Good neighbors

A blessing.

Jean Kerr, one of my favorite writers of humorous essays, once said, “What I am looking for is a blessing that is not in disguise.”

I’m thankful today to report that I have found one.

Good neighbors.

We moved here because we had bad neighbors. “The upstairs neighbors from hell” is a mild description.

So, we were pleased to find a sweet old couple on one side of us and a very nice and never there—younger couple on the other side as we moved into our new home.

We all lived here at the Creek in perfect amity. Neighbors here are important. Maybe not as important as in NYC where you are living on top of each other, but still, houses on the water tend to be close together.

Sadly, we lost all of our original neighbors within the first two years. Death claimed the old folks within a few months of each other. The economy got the younger generation on the other side a few months after that.

Right now, one house is still empty, but I am pleased to report that the other has been sold and occupied. It’s been about two months, and things seem to be working out well.

The new neighbors are just the right amount of friendly and, most importantly to me, are quiet. That could change, of course, but so far, so good.

What’s a little ironic is that they are originally from New York, too. Not the City but the Island and not within the last twenty years—but still…it’s a small world.

I’m cautiously optimistic. Anything can happen, of course, as we know to our dismay.

But right now, I am thankful.

I hope we all live here for a long time in peace and harmony. And I hope the other house goes to really nice people, too!

‘Gators to starboard

Eeek!

Some weeks ago, as you are reading this, but actually right now, as I am writing it, I was/am sitting on the dock enjoying one of a run of beautiful days we are having here in Florida where the temperature is in the 70s and the humidity is low.

I love that I get to spend this part of my life sitting on a dock, in sunshine or shade as I choose, surrounded by water and birdsong (and the occasional spider—but that’s a small price to pay), with WiFi that reaches far enough that I can be online.

I’ve always had a little trouble just sitting outside enjoying nature without a book or something. Those spiders get more obtrusive—to say nothing of ants—when you don’t have something to occupy your mind.

So, it’s hard to say, on a day like today, which is the greater miracle.

Is it the low temperature? Is it the low humidity? Is it the cloudless sky? The glassy smooth water? The recently mown lawn? The internet access? The birds?

Is it…could it be…even remotely possibly…the two alligators that just swam past me?

There is certainly a part of my brain that votes for the “swam past” part.

I’m glad they’ve gone on. I’m glad they didn’t come any closer than they did.

But, seriously, in NYC, I rarely got sudden and unexpected reminders that human beings share this planet with other species. The occasional pigeon, yes. The unpleasantness of rodents and insects, sure.

I’m not saying alligators are pleasant.

But they’re different.

As a child, I got to entertain my friends with the story of the three-legged alligator that would come up out of the swamp to be fed hamburger in my grandmother’s yard.

Now, the sudden splash in the middle of the creek could be a mullet or a manatee.

Or an alligator.

So, you know, it turns out my house isn’t just named after the little anoles and geckos and skinks.

Casa Lagarto.

It’s also named after those two big reptiles floating on down the creek.

El lagarto.

Ellagarto.

The alligator.

Not everybody has one—let alone two.

Am I thankful?

I think I am.

But I’m not entirely sure.

I’m talking about virtual experiences.

For example, the internet fireplace.

Purists among you will be recoiling in horror, but I rather like digital fireplaces. I have a DVD with several, and, let me tell you, it was quite a nice accessory a couple of weeks ago when we had a week of wind and rain. The temperature outside was falling into that never-never-land where it is too warm for the heat to come on and too cold for the a/c to kick in. Consequently, the atmosphere indoors was damp and cool and uncomfortable as only a Florida season between the extremes can be.

My fireplace DVD was a cozy little addition to the long afternoons spent with my attention divided between books and Netflix and watching the creek rise. It’s amazing how much of an illusion of warmth is conjured by the sight of dancing flames and the sounds of burning wood. The actual heat and the smell of wood smoke seem to be secondary to the illusion. Now, I suspect this is because of years of conditioning to what those sights and sounds accompany. Future generations may not get the same illusion of comfort from a virtual fireplace as I do.

