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2021 Nutshells, Animals, Family, Getting old ... er ... older

The home for ever-aging critters

April 14, 2021 No Comments

Suddenly, I feel I am running a house for elderly critters. Varmints who are getting up there in years. Reaching their senior moments. Getting all geriatric on me. Demanding the early-bird buffet.

I’m not sure what to make of it all.

Our dog, Lily, must be about 10 years old. She’s starting to show gray in her muzzle. She doesn’t act old, or seem her age. But there are little hints that it’s coming. That she isn’t the young pup she used to be.

The cat, Sunburst, is a reformed stray who is pretty ancient. We don’t know his exact age, but it must be up there. When we asked the vet, they offered to carbon date his one good tooth. That means they know he’s pretty old. Our best guess is he comes from the Paleolithic era. But he seems to be managing just fine, old fella’ that he is. He tells too many stories about the Civil War, but other than that – and a wobbly walk like he’s been drinking rum – he isn’t any worse for the wear.

2021 Nutshells, Family, Florida, Parenthood and Children

A new driver dodging and weaving through downtown streets

April 7, 2021 No Comments

The wait is over. The day has arrived. Anticipation has given way to reality. It has all come to fruition.

The kid has a license to drive.

The kid. The child! The wee little one … who isn’t so little. They permitted her. The state, in all their wisdom, noted that she was 15. Made her complete a course on alcohol and drugs. Required her to study a manual about driving – hands at 10 and 2 on the wheel, don’t run over small animals on purpose and all that – and then quizzed her on it. She passed it, of course. And then they checked her eyesight – she could generally tell the difference between a “B” and a “D” – and gave her a learner’s permit.

A license to drive!

It comes with some restrictions. The main one is that she must be accompanied by a licensed driver in the front passenger seat of the car at all times.

The FRONT passenger seat!

2021 Nutshells, Technology

New car fears, and figuring out fancy bells and whistles

March 29, 2021 No Comments

But I’m slowly getting the hang of it. Slowly figuring out my new car, and kind of enjoying it.

All except for one thing. The worst part about EVER buying a new car: The Fear!

You know “The Fear,” right? The new car fear? The terror you get after you’ve signed the paperwork, dropped loads of cash, driven it off the lot, and then remembered one of the addendums to Murphy’s Law: “Any new car with perfect paint and no dents or scratches shall not remain in such a pristine state for more than 48 hours.”

It’s a rule of physics. A universal constant. Perfection cannot last. And the harder you try to protect it, the worse the event will end up being. Might be a scratch while filling up gas (had this happen once) or a rock hitting the windshield or a dump truck filled with cow manure overturning on you. (Pretty sure that is waiting for me.)

And knowing it’s coming – that horrible anticipation and FEAR! – is enough to drive you crazy. Within days of getting our last new car, a truck backed into us in a parking lot, crumpling the hatch and requiring an extended stay with the dealer. I spent more time in a rental car than the car I had just paid for.

2021 Nutshells, Family, Getting old ... er ... older, Houses, yards and projects, Marriage

How to spend an anniversary the romantic way

March 22, 2021 No Comments

Boy, nothing says, “Happy Anniversary!” like spending the day prepping the outside of your house to be pressure washed.

Yay romance!

We sure know how to do it up right. Moving garbage cans. Carrying off potted plants. Trying to figure out why every stick my daughter brought home from vacations is stacked up on our front porch. Along with every stone, every shell, every rock and what may be either a large chunk of coal or something way more toxic. Either way, it could use a pressure wash. We left that outside, then went about shuffling and moving before relocating a platoon of cold-stunned lizards who couldn’t believe we had the audacity to uproot their lives.

“Can’t you just celebrate an anniversary like normal people?!?” they seemed to say.

No, actually I don’t think we can.

It was the luck of the scheduling. How you never think about how much there is to get ready for a house project when you schedule it, or that it might leave the bulk of the work for a big day.

Whoops!

2021 Nutshells, Coronavirus, Florida, Health, In the News

Dropping everything and following the blue arrows to a COVID vaccine

March 17, 2021 No Comments

When you get a chance at the COVID vaccine, you drop everything and go. You go like there’s a gold rush. You go like you just had a psychic vision of the winning lottery numbers. You go like you’re not actually sitting in a meeting at work.

You just get up and you go.

That’s what I did last week when I heard several colleagues I work with say that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) facility in Jacksonville was vaccinating anyone working in education, including those like us who work at colleges or universities. They had been up to the facility, which news reports say had seen thinner demand and wasn’t administering as many vaccines as it was setup for, and were quickly moved through the process after showing their college IDs.

No wait for a vaccine and only an hour away? You don’t have to tell this guy twice. Have arm, will travel.

It had already been an exciting week on the vaccine front in our household. My wife, a pre-school teacher, had been vaccinated that Monday. She got the Johnson and Johnson vaccine at CVS – the one-and-done shot that needs no follow-up booster, and is supposed to have a similar efficacy to the others when it comes to the most severe effects of the virus.

2021 Nutshells, Childhood, Family, Getting old ... er ... older, Parenthood and Children

Childhood memories of dirty hands and grass-stained knees

March 9, 2021 No Comments

Nothing reminds you of your own childhood like watching a 7-year-old boy topple headfirst into a bed of ferns and filth.

And the sound of his father screaming across the backyard, “Striker! What did I tell you about being in the dirt?!?”

