12 Oakdale

 A list of what I moved out of our house; stuff I let in; the things I considered, fondled, thought about, yet didn’t allow to join our household, at least so far; and items replaced. OUT: 01/5: Returned Trtl travel pillow to Amazon. Just didn’t quite fit, and why do I need something I’ll likely leave on an airplane like all the others I’ve bought? I sleep just fine without it. $51.11 back. 01/06: Christmas decorations. Although they are in cardboard boxes sitting on shelves in the garage for donation in October, I culled a whole big tote of decorations we haven’t used since we left Fort Lauderdale. 01/07: Red exercise bands left from PT that have sat, unused, on my nightstand for a year. To the trash. I’ll get new if ever needed. 01/23: Returned small messenger bag. Cute, however I couldn’t get my hand easily into the zippered opening. $89.90-$6 USPS return shipping. 01/28: Eight IKEA chairs out of our garage to Stephanie’s. New Year’s Eve tiara missing the “New”, found when we li...

  Belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year                                                               December, 2024   We hope you are well. As our doctors say, we are both in good shape for our age with just the expected aches and pains that come with being old. With that in mind, we have begun our Last Gasp Tour and were   remarkedly successful. Looking at my calendar, I realized that November was the only month we did not visit family, go birding, or both at once. Our big trip was in August and September to see sister Betsy and husband Keith in New Zealand. We started at Wellington’s Zealandia, a 500+ acre sanctuary where we heard, but did not see, kiwis. We then spent 4 weeks helping my sister Betsy and her husband Keith in their garden or being ferried around the North Island to see kauri trees, Pacifi...

We are home after spending the night at Sally’s. Saturday, we drove up to visit and attend Gainesville’s 2nd annual Fly Pig parade, organized by the man who created the King Mango Strut in Coconut Grove 40 years ago as a protest to his not being allowed to participate in the King Orange Parade.  My first memory of the KMS was 1989. We had a 9 passenger Suburban, and Grant had long gray hair. He; Betsy with Kristina and baby Emily; Sally or Marjorie; and me with Stephanie, Mary and baby Patten were heading back to the car, Grant leading the group of women, kids and strollers following. Traffic was slow, and someone yelled over “Where you in the parade?” “Yes,” Grant answered, “we are the Polygamist Society of South Florida.” And so we called ourselves whenever we did a group event, mostly because often Grant was the only husband to attend. There was talk of a flag, but no one ever made one, The Flying Pig was cute, but not as political as the Strut. It may evolve. The next morni...

I ran out to get the newspaper, clad only in my nightie as usual. Our whole front yard was flooded, and water bubbled out a hole. A dang leak between the meter and the house. Back inside, I hurried to put on clothes and boots while yelling at Grant to get up and get dressed. I called the plumber, first his cell which went to voice mail, then his service which took my message that I needed him NOW. Grant told me to turn off the water to the house, which I did after tromping through our soggy front yard. That did nothing. I opened the meter box, full of water, and felt around for a valve. Nothing seemed to turn. A quick call to Kyle who said to bail out the meter box. Duh, I should have thought of that. Back to the house for a measuring cup, back to the meter to kneel and bail. I found the valve but I couldn’t turn it. A picture sent to Kyle. He said get a wrench. Duh, again. To the garage for the wrench. Success, I turned the water off. Well, that was exciting before coffee. Troy called...

4:38 AM  Up at o’dark hundred because I’m still a little on European time. Gracie approves because she gets fed even earlier. I am drinking tea again today, rather than coffee. I haven’t become a tea drinker by choice. Before we left, I efficiently used up all our coffee beans. Then I rescheduled the delivery of bird-friendly coffee and messed up the dates. Yesterday, we managed to forget to add coffee to the grocery list and didn’t think to buy any while we were there. Three’s a charm? I’d blame the last on jet lag, but the second was more likely to old age. Arrg. However, I am giving myself kudos for figuring out how to put my photos in a grid on blog pages. (See previous post as an example.) I certainly don’t know the coding language, or even which one it is, but I remember enough to be able to read the HTML version. Eventually I may make pretty edges and more complicated layouts, but this is good enough for now. We worked hard yesterday, getting all of our trip clothing washed....

Gingerbread Cookie Decoration  Mannheim Water Tower

  December 14: I have about recovered from our overnight flight to Basel, Switzerland via Atlanta and Paris. All easy plane rides, but we went almost 24 hours without sleep and are 6 hours ahead of Orlando. Now aboard the Viking Tialfi  river boat for a cruise along the Rhine, visiting Christmas markets as we go. After being swept up by Viking reps and transported to our ship, we met Bryan and kids at the Christmas market in Basel. Glühwein and walking around, then Bryan helped us buy tickets for the #11 tram back to the boat, cheaper and quicker than the taxi we’d taken to meet them. Lunch on the boat, then I went on the shore excursion back to the same market. Grant opted for a nap instead. Back on the boat, we had a drink in the lounge, chatting with a couple from Georgia, he a U of Georgia grad; listened to the welcome by the captain and the cruise director; participated in the safety drill; and ate dinner, meeting more of our fellow cruisers. We may have dozed off during...

Because of our cruise mid-December, I haven’t been enthusiastic about putting up much of any Christmas decorations, or at least that’s the excuse I’m using. I did make the gingerbread house kit I’d bought pre-Thanksgiving, cutting window holes for pieces of vintage Life-Savers I melt into window panes. They’d gotten so sticky from old age, they were almost impossible to crush into powder. Not my best work. I also tried putting some cinnamon and nutmeg next to the lightbulb to see if the heat would make them be more aromatic. Meh. But in any case, done. That was inside. Grant hung lights on the front of the house and around the lanai. That was the outside. I did get out our Christmas shirts. December 6th was Holiday Hoopla, a games and food event exclusively for Town of Windermere residents. People like Steph who have Windermere in their address but don’t live inside the town limits were uninvited. To that end, there need to be people to check in attendees. Nancy’s daughter Brynna, a Ho...

Brrrr, it has been 45° the last 2 nights. During the day, in the sun, it is comfortable, however in the evenings and early mornings, it has been chilly. Our Connecticut friends were not impressed. Fortunately, we finally finished repairing William’s hut the day the temperature dipped. It had been sitting in the garage all summer. Nothing like just in time inventory. Gracie helped while we decided what to do. To keep it warm, we had built it with a reptile heater big enough for an African spurred tortoise. It had to be hung on the ceiling of the hut because it is too warm for a small turtle. However, it was the only heater that could be outside. All the smaller ones weren’t waterproof. Overkill, but what was available. We took the sides of the hut off, and I cut them the same height. Originally the top had a slant to let any rain run off, but it doesn’t need that since our house eave protects it from drips. We added 1x4s on each side and along the back to make the structure more stable....