Not Sherry

I’m not sure what causes certain memories to pop into your head when they do, but one popped into my husband’s head the other day. He asked if I remembered having a party phone line when we first moved to Colorado. Do I remember? Of course! It was 1991, nine years before the turn of the century! The 21st century! Here we were, suddenly propelled back to the 1960’s!

I remember as a kid we had a party line. You had to pick up the phone and listen to make sure you had a dial tone before dialing, or whether someone else was already talking on the phone. This is completely different from an extension, which is just someone else in your house talking on the phone. If that was the case, you could just yell, “Get off the phone! I need to make a call!” On a party line, this was someone else, perhaps a neighbor. You couldn’t exactly tell them to hang up. You had to wait. Sometimes people weren’t really good at waiting and they would pick up the phone every 30 seconds to see if you were done. You got the message and if you were polite, you’d finish up your conversation, so they could use the phone. Barbaric!

The problem with the party line we had was it was 1991, and the Persian Gulf War had just begun. My brother-in-law was in the Army, stationed in Germany, and had been deployed to Iraq! I needed to talk to my sister, give her love and support. If you have ever talked to someone in the military on the phone, or their family, especially during times of war, they are very cautious about what they say. I knew not to ask many questions and my call would be short, since she was in Germany too. The minutes on the phone ticked by in dollar bills, not cents. Now, add to that someone on my party line was interrupting this very important phone call every 30 seconds by picking up their phone! Irritation is not a big enough word. Why was I living in the Dark Ages!?

That didn’t last long and it was only a matter of a few months before we caught up with the rest of the free world, and had a “private” line. Fast forward to the age of the internet. I don’t know when DSL was invented, but it is right up there with indoor plumbing! However, in 2004 we were still part of the dinosaur age, using dial-up. You remember the screeching tones of dial up. No way of connecting to the computer without everyone in the house knowing you were doing it. Then there is the patient factor of waiting for it to connect, but the biggest problem, it tied up your phone line. Unless you had a dedicated line just for your computer, you were essentially on the longest phone call ever if you were surfing the web.

2004 was the year our son went to college in Florida and got slammed back to back with Hurricane Frances and then Jeanne. He spent Frances in a hurricane shelter, but the damage at school was significant, and he needed to come home for a week while they cleaned up. He had a cell phone, but I didn’t, so I called and told him to head for Orlando. I went to work on the computer to see if I could get him a flight out and would call him back. While I was on the computer looking for flights, which were non-existent, and then looking for a hotel room for him until he could get a flight, we were incommunicado! Not exactly where you want to be in an emergency. When the flyer got put on our door that DSL was now available in our neighborhood I didn’t need to think twice. I didn’t even care how much it cost. I just knew that we needed it! However, in 2008 my son moved to Maui, and was back to dial-up! 2008 people!!!

We went from hardwired land lines, with the long curly cords that were always a tangled mess, to portable phones that were far more convenient, but wouldn’t work in a power outage, to cell phones. When no one was looking, the pay phone went the way of the dinosaur, so if you’re still one of those people fighting change and refusing to get a cell phone, good luck with that when you’re out and need to make an emergency call. Cell phone have now even usurped the land line in most homes, replacing it completely, unless, of course, you live in a remote area that gets lousy cell service.

Wow, look how far we have come….good, bad, or indifferent. I say good, or at least it has been for me. I do think we could use a couple of pay phones around, just in case your cell phone is out of battery, but then who carries change anymore?

I find myself, almost daily, having an argument with one or more of my electronic devices. There are these features on my phone and my iPad that are there to help me take shortcuts, which I rarely use. My kids have suggested that I turn them off, but on the few occasions that I do use them, they are nice. What isn’t so nice is when my devices think they know what I’m going to say, or want to say, but they don’t, yet they insist on making the same correction over and over again, until I find myself pounding on that little “x” to erase, while virtually shouting at my iPad or cellphone, “That’s not what I want to say! Stop it!”

