LIFE
IN LEHIGH
July 2006
July 2006
Thursday 13 July 2006
I Thunked A Thort
Living alone means being able to fart with abandon.
I'm just sayin'...
<=== never happens at my house
Saturday 15 July 2006
Overheard Cell Phone Conversation
I'm on the lanai, and there's a guy on the ROOF of the house to the right of me. A bald headed guy wearing shorts and a wife-beater shirt. And he's saying into his cell phone, "You know what the whole problem is? I don't trust you. Cause every time we go visit them, the first thing you do is take off all your clothes."
Sunday 16 July 2006
My House Shines...
.. like the top of the Chrysler
Building
/Miss Hannigan
I decided I needed a full-on cleaning day. I may have to go to New York
on business soon, and I was looking at the calendar trying to see when I
could fit in a full-on cleaning day, and today was the day.
FP&L decided to throw a monkey wrench into the works during the
afternoon, and the power was out for a couple of hours. Well, first it
was on, no it's off, no it's on, no it's off. It's the only time my
neighbors talk to each other, basically because there's nothing else to
do until it comes on again. You shut down your air conditioner so the
poor compressor doesn't have apoplexy, and you go out on the lanai to
commisserate with the others who've just done the same thing.
The way everyone knows that the power came back on is a) the fountain in
the lake springs to life, and b) some idiot or person who isn't home has
their a/c spring to life.
Then everyone goes back inside and takes back up the pretense of not
knowing one another.
Monday 17 July 2006
Ka-BOOM!
Very cool thing happened today! My friend
Alan dropped by this morning on his way to a job. We were sitting on the lanai
when suddenly we heard this tremendous ka-BOOM! that shook the house. It
was sort of a rapid double ka-BOOM.
Me being a Noo Yawka, right away I'm thinking about a 9/11 redux. It sounded a lot like the mighty thunder of the jets going over Oakdale during that time, only much bigger. Alan thought maybe a construction site a few miles away was blowing through some rock.
Wrong on both counts. It was the space shuttle doing its sonic boom thing upon re-entry - very exciting to have heard that! I didn't think about it before moving here, but I guess shuttle launches and landings are part of the Living In Florida Bonus Pak
Flash forward, I finished up with
conference calls around 3-ish, and heard the landscapers outside. I like to go
out and watch them ever since a mysterious, edging-tool-shaped gash appeared in
my lanai screen a few weeks back. So I go out, and I see a guy with a truck and
a trailer hitch, putting a small motor boat into the lake. Then he proceeds to
drive around the perimeter of the lake, first spraying something blue onto the
banks, then something clear. Alan says this is "aquatic management". Since
part of what he was spraying was blue, I say he's the Tidy Bowl Man.
Here's a montage of today's sunset, taken between 8:50 pm and 8:55 pm
Tuesday 18 July 2006
In Memoriam
There's an online memorial guest book for
my late voice teacher. It took me long enough, but I have finally made an
entry.
+++++++++++++
I guess everyone writes when they are ready. And I guess I'm ready now.
As Steven pointed out, this is an impossible task. These are only words, and
words can never hope to describe the life-altering influence of one woman on so
many people. On me.
Studying with Gloria was an accident. Presented with a list of teachers by the
college I was attending, I simply chose the one closest to where I was living at
the time. I was 21 years old, and I was nervous. I'd been waiting my whole
life to take voice lessons. What if I found out I actually couldn't sing, after
all? And what if she was mean about it?
I arrived a bit early, and Gloria still had a student in the studio. Grandma
Rose let me in (that was the first and last time I knocked - thereafter, I just
came on in, like everyone else did). I sat on a chair in the kitchen, waiting
my turn, feeling sort of like a fraud, when I began to hear some suspicious
sounds coming from under the kitchen table. I peeked under the tablecloth, and
the nerves went out the window. A box of puppies! I think one of them was
probably Pinkerton, and another might have been Miss Liu. At any rate, a woman
who kept a whole box of puppies under the kitchen table couldn't possibly be all
that scary.
Up until this day, I'd been laboring under the awful misconception that I wasn't
actually good at or capable of... anything. At all. Won't go into the reasons
for that here, but suffice it to say that early on in life, I'd had a sneaking
suspicion that I could sing, but I was actively discouraged from pursuing it, or
even thinking that it was true. Well, now I was going to find out whether or
not I had been delusional, after all.
