from the porches

Always Prick

Today Mom and Susan and I ate lunch at  Conestogas Restaurant in Alachua, Florida.  Usually, after Mom gets her hair cut, she and I eat at The Great Outdoors Restaurant, but enough is enough. 

As I glanced at my baked potato, doused with two pats of melting butter, I asked Susan, "Did I ever tell you the 'exploding potato' story?"

"I don't think so," she said.  "Tell me."

"No, I'll blog about it today."   So here goes the story.

Back in the '80's my family drove to Cedar Key, Florida to have a final farewell dinner for a fellow who had come from Pittsburgh to help construct stained glass windows for a church Advent Glass Works, Inc. was building.    We chose The Seabreeze Restaurant, the same one Susan and I ate at this past Wednesday.

Once seated, we scanned the menu and ordered our meal, of course the heart-of-palm salad was the starter.  I gazed out of the restaurant's windows watching sea gulls land on hurricane-battered docks and watched pelicans skydive into the gulf after fish.  It was so relaxing being away from home, smelling the gulf breeze and feeling my hair being touseled in every direction.

Finally, the main course was placed on our table.  Broiled fish, scallops, crab claws and a huge baked potato.  I lifted my knife to cut the baked potato in half, and when I put the knife to the potato . . . KAPOW! 

Hot potato exploded out of that potato skin, into the air, onto my hair, into my eyes and all over my blouse.  Needless to say, I was stunned and embarrased.  Then I grabbed a napkin and began wiping off my blouse, my eyes stinging with hot potato.  "Are you alright?" Truett asked.  I told him I was fine, but someone at the table said, "No, you're not.  Your hair is covered with potato.  Go to the restroom and get it out."  So I did, keeping my head down from gawkers at the other tables. 

I managed to eat the rest of my lunch, turning down an offer for a fresh baked potato.  "No thank you," I mumbled.  As we left the Seabreeze Restaurant that day and were standing at the cashier's desk, I noticed baked potato scattered on the floor.  "Wow!  That was a big explosion,"  I thought. 

I suppose someone forgot to prick the baked potato before putting it in the microwave.  I sure learned a lesson that day about microwaving potatoes! 

Always prick!

shutting it down

I'm not sure how long I've been on Typepad; but I do know it's been fun for me.  I've shared my thoughts.  I've shared my joys.  I've shared personal information. I've shared all those wonderful day-to-day- posts about teaching... my favorite posts. I've shared my photographs. And I've also shared my sorrows.

I don't think Typepad is my avenue anymore.

I plan to save all the posts I've written over the past several years, possibly putting them into Blurb books.  You see, when I look at the new configuration of Typepad, I don't think it's for me.  Typepad seems more business-like, and that's not me.

I began Typepad because my twin sister said, "Hey, join Typepad and write about your life."  And I did.  But, my life has changed.  I can no long flit here to there and back again. If I can't write about my joyful days, then I won't write at all.  But it's not your fault.  My life has changed and I have to work hard daily to find those joyful moments.  I suppose if my arthritic knee wasn't causing me so much pain, I may have a different attitude.  But, for now, this is the way it is. 

I need a new focus.  I don't know what it will be.  Surely and hopefully, it won't be about caregiving, because that is what has brought me so far down.

I will post on Facebook if I have a new blog.  I promise.  And just maybe it will be focused and a happy one.

For now, I'm shutting this one down.

Thanks to all my friends who have read "From the Porches" for all these years.

XXXOOO

revisiting the cicada

My twin and her husband are visiting this week.  Today Sherry and I were talking about blogs I had posted and she reminded me of the "cicada incident", one of her favorites.  So I am reposting that blog tonight because that was way before I even knew about facebook and I know some of you are dying to read it.  So,  Here goes.

July 01, 2009

the cicada

This morning as I got in my car to head to the bank and post office, I was startled by a cicada planted on my car windshield. The thing was over two and one-half inches long.

