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!

Spring has sprung

Thank goodness.

Mother Nature thinks spring sprang a while ago. (I know it’s not a word. The MotH* is from Hell’s Kitchen. “Brought” is not in his vocabulary. He “brang” things. If he can brang, spring can sprang.)

Anyway, the trees have been leafing out, the fringe tree has flowered as have the azaleas and countless other flowering shrubs. As far as Mother Nature is concerned, we are well along in the spring department.

I, on the other hand, don’t call it officially spring until I don’t have freeze warnings driving me to put my plants in the garage. So, we’ll see. They’re out now, and I think they are going to stay out.

Spring and fall are the two best seasons down here. Warm enough to be outside and with humidity somewhere south of Oh-My-God! The mosquitoes haven’t started buzzing, and it’s not yet hot enough to wash the windows. (Whew!)

It’s really the time to consider any outdoor projects, but my decades of northern-ness haven’t quite convinced me to be out there working. I’ll regret that in a few weeks, but for now, I intend to enjoy the weather.

I’m aided in that resolve by the backward blessing of the frozen shoulder. According to my physical therapist, I’m supposed to “let the grass grow.” (Mowing the lawn last week was not on the list of approved activities. As I found out after the fact. Ow!)

I have decided to interpret that instruction to include almost all forms of physical labor. Housework has been reduced to the bare minimum, and the MotH can haul the boat out of the water himself if he wants it out.

This is the time to catch up on any light labors I can find on my To Do list. Clearing out the file cabinet, for example. Internet research. I may even run out of everything else and be reduced to working on my novel.

That would be something for a Thankful Thursday, indeed.

* MotH = Man of the House

OPF

Other People’s Flowers

I love them.

I do not have a green thumb. It’s not even faintly chartreuse.

Plants, typically, do not do well around me. (Except for a brief and inexplicable period in my thirties when I maintained seven house plants for a period of about four years. And then they went the way of all plants and died on me.)

Now, this is one of those things that is a mixed blessing.

When you are hopeless at growing things, you get to save a fair amount of money and muscle fatigue by not even attempting it. However, I do think I might look into a small herb garden—and maybe some radishes.

And I would like to have more flowers than I do.

The canna lilies that were here when we bought the house—they seem fairly indestructible. Likewise, there’s a vinca that’s held on rather well.

The redbud tree and the fringe tree both bloom yearly.

I have some crepe myrtles, too, that were here at the start and a couple that I’ve planted that may have made it through the winter.

On the other hand, my carnations croaked, the begonia may be frostbitten, the poinsettias bit the dust along with a couple of other flowering things I tried to grow.

But, the neighbors!

The neighbors have orange blossoms and azaleas and dogwoods and tulip trees and this hedge that’s full of big pink flowers. There are geraniums across the creek and rain trees in the surrounding developments and a bottle brush tree along the road I take for my (with any luck) daily walk.

And here’s the thing about other people’s flowers.

You can look at them and smell them and enjoy them just as much as if they were in your own yard.

So, today, I am thankful for other people’s flowers.

Fleas

At the market, that is

I love flea markets.

Now, let’s be clear. I mean real flea markets, the garage sales on steroids, not what sometimes passes for a flea market these days, the ones where they are mostly selling the fake fleas. You know what I mean. Tube socks in their plastic packaging, rows and rows of nail polish and clippers, sheet sets and maybe even tires.

Those are dollar stores without a roof.

A real flea market may have some of that, but it will be hard to find among the booths selling used books and mismatched crockery, three matching bar stools, assorted Christmas ornaments and a music box with the castle’s flag pole broken off.

A real flea market is a place of adventure. Of possibility. A place where you can save money and acquire stuff you didn’t even know you needed. A place where creative ideas abound. (Hey! I could put those wheels on that box and make a cart. Or, a little glue and a little paint, turn that shutter upside down and hang it on the wall, and I could have a nifty thing to hold mail. Or, there are a couple of chairs for $10 bucks apiece—they’ll work until I find what I really want.) A place to get what you need to try something you aren’t sure will work. A $5 phone isn’t much to risk if you want to see if that phone jack on the dock is good for anything but frightening the herons. (When one of them answers the phone, I’ll be frightened.)

One of the places where Florida has it all over New York is in flea markets. As far as I could tell, in NYC, what passes for a flea market is the outdoor dollar store concept. Even a street fair tended to have more seconds and stuff that fell off the back of a truck than anything else. But down here in my new location, we’ve got flea markets!

Always good for a Saturday outing, full of potential and possibility and projects to be.

What could be better?

OPC

Other People’s Children

I’m thankful today for other people’s children. I don’t have kids of my own, and I am generally very pleased with that choice. But I do like to spend time with kids and do kid things, on occasion, so I like that other people have them.

I get to do things for and with them. I get to hear about their adventures and the funny things they say. Sometimes, I get to go to piano recitals and plays and softball games. Aquariums and circuses recur more often in my life than they would otherwise do. (I prefer the elephants to the jelly fish. I’m just sayin’.) As the kids get older, I get more Facebook friends.

