Nikki and the Thunder Monsters

Nikki listening for Thunder

Our dog Nikki, a black Lab/Chow mix, is now a sweet little old lady of 10 1/2 years old, supposedly 70+ in dog years. She's had canine diabetes for the last 2+ years and gets her daily Vetsulin shots twice a day. She has cataracts in both eyes and now is almost totally blind, except for a little peripheral vision and she sees light and dark. But don't tell Nik that she's disabled. No way, Nik thinks this is the way of all dogs. She's happy and content with a perpetual doggy smile on her face, sporting a white goatee, and her tail in a rotary wag. She takes "cat naps" because in reality we've always thought that Nik thinks she's a cat. In her first adopted household she was "raised" by a cat until the age of 7 months. So Nik "talks," arches her back like a cat and often winds around your legs and furniture.

Anyway, Nik's one fear is of Thunder Monsters. This isn't a fear that came about after she became blind. No, she's been afraid of thunder for all the days she's lived with us, from 7 months old until now. Perhaps now that Nik is blind her hearing is more acute? She can warn us of the approach of those Thunder Monsters long before we can detect them.

Her general modis operandi is to hide out in the hallway, all bedroom doors closed, the bathroom light on, and her comforter/bed in the hall next to the bathroom door. She must instinctively know that's the safest part of the house. Most times she's content to hang out in the hallway by herself, or with our other dog, Shani, the 100 pound Collie/Shepherd/Chow mix who is now 8 1/2 years old. Shani is a big enough barrier to protect 46 pound Nik from all Monsters.

For the last four days, Friday through Monday, we had incessant rains and lightning/thunder. All told 9.67 inches of rain over those four days. Nik could probably tell you the number of claps of thunder. One squall line of thunder would come through and Nik would about shake herself to death. She'd crawl under a bed, hide under a table, curl up beside us on the bed, and eventually would settle peacefully into the hallway. She'd finally venture out into the living room or kitchen, only to have those Thunder Monsters return and she'd have to repeat the whole process all over again. This went on for the four straight days, until we were all exhausted.

Today the sun is shining and we're back to those cerulean blue skies that normally grace Florida this time of year. Nik is sound asleep at my feet, probably dreaming of dog biscuits or rawhide chews. The Thunder Monsters are forgotten for the moment until the next time they come around.

The Art of Being a Dreamer

I have always been a dreamer. There are many advantages to this and just as many disadvantages. I'm never bored, never alone in my thoughts. Sit me in the darkest corner somewhere, devoid of sound, and I can spin stories in my head and hear the very voices and dialogue. For that very reason, I spent hours as a child trying to write down my stories, which was much harder than creating them in my head. The stories went faster than my childish fingers could write. But I gave it a try.

I think only one or two of those stories still exist. Though in digging through my cedar chest last week, I've yet to find them. I remember one so well, about my Nana getting sick with polio at the age of 16 and her faithful Collie dying of a broken heart because they wouldn't let the dog into the sick room to see her. That story has always seemed such a tragedy to me. How simple it would have been for Nana's parents, my great-grandparents, to have let the Collie into her room every now and then. Such was not the case and so my story took on the sad realities of truth.

I like to think that most of the stories I created were happy ones. About trips to the beach or mountains, the tales liberally laced with mermaids and wood-faeries. But there were always monsters to fight in my stories too. I learned early that stories were often about the forces of good vs. evil.  Alas, those lost stories only exist in my memory.

The disadvantages of being a dreamer and going to school are enormous. I was forever caught in mid-daydream with a teacher looming over me and one or more fellow students twittering nearby. The students thought it was funny for me to be "caught" unawares by our teacher. I was always embarrassed when, rudely jerked back to reality.  I would quickly search my brain for some inane response like, "Uh, I'm sorry, I didn't hear you." Of course, not only did I not hear said teacher, I didn't even see him or her approach my desk. In fact, my brain was usually millions of miles away, maybe on some Scottish Isle or somewhere in the South Seas walking on a sun-lit beach.

As I got older, say by the time I reached high school age, I'd learned to keep my daydreaming at bay during class. So I rarely got caught unawares and my grades went from Bs to As more often than not. But the second the bell rang my brain was out of there and wandering some distant locale.