      

  "Shoo!"  I said and flapped my hands at it.  But it stayed there with just his antennae waving back and forth, obviously trying to figure out what that monumental thing was doing in front of him.

      

"Well, then.  Have it your way, but I must tell you that we're going to the bank."  And I took off toward town with Mr. Green hanging on for dear life.

 

Then I picked up speed. 

      

"Hang on!"  I hollered.  Check out those anatennae flying behind him in the wind.  "Whee!"  I thought I heard him say.

Truett was with me so I told him to remove the cicada while I was in the bank.  "Not doing it,"  he said.  "All I have to do is swish the wipers once and our problem is solved."

"NO!  You can't do that!"

"Then you'll have to get him off yourself."  Truett answered.

      

So after my banking was done I took the banking slip and tried to slide it under Mr. Green.  I didn't know this before today, but these guys have something akin to suction cups on the bottoms of their feet.  He would not slide.  "Cheeeeeee!"  it hissed.

      

So instead I flicked my wrist and flipped him down between the windshield wipers and car hood.  "Now I've done it,"  I moaned.  So on to the Post Office we went, with me talking about how we could get Mr. Green back to the windshield instead of the hole he was in.

"Well,"  Truett said.  "You'll have to dig him out of there."

"But I may kill him.  We can't just kill him."  I said. 

"Stop worrying about that blankety-blank bug,"  Truett quipped.  Then Truett took heart and said he would get him out when we arrived home.  I was driving my husband crazy.

      

So what does Truett do?  He grabs Mr. Green by an antenna and pulls.  "Oops!"  I heard him murmer.  "I just pulled an antenna off."

"Darn it, Truett.  Why didn't you just pick up his body?"  But I promptly shut my mouth when I saw my husband glaring at me.

      

      

"Done!"  Truett said and flicked the cicada to the ground. . .

      

      

. . .safe and sound, minus one-half of an antenna. 

Do you think Mr. Green learned a lesson today?  I certainly hope so or I'm afraid it will be the windshield wipers next time.

straighten up & live right

 
During the summer I had three things fall on me: a palmetto bug (roach), a gray rat snake, and a bagworm.  It was a really freaky week and I took all these falling creatures as a sign to straighten up and live right.

Well, yesterday as I was walking to my car I looked up in the pecan tree and saw a bagworm nest.  The lighting was good so I took a picture.

Then this morning I decided to do a little research about the bagworm.

Lo and behold, I found out it wasn't a bagworm that landed on my shoulder.  It was an Eastern tent caterpillar.  The tent caterpillar is the name for larvae of many of the moth family and they defoliate (eat all leaves and fruit of certain trees.)

Here is a picture of a tent caterpillar:

But the good thing about tent caterpillars is they turn into moths.

Now that is a beautiful moth, so I guess it was okay that the larvae fell on my shoulder.

 
And that, my friends is my science lesson of the day.  Now all I have to do is replace "bagworm" with "tent caterpillar" in my vocabulary and try to be respectful of them if they fall from the trees and land on any part of my body, regardless of how creepy it was.

menacing looking creatures

I don't know about you, but I think Florida has the largest insects in the lower forty-eight.

This is a photo of a grasshopper I found clinging to the gate where I let the puppies out.  Just an ordinary old grasshopper, but big enough to cause me to stay my distance.

I am amazed at the little surprises I find in a photograph, especially when I crop it. 

For example, scroll back up and look at all the tiny holes in this ordinary grasshopper.  They look like holes to me.  Anyway I took its photograph with a watchful eye. 

 I did not get down eyeball to eyeball with this grasshopper for fear it would leap on my eyebrows.

Talk about big?  This Banana spider is huge.  Using the shelf of my right index finger I measured it to be three inches from the bottom of the lower leg to the top of the higher leg.  The photograph is taken from inside my house looking out.  A safe place in my opinion.

I say "Give me a grasshopper any day of the week, but please spare me the banana spider." 