As that first lesson progressed, I stood before her, incredulous at what she was
pulling out of me. What had been locked inside, denied light and encouragement,
came pouring out, easily and unobstructed, to bask in all the warmth and glory
of her beaming approval. She validated the existence of my giftedness -
validated ME. Not to give in to hyperbole, but in those first 60 minutes, she
pretty much saved my life. Really.
Being able to sing well has been the foundation upon which all faith and
confidence in myself has been built - things which were crucial to the successes
I've had both within and outside of the musical world. The bonus was, not only
could I sing well, and believe in my own abilities, but I had a friend, too.
She cared about me. She listened when I was tormented, she cried when I was
sick, she swallowed her own hurt feelings and understood when I was confused,
and she supported me when I made decisions that meant I'd be doing a lot less
singing. Her support and love were shockingly unconditional. I knew her for
all of my adult life, 24 years (we would have had our "25th anniversary" in
September 2006). It's hard to let her go.
And so, I won't. Every Tuesday afternoon, my Palm Pilot beeps at me. It's
reminding me that it's time to shut down my computer, get into my car, and drive
to Gloria's house for my lesson. Although she has been gone for months now, I
refuse to delete the calendar entry. And whenever it beeps, I smile. As
painful as it is to know that I will never "come sing at her" ever again, it
still gives me joy to be reminded of her in this way. When I hear the beep, I
get that same feeling I had that first day - the dawning of disbelief, surprise,
and delight in discovering that I really AM somebody. I am somebody because
Gloria believed and showed me that I could believe, too.
How can words possibly compare to that?
Saturday 22 July 2006
Good Morning!
This was a wonderful treat as I stumbled out to the lanai this morning -
Lanai Critters
Last couple of days, I've been seeing these teeny, tiny little froggies climbing up the lanai screens. Yes, they are climbing from the OUTSIDE, not inside - that would be an entirely different matter, one that would call for a search and destr.... um, I mean a catch and release mission. You can see just by comparing to the screen grid holes that they are indeed tiny, but to give you a further idea of their size, I'd say they could sit on a quarter comfortably.
Since they are cute, I will refrain
from indulging in my favorite lanai pastime, which is screen-flicking -
that's reserved for the non-cute. I don't know what they think
they are going to do once they have scaled up to the summit - it's not
like teeny, tiny little froggies can survive up on the roof.
Monday 24 July 2006
Mysteries of the Tinkness Monster Revealed
Ah-HA!
Definitely turtles - see, one is even waving "hi" at me!
they are usually far out in the lake, and the
camera was zoomed as much as possible. Sometimes there are quite a few
of them, with only their heads sticking up out of the water like so many
thumbs. It's rare to get a shot of the body. Someone said the claw
that's waving "hi" looked like a river otter's paw, but that's
undeniably a turtle shell attached to it. It's a totter!
It's an ottle! No, it's THE TINKNESS MONSTER!
Saturday 29 July 2006
WAAAAAHHHH!
Waaah, I'm purging my books today!
It
definitely needs to be done, but it feels like an amputation.
Subjects range from psychology, sociology, religion & spirituality stuff, a bunch of fiction. Fully half the collection sits in a bunch of boxes in the hallway now, ready to be given away. The other half sits in a few boxes in the guest room closet, awaiting new book shelves. And there are two huge Rubbermaid bins left with my school stuff in it - lecture notes, assigments, papers I wrote, and text books. I think I might/should keep the texts because I think I'm going to graduate school in a couple of years.... OY!
Monday 31 July 2006
That's Entertainment!
Lehigh Acres is a really
entertaining place to live. And it's absolutely free!
If you open your automatic garage door at night to put out the trash,
little tiny frogs will hop in. Then you get to have (what seemed like)
hours of fun, chasing them with the handiest poking implement available
(in this case, one of those metal stakes that are used to keep young
trees upright).
You even get to shriek, "Get out of my house! Get *POKE* out!!! *POKE*
I said, GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT *POKE* OF *TWACK* MY *POKE* HOUSE
!!! *SMASH* *SMASH*
Well, I just knew that if I left
them in the garage, they'd either fry there tomorrow (eeew) or else
they'd follow me into the laundry room. And I don't want to be selfish,
or anything, and hog all the free entertainment in Lehigh.
Todd, I gave them your address.
Back to My Adventures *~*~* Home