In my college days I wanted so badly to become a writer. But I realize now that if you want to really write, college is not the place to do so. The professors there did nothing but discourage me. I never found a one that took me by the hand and thought I had something to offer the world of literature. In fact, I remember one portly English professor telling me, "You're only here to find a husband." Huh? Rest assured, that was the last thing on my mind. I wanted to be a writer, remember?

Through the years I've daydreamed often and written when I found the time and inspiration. As I've mentioned, I have boxes of my starts and stops. Some are finished and some will never be much more than momentary dreams.

My grandson, at age four, is already showing signs of being a dreamer. One day he and I spent over an hour in his playhouse watching the birds and butterflies and clouds passing by overhead. He'd often stop and gaze out with those dreamy eyes I know so well. Not long ago, he asked me if California is in outer space, because he said, "I want to live in outer space." The way his story goes, he thought "California" had a nice sound, so it must be in outer space, because he wanted to get as far away from his K3 teacher as possible. It turned out his teacher had gotten mad at him for kicking sand at another kid and so he decided it would be best to get as far away from that teacher as possible. Well, he tells me now that he no longer kicks sand at other kids and he has a new teacher in his K4 Class, so he's once again a happy, daydreaming kid.

I like the concept of this blogging. It's a good outlet for a dreamer. A chance to send some words now and then out into space for someone else to "hear." I say "hear" because the sound of words is as important as the words themselves. Robert Louis Stevenson said in one of his many essays about some words being poetic, that the very word itself created pictures in the mind. So with that in mind, I conclude there is an art to being a dreamer. It's creating a beautiful painting in your mind, watching it unfold, seeing each new streak of color added to the canvas.

A Ray Bradbury Story

In my college days I was fortunate enough to meet Ray Bradbury when he came to lecture at a neighboring university. I sat through his lecture, totally mesmerized. Such a charismatic man. I'd loved all his books for years, starting with Dandelion Wine, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man and Something Wicked This Way Comes. His Fahrenheit 451 still holds a place of honor on my bookshelf (along with Ayn Rand's Anthem).
 
Anyway, at the end of the lecture I stood in line to have a chance to talk with Ray Bradbury. How could I pass up that opportunity? When it was my turn he took my hand and held it between both of his and looked deeply into my eyes. He said, "I can tell you're going to be a good writer." His words sent chills through my body. How did he know I wanted to be a writer? I did so hope he was right.

Through the years I've thought I let him down. I never became much of a writer. Sure, I did tech writing, but that's not the same. In college I started writing my first novel. It was a suspense thriller. When I'd completed the first five chapters I let one of my professors read it, which was a serious mistake. He gave it back to me and said it was terrible. I took the five chapters, along with all my notes and all the short stories I'd written to date, and burned them. I figured I wasn't good enough to be an author.

Much to my surprise, my professor stopped me in the quad a couple weeks later and said, "I've been thinking about your novel. Your subject matter is not what I'd normally read, but I like your style and I think you have a knack for dialogue. You need to keep writing." I thanked him and went on my way. I never told him that I'd burned everything. I never did attempt to reconstruct that novel or those short stories.

I've learned a lot of lessons through the years. One is to keep writing even if some people don't like what you write. Remember, first and foremost, you're writing for yourself. Secondly, you're writing for a handful of fans. I've never stopped writing through the years. In fact, I've completed two novels, Firefall (a futuristic thriller co-written with my husband) and Outback Lover (a romance set in Australia). With the former we collected a zillion rejection letters. The latter I never attempted to market. All told, I've only had one poem and several magazine articles published (all under a different name). I have boxes of short stories,  and partials of novels and a fair amount of poetry, all stacked in a closet.

I don't think Ray Bradbury had blogging in mind when he told me I'd be a good writer. On the other hand, since he wrote science fiction, I guess he'd think the concept of blogging is pretty cool.

Books, Books and More Books - Part 1

Bookshelves in my Living Room

If I'm addicted to anything, it's books. Lots and lots of books. Everything from romance to suspense to history to art to short story anthologies to classic literature and everything inbetween. I love books! Without books my life would certainly be duller and much less interesting.