And, if I had a real fireplace, I would prefer it. I think. On the other hand…not to have to chop wood…or clean up soot and ash…or risk burning down the house…. there’s something to be said for that.

We do have a gas fireplace here at Casa Lagarto, but it’s one of those things that was on the verge of disrepair when we got the house and has crossed over. Unlike the a/c, it is low on the list of things to fix.

So, I am thankful today for the digital hearth.

And I am considering experiments with digital oceans and digital aquariums. I’d be interested in digital blasted heaths, mountain streams, stone circles, too.

The thing is, I can sort of justify the energy used to play the fireplace as being less than the carbon footprint of an actual fire. I’m not sure I could say the same for amps for any form of H2O.

So, I guess I’ll just stick to my digital fireplace and be thankful.

QWERTY

Keyboards!

I am SOOOOOO thankful I learned to type when I was in high school and that I had to make my living at it for a brief period. (You either become a temp or a waitress when you move to NYC to pursue acting.)

I see people hunting and pecking. I wait on instant messaging programs for folks to laboriously pick out their responses. I read emails that are full of typos, and I am thankful.

It’s possible I came of age in one of the few periods of history where being able to type provided a significant advantage. Icons and gestures and touchpads all seem to be leading us down a road where keyboard input is less significant. Voice recognition technology is improving daily.

I can see a day coming where there may be no such thing as a high school typing class.

On the other hand, keyboard entry still remains the fastest way to input a computer program, so it may never be lost altogether. I hope not.

Because I think it trains a part of our brains that we can utilize even miles away from any computer keyboard. What is “clerical speed and accuracy” other than the ability to comprehend quickly and translate that comprehension into action.

Reading comprehension is closely allied. The faster you can read, the faster you can type. And the faster you can read, the faster you can accumulate information in a world where information is paramount.

The ability to process information—to absorb it, comprehend it, correlate and aggregate and then formulate a plan of action—is where success lies. Any edge you can give a kid is important.

And I think the lowly typing class provided me with a significant edge.

On a practical level, I made a living as a typist and as a computer programmer, in part, because I could type. Well.

I now pursue more creative goals. Whatever success I’ve had as a writer is not solely or even largely attributable to an ability to type, but it sure streamlines the process. I’m a better writer, certainly a faster writer, because I am a damn good typist.

And I am very thankful for Mrs. Laird and that long-ago typing class.

Worthy of their hire

My favorite workmen.

I’m thankful today for a few guys I haven’t hired yet.

Ok. I have hired them. For other things. Small things. Previously.

But I have been lucky enough to find a couple of vendors who take a long view. They have been smart enough and generous enough to offer their advice and expertise without expecting payment.

Free. That’s a price point I can get behind.

Daymon Well Drilling. They came out and assured me that, no, my well was not going dry—as a previous plumber had suggested.

Black Pearl Plumbing. Barry spent an hour talking to me about what we needed to install a clawfoot tub in the bathroom that has been missing a tub since we moved into the house.

Russell at Perfect Painting spent an extra couple of hours fixing our pump and I had to insist that he charge more than just the cost of the parts.

Southern gentleman? Yes.

Good businessmen? Absolutely.

See, they missed the chance to make a couple of dollars. On the other hand, when I do need a well, when it’s time for the tub to be installed, when I want to paint another room—who do you think I’m going to call?

I’ve spent a lot of time with theatre folks who don’t want to give advice because they’re not getting something back.

If you’re looking for the books to be always in balance, you are doomed to disappointment.

It’s about bread upon the waters.

Do a good job. Do good to and for people. The money will follow.

It’s hard in the arts, because there often isn’t much money. And often, when opportunities for repayment arise, they aren’t real opportunities. A 6’5″ Latino actor who helps a director unselfishly may not get the first part that comes along. (It could be hard for him to play an 8 year old girl.) But he could get the first recommendation for a 6’5″ Latino actor that she’s asked to provide.

It’s clearer in the world of the handyman.