Not only are banana spiders huge in North Florida, they spin very sticky webs in inconvenient places, such as from my carport roof down to the car door handle.  

The most horrible sensation is knowing you've walked in a banana spider's web because it is strung across your face and has attached itself to your hair, and worse yet, you don't know if it is on you or not.   Yuck!

That's when I call on Clay to save me from the banana spiders.  "Get it off!" I screech, and Clay reassures me that nothing is in my hair on or my back.

Dear sweet Clay.  Always saving his mama from menacing looking creatures.  

Thanks, son.
 
 
  
 
 
 

the hitch hiker

If you read my blog often, you may remember me showing photographs of a cicada riding on my windshield.  Well, this morning I drove to the post office and as I was pulling out to drive back home I noticed legs dangling above my windshield.

"Yikes!"  I blurted.  It was a two inch long banana spider hitch hiking on my car.  Of course I found a suitable place to pull off the road to take its picture.

It may not look very frightening to you, but the thing seemed as big as my palm perched right in my line of vision.

This photo is fuzzy because I was blocking a car so I had to pull back in the road and try to take a picture at the same time. 

Somehow I didn't have the same warm fuzzy feelings about this big spider as I did about the cicada.  I wanted to drive real fast to blow it into the highway.  I couldn't stand looking at its long creepy  legs.

Then I saw this monster flip to the driver's side window, hanging on for dear life.  That's when I put the metal to the pedal and I reached an outrageous speed for one mile and hoped to see him sail off onto the asphalt.

Unfortunately, I didn't see him sail off my window at all.  As I pulled up to the studio my only fear was that he would flip inside on me when I opened the door.  He didn't do that either which caused me to give a big sigh of relief.  When I opened the car door he was gone.  Thank goodness. 

What is it with large creatures hitch hiking on my car?

the cicada

This morning as I got in my car to head to the bank and post office, I was startled by a cicada planted on my car windshield. The thing was over two and one-half inches long.

      

  "Shoo!"  I said and flapped my hands at it.  But it stayed there with just his antennae waving back and forth, obviously trying to figure out what that monumental thing was doing in front of him.

      

"Well, then.  Have it your way, but I must tell you that we're going to the bank."  And I took off toward town with Mr. Green hanging on for dear life.

 

Then I picked up speed. 

      

"Hang on!"  I hollered.  Check out those anatennae flying behind him in the wind.  "Whee!"  I thought I heard him say.

Truett was with me so I told him to remove the cicada while I was in the bank.  "Not doing it,"  he said.  "All I have to do is swish the wipers once and our problem is solved."

"NO!  You can't do that!"

"Then you'll have to get him off yourself."  Truett answered.

      

So after my banking was done I took the banking slip and tried to slide it under Mr. Green.  I didn't know this before today, but these guys have something akin to suction cups on the bottoms of their feet.  He would not slide.  "Cheeeeeee!"  it hissed.

      

So instead I flicked my wrist and flipped him down between the windshield wipers and car hood.  "Now I've done it,"  I moaned.  So on to the Post Office we went, with me talking about how we could get Mr. Green back to the windshield instead of the hole he was in.

"Well,"  Truett said.  "You'll have to dig him out of there."

"But I may kill him.  We can't just kill him."  I said. 

"Stop worrying about that blankety-blank bug,"  Truett quipped.  Then Truett took heart and said he would get him out when we arrived home.  I was driving my husband crazy.

      

So what does Truett do?  He grabs Mr. Green by an antenna and pulls.  "Oops!"  I heard him murmer.  "I just pulled an antenna off."

"Darn it, Truett.  Why didn't you just pick up his body?"  But I promptly shut my mouth when I saw my husband glaring at me.

      

      

"Done!"  Truett said and flicked the cicada to the ground. . .

      

      

. . .safe and sound, minus one-half of an antenna. 

Do you think Mr. Green learned a lesson today?  I certainly hope so or I'm afraid it will be the windshield wipers next time.