Some of my earliest memories are trips to the local library with my Mom. It was way before I knew how to read. I'd sit cross-legged on the carpet in the child's section of the library with an assortment of picture books in my lap. I would go through them one by one and always take a stack of books home with me. Mom and I must have made a lot of trips to that library, because I think I "read" every book on the shelves in the Early Children's section. Mom would often sit on the carpet next to me and quietly read some of the stories to me. I loved that time together and will always treasure those moments.

When I got into grade school, our whole class would walk to the library once every two weeks and we could all check out books to take home with us. I never missed a school trip to the library. My earliest favorites were the Betsy Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace. I read all of them. Then I fell in love with the Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, the Nancy Drew series by Carolyn Keene and Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time.  Some other books that stand out from those grade school days are The Enormous Egg by Oliver Buttersworth, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, Old Yeller and Savage Sam by Fred Gibson, Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell (I still have my autographed copy) and Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes.

I remember at the start of 5th grade that my teacher called my parents in for a conference and told them I spent too much time reading fiction. She thought that was the reason for me being a "daydreamer" and insisted the situation be corrected immediately. For a time I forbidden to read anything but non-fiction.  So I discovered the biographies of Daniel Boone, Davy Crocket, George Washington and Francis Marion "The Swamp Fox." Who needed fiction when the true stories were even better?

I think at this point my teacher got really frustrated. She must have then said something about science books, because I brought my school science book home and read it from cover to cover and was totally fascinated.  So then I visited the science section of the library and read everything I could get my hands on about dolphins and whales and birds and every subject you can think of. I think about this time my teacher gave up and I was allowed to read anything and everything once again.

I still remember the day, when I was in 6th grade, when I told the librarian that I'd read every single book (or just about every book) in the Children's section of the library. She smiled and said "Come with me." And that's when she led me into the Adult section and introduced me to a treasure trove of classics. First off was Conrad Richter's "The Awakening Land" series" The Trees, The Fields and The Town. I think that's when I read James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans for the first time (I'm re-reading that one now). A couple of my other favorites from that time were A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes and The Friendly Persuasion by Jessamyn West.

By this time our school no longer made trips to the library, so I went every Saturday with my best friends next door, and we'd walk to the library rain or shine and bring home a new selection every week. I got really interested in reading anything I could find about pioneers and the Oregon Trail. One of my great-grandmother's had come across on the Oregan Trail when she was just a kid, and I'd grown up hearing stories about Cowboys and Indians and Buffalo. I dearly wished that my grandmother had written down her own story instead of passing it on verbally to her children and grandchildren. I thought a lot of her stories got lost in the telling.

Well, when I was ready to enter college I chose a Bachelor of Art's in English Literature. I thought I wanted to be an English Teacher, but it didn't turn out that way. Life got in the way. I received my BA in English, but never did complete the Teaching Program. That's okay, because I discovered after a year of substitute teaching that it really wasn't my thing. I went on to other jobs, including Tech Writing, but always retained my love of books. And in spite of all my 5th grade teacher's efforts to the contrary, I'm still a dreamer. (Read more about books in Part 2.)

Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville Beach Hotel



Margaritaville Beach Hotel on Pensacola Beach

This summer we have a new addition on Pensacola Beach besides the occasional tarballs and oil blobs from the Gulf Oil Spill. It's Jimmy Buffett's new Margaritaville Beach Hotel. It opened in the beginning of July, probably not the best timing since the oil arrived on our beaches at the same time. But in spite of that, the opening was a success and attracted lots of locals and tourists.

My husband and I waited until the next week after the opening and then dropped by the hotel to take some pictures. It's pretty much like a big white sandcastle sitting amidst the sand dunes right on sugar-white sand Pensacola Beach. It has a nice tropical themed interior, a great pool and a panoramic view of the turquoise waters of the Gulf. So whether or not you're a Jimmy Buffett fan, it's a nice beach-front hotel for a relaxing vacation.

Jimmy has lots of fans here on the Gulf Coast, of course, since he was raised in this area. In fact, my husband lived across the street from Jimmy, in Mobile, when they were kids. They rode the school bus together, played baseball together and were altar boys together. These days we only see Jimmy with the rest of his fans, when he appears for a concert. Naturally, we've seen more of his concerts than we can count, including a couple really great ones in New Orleans in years past. We have our collection of Jimmy's music, which is just about the best beach music around, his and Bob Marley's. I think my favorite Jimmy song now is "It's Five O'Clock Somewhere"  with Alan Jackson.