For the longest time, when signing my emails, my iPad would decide that my name was “Usher”. I learned to type in the 70’s on a typewriter. It was electric, in case any of you were thinking that I am from the stone age. I didn’t learn to “keyboard”, as it’s called now, but the typewriter and the keyboard are laid out exactly the same. The “S” you type with your left hand, the “U” with your right, so it’s not like my hands just slipped to the wrong key. My iPad never decides on a different name for me. Just “Usher”. I am not a musically talented, black man, but my iPad seems to think it’s a good name, and I should try it out. It also decides to randomly capitalize letters. Perhaps it believes certain words are under appreciated. A capital letter in the middle of a sentence may make the reader more attentive, or cause them to re-read the sentence to see if they missed something. Sometimes it changes words altogether, but I’ve learned to proofread emails because of this hostile takeover by my iPad. I’ve been made a fool of more than once and have learned my lesson. Sometimes even I can’t figure out where I was going with the sentence that Mr. iPad so carefully crafted!

Then there is the cell phone. We’ve all had these texts where we hit send, just as you notice that the word you meant and the word your phone thought you wanted were not even close! It took three tries for “w” to morph to “wineed”, finally making it to “winner”, and every time I text “for”, my phone is positive I mean “fir”, complete with a pine tree emoji! In the meantime the person you were texting is wondering if you’ve been drinking! One time I texted, “Did you die….”, instead of “Did you buy”. At least that got an immediate response.

The reason I bring all this up is because we’ve all been victims of our electronics, thinking they are far wiser than we are.  The same people who write all the programs for these cute, handy, short-cutting things on your devices to make your life easier, but actually don’t, are also the same people who are writing the programs for self-driving cars, and are talking about pilotless airplanes. Now, ask yourself, is that a good idea?

Kim and I were carpooling with our daughter and her family, driving along Highway 31, on our way to the Peace River for a weekend of family fun to celebrate my 60th birthday, and her 30th. We would be meeting up with our son and his family there. The Florida scenery may be flat, but it is diverse with wetlands, orange groves, sod farms, cattle farms, rivers, and an array of wildlife, but one particular species of wildlife was hitting our windshield, and in record number!

Mariah was driving, noticing that the cars coming toward us all had their windshields covered in splattered bugs! They must have driven through some sort of hatch! Car after car so covered in bug juice we were positive they could barely see through it. Why hadn’t they used their windshield wipers? Probably because there were so many that it would not clear, but simply smear! We wondered where these folks had run into all these bugs, and then we heard it! Splat!!!

One bug splat on the windshield, then another, and another. Soon I had counted five splattered bugs. Mariah tried to keep up with the washer fluid and wiper blades. For a moment I thought we might get some help from the rain that I heard begin to fall, but it wasn’t rain! It was a hailstorm of lovebugs! They hit the windshield in such numbers and such force that it was only the few that got lodged in the wiper blades that allowed us to identify what they were.

I had forgotten that May was lovebug season, when they come out in great numbers to mate! By definition they do not swarm, but gather in the thousands! That is putting a fine point on it! I’m not sure I know the difference! They are more of a nuisance to humans, as they do not bite, but there are just so many of them!!! When they splatter all over your car though, their carcasses become slightly acidic and if you don’t remove them within a day or so, you could notice that they are pitting your paint! They also converge in such numbers that their dead bodies can clog your radiator’s air passages! Whoa and gross all at the same time!

Indeed when we arrived at our destination the windshield was covered in bug guts, and the grill in lovebug bodies. Our son’s new car looked the same and we were grateful for the hard rain that came later that afternoon, which helped to wash most of them off. It didn’t keep them from swarming…..I mean congregating in great numbers around us whenever we were outside, and whether they bite or not, I do not like them covering my clothes and getting tangled in my hair. It was a sight to behold, but still, ewwww!

