If you can't beat it, accept it

It has been a couple of months since my husband, Chris, came home towing the boat I was not prepared to accept into our possession. Over the course of that time, I have developed what I have come to think of as a love/hate relationship for the vessel.

I tried to like the boat, but the boat doesn’t seem to like me. Case in point: once, when we went onto Lake Jackson, my seat broke, and I tipped over backwards in a way that cut and bruised the tops of my feet on the underside of the dash.

On another day, Chris had just bought a tube to pull behind the boat. After several trips with the kids, the choke began acting up. I got in the tube and the boat refused to start. The boat hates me.

Usually, I just scowl at it as I pull out of the driveway, but every now and then, I fantasize about taking our big Sharpie marker and scrawling “S.S. fill-in-the-blank-with-any-derogatory-term” on the sides, then blaming the neighborhood kids.

So when Chris asked if I wanted to go fishing with him, the kids, and his cousin, Phillip, this past Sunday, every fiber in my body was screaming “NO!,” but for some reason, my mouth said, “I guess so.”

My intentions were to bring a book and ignore everyone.

We launched at Lake Istokpoga’s public boat ramp and cut over into Arbuckle Creek. It was positively beautiful. There was no way I was going to read my book with all that scenery distracting me. Also, the boat was rocking quite a bit because no one wanted to sit still while they fished. No one wanted to be very quiet either.

It didn’t take long for me to declare that I too would be fishing, but I wasn’t going to waste my time with brim and blue gills. I would aim higher and set my sights on some large-mouth bass.

I had no clue if bass would be biting or not, but I felt like they would.

Phillip set up my hook and I began casting; something I had not done in about 25 years.

My son caught a nice sized blue gill and Chris caught a small brim followed by an even smaller brim that was about the size of a Pringles potato chip. Phillip caught what we believe was the same blue gill twice.

Sadly, I didn’t catch a single fish, but I did catch a huge stick. I reeled that baby in and it measured at least six feet. It felt good to clear it out of the way for future anglers. I also caught the anchor line and a tree.

When I told my sister, she explained that I don’t have a fishing license so it was a good thing I didn’t catch anything. I had totally forgotten this bit of information. Chris, Phillip, and my son are all licensed. Now that I think back on the day, Chris must have felt fairly confident that I wasn’t going to violate the law when he placed that rod in my hands.

I will make sure I’m legal next time. The fish will bite if they know I’m licensed, I’m just sure of it.

I think the important thing is that I am starting to like the boat. If things keep going like this, I might start smiling at it when I leave the house. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

The lost pieces of our lives

The junk drawer: the catch-all of every American household and a nightmare to clean. I cannot actually attest to cleaning the drawer, but I recently had to “tidy it up” because I was on the hunt for a set of keys.

Before I found those keys, I had to wade through an incredible menagerie of paraphernalia that had been accumulated by my family throughout our daily lives. There were standard tools that included tape, paper clips, screw drivers, batteries, and a calculator, but there were also items unique to my own personal use.

One of these was an electronic tire pressure gauge that my husband stuffed in my Christmas stocking a few years ago.  You see, I have a problem with tires wearing out faster than they should and, during a certain period of time a while back, I would lose pressure in one tire more than the others. He thought I would attend to my tire issue if I had a handy tool at my disposal, but that was not the case as evidenced by said tool’s placement in the drawer rather than the car.

A few other items related to my status as a nursing student, like the several dozen alcohol prep pads, a pocket-sized hand sanitizer, and a saline-filled 3 mL syringe used to flush intravenous sites.

There were 3 boxes of birthday candles and a pedometer which had one thing in common: all of them had been barely used. Also underutilized was a package of reinforcement labels. In case you are unaware as to how these are applied, they are the little, round, white rings that repair the torn holes of notebook paper that has been ripped out of a binder. I bought them for a binder-style text book three years ago and, out of the 544 labels available, I have used four. Now the mostly full pack floats around the junk drawer all year long.

We also store a tube of almost worthless vinyl adhesive. The last time we put this to good use was when my sister’s dog chewed on our 12 foot vinyl pool. Unfortunately, the abundance of canine teeth holes proved too much for the pool patch kits to handle.

I discovered a variety of needless cards too. Some were business cards, but a few of them actually held value at one time. A drink vendor promised riches with a scratch-off code that had to be checked online by December of 2010. I finally threw that one away.