Years ago, I borrowed a friend’s two-year-old daughter so that I could go to the Children’s Museum in Denver. Adults were not admitted unless accompanied by a child. I’m not sure about the child, but I enjoyed it thoroughly.

These days, I enjoy my nieces and nephews from afar and my cousins’ kids closer at hand. It has been years, in fact, since I carved a pumpkin, but I got to do that last Halloween. (Okay, other people did the carving, and I did the foam faces that remind me of Mr. Potato Head, but the idea is the same.)

I was thinking of all that this week, because I am crocheting a knight’s helmet for one of my nephews. (It’s a secret; don’t anybody tell him.) And, I was thinking this is not an experience I would ever have any other way—since no adult would ever need a crocheted knight’s helmet (Rennaissance Faires typically occurring during the warmer months).

I’ve enjoyed the crocheting, and I’ve enjoyed the composing of the letter to accompany this gift for Sir Wynn. One must have a suitable letterhead, after all, on one’s parchment.

So, other people’s children are a challenge to my creativity—always a good thing. Plus, I get to visit with them—and I get to give them back!

Maybe not the best—but a lot of good—of both worlds!

Too much love.

Dietetically speaking.

So, it’s Valentine’s Day, and what I am thankful for is that it only comes once a year.

This is not out of some cynical dislike of Hallmark holidays or the grumpy bah-humbug-ness of the broken-hearted. It is because I would otherwise not survive the sugar shock of those Conversation Hearts.

You know the ones I mean, right?

The little pastel colored candies with the cryptic messages printed on them?

The thing is, I love those Conversation Hearts. Not the sour ones, or even the fruit-flavored ones. I like the originals, made by the New England Candy Company, in the traditional NECCO® Wafer flavors.

Yum!

It’s no use asking me to just not buy them. I have a certain amount of will-power, but, you know, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke. A person should be allowed some small vices.

Obviously, there may come a time when I will not be able to eat Conversation Hearts. Diabetes does run in my family, so I try to be a little bit careful. But, in the meantime, I do indulge around Valentine’s Day. As I said, though, I’m glad it’s just once a year. (I know you can order the hearts year-round, but I let their availability in stores assist me in keeping my candy habits under control.)

I understand that NECCO® ran a contest recently to determine some new sayings. Things like “Tweet Me” were in the running. As something of a traditionalist where treats are concerned, I don’t know that I approve of that. On the other hand, it’s a little piece of sugar.

Do I really care what’s printed on it?

As long as the sayings are not racist or sexist or otherwise offensive and as long as the candies’ flavors remain the same mild sweetness with which I grew up, I’m good.

But, hey, you know—go ahead and Tweet Me.

Half

Is pretty darn good.

I’m talking about Half.com.

Half.com is an eBay company.

It didn’t use to be. I mean, it used to be all on its own, and then it was bought. So far, I don’t see much difference either for the better or the worse.

The idea is that used books and movies and games and music can be sold by those who are done with them to those who haven’t seen them yet. It’s evolved so that there are a number of vendors there, as well.

It’s saved me countless hours searching garage sales and flea markets and library book sales for hard-to-find volumes. Right now, I’m working on a project (Round Robin Shakespeare) for which I need a number of copies of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.

75 cents on Half.com.

Plus postage, of course, which is where they get you, but so far, at least, it’s reasonable postage—within what one would expect an item to ship for—even when the postage does exceed the item’s cost.

That always seems wrong—until you realize you just got five copies of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare for under $5 bucks apiece. (Do you know how heavy those things are?!)

So far, I’ve only ever bought from Half. If and when I get my house in better order, I might branch out into selling. (If this project falls apart, I’m gonna have five copies of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare to unload.)

I’ve also never bought anything but books. The DVDs are tempting sometimes, but I’m leery of used DVDs. Even my new DVDs don’t always play smoothly. And I’m even more leery of the potential for bootlegged copies. I may try it at some point, though, if the price is sufficiently tempting, the seller reviews sufficiently strong, and the item sufficiently hard to find elsewhere.

Meanwhile, I’m just thankful I was able to get those five copies of Shakespeare without taking out a mortgage. Of course, if I had taken out a mortgage and fell into foreclosure, I could always use them to build a house. (Do you realize how much space those things take up?!)

The redbuds are blooming

Spring is on its way!

Take just a moment here, and go to Google. Enter the word “redbud” in the search box. Click on Images.

Isn’t that a beautiful page of pictures?

My one redbud tree is pinkish. It’s pretty much the first thing to flower in the spring. There’s not usually any warning. Leaves are falling everywhere, trees are bare, the herons and the coots are here for the winter, and one day, you look up, and the redbud tree is in bloom.

