NATURE VS NURTURE: PART DOS

Just 2 or 3 weeks ago I was in the kitchen where I work fixing a cup of coffee to take back to the office.  Carolee is the kitchen assistant and part-time chef.  This particular morning she rushed into the kitchen in an absolute frenzy.  She looked possessed.  

"I don't know how I'm ever going to get home," she muttered.  "Is it on me?  Do you see anything on me?"

"No, you look fine," I answered.

"No, I mean, do you see anything ON me?" she asked.  She was brushing her hands up and down her clothes and running them through her hair.

I checked her over.

"No, nothing," I reassured her.

"Good," Carolee said, but she wasn't convincing.  "That means he's still in the car.  How am I ever going to get home?"

Bit by bit her story emerged.

Carolee has to be at work at 7am when she is the kitchen assistant; that means leaving her home in Flagler Beach before 6:15.  This time of year it is still very dark at until almost 7:00.  That morning she got into her car and headed north on A1A to St. Augustine.  A1A runs along the ocean part of the way, then veers inland through the Hammock, a heavily wooded area, then runs back along the ocean. For most of the trip it is dark; there are few lights until you enter St. Augustine Beach.

Carolee was zipping along just minding her own business when she passed a an open and well-lit gas station.  Out of the corner of her eye she spotted something on her rear view mirror.  A second horrified look confirmed that it was a ... banana spider!  
 

At nearly the same instant that she identified the THING on her rear view mirror she passed into the darkness of the Hammock. She careened along A1A terrified that monster was going to jump on her.  She couldn't stop.  What was she going to do?  It was pitch black on the two-lane road; she'd get run over!  (Besides, if she stopped in the woods in the dark and got out of the car how many BUGS, SNAKES, GATORS, ETC. would be waiting for THEIR CHANCE to attack her on the side of the road?)  She squeezed over against the door and kept staring back and forth between the road and the dark rear view mirror.  Was it still there?  Was it looking at her?  What if it was gone?  Where was it?

She rocketed out of the Hammock, past Marineland, and into the brief spot where A1A widens and has street lights next to 3 high rise condominiums.  THERE HE WAS!  He had spun a short web and was HANGING FROM THE REAR VIEW MIRROR.  OMG!  If she took a curve too fast he would start swinging and swing RIGHT INTO HER FACE!!!!

The street lights disappeared behind her; she and her passenger were thrown into pitch darkness again.  She slowed a bit so she could navigate curves without causing the spider to sway or swing.  She couldn't see him at all and hoped against hope that she wouldn't FEEL anything for the next several miles while she pushed ahead in the dark. 

When she entered St. Augustine Beach and the accompanying street lights she looked for the spider; he was gone.  GONE?  Where was he?  She looked all around and twisted and fidgeted in her seat; one minute tensing because she thought she felt something, the next minute brushing herself off frantically.  For the next terrifying 6-8 miles she looked in vain for that spider - and dreaded feeling him on her leg or in her hair or on her arm, or ON HER NECK or ON HER FACE.

The sun was rising as she crossed the temporary bridge over the Matanzas  River into St. Augustine and there he was!  He was scuttling across her headliner "about 90 mph!".  Thank God, he was running AWAY from her.  She hurtled the last couple miles through town and down the cobblestoned and very bumpy St. George Street and into our parking lot.  She slammed on the brakes, turned off her car, opened the door, and tried frantically to get out of her car.  SOMETHING WAS HOLDING HER IN AND WOULDN'T LET GO!  It was her seatbelt.  She jammed the release button and almost fell out of her car.  She slammed the door shut and stood there for several minutes, just glad to be alive and spider-free.

I really tried not to laugh, because it could have been me and I would have been just as upset, but, the truth is, it wasn't me and I started laughing and couldn't stop.  That morning she didn't see any humor in the situation.  She demanded to know how she was going to get home; I suggested she leave her windows down so he could get out.

"NO!" Carolee said.  "Do you know how many creepy-crawlies live in the parking lot?"

I didn't have any more suggestions so I patted her shoulder and took my coffee back to the office.  I ran my fingers through my hair and brushed off my arms a couple times on the way.