 

Mother’s Day is coming up, sending most of us into a panicked rush to the store looking for the right card. Do I go with funny or sappy? Do I send flowers, chocolate, both, or something unusual? I do appreciate personal words of love and gratitude from my kids, and whichever way I go with my own mom, I make sure to include those special words to her as well.

I read recently in the Reader’s Digest that if you had to hire someone to do all the work a mom does it would cost $67,619 a year. That’s pretty specific! There was a list of those tasks a mom handles in a day, but I noticed that something was missing amongst the cooking and cleaning. Those are the tangible things, but so much of being a mom is intangible, but ever so valuable. Mom’s have to do so much more than just show up. Being a mom is 24/7 for life, but it isn’t a sentence. It’s a privilege.

When my son was in first grade he struggled with reading. I could have made that the teacher’s problem. Some parents do, but instead we sat together every night, reading every book he had to read the next day in school. He stumbled with Helmut and Olga. Really? What happened to Dick, Jane, and Spot? No wonder he was struggling! I could barely get my mouth around those names. But, night after night he got better, faster, and it became easier, and now reading is one of his favorite pastimes. Hours well spent for a lifetime of discovery and adventure through the pages of books.

When my daughter was in the 4th grade she wasn’t putting much energy into school. I just wanted her to care. She defiantly announced that she didn’t care about her grades. Well, I cared! I was determined that I would stick by her side, check her work, insist she did her best, or she would do it again! One day, either out of resignation that I would not stop, or finally getting why it was important, she cared! She went on to graduate from college Magna Cum Laude.

I wasn’t the perfect mom. I probably hovered too much. Didn’t let them fall enough. But, what I did well was believe in them and all that they were capable of. I would teach them, encourage them. I would never give up on them. Not then, and not now.  That’s what mom’s do. The chores are extra.

My daughter said to me the other day that this will be her first Mother’s Day. I understood what she meant. This was her time, her day to be special to her family. I was not hurt that she wouldn’t be here to celebrate with me. After all, it’s been some time since I’ve spent Mother’s Day with my own mom. The torch has been passed, though once a mom, always a mom.

My mom has cancer. I don’t know if this will be my last Mother’s Day to decide to send chocolate or flowers, to find the right card, and say the right words, or if I will get another Mother’s Day to get it right. My mom might not be the perfect mom, but she is perfectly my mom. I will always celebrate her no matter what the day, no matter how far away she is.

I was sitting on the couch the other evening, attempting to thread a needle, a pair of inexpensive reader glasses perched on my nose. My arms moved farther away from my face and then closer in an attempt to find the sweet spot where everything was in focus. I could say that threading a needle is a challenge for anyone, but the fact is it’s gotten more difficult over the years, even with my glasses on. When did my eyesight decide to take a powder?

Long ago, when I was a small child, I wore blue and white striped glasses, terribly chic I’m sure for a 6-year-old, in order to see anything that wasn’t 100+ yards away. As my eyes “matured” I was able to ditch those glasses. A common thing they say. I still leaned toward farsightedness, but I could actually see things at all distances clearly, and that’s exactly how I liked it. 20/15 vision…more than perfect!

I enjoyed my eagle eyes. I could read road signs a block ahead, which made navigating fairly easy, but it seemed like overnight the road signs went blurry. I rushed to the ophthalmologist, sure that something was horribly wrong, only to be informed that as we “age” this happens. Well, when did I suddenly “age”?!

My distance vision was reduced! By the time I could read a road sign clearly I was nearly past it! As for my near vision, I was needing a longer arm to find that sweet spot. At Mass it was easier if Kim held the hymnal in front of him. I could see it fine there. Seems my eyes were barely working at all! Time to get some tools to rectify the situation.