I’m going to hire the people I trust. I trust them when they do a good job and when they don’t hit me with an exorbitant bill for every question.

I think generosity is always the best route to take.

And I am profoundly thankful that I tend to run into folks who agree with me.

Don’t tell the refrigerator

You bought a new car.*

Today’s tip is based purely on superstition.

I don’t give much credence to superstitions. I quote from the Scottish Play (although I do tend to call it “The Scottish Play”), I walk under ladders, I’m fine with Friday the 13th and black cats.

And this particular superstition is not one I discovered for myself.

I got it out of the Reader’s Digest.

Thanks, Reader’s Digest. (insert sarcastic growl here)

This is another one of those things where I would like to give credit where it is due, but I can’t remember who wrote the article. I’m not even sure of the title, although I think it was the same as the headline and sub-head of this post. That’s how I’ve always remembered it, anyway.

It was a humorous piece about how you can’t quite get ahead of the financial curve. As soon as you buy a new car, the refrigerator breaks. (Hence the advice not to tell the refrigerator.)

I don’t know about you, but I have noticed that this is true often enough to suggest, tentatively and with tongue only partly inserted in cheek, that you might want to be a little cautious.

Just recently, I decided we had enough in the remodeling account to replace some fogged windows here at Casa Lagarto and to finally get a tub for the bathroom where what was apparently a clawfoot tub had gotten up on its little clawfeet and walked out of the house with the former owner.

The result of that is that I am spending a fortune in co-payments for physical therapy on my shoulder.

Are the two things related?

Any rational person would say they are not.

I, usually, think of myself as a rational person.

In the middle of the night, giddy from lack of sleep (a frozen shoulder is extremely annoying in that way), I rather wish I’d somehow managed to do the tub and window research so that the left brain didn’t know what the right brain was doing.

So, that’s my tip. I don’t really think you should lend it any weight. But, hey! You never know.

Look at this!

Our new bistro table.

We’ve got some new outdoor furniture at Casa Lagarto.

We still don’t have very much indoor furniture, but, hey! A sale.

I’ve had my eye on this table and chairs for more than two years. Finally, it went on sale just at the point I was feeling temporarily solvent. (It’s like a perfect storm in reverse. When everything lines up so you feel like you really can buy something.)

We got it at Kirkland’s. You can see it here. I try not to go to Kirkland’s very often, because they have all kinds of things I like. Mostly, what I drool over at Kirkland’s are the decorative objects. And I feel that when the house still needs a bathtub and some carpet and other large items one should eschew decorative wall plaques.

So, I go to Kirkland’s, and I talk myself out of things all the time.

This time, however, I didn’t talk myself out of it.

We bought it.

Cast iron. It’s not going to blow away in any of the strong breezes that come off the creek.

The perfect size for an area of the patio that looks like it was made for some sort of table and chairs.

A sale price.

And now the outside of the house looks a little more finished.

There’s a long way to go, but I’m thankful for this step in the right direction.

A double miracle

New glass. No lizards!

Two for the price of one today.

I have new window glass!

When we bought the Casa, we had four windows that were either fully or partially fogged. That’s when the seal gets broken, whatever inert gas that was inside the double panes leaks out and condensation and dirt leaks in. You can’t see out of the windows, and you can’t get them clean.

Right after we moved in, we had a visit from a company called Miracle Windows. They have a great product, seemingly. Windows you can jump up and down on without breaking them. Built in screens.

There were only three problems.

One, their opening estimate was $50,000 to replace all the windows in the house. The fact that, in the same breath, they came down to $25,000 didn’t really inspire me with a desire to hire them.

Two, they lied. They told us that we could not get replacement windows the full size of our picture windows because this is now against code. And, they told us that we couldn’t get the bronze color frames we have because this, too, is against code. I see new construction all over town with bigger windows and bronze frames. I haven’t checked the code, but I am fairly confident that they lied.

Three, they didn’t mention that they were going to have to cut the coquina stucco to replace the windows or that somebody was going to have to repair and replace that. I know that adds an additional $250 minimum to the cost per window.