I don't want to say Carolee was obsessed with this banana spider, but she admitted later she asked everyone that morning for an answer to her dilemma.  I don't think she met with too many sympathetic responses.  After breakfast service ended she asked Mike, our maintenance guy, if he had any bug spray.  He gave her a big can of Raid.  Carolee opened the hatch of her Yarus, aimed and fired.  She DRENCHED her car.  She said she could see the spray clinging to some webs in there, so she knew the banana spider had been busy.  She shut the hatch, then opened her driver's side door and DRENCHED her car in poison.  She sprayed until the can was empty.  Then she shut the door and went back to work.

When it was time to go home she took a couple of rags and used them to wipe her seat and the steering wheel.  She rolled down her window, but left the others up.  She drove home with her interior reeking of poison, one window down, and the air conditioner blowing full blast.  She didn't see the spider.  (That much poison probably disintegrated him!)  She had been home for about an hour when her significant other Russ said he was going to take the car to run an errand.  "OK," she answered.

When Russ returned he wanted to know what the HELL happened to her her car!  His hands were all sticky from the door, the steering wheel, the controls.  The interior was covered in something sticky and gross!  What was it?  She told him that if he ever LISTENED to her that he would know it was RAID and that she had bombed the car's interior to kill a spider.

Russell took the car to a car wash place and the rumor is he used the high velocity spray to clean the interior.  He never saw the spider.

Saturday Night

More than one month has passed since I disconnected my cable connections and quit watching TV.  Tonight three women are sitting in a beach cottage and each one of us is working on a laptop.  You could look at this and say we've substituted one piece of technology for another; however, that would not be accurate.  My friend LuAnn is working on her Master's Degree and has been working all day on her assignments.  My daughter Melissa was reading for her Disciple Bible study class, and is now catching up with friends on Facebook.  I'm writing my blog.

There is no TV in the background.  And the only time a TV has been turned on has been during my grandson's Noah's baths.  This beach cottage has a room with a whirlpool tub adjacent to the living room.  In addition to the whirlpool tub there is a TV mounted on the wall with a DVD player.  Noah (who is 2) is having the time of his life taking bubble baths in that whirlpool tub while Finding Nemo plays on the DVD player.  Tonight the bubbles were 2-3 feet above his head and he looked like a weird version of Santa Clause when he peeked over the top of the tub.

It's so quiet in here that it was surprising to step outside for a few minutes and hear the Kink's You Really Got Me blasting from two doors' down.  The weekend partyers had tiki torches around their 2nd story deck and sounded like they were having a great time.  It was nice to step back inside and feel the air conditioning and hear the tap tap of laptop keys.

Today was a whirlwind because we had my granddaughter Kinsey's birthday party at 3:00, and shopping to complete before then.  LuAnn stayed behind to work on her assignments while Melissa and Noah and I tooled around in my convertible, and YES, it was a top down day.  This was Noah's first time cruising with Grenah in the Cabrio with the top down and he really enjoyed it.  There was a lot of woo-hoo-ing as we enjoyed the beautiful day.

We finished our shopping and had a delicious lunch at Flavors just west of downtown.  Then home to complete our wrapping then off to the party.  The party's theme was Tinkerbell and not only were the balloons and decorations all Tinkerbell, but Kinsey herself was dressed as the Tink.  She was so cute my head almost exploded.  We had cake & ice cream & presents & it was a grand time.  When Melissa and Noah and I arrived back at the beach cottage we found LuAnn ready for a break.  We caught her up on the party news while Noah ate some supper, then we all laughed while he took his bubble bath with Nemo.  He was asleep 5 minutes after his head hit the pillow.

I give  myself about 15 more minutes and I'll join him in Dreamland...

THE BUTS

I've been cleaning and decluttering in preparation for my company coming this weekend.  In the process I've begun to do some things that I put off doing years ago; for example, hanging pictures in my living room, hanging pictures in my hallway, and clearing out the TV entertainment center (it's going outside Saturday for sale or pickup).  I've disliked the entertainment center for a couple of years now but inertia caused me to just sit and hate it instead of getting rid of it.  Let me introduce you to - The BUTS.  So I'm sitting in my living room glaring at the entertainment center and thinking,

"I hate that entertainment center; it leans away from the wall and that's just so unattractive.  And I have something I like much better to put in its place."  Uh oh, here come The BUTS:

• BUT there's so much stuff piled on it; I'll never find a new home for everything.
• BUT even if I could find a home for everything, I'd never be able to move it by myself.
• BUT even if I could move it by myself, I can't have a yard sale with just one item.
• BUT even if I decided to just junk it at the side of the road, I couldn't drag it all the way out there by myself.