Pool at the Margaritaville Beach Hotel

Tonight I was excited to add a big selection of Jimmy's MP3 clips to my blog site. Some of his new songs and lots of old favorites. So I hope you enjoy sampling his beach music while you're reading my blog. I also added some reggae MP3 clips: Bob Marley, UB40 and others. I'm having fun getting my blog site set up and running, and adding an assortment of music for all to enjoy.

As for Jimmy ... the people here on the Gulf Coast are still talking about the free concert he did on the beach in Gulf Shores last month. That was a really nice gesture considering all of us down here have been pretty stressed out with the oil. There was a huge turn-out. For those who missed the concert, it is being shown on one of the music channels.

Here on the Gulf Coast we've been counting the days since the Gulf Oil Spill started. We're now on  Day 129 and there's little sign of the oil on our beaches here on the Florida Panhandle. We didn't get the deluge of oil that washed onto the wetlands of Grand Isle, Louisiana. But for much of the summer we had enough oil to keep a lot of our tourists away. Now that summer is almost over, our beaches are looking pretty nice. Hopefully the tourists will come back and give our beaches another chance.

It's going to be a long road to recovery for much of the Gulf Coast. Lots of businesses had to temporarily shut down or close altogether. A lot of people here lost their jobs. The commercial fishermen got hit the worst. Though state waters have been reopened for fishing, it's just not the same. Unfortunately we're going to feel the effects for many years to come.

I hope you all don't forget about us down here. Now that the news has gone on to other stories, it doesn't mean the oil problem is all over. Just like New Orleans after Katrina, the Gulf Coast Oil Crisis will still continue. You can best help out our area by keeping our beaches as a tourist destination. Even if you don't care to swim in our waters just yet, our beaches are beautiful. Come walk along the edge of the surf, feel that sugar-white sand between your toes, sip a Margarita and watch our exquisite sunsets.

About Coffee and Coffee Mugs - Part 2

More of my coffee mug collection

Last night I dreamed about coffee and woke up craving a cup of Jamaica Blue Mountain. Of course, I don't have any of that coffee now, but I still remember the taste from 22 years back when my husband and I took two vacations to Jamaica. We wanted to go to the most exotic locale that we could afford. Fortunately, the young travel agent at AAA told us about a trip he'd made to Jamaica and before we knew it he'd booked a trip for us.  We had so much fun on our 4-day trip that July (over my 36th birthday) that we went back again the following November for a whole week. Both vacations were great!

Anyway, the trips I'll save for another post, but let me say that Jamaica Blue Mountain is the best coffee I've ever had in my life. Both vacations we brought back several pounds of  Blue Mountain at the then price of $8.50/lb. We put it in the refrigerator and saved it for weekends and special days. Now it costs around $38.50/lb. (at least that's what I found on the net this morning), so it doesn't fit our fixed-income budget at the moment. But that doesn't mean I won't end up buying some down the line. On the other hand, it would make a great Christmas present, hint, hint.

Back when my husband and I were both working, before he retired, our budget allowed us to try different coffees. We even joined a coffee club, Gevalia, a couple different times. One Christmas my brother bought us a gift pack of a dozen different coffees. They were all great! Other times one of my sisters-in-law brought us back some Kona Coffee whenever she made a trip to Hawaii. So good. I can still taste that one too. Plus, our daughter and her new husband brought us back a pound of Blue Mountain when they went on their Honeymoon Caribbean Cruise. Don't we have the best daughter in the world?

Now I just stick with 100% Colombian. It's a good every-day coffee and I can drink several cups a day without breaking the bank.  So I sip my Colombian and dream of other coffees now and then.

This morning I lined up some of my coffee mugs for a quick photo op. I snapped a handful of pics which I'll add to these coffee posts. Like I said yesterday, each coffee mug has a memory attached. So this morning my mug is the one from Busch Gardens with the elephants. I'm remembering a trip there with our daughter, when she was young enough to still enjoy vacationing with her parents. When she got into her late teens I think she didn't want to be seen with her "crazy" parents, but that too is another story.