The forsythia, which always used to herald spring in my more northern existence lags far behind the redbud here. This year, my redbud is more lavishly decked out than in the past two years. I think it might be because we finished taking down a tree behind it that the previous owners had partially removed. Its trunk had been lowered to about six feet, but it was sprouting a new top. It was too close to the fence—and, hence, the neighbors’ house—which is the main reason for its removal. But it also helped to hem in the poor redbud which is hanging out under an oak and a sweetgum as well. Taking out that one tree trunk seems to have given it a little bit more light.

I’m not sure how it will fare long term.

There’s a magnolia planted next to it. Right next to it.

I suspect both trees would prefer to have a little more room, but I’ve nowhere to move one of them, and I hate to lose either, so I’m letting nature take its course.

So far, the magnolia has shown no signs of flowering, but maybe it will take up the challenge from the redbud and see if it can outdo its neighbor. Meanwhile, spring has sent its advance guard, and the redbud is blooming!

Things are not always what they seem

Or, maybe they are.

I’m sitting out on the dock today working on some blog posts in advance. It’s truly a beautiful day—although, by the time you read this, it may not be. But, right now, it’s about 76° and sunny, the very best kind of Florida winter day.

So, I’m thankful for the weather. And I’m thankful for the wireless technology that allows me to sit out here and work. I do need, perhaps, to get a more comfortable deck chair—because this one is designed more for lounging than typing—but why quibble? I mean, there are a lot of people with no deck chair at all.

Another thing for which I am thankful is the mystery and the drama of the coots. As I sat here, a solitary coot went paddling by me. Now, you must understand, a solitary coot is an unusual thing. They travel in packs.

At first, I thought, “Aha! Straggler! You better hurry up.” This coot had a lean and hungry look, different than the usual cheerful rotundity of coots, that made me think, perhaps, he was always a straggler, always just booking along to catch up to the rest.

But, then, I saw the rest of the flock way down the creek far behind this one.

I thought, “Aha! Scout! You’re the advance guard.”

But, then, I saw the rest of the flock turn and go the other way.

So, now, I don’t know.

Has there been a falling out among the coots? Has my fast feathered friend, perhaps, departed in high dudgeon over some slight, real or imagined? Is the rest of the flock too conservative to dare the shining waters beyond the bridge, or is the lone swimmer fearful of some alligator the rest have decided to brave?

It’s a mystery.

Quick! Call CNN! We need an investigative journalist. There are stories to be told at the creek.

Leapin’ Lizards

At long last.

The conclusion to the great saurian saga of 2013.

If you recall, I was relating my adventures in pursuit of a solution to an enormous lizard problem. Enormity is a relative concept—relative, basically, to your level of cowardice in the face of non-humanoid beings. Mine, historically, has been high, but I am striving to overcome that, and I welcomed this opportunity for growth. (Welcome may be too strong a word. I…accepted…it.)

When we left our story, the lizard was on the windowsill, the gardening gloves were in the drawer and Elaine was in an unusual state of courage and determination.

Which lasted about two minutes—or the total amount of time it took for me to get the gloves, put them on, and reach for the lizard.

The lizard, being a lizard, was not one to sit like patience on a monument* (Flapdoodle!) while rescue was effected. At the first touch of a gloved finger, it leapt!

Leapin’ Lizards!

Every girl’s dream start to a day.

Now, bear in mind, when I say “leapt” that you must consider the source. I have a level of…discomfort…with rodents and reptiles (and spiders) that tends to lend connotations of warp speed to their movements and Japanese horror movie magic to their size as I relate my adventures.

This poor little thing “leapt” all of two inches. There was nowhere, after all, to go. On the one side, the window. On another, the window frame. On the other two sides, my advancing hand.

A little more ruthless effort, and I’d have had him.

Incipient bravery only takes you so far, however.

I couldn’t quite bring myself to grab. (Who wants to end up with a tail in her hand and half an escaped lizard wandering the halls?)

We retreated to our respective corners. Or, the lizard did, anyway, skulking in the corner of the sill, window, and wall. I took a step back to catch my breath.

The prospect was dim.

Failure loomed.

Was I going to have to…oh, the shame…wake up the MotH?*

Just when that horrible prospect seemed inevitable, victory was snatched from the jaws of defeat!

The lizard was sitting on the window sill!

Window sill.

Window.

Window!

I am thankful this Thursday that my brain woke up to the realization that windows are designed to be opened, that these particular windows do not have screens, that I moved slowly enough not to spook the lizard into further flight, and that the lizard was brave enough to wait for me to open the window and smart enough to get the hell out while the going was good.

So, okay.

It wasn’t my finest moment.

On the other hand, the MotH slept on, the house is lizard-less, and the lizard roams free in its natural habitat.

Things could be worse.

Next time…well, I’ve found some things we’ll discuss tomorrow to deal with the next time.

* Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Act II, sc 4

** MotH=Man of the House

Elaine Smith Writes

Anything She Wants

Tag Archives: Thankful Thursdays