Years – Page 16 – Nutshellcity.com

2019 Nutshells, Technology

Fear, and the art of pressure-cooking

September 26, 2019 No Comments

Speed. Convenience. Death. OK, maybe I’m exaggerating. It’s just I’ve had a bad experience in the past with pressure-cooking. I didn’t almost die. No, it’s more like I almost had my face burned off. A typhoon of hot, scalding water leaped at my noggin in an attempt to maliciously deface me. I had the good sense to leap back, run and never return. I left the pressure cooker, the house, the car, everything. I never went back.

I don’t know where I went wrong. This was years ago. I had been gifted a used pressure cooker and attempted to cook something in there. All was going according to plan … until I put it on the burner. At that point the cooker built up pressure (I thought it was supposed to!), burst out its steam release valve and sent what looked like Old Faithful across my kitchen.

It took three years and a lot of therapy before I could even bring myself to scramble an egg.

2019 Nutshells, Childhood, Weather

A new generation discovers MREs

September 18, 2019 No Comments

“What is it?” my daughter asked.

Well, trying to answer that question is a bit like trying to answer: What’s the meaning of life? Why are we here? Are we alone in the universe? What’s at the center of a black hole? How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop?

“Of all the great mysteries,” I replied, taking the tone of a wise, old philosopher, “this is the one man will go to his grave trying to answer.”

She stood staring at the brown, metallic-y pouches with the cryptic black writing.

“Yeah … but … it says ‘Meal, Ready To Eat.’ So, is it like food or something?”

“Yes, my dear. You nailed it: ‘Or something,’ and no one quite knows for sure what that ‘something’ is.”

By now I was cradling it, the precious MRE. Military-style rations.

2019 Nutshells, Animals, Houses, yards and projects

Peace-less mornings with the porch cats

September 11, 2019 No Comments

Mornings used to be so peaceful. I would leisurely get up, stretch a little bit, joyfully stub my toed on the edge of the bed, make some coffee, sip it in total relaxation while reading the paper.

My mornings were glorious.

Then I came down with a case of the porch cats. An affliction known to the scientific community as porchcatitis, with symptoms that can be as serious as pulling out your hair, general screaming, uncontrollable twitching, the urge to gnaw on pressure-treated wood, and most definitely, ruining your morning.

Mornings are no longer peaceful.

Because porch cats, like all cats, are finnicky and fussy. These two have already forgotten they were practically homeless just a couple months ago when we unofficially adopted them. Gave them land rights to our porch.

2019 Nutshells, Florida, Houses, yards and projects, Weather

In Florida, reflecting on a week with Hurricane Dorian

September 5, 2019 No Comments

It certainly feels like we dodged a bullet. Actually, a glimpse at how Hurricane Dorian left the Bahamas and we know it wasn’t a bullet. More like a tropical bomb. One that had been headed right for Florida. It only stopped at our doorstep and reconsidered because a timely weather system swooped down and gently nudged the hurricane on a neat, narrow path around the state.

For that, we are grateful. Dorian comes a day earlier, or that trough arrives a little late, and this is a different column. This is probably a different state. Look at the Bahamas, if you don’t believe me.

But it took so long for it all to unfold. What was it? Almost a week?

What did you do with all that time? Waiting on the world’s slowest hurricane to galumph its way up the Florida coast? Sloth-like in its calculated, slow-motion crawl. So close to St. Augustine that it was agonizing and terrifying. Yet, just far enough away that some incredibly powerful computers, and the meteorologists who call them friends, said it would keep the winds and waters out.

2019 Nutshells, Getting old ... er ... older, Parenthood and Children

Lessons from lugging boxes at college move-in day

August 29, 2019 No Comments

Just like all across the country, this past weekend was move-in day at Flagler College. It’s where I work, and also where I graduated oh-so many moons ago. So with a little bit of nostalgia, and a whole lot of masochism, I like to go back each move-in to help new college freshmen carry all their possessions – which must include numerous granite boulders – up to their dorm rooms. You learn quite a few things about the world, and yourself, when you undertake such physical exertion under the blazing August Florida heat. Important things, such as:

• You’re not as strong as you look. Actually, I don’t even look strong. Pretty scrawny, actually. So I don’t know why I try to be a hero and carry all the big boxes. I should stick to comforters, or boxes of tissues. But not me! I had to act super-strong and say things like, “Shoot, that shoe bin weighs more than twice my weight? Pshaw! No problem. Just strap it to my back with these ratchet tie-downs and don’t worry when you hear a snapping sound. That’s just my spinal cord rupturing.”

• You will feel such excruciating pain in the muscles on the insides of your elbows for days afterward. It will make you wonder if little aliens are about to pop out. I don’t know what those muscles are, or why after carrying boxes they hurt so much. But I would surmise by the awful pain that they have never been used before in my life.