The BUTS are related to procrastination; they are the mental voices that discourage me from even trying to do some activity.

I thought that blogging about BUTS would be helpful, but instead I have killed almost an hour on this stupid topic and still have quite a bit of work to do.  Stupid BUTS.

FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS...NOPE...ST AUGUSTINE

OK, don't freak out, but I've signed up for Google Adsense.  A friend suggested it for earning extra money.  It sounded too good to be true, of course, so I did a lot of research this afternoon.  Results are mixed.

I immediately read as many complaints and as varied problems as I could.  Most of the complaints were from webmasters who earned up to the minimum $100 that Google requires before issuing a check.  They claimed that just when they were expecting their first check, Google accused them of fraud and closed their account.

Aha! said my cynical side.  Typical corporate scam; however, most of the webmasters went on to complain about all the time they put into getting more ads and getting more hits, etc. 

I had almost decided NOT to do it just because I was sure it wouldn't be worth the trouble, AND I already had the Cable TV monopoly and the cell phone behemoth to deal with - I didn't need another company ripping me off.  Then I decided...... I decided to take a leap.  I am so darn conservative and I don't do a lot of things because the results are not guaranteed. 

I thought about it and decided I would only do it if I put NO EFFORT WHATSOEVER into it.  So I filled out the application and it was short and only mildly annoying.  We'll see.  They promise that I can veto up to 200 advertisers (that I may view as objectionable).  We'll see.  If I go through with this you are free to do what you want.  Whoever advertises is chosen by Google, not me.  I'm just letting them use some of my space.  And if I don't like it I'm promised that I can get out of this arrangement quickly and easily.

So call me a sellout.  Whatever.  I need more income.  I am going to try more stuff.  I am going to take more chances.  And so what if it doesn't work out.  At least I tried.

OFFSPRING FROM ANOTHER PLANET

I have not mentioned this NO TV project to my two daughters; I knew they would just think it was another weird thing about their weird mother.  I'm finally getting it that they don't get me and that's OK; I really didn't "get" my  mother either.  That's why we have grandchildren.

Mary Lee (my older daughter who lives here in St. Augustine) noticed Saturday my cable wire was disconnected from my TV and asked me what was wrong with my cable.  So I told her I wasn't watching TV for a year. 

"Why?" daughter asked.

"Because I just wanted to see if I could do it."  mother answered.

"Cool."  daughter comments.  

"Bullshit." mother is thinking.

 I know that's not the end of it.

So I guess the two daughters put their heads together.  I'm sure Mary Lee reported this aberration along with  the new bumper stickers on my car:  EVE WAS FRAMED and DON'T PISS ME OFF - I'M RUNNING OUT OF PLACES TO BURY THE BODIES.  I mean, come on!  My beloved Cabrio is 10 years old and I'm finally only carrying Liability Insurance and I'm driving it as long as I can and have no plans to sell it so if I want to put bumper stickers on it now, so what!  Anyway, they're always comparing notes to see if it's "time".  You know, time to "put me away".  I'm only 55 and they've been preparing for "putting me away" for a decade already.  I've told them both I've got a one-way ticket to Tahiti that I'm using with the last of my strength.  Actually, it's for Nome - I think it would be better to freeze to death on an ice floe than to die all hot and sweaty on a tropical island. 

So...my younger daughter Melissa calls me tonight.  She's driving down from Atlanta for a long weekend with me.  (BTW bringing 2-yr-old Noah - woo hoo!)

"So I hear you're like not watching TV for a year," daughter says.

"That's right,"  mother answers...waiting.

"So does that mean like no one can watch TV?  Like I can't watch Survivor or Amazing Race while I'm visiting?"  daughter asks with her 3-year-old voice.

"That's right, no TV at all.  After all Tim will record everything for you anyway."  mother is screwing with daughter....because she can.

 "Oh... yea...that's right.  Well, that's fine."  daughter sounds pitiful.

"Well, I guess I could hook up the TV in the bedroom and you could spend time with the TV instead of with your mother."  God, this is great.

"No, no, you're right, Tim will record everything."  Daughter is being so nice.  I know it's killing her.

I did let her off the hook, but it will be weird to be all together and not watch TV.  I will have it hooked up so my friend LuAnn can watch while she's here visiting for a week, and it will be hooked up this weekend in case my daughter wants to watch, but I won't use the opportunity to watch.  That would be...like...cheating.