We also own five Blockbuster Video reward cards which each entitle us to 2 movies, 2 Coca-Cola beverages, 2 theater candies, and popcorn. These would have been nice to redeem back when we had a Blockbuster in town, but I know for a fact that we didn’t have them in our possession until after the store closed. We keep them in case we travel to a city that has one still in business.

The keys are the real mess. I found the boat key which was hard to miss considering the fact that it has a huge, floatable keychain attached to it. What astounds me is that, out of the 34 keys in the junk drawer, I have no clue what 22 of them unlock or start up. Amazing.

For the time being, most of the drawer’s mysteries shall remain shrouded in secrecy. I have places to go and people to see and, goodness knows, I’ve got enough keys to take me there.

Not really the pits in Pittsburgh

Having an outspoken personality can sometimes gain a few perks for a person like me; for instance, my position as President of the Student Nurses’ Association and the current trip that has taken me to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for the Annual Convention of the National Student Nurses Association.

To get here, I first had to ride on a plane which was something I hadn’t done in about two years. The airline was Delta and, due to some unexpected automobile delays, I was fortunate to arrive in time to actually board the aircraft. When you hear, “Last call for flight 1943. We will soon be shutting the hatch door. Any passengers who have not boarded please proceed directly to the gate,” you know you’ve cut it too close for comfort.

I was disappointed to find that the passengers who were packed together in the humid canister of misery were in no mood for my attempt at comic relief. I discovered this when I jokingly declared, “It’s okay, everyone, I’m here! We can leave now,” and no one cracked a smile. Tough crowd. In reality, the plane sat a while longer and, for the record, I did not check any bags so it wasn’t really me holding them up.

I will say that I was pleasantly surprised at the touch-screen technology offered for our flight entertainment. I played a trivia game under the pseudonym “Dmommy” against several other passengers, but the top secret code name was needless because my seat number appeared next to my name. It was really very easy to look around and see who all the smarty pants were.

My plane change was in Atlanta which is an incredibly large airport. Any layover I’ve ever had there always requires traveling to a different terminal which necessitates a train ride to another dimension. After this seemingly necessary inconvenience, I paid way too much for a crappy sandwich that ended up being my dinner and eventually boarded the plane that took me to Pittsburgh.

People were telling me not to expect much out of Pittsburgh, but when I got a good look at the city after a couple of days spent exploring between meetings, I fell in love.

So far, I’ve eaten a Primanti’s sandwich which was constructed of meat, cheese, French fries, coleslaw, and tomato on white bread. It was an interesting flavor combination for a fair price. Before anyone tries to call me out on the coleslaw ingredient because of my known inability to eat mayonnaise-based products, this slaw contained only vinegar, so my taste buds remained safe and mayo-free.

I’ve walked down to the Strip and bought some discounted souvenirs for my family consisting of T-shirts, post cards, and a Pittsburgh Penguins hockey Teddy bear. I’ve ridden three forms of public transportation: bus, light rail, and one of the famous inclines, the Monongahela, that took me up to the top of Mount Washington.

It hasn’t been all fun and games. There have also been meetings and networking to accomplish at the convention, but nothing pleases me more than meeting people so I can’t complain too much.

As I write this, I’m preparing to return home tomorrow. Pittsburgh has been a wonderful, welcoming city and I’d love to visit again someday when I have more time.

Right now, I miss my children and husband something fierce. To all you native Pennsylvanians: thank you! Your state is beautiful and “yinz” certainly do have some real nice people here!

Get ready to lock up your daughters!

My son has always been interested in girls. He likes boys when it comes to any type of activity involving physical combat and general tom foolery, but it has been the female mystique that has consistently been the focus of his attention.

When he was three, my husband and I took him to the Kennedy Space Center. We were standing in line and another mom was in front of us. She was one of those slim, young, pretty moms wearing a pair of shorts that were not indecent, but my little man must have had an unobstructed view of her rear-end because he was intently staring up her leg before he suddenly decided to investigate the situation with his hand! We were mortified!

It was that day we fully understood we were headed for trouble.

He’s actually claimed to have had a “girlfriend” every year since the first grade. I use the term loosely because, at 11-years old, we obviously have never allowed him to date. This year has been the first that he hasn’t kept a girlfriend throughout the entire school year and I have to say I’m not exactly disappointed over this news.

The thing is, he doesn’t remember being in pre-K and hopelessly head-over-heels for a girl who was a year older than him. I know this because, when he talked about her one day with a far-off, dreamy look in his eyes, he said, “Mom, she’s a girl Spiderman and I’m a boy Spiderman!” They were the perfect match.