I have acquired a collection of cute, non-prescription reading glasses from Wal-Mart. I have a black pair with crystals next to the sofa, a tortoise-shell pair next to the bed, a funky speckled pair in the car, a red pair in my purse, and a blue pair on the desk next to the computer. They are even different strengths. The greater the number, the more magnification. I need +1.5 to read a book, because you hold that closer to your face. The ones for the computer are +1 because it’s farther away. As you can see, I still lean more farsighted. But, that doesn’t solve the problem. When I drive I need distance glasses. Those are out of the “over the counter” wheelhouse and I had to go prescription. I have three pairs of those. Two are clear. One is a backup pair, and one pair is sunglasses. With those my eagle eyes are back! Of course I can’t read the speedometer with them on, but I’ve adapted.

Mass is still a challenge. I have to lay my glasses out on the pew. Readers for the hymns, and distance ones so I can see the priest. Logic dictates that things might be a bit easier and far less cumbersome if I just went with bifocals. Are you kidding? That would mean I have “aged”.

 

 

Last weekend my husband and I were outside doing some yard work when I caught some quick movement in my line of sight. It was one of these, a Basilisk lizard. They are not native here, but they are part of the neighborhood. My guess, someone had a couple of these as pets, and failed to read the fine print that said they get to be over 2 feet long! So, they cut them loose, but perhaps they got here another way. I find them to be fascinating and I love watching them, especially when they run.

Later in the day I spied one of these looking at me from the back of the wicker chair on the lanai. A green anole. That’s where he hangs out. I greet him every day there and we respect each other’s space. Though he’s only a few inches long, I’m not going to sit in that chair as long as he’s there. I’m not afraid of him, but the idea of him scampering across my back freaks me out a bit! His brother shows up in the Florida room from time to time, coming in under the screen door to take a break from the sun. Can’t blame him for that. I look at them. They look at me. It’s all good.

What I have noticed is how each of these lizards remind me very much of a miniature Jurassic Park. I know that “some” scientists believe that dinosaurs are more related to birds than to lizards, but to that I say, “Open your eyes!” With the exception of the pterodactyl, which I find strikingly similar to a pelican,

I find very little resemblance of t-rex or a velociraptor to your neighbor’s parakeet!

Simplistically speaking, humans share half our genomes with other mammals and the other half with bananas. Seriously? What does that say?! Our DNA sequencing is complicated, as is that of a hamster, but the only “kindred” spirit a hamster and I share is our bias toward being chubby. Just because we share similarities doesn’t make us relatives. So, back to my lizards. I think they’re pretty interesting and I’m grateful that we no longer share the planet with their distant cousins, the dinosaurs, but I wouldn’t turn your back on the robin in your yard, plucking worms from the ground, just in case I’m wrong about who is related to whom. 

2018 started off with a cold front that is sweeping across the nation and has left those of us in Florida reeling and wondering what has happened? This is crazy stupid cold! They call it “Grayson”. The focus has been on New York and New England with wind chill,  blizzards, snow and ice. Why? It’s January! It’s suppose to be cold up there! Does nobody remember the great Buffalo, New York blizzard of 1977? 46 to 69 mph wind gusts and 100 inches of snowfall in 3 days! Minnesota and Wisconsin are the states winter jokes are made of! No, the big news story is how cold it is in Florida! That’s right folks, it was snowing in Tallahassee!

Floridians are no strangers to big weather. We will bravely face a Category 5 hurricane, like warriors going into battle, but drop Mother Nature’s thermostat and we are cowering under blankets and frantically trying to remember how to turn on the heat!

You people from up north are ready for this. You train for it. But, down here, in the land of endless summer, what are we suppose to do? Having moved here from Colorado I’ve had my fair share of cold winters, and I kept my snow boots just in case I ever make a trip back there mid-winter, for what reason I have no idea, but at least I’m prepared. For the past three years I have lived here in the Sunshine State, where my footwear consists of two pairs of flip-flops, one pair of Teva sandals, and one pair of snowboots for just in case. There is no in-between! So, when I braved 42 degrees yesterday to go to the store, I was dressed in a long skirt, (The warmest thing I could think of. I don’t own a pair of pants), a lightweight jacket (for those rare occasions when temperatures may fall below 70), and flip-flops. Snowboots seemed too much. I actually believe the heat was turned on in Wal-Mart, which I did not know they had, and perhaps for the second time in three years, also in my car.