I look at this coffee mug and also think of the few times as a kid that I got to ride an elephant. Mostly I remember doing that at Knotts Berry Farm in southern California. I ask myself now what elephants were doing there? I wondered if the elephants minded carrying little kids around on their backs all day long. I remember that I told mine that she was beautiful and  petted her thick neck. I like to think she didn't mind giving me a short ride. I have pictures of that particular elephant somewhere in my "treasure chest."

I think tomorrow I'll have my coffee in a Planet Hollywood, Key West, mug. Then I can day-dream about our many Key West excursions through the years. I uncovered a couple of those old photos the other day. We were defintely younger and sexier back then.  Hmm! Where did all those years go? I swear it was just yesterday! (Read more on Part 3.)

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A Story About Dogs - Part 3




Shani

 I brought Shani home just days after my 50th birthday. I had made the rounds of every animal shelter in the Las Vegas area before I found her. She was listed as a "stray, approx. 5 months old, Shepherd Mix" and at first I wasn't sure if this was the puppy I was supposed to bring home. I called my husband on the phone and asked him what he thought.

Only days before we'd lost our beautiful and sweet Shiloh, a year and a half old Shepherd/Chow mix, when she was killed by Gypsy, a stray dog we'd taken into our household only a few weeks before. So I was leery about adopting another stray. Our other two dogs, Maggie and Nikki, both Lab/Chow mixes, were also mourning the loss of Shiloh.  All of us, my husband included, kept walking around the house expecting Shiloh to pop out of hiding with her tail wagging and a big doggie smile. There was a big empty hole in our household and we needed to do something about it, fast. This 5 month old pup was pretty, but I just wasn't sure about her.  Looking at her through the wires of her pen, she seemed so terribly sad. If I didn't take her home, who would? Since she was in a "kill shelter" I knew she only had days before her time was up.



I'd been looking for a real puppy, one in the 10-12 week range, not a 30 pound, half grown pup who obviously had seen better days. Her fur was long and thick, but she definitely look malnourished. I talked to the woman at the front desk and was told the the pup was found wandering the streets. Considering the temp had been in the 110s for days straight, it was a wonder she hadn't died from heat exhaustion. Well, no wonder she was skinny and depressed.

The puppy had been at the pound the requisite number of days and no one had claimed her. Apparently she was just another case of dog dumping, which was prevalent in the Las Vegas area. People flocked to Vegas year round in hopes of starting a new life and making that "big win."  But according to statistics, most people quickly went through all their money and moved away within three months, often leaving everything behind, including their pets. So this puppy was probably one of those abandoned by someone heading out of town. She'd been found close to the desert, near Boulder Highway, the main route south out of Vegas.

So I described the puppy to my husband and asked, "What do you think? She's not a little puppy, but she is beautiful." He suggested I play with her for a while and see what I think. So I got one of the animal control people to let me take the pup out into the play area. The first thing she did was pee at my feet and then roll over for a belly rub. The animal control girl said, "She might have incontinence problems." I thought not, that the puppy was probably just stressed to the max and was so excited that someone actually wanted to take her out to play that she had to pee. I also figured she was not used to "peeing in her house" and so wasn't peeing in her pen. I thought she definitely must have been a house-dog in her former life.

Within minutes this sweet puppy had won me over and I was ready to take her home. Only when we walked up to the front desk I was told the pup still had to be spayed. So I could pay for her and then pick her up the next day after the procedure. I went home very concerned about the puppy surviving the surgery. By the time my husband got home from work that evening he'd already, sight unseen, named the puppy Shenandoah. I agreed and said her nickname would be Shani.

The next afternoon I went back to the pound to pick up Shani. She was so excited to see me that she promptly peed at my feet again. I had  a momentary second thought about "what if she's incontinent?" Then I decided to take my chances and Shani and I walked out the door. (Read more in Part 4.)