I also found out that she beat up any other kid who picked on him. It must have been love.

When he was 9, his summer daycare took trips to the pool at Sebring High School. Once, when I picked him up, he began peppering me with questions about being honest. I inquired as to why he was asking and he said he had met a girl at the pool who liked him, but she was 12 so he told her he was older. I asked, “How old?”

He said, “Well, I said I was 11, but almost 12 instead of 9, but almost 10. She bought me a snow cone, Mom! I think she’s my girlfriend.”

What followed was a long discussion about honesty and enjoying being young while you can because, before you know it, you’ll be all grown up and wonder where it all went. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t paying attention because he followed that conversation with a request for money to buy her a snow cone the next day.

His latest “accomplishment” happened at his cousin’s Little Miss Hardee pageant. While everyone was waiting for the contestants to meet us after the competition, he was talking to a girl. I walked up and asked what they were doing. She was giving him her phone number, of course! She was fifteen!

I said, “Do you realize my son is eleven?” She replied, “Yes! He told me that. He’s just really funny.”

I thought to myself, “Well, at least he’s being honest this time.”

Somehow, I’ve found myself raising a Casanova. At five feet six inches, he is tall for his age and absolutely adorable.  At this point, I’m thinking about either breaking his spirit or buying him some cologne that smells like feces. In the meantime, please be so kind as to lock up your daughters between the ages of 10 to 22. Believe me; you’ll be doing us all a favor. Consider this a public service announcement.

Whose project is this anyway?

I was being interrogated last weekend by my mom and my brother, Adam. The subject was my son’s last school project and the line of questioning they persisted in asking me was how much I let him do on his own. They also wanted to know his expected level of participation in the solar system project we would be doing the next day.

Here is the thing about school projects: they can get expensive and I don’t have a ton of extra time that I can devote to destroying my living room with massive craft experiments on tri-fold poster boards. If something needs to be completed that will be graded, then I want it done right the first time with no extra trips to the store required.

After defending myself and getting a little frazzled about my control freakishness and inability to delegate even the most miniscule of tasks, my mom laughed and said, “Who do you think made that volcano for you in the 6^th grade? It certainly wasn’t you.”

I remember the chicken wire and plaster of Paris structure, but I don’t remember my involvement in helping with it outside of informing my mom the night before it was due.

The solar system project sounded fun until I read the requirements which were transcribed by my boy. I wanted to see printed instructions because I had a hard time trusting that he copied all the necessary information. For instance, did we need a tri-fold board or could we use a flat poster? Did we need a poster at all? Why couldn’t he answer my questions?

As far as he could tell, the requirements were that the size of the planets in relation to each other had to be represented and the Asteroid Belt, moon, sun, and orbits all had to be shown. Pluto was optional.

After stops at Walmart and Michaels, we were $50 into this project. I had to get creative with the planets because the boxed Styrofoam solar system set was not an accurate representation of planet size. In reality, you can line up about 11 Earths side-by-side to equal the diameter of Jupiter, but in the boxed set, it was more like 2.

Since I didn’t have the planet measurements with me at the store, I had to guess at the sizes of Styrofoam disks to purchase. When we got home, I looked up the information and used ratios, a handy nursing math tool, to determine the sizes to use. Saturn ended up being our only inaccurate planet, measuring too small by ¾ of an inch.

While I pasted and painted and chatted about Jupiter’s moons, my son walked around and generally stayed out of my way because I was obviously in the zone. Every now and then I would shout out questions about the solar system and he would answer them. He even corrected me on my insistence that Neptune rotated on its side. It is, in fact, Uranus that does this. That was a proud moment. I don’t mind being wrong if it means he has been studying.

When I finished, he was impressed. I asked if he thought I would get an “A” and he said I most definitely would.

The science fair is coming up, but like last year’s crayon melting project, I will not help with that. I have to draw the line somewhere. Of course, if he asks me for my assistance concerning artistic direction of the display, I may feel compelled to give him a few pointers.

Small towns are not so bad after all

Sometimes living in a smaller town can be frustrating. Our mall doesn’t exactly have the most variety and there isn’t a whole lot to do when you’re bored and you don’t have motorized toys or legal mud pits at your disposal.

Also, there is a good chance you’ll be recognized in Walmart and that identification will almost always happen when you least desire it to occur, such as, while you’re screaming at your children; on the morning you wore those old pajama pants with the hole in the knee; when you just left the gym and are drenched in sweat, but had to pick up milk on the way home; or the one day your hair dryer broke and the only color left in the eye-shadow pallet was electric blue.