My neighborhood is the winter home of many snowbirds. You know, those people who come south every year to escape the bitterness of storms just like Grayson. They spend most of their year in Canada, New York, Michigan, Massachusetts, Ohio, and the like. Coming home from the store, temperatures still not rising out of the low 40’s and the wind blowing strongly, they were easy to spot. One woman was riding her bike, wearing capri pants and a light sweatshirt. My bet she’s from Canada or Michigan! She surely was not a native-born Floridian, or even a transplant! Three doors before I reached my own, I encountered a man washing his car! Washing his car!!! He was wearing long pants and a short sleeve shirt. What possessed him to go to his closet this frigid morning, choose a short sleeve shirt and say, “It looks like a nice day to wash the car.” I didn’t even have to guess. A quick glance at his license plate confirmed he was from, you guessed it, Ontario!

I am a bit embarrassed to say, I hustled my groceries inside, made a hot cup of tea, then cozied up under a nice warm blanket on the couch. It seemed prudent. This too shall pass, and come July we’ll all be fondly reminiscing about those gloriously chilly days of January 2018, wishing they hadn’t gone by so quickly, but right now….I can’t imagine it!

Have you been watching the Hallmark Channel and all their “perfect” Christmas movies?  It’s hard not to laugh at the formula. It usually starts in a big city with all the glitz and glamour of a Macy’s Christmas window, then quickly moves to the country, where everything looks like a Thomas Kinkade, or perfect Norman Rockwell holiday painting. Girl is with the wrong guy, meets the right guy, dumps the wrong guy, and marries the right guy. And of course, it begins to snow as the movie ends. I like them too!  That’s life and Christmas wrapped up in pretty paper, with a bow that’s a little too neat. My life is a tad more messy.

My sister sent me a picture of her Christmas table, which takes hours to perfectly prepare. It’s not magic you know, but it is magically beautiful! For a laugh I sent her a picture of mine. It was covered in scraps of wrapping paper, gifts, an open jar of peanut butter, a box of crackers, and the floor around it was sprinkled with bits of red and green ribbon. I have a two-hour head start on her, but I’m positively sure she was dressed and had makeup on. I wasn’t even sure I had combed my hair, and as for makeup…perhaps two days ago? I am clearly not Hallmark material!

I am not without spirit though. My house is decorated in lighted trees, draped lights, snowmen, poinsettia, three nativity scenes, and an Advent wreath, all which is actually quite impressive if you knew how small my house is. I start early every year, thinking this will be the year where I roll into December with everything done. Nothing left to do but listen to Christmas music, drink hot chocolate, with extra whipped cream, and bake cookies. But then time slips into a black hole, rapidly accelerates, and a whirlwind of activity spins out of control, leaving me with less than a “Hallmark” looking Christmas table and crazy hair!

What I’ve learned is that if you want the ideal Christmas, don’t hang your expectations on the Hallmark channel. Life is messy. Rarely do things go as planned, and there is no such thing as perfect. Not everyone gets to be home for Christmas, and whenever you add family to the mix anything can happen. Expect it. All of it. Whatever it is. You know why Christ came into the world? Because it’s not a perfect world. Imperfection is the very premise of Christmas.

Embrace the imperfections of it as you dive across the floor like a baseball player sliding into home plate, depositing the last gift underneath the tree at the stroke of midnight. Laugh with family and friends that gather around your tree, cry for the ones that can’t be there, or are watching from heaven, and know that though everything may not be perfect, there is magic in the air…and there’s always next year. Merry Christmas!

“What was that?” “What?” Have you ever tried to wake up your husband because you heard something in the night? How can anyone sleep so deeply!? Is it any wonder that women are mothers, because there is not a man on the planet that is going to hear a baby crying in the middle of the night! But, I didn’t hear a baby crying. I did hear the patter of little feet, but they weren’t from a toddler. It was a scampering and it was coming from underneath the house! Not good. Please let it be bunnies. There are a lot of bunnies in our neighborhood, so it could be bunnies. It could also be rats! “Oh please, not rats!”

