right. Once they passed and all was clear, she made her right hand turn from the left lane! What?! You can’t do that! I don’t care how much you want to do that, you can’t! They don’t even do that in Ontario and believe me, I’m pretty sure there is some creative driving going on in Ontario.

There are rules people! Whether you got your license yesterday or 50 years ago, the rules are the same and they apply to everyone! Creativity and individualism in driving style is not encouraged! It’s not even accepted! If you are unsure of the rules, refresh your memory with the driver’s manual. You are not allowed to make up new rules. We have people for that. And when folks have ice cream, yield the right of way!!! I’d do the same for you.

As Americans we have a sense of personal space. It’s a big country after all, so what’s the deal in the grocery store!? That person in line behind you that keeps creeping into your personal space while you’re trying to load your grocery bags in your cart and pay your bill. There they are, bumping into you with their cart, or standing right by your side as you try to write your check! Yes, I’m a dinosaur…writing a check, not swiping my debit card.

That’s not the only place it happens. Traffic lights! South Florida has it’s share of traffic, but it’s not the only place I have witnessed this. Pretty much any large city, but rural towns have their own version. In rural town it’s the guy behind you at a traffic light who is just an inch, maybe two away from tapping your bumper. He’s revving his engine. Instead of looking at the light you’re checking your rear view mirror, so you don’t notice that the light has turned green. He uses that exact moment to honk his horn. “Lady, let’s go!” In the city it’s a little more dumbfounding. The horn honking begins before the light turns green. That’s what I said, the light is still red! This happened while I was riding with my daughter one evening. What?! The light is red! Stopping is not a suggestion! This is not Rome! As soon as it turned green the driver zoomed around us, as if we were the most idiotic drivers she had ever encountered, cut back in front of us and came to an abrupt halt at the next red light. Now the shoe was on the other foot. What to do? What to do? I know what I wanted to do!  We didn’t, which left me unsatisfied, but the cool head of logic isn’t always satisfying.

Don’t you wonder what’s going through their head? I would love to see one of those cartoon bubbles above their head with their thoughts so I could maybe get it. Life may be funny, but it’s not a cartoon. I’m left baffled. For now I have managed not to shout out a snarky remark to the person bumping me with their cart, or standing behind me while I write my check. I don’t sit idle for an extra couple of seconds when the light turns green just to make a point, but “Warning!”, at any moment I may go Incredible Hulk all over them! They have it coming!

Dudes and Dudettes!!!  Back up and take a chill pill! It’s arrogant to believe the world revolves around you. You are not the center of the universe, and as hard as it is to believe, you are not the most important person in it. I know that sounds overblown, but I was actually stepped on once by a man behind me in line. I know I’m short, but I’m far from invisible.

Get outside yourself. Smile at others. Take a breath. We’ll all get there.

It was a beautiful day at the beach. We hadn’t been there for a while, but the snowbirds are beginning to fly away home for the summer, so there’s a little more breathing room. The Gulf waters are also beginning to warm and it strikes me funny how quickly this can happen. It’s a huge body of water. One day it feels like a therapeutic ice bath and a couple of weeks later it is cool enough to feel refreshing, but warm enough to stay in and bob around. I don’t know how it happens so fast. I’m just glad it does.

The water has that beautiful turquoise blue/green to it and though not completely clear today, it’s not bad. Clear enough for us to see a large dark shadow that is definitely moving beneath the surface near shore, which eliminates the possibility of perhaps an isolated deep water trough, but opens the possibility of a cloud shadow. Looking up reveals a cobalt blue sky. That wouldn’t be it then. Best case it’s a large school of fish. Worst case….well you know what the worst case is! We stare, barely blinking. Nose and head break the surface and guess who? It’s a manatee! What a marvelous surprise! A relieved one too, I suspect, for the couple drifting around on the pool float when Mr. Manatee made himself known.

My husband spent some time beachcombing with a metal detector. I have two bionic knees, so when he goes for a while without hearing even a blip on the squawk box he lifts the detector to my knees, just to make sure it’s still working. Glad to be of assistance. Years ago our son lived near the Treasure Coast. We spent some time on the beach, him detecting, me scooping. Don’t know how that arrangement came about. Found a lot of flip tops, which led him to question whether anybody throws anything away anymore. No Spanish gold though. On this particular day our treasures amount to .75 in quarters! The disappointing realities of the debit card age, but it’s still fun to hope and dream. You never know.

We grab hotdogs and share a Coke at a picnic table underneath a sea grape tree. Cumulus clouds are beginning to build and turn dark over the Everglades. A few billow far on the horizon over the Gulf. I think how lucky I am, for it is truly a beautiful day.

Sometimes life reminds me of a baseball game. There are all sorts of pitches and sometimes we feel like we get more than our fair share of curveballs and sinkers. The balls come at you hard and fast. At times you want to duck, call for a pinch hitter, take a time out! Unlike baseball, in life you are always at bat. Keep your eye on the ball and swing hard!

I don’t care what stage you are at in your life, whether you are young, just starting out, or old and looking to retire you make plans. You have a vision of how things are to be and how you’re going to make that all happen when suddenly life throws you a fastball you weren’t expecting. You swing and get a piece of it. Not a total loss, but you are far from out of the park. You’re lucky it doesn’t foul into the stands, but you don’t strike out. You never strike out. You’re always at bat!

You may go weeks, sometimes months and feel like a power hitter every time you’re up to bat. Everything is going great. Life is good. Can’t wait to get up in the morning and don’t want to go to bed at night. Then all of a sudden the ball isn’t spinning your way. You get pitched a curveball and another and you are suddenly in a batting slump. Nothing is going as planned, you worry, you worry about worrying and you wonder if you are ever going to rise out of this one, but you do. You may not be hitting them over the fence, but eventually you start hitting again. A single, a few doubles, maybe even a triple once in a while. Not all good, but better.

Once in a while life pitches us one impossible ball after another…..fast, curve, knuckle, sinker….there is no time to act, only react. You just want to catch a break. You feel like everything is going wrong. Things are definitely not as they are supposed to be, or as planned. Not as you imagined, and certainly not fun. Life is no longer a game of baseball, but beginning to resemble The Hunger Games. Sometimes it appears as though we are looking for trouble. These things that carry so much weight in our lives are different for each of us.  Death usually tops the list of the heaviest, followed by serious illness or injury. Different things run the bases, jobs, money, marital stress, the challenges of raising kids, aging parents, on and on. The list is infinite and we call it life, because that is what it is.

What do you do? You suit up! You pick up your bat, square up to the plate, because today is the day! Today is your day! Swing for the fence!