Having said all of that, this past week has made me realize one of the most outstanding qualities about living in a small town: a sense of community.

This past Sunday, a horrible tragedy occurred in our county that resulted in the loss of a little boy’s life. I had met the young child, Matty, several years ago when his mother, Mandy, and I had briefly worked together. Since that time, we have kept up with each other’s lives on Facebook, but that really isn’t a substitute for being involved and present in someone’s daily life. Still, I was heartbroken for the whole family.

Several people were involved in setting up fundraisers to help the family and I was quick to volunteer my time at a couple of carwashes. Truth be told, I was probably going to spend those two days napping and not studying for my upcoming nursing exams; in other words, being completely and utterly unproductive.

Though I avoid washing my own car like I avoid jogging or moving furniture with my husband, I seriously got into scrubbing and rinsing complete stranger’s vehicles for a good cause. I even relished in taking on the most tedious job in the realm of car cleaning: bug detail.

One thing I learned about our county is that a good portion of our citizens own large vehicles. I was able to practice the art of stability by precariously balancing on a bucket so I could clean the tops of vans and large trucks. It was a tad bit scary, but I did it.

I also conducted quality checks on the placement of a parking block by kicking it several times. Some would say it looked more like I had inadvertently tripped over it, but I was just making sure that it was securely attached to the pavement. On a related note, I may have mentioned this in the past, but want to remind everyone that flip flops are dangerous footwear.

While washing the windshield of one monstrous truck, the gentleman was inside pointing to spots I was “missing.” It was all in good humor, but I did have to tell him that I couldn’t reach one area because it was on the inside. We both got a good chuckle out of that.

People gave from their hearts. Some people drove up and gave money without getting their car washed at all. Most people had heard about the tragedy and just wanted to help.

Avon Park, Sebring, and Lake Placid may not have all the fancy bells and whistles of larger cities, but one thing we do not lack is love.

To the Fisher family, my deepest sympathies and may your precious Matty forever smile down upon you from Heaven.

Dreams of burning rubber

The smell or orange blossoms and gasoline in the air means the 12 Hours of Sebring has returned! This year celebrates 60 years of racing and, as you’re reading this, I’m somewhere on the trackside soaking up the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays while I watch a variety of cars zip around the notoriously bumpy raceway.

I’m sure that I’m getting a slightly unhealthy dose of crowd interaction also. Hand sanitizer is a must-have any time you plan on attending a public function, but especially when you go to the Sebring races.

I’ve always fancied myself an undiscovered amateur racecar driver. Goodness knows I have put in some practice over the years on the many back roads of Highlands and Polk counties.

My first car was a 1985 Mercury Lynx hatchback. That poor Lynx saw some intense moments on the road, but the fastest I ever forced it to travel was around 110 miles per hour which made it shake as if it were going to fall to pieces.

You could say I’ve slowed down over the years, though I do tend to speed more when I’m alone in the car. If the kids are with me, they act as witnesses who love to tell on me as soon as Daddy gets home, so I try to keep my inner speedster in check.

The races are a bad influence on me. Every time I head towards the track, I feel my foot pressing down more on the gas pedal the closer I get. When I hear the noise of the cars, I can’t help myself and, before I know it, I’m going 80!

Though I’ve been around the track at a normal speed, my dream is to get behind the engine of a racing machine and tear up the road. I imagine gripping the wheel of a diesel-powered prototype car and zigzagging in and out of the pack to hold the lead and snag the best overall lap time.

While the races are on, my sister has parked her brand new 2012 Dodge Challenger at my house because she doesn’t want to risk it getting scratched at the track. The temptation to take it for a spin is just about to overwhelm me. I know that she knows the mileage on the odometer and I also know she’ll eventually forgive me if I decide to add a few extra miles without her permission.

The biggest reason I want to drive her car is because of a certain toy she found on her dash display. Apparently, the car challenges you to discover how fast you can achieve the speed from zero to 60 mph! How cool is that? Then, it keeps a record of your best time. Because you can’t turn or brake at all during the timing, she hasn’t had a chance to record anything on it which means there is no record to break so I guess I’ll resist the urge to borrow her car for now.

If you’re at the races, come visit our camp between turns 8 and 9. We’re next to the house boat. Yes, someone brought their boat. It makes a weird kind of sense when you don’t have a camper.

If you have access to a fast car and you want to give me an opportunity to play racecar driver, let me first give a quick disclaimer: I said I drive fast, but never said I drive well; however, I do use my blinkers.