The following night the wind was howling. I crawled out of bed making sure everything was secure, when I heard the sound of running on the roof above the kitchen! Oh no!!!! You don’t find bunnies on the roof! It had to be rats!

Kim came home with a trap. Have you ever seen a rat trap? They’re huge! Three times the size of a mousetrap and with enough spring power to break a finger! I really had no desire to see a rodent that big! I have never seen a rat at this house, so I was holding out hope that perhaps now it was squirrels. After several near misses with his own fingers, Kim finally got the trap set and placed. You might ask, “Why one trap?” I wondered that myself. I think Kim was trying to convince himself that it was something other than rats, because we all know there is no such thing as one rat!

Another sleepless night, while something was making hideous sounds under the floorboards that went on for hours! Kim checked the trap in the morning. It had been sprung, but no quarry. “Okay, we know you’re there. It’s game on!” Kim stopped on his way home for more traps. This time three. What is that? A magic number?

While he was doing that, I was having a chat with our cat. Yes, we have a cat! You might ask what she has been doing about all this midnight cavorting around? I wondered the same thing. She is 18 years old and clearly retired. I’m up with a flashlight and she is curled up in her bed in the corner, as if to say, “Take care of that.” However, yesterday she was meowing more than usual. Obviously upset, I followed her. She led me to droppings! Oh no! The perimeter had been breached! “When did those get there?” I hadn’t seen a rat in the house, but those were definitely rat droppings! No, no, no, no, no!!!!

There are a lot of critters that I don’t get along with such as skunks, snakes, alligators, rats, mice…I’m sure there are others, but as long as they stay in their environment and out of mine, we’re good. Breach the boundaries of my home and they better be paying rent!

This time Kim’s trap hit its mark! It was big and gross! That long tail just makes it all the more disgusting!  Yuck, yuck, yuck! The idea of running into that in the middle of the night creeps me out, so a simple trip to the bathroom means all lights must be turned on! And yet the scampering, the scritching, the scratching, the banging continued underneath the floor. There were more! Of course there were more!

2:00 became 3:00, which became 4:00, and then became 5:00. There would be no sleep. Kim got up and checked the other two traps. They had both been sprung, but were empty. That’s it! A snake or two would be welcome at this juncture, but that might be inviting creepy of a different kind. We need arsenal! Traps, lots of them! Lock and load baby, this is war!!!

 

Watch the news, read the headlines and you will begin to believe the world is going to hell in a handbasket. I believe that civilization is more good than evil, but sometimes I really have to work at it!

There is a danger to watching the news and reading the headlines. Bad news sells, and if that’s what their selling, that’s what we see, and only what we see. I’m not naive. I know there are bad people in this world. I know bad things happen to good people. I know there is injustice and outrageousness. But, I also know there is more. A lot more. And that more is good.

The most recent issue of Reader’s Digest told a story of 10 of the nicest places in America. They were beautiful stories of neighbors, friends, strangers showing kindness to one another in many different ways, but those cities are no different from any other. What is different is that the people who noticed, were the people who were looking.

Your challenge and mine is to be vigilant against the bad, but never stop looking for the good. If you can’t see it, then be it! Be the someone who makes someone else laugh, that makes somebody’s day just a little bit brighter, that says hello when maybe nobody else has spoken a word to that person all day. Be the someone who notices the shopper struggling with the grocery cart that is stuck together with 10 others; we’ve all been that person; and help them break it free. Be the someone who grabs the door for the person with their hands full. Be the someone who listens, who notices, who makes a difference.

If we all try to be the best self we can be, then maybe the headlines won’t be all bad. But, even if they are, we will know what the news doesn’t tell you. We will know the truth. There are a lot of good people out there.