The child popped up like a groundhog, ferns and filth dripping from him.

Ah, to be a kid again.

This child is my nephew, Striker. His father is my younger brother, Scott.

This was at least the 75th time my brother had barked: “Striker! What did I tell you about being in the dirt?!?”

Now the boy had been summoned for a talk. The 75th time.

2021 Nutshells, Coronavirus, Parenthood and Children

Reflections on a year with COVID

March 2, 2021 No Comments

“You know, you said we would be out of this in 2 weeks?” my daughter told me as we were driving last week. It was almost out of the blue. She was talking about COVID-19, of course. As if I needed to tell you that. As if, like everything else, you couldn’t just assume.

“I said what?” I replied, incredulously. “I don’t think so. When?!?”

“Um … a year ago,” she said.

A year ago? No! … Wait … Really?!? … Um …

“Oh,” I finally said. “I guess I did say that.”

I hadn’t thought much about the anniversary of COVID-19 up until that point. How this marked the beginning of the world turning upside down as the virus gained a deadly foothold. Forced us to upend our lives and alter almost everything about our daily routines. Things we never could have foreseen – toilet paper shortages, home haircuts, virtual schools, masks that hide precious smiles. And more important things, like lost family and friends.

For all the news stories about this milestone, it wasn’t until she said this that it really hit me.

A year ago it all began.

2021 Nutshells, Florida, Houses, yards and projects, Weather

The unending battle with the spring-time Florida yard

February 22, 2021 No Comments

And so my yard said unto me, “Go, ye forsaken skunk, for ye shall not tame me. Wasteth not your breath, for I shall not be conquered, or kept at bay. I am the Indomitable Yard. The one who rages in your nightmares like a wild hurricane. The one who can withstand any assault. The one who rises up like the Phoenix to retake what is rightfully mine. And you? You are just a small, sniveling man with a pair of dull pruning shears and a rusty shovel. Lowly wretch! Oh, and by the way: there’s an ant crawling on your neck. You might want to swat that off before … ulp … yep, it bit you. Man, you are just a total mess.”

This is what my yard said unto me. It hurt. Both the ant bite, but also the general tone of its voice. Its confidence. It’s arrogance.

“Ye shall not tame me!” Oh, how I shall try.

I’ve been trying. So many years of trying. We all have. Yards are a constant battle. An ongoing struggle between weeds and vines and mountains of swelling leaves that threaten to avalanche on our houses.

For most of us, our yards are the last throwback to a bygone era when we had to battle with Mother Nature for our very survival. And sometimes, even today, our survival still depends upon it. Like when my wife calls out, “have you figured out why the vine keeps growing up through the bathroom floor!?!” only I’m actually sitting on the sofa watching soccer.

2021 Nutshells, Getting old ... er ... older

I’m 48! When does the ‘wisdom with age’ kick in?

February 15, 2021 No Comments

I suppose I should be more upset about it. Turning 48. Yep, that’s what I’m about to do. Don’t have much say in the matter. Father time doesn’t exactly ask if you want to go sky diving. He just throws you out the plane door whether you’re ready or not. “Don’t forget to pull the ripcord!”

“RIPCORD!?! Nobody said anything about a ‘ripcord?’”

SPLATTT!!!

I guess my philosophy is you can’t get too upset over something you have no control over. Ate a whole cake? You did that. Had a mid-life crisis and bought an alpaca? Well, you should have been a normal person and bought an expensive sports car you don’t know how to drive or got a tattoo that says: “Couldn’t think of anything better.”

Turning a year older is the one thing in life out of your hands, so why get bothered by it? Why rue it?

Besides, I thought understood it. There was supposed to be a nice tradeoff: “With age comes wisdom,” the old adage goes.

2021 Nutshells, Family, Parenthood and Children, Technology

Things you learn about yourself struggling with technology

February 10, 2021 No Comments

It’s remarkable what technology can teach us about ourselves, especially when it all goes wrong. When we’re at our lowest. The lowest of the lows. Down deep in that great digital pit of despair. Drowning in bits and gigs and bandwidth and lots of other strange names that you know guys with goofy eyeglasses once came up with: “Yeah, this will mess with their minds. Let’s call it a ‘Flamingshnagel!’”

I hate those guys!

I learned a lot about myself this past week after my daughter permanently locked herself out of her iPhone by accident – yes, you read that right — and then the Phantom of the Modem wreaked WIFI havoc and killed our Internet. Lowest … of … the … lows! Two tech trials that tested my mettle and gave me a glimpse at who I REALLY am. It was ugly, and here is what I learned:

• I’m really bad at spinning bad news. When my daughter locked herself out of her phone after changing her passcode, but mis-remembered the number, she went on to exceed the number of tries Apple allows you before they lock you out completely. It’s a security technique that doubles as cruel torture for teens. But no worries. All you have to do is reset the phone and then restore it to the most recent backup. You know, when you last plugged it into a computer to save all of those precious images, files, contacts and settings? You know, the thing you’re supposed to do at least monthly? You know … you did do that, right? Because if you don’t, you’ll have no choice but to deliver this kind of report to a distraught 15-year-old: “So, the good news is, I was able to find a backup. Pretty good news, yeah? Pretty impressed with myself. Now, in ever-slightly worse news … uh … it’s a backup from 2017. But … BUT, that’s better than 2015, right?” No good way to sugarcoat that one.