So, that was the end of Miracle Windows. I’m not the sucker born in the minute they needed.

Having had the glass alone replaced in our NYC co-op apartment after the building next door burnt down several years ago and the glass cracked from the heat, we knew that it is possible to replace only the glass and not the entire window.

We began collecting estimates for that, and—golly! I think this post is a triple miracle!—the whole job, all four windows (six if you count the upper and lower sections), came in well under $1,000.

I call a savings of $49,000 a miracle, don’t you?

So, Glass Doctor of Jacksonville came out on Friday. Three hours later, I can sit in my desk chair and see the creek. The front window looks like somebody could accidentally walk through it. It’s so clean it’s practically invisible. I now need curtains or a shade or something for the laundry room window, and upstairs in the Easter Egg Room, the view is clear!

That’s miracle number two.

The third and final miracle?

Those intrepid lizards never once even attempted to take advantage of the big holes in the house occasioned by the removal of the windows. As far as I can tell—and believe me, I was on lizard patrol—none of them came into the house.

Yay!

A passing grade

We got one!

I’m not talking about academia here, but something much more important.

The termite inspection.

This is a whole new area of knowledge for me.

I’m sure that New Yorkers are not immune to termites, but it never seemed to me that it was a subject that came up in conversation much. I was on the board of my co-op for a long time. We never had a termite inspection to the best of my knowledge.

Down here in Florida, however, they have a saying. It’s not a question of ‘whether’ you’re going to get termites, but ‘when.’

And the answer to that ‘when’ for us was ‘right at the start.’

We knew when we bought our house that there had been termite damage. Right after closing, we took down the drywall in the affected areas and, basically, rebuilt two walls.

We contracted with an exterminator for treatment and paid for a termite bond. The bond is insurance. It means that if you pay your yearly tribute and let the exterminator come back to inspect annually, then they have to pay to fix any damage the little flying beasties cause.

We’ve actually had to invoke the bond once since we’ve been here—to the confusion of our exterminator who claimed the treatment should have been 100% effective. Then he came back to look and decided it was due to our sunken Florida room. He gave us additional treatment in that area and a discount on our next installment since the critters had eaten away at a wooden railing.

Anyway, the whole point of discussing this on a Thankful Thursday is that we’ve just had our annual inspection and there were no signs.

This is not to say they won’t be back. Remember, it’s not ‘whether,’ it’s ‘when’

But, so far, so good.

Whew!

Mighty proud…

…to have spare beds

Samuel Pepys wrote in his famous diary, “Mighty proud I am that I am able to have a spare bed for my friends.”

I know how he felt.

When we lived in NYC, it was nice to have visitors and to have a sofa bed and a spare bathroom. With sleeping bags and air mattresses, we could sleep a few more.

Here, at Casa Lagarto, we could likely house a small regiment if a number of them didn’t mind sleeping on the floor. Of normal people, expecting a modicum of comfort and privacy, I believe we could take in five, assuming two couples and one single.

Of course, the various rooms are in various states of finalization—by which I mean they all have walls and doors and lights and air—but evidence of being decorated according to some plan varies.

Miraculously, however, there is one guest room that is “finished.” (Well, maybe not completely. I expect it could use a picture or two on the walls.)

And this is a good thing because the second miracle is my niece is coming south to spend spring break.

She will be with her grandmother most of the time (grandparents having a pesky prior claim), but I expect and look forward to her coming here for a night or two. (Woohoo!)

It does make me feel old to find that the toddler who used to ask for help with the toy box via a loudly voiced, “uh-oh” will now be expecting to drive my car. On the other hand, the conversation is better.

And we will have a reason to go on excursions to places we would be otherwise too lazy to visit. (I only ever went to Ellis Island or the Empire State Building in the company of out of town visitors in NYC.)

So, the upcoming visit is a triple-header of miracles: An available guest room, a beloved niece, and adventures in store.

What could be better?

Elaine Smith Writes

Anything She Wants

Category Archives: Casa Lagarto