2019 Nutshells, Family, Parenthood and Children

The back-to-school and back-to-fall checklist

August 21, 2019 No Comments

Wave farewell to summer, everyone. It will be in the rearview mirror before you know it. And that means school is back, and fall is on its way. So I’m here to remind some of you procrastinators about important back-to-school and fall checklist items that you may have forgotten, and surely need to look into:
• Get your middle school daughter a scientific calculator – What’s a scientific calculator? I have no earthly idea. It is both futuristic and old timey, like a Buck Rogers toy, or an abacus. It doesn’t have a touchscreen, but instead buttons. This will mean you have to explain it to your child, as she will try to “swipe” to make it work and then complain it’s broken. When she asks about some of the symbols on it (for instance the “cosine” symbol) you will have to pretend you are smart and say that her young ears aren’t ready for the truth (and horror) about that. (She should ask her teacher!)

2019 Nutshells, Family, Parenthood and Children

As the school year starts, signs your parenting skills aren’t up to snuff

August 14, 2019 No Comments

All across America kids are returning to school. Meanwhile, parents everywhere can be heard collectively screaming, “You’re only NOW telling me none of your underwear fit?!?” It’s the age-old truth: The more experience we have, the worse we actually get at it.

That’s parenting, huh? In our house, my daughter just started 8th grade. But the more I think I have this all figured out, the more I realize I’m one step away from the child suing me for parental mismanagement and crippling oaf-ishness.

You feeling it, too? You recognize any of the signs of the great back-to-school parent-fail? Here are just a few first week of school missteps I’m guilty of:

• You think any clothes that were outgrown in the summer – now violating school dress codes for showing too much skin – can be fixed with duct tape and some extra pieces of fabric. This goes over especially well with your daughter, who threatens to give all of your Internet passwords to Russian hackers.

2019 Nutshells, Childhood, Family, Travel

Two brothers, two ideas of ‘cool’ at an old timey village

August 7, 2019 No Comments

“Man, I got to make a real brass candleholder,” my brother said, plunging the little craft high into the air. “Isn’t it cool?”

It was tiny. If a mouse cared a lick about candlelight, he would be hard-pressed to put this puny holder to work.

“Wait, is that from the place where you pay $5 to turn a candlestick yourself?” I said. “You actually spent money on that? Hahahaha! We saw that and thought only suckers would go in there.”

We were in Michigan to see my younger sister in the Michigan Shakespeare festival. My daughter had traveled with me, and on this morning, we had been talked into going to visit nearby Greenfield Village, created by Henry Ford in the late 1920s as a re-created town to show off working technology from sawmills to living farms. It was my brother’s idea, and he had already sold my father on it.

Now he just needed two more suckers.

2019 Nutshells, Family, Parenthood and Children

Integers, eighth graders and scary new realms in young adulthood

July 31, 2019 No Comments

August. It means a lot of things. The end of summer. The kind of Florida heat that makes lava look like Laffy Taffy. When the tropics fire up and start shooting storms at us like a baseball pitching machine.

Most of all, August means it’s time to start thinking about kids going back to school.

As a parent, I’ve found that some years the return to the academic realm feels routine and unremarkable. I just have to remember where my daughter’s school is (I don’t), that I need to start waking up earlier again (I can’t) and that I need to resurrect that wonderful routine of screaming like a drill sergeant, “GET OUT OF BED NOW, CHILD!!! YOU ONLY HAVE THREE MINUTES UNTIL FIRST BELL!!!”

No problem.

2019 Nutshells, Animals, Houses, yards and projects

A few rules for the porch cats

July 24, 2019 No Comments

So, let’s just get something straight you two: YOU’RE PORCH CATS!!!

By definition, that means you live on my porch. That means I have ceded a little bit of my territory – my land, my homestead, the property that I pay a mortgage on every month – to your furry little behinds. Out of the goodness of my heart. As repayment to my wonderful neighbor down the street, who we lost last year. Your previous owner. A terrific woman. And because of that, we let you migrate down the block and take up residence here, on our porch.

But here’s what I’m trying to explain to you … it comes with responsibilities! Certain guidelines. You don’t just get to live here rent free. (Well, that’s not exactly true … you ARE living here “rent free.” In fact, I’m losing money on the deal! Which brings me back to my point …) You two might be pleasant, enjoyable and awfully sweet, but you need to accept a couple of rules that I’m laying down.

For starters, throwing up on the porch – your home!!! – is strictly forbidden. I mean, this should go without saying. Why would you even do that?!? There is a whole huge yard out there where you can do frankly whatever you want. Why do it here? Where people walk! Because, here’s the thing: We don’t always look where we are stepping. Especially when it’s early morning. A little dark out. And I just want to get the newspaper. See where I’m going with this? You think that’s a pleasant morning greeting?