About Coffee and Coffee Mugs - Part 1

Part of my coffee mug collection

Last weekend my daughter and her husband decided to reorganize their kitchen cupboards to make room for new kitchen items. So my daughter decided to part with some of her coffee mug collection. Now I'm rather partial to both coffee and coffee mugs, so I sat down on the floor and went through the plastic bin holding all those coffee mugs looking for a new home. I picked out 13 mugs to take home with me. Five black and silver Planet Hollywood mugs, one each from Key West, Las Vegas, New Orleans, Atlanta and Ft. Lauderdale. We were vacationing together when she bought the ones from the first three locations, so those mugs have special memories attached. The other two were from cities I've been to, but I wasn't with her when she bought them.

Anyway, just holding one of those mugs brings back magical stories of other times and other places. So I had to rescue those mugs from going to the Goodwill or some such place. I selected a Royal Caribbean mug with dolphins on it, from one of their Caribbean Cruises. I've never gone on a big-ship cruise, but I've always thought it sounds romantic and exotic, so I had to take that mug too. Plus, I love dolphins. One mug is decorated with elephants, there's even a tiny one inside the rim, and is from Busch Gardens in Tampa Bay. I have fun memories of Busch Gardens, so I needed that coffee mug too. And I happen to love elephants.

One mug is festooned with voodoo dolls and says "Voodoo New Orleans." Well, voodoo happens. It's called "life" and it happens all around us and not always the way we want things to go. New Orleans is one of my favorite places, so this mug brings back memories of the French Quarter and Mardi Gras, where my husband and I fell in love many many years ago during Mardi Gras.

Another mug,  from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, says "I Need My Space." That is a definite truth. My daughter and I each bought one of those mugs on one of our many vacations. I still have my own mug from that trip, so I'll just add hers to my collection. Another mug is festooned with brightly colored Las Vegas casinos trimmed in gold from the time my daughter and her husband, then newlyweds, visited us in Las Vegas. Funny thing, we lived in Vegas for years, but I never bought a coffee mug from there. Go figure.

Other mugs are from places I've never been, but the mugs are too cool not to add to my collection. A deep-navy-blue mug with a fish logo from "Mr. Carlos' n Charlie's" in Cozumel. I've never been to Cozumel, but it's on my "I want to go there" list. A black mug with yellow cat's eyes from the time my daughter and her husband saw the Broadway production of "Cats" in NYC.  I've been to NYC, but I've yet to see "Cats."

The 13th mug has a picture of a wild eyed cat and says "So much stress, so little time."  That used to be my daughter's every-day-mug. Maybe by giving away the mug she's giving away some of the stress?  Not likely though, because she works full-time as a CPA and has my three little grandchildren to raise and her marriage to maintain. So stress will always be a part of her life. Welcome to the world of being a daughter and a wife and a mother and, hopefully someday, a grandmother. Yep, stress is a way of life. It slows us down sometimes, but usually motivates us to do other things to alleviate that stress. Anyway, that's another "story" altogether.

So I came home that day with 13 new coffee mugs and my husband groaned. Yeah, he always groans, because he doesn't understand lots of the things I do. His response, "You already have more mugs than you can use." He's wrong about that. When you collect things, there's never enough. He has things he collects too, but not coffee mugs. I quickly rearranged my cupboards to find room for the new additions.

I have a favorite coffee mug that I use most mornings. It's from "The Zoo" just down the road from us in Gulf Breeze. It's a tiny zoo which is always financially struggling to survive. I have mixed feelings about zoos. The animals are confined and would most likely be happier in the wild. On the other hand, most of those animals would probably have been killed and skinned or eaten in the wild long before this, so for many zoo animals it's a choice between life and death.

Sorry, but I'm getting a little heavy here, so bear with me for a second. This zoo is important for a small community like ours. If it wasn't here, many of our kids might grow up never knowing what a real lion or giraffe or hippo looks like. They would only be pictures in books or a film clip on "Animal Planet." Because of the zoo, one of my grandson's earliest words was "giraffe" and he would tell everyone that a giraffe has a "loooooong neck." He also tells how a giraffe has a long sticky tongue when it eats out of your hand. So as I hold that coffee mug each morning I think of my grandson and our latest trip to the zoo.

I'm digressing here, so guess I'd better get back to the subject in hand, coffee and coffee mugs. I thought this would be a simple little post, but I realize now that this, like the giraffe's neck, is a loooooong one. (Read more in Part 2.)

More Memories



My parents' wedding

 After looking at all those old photos in my cedar chest, I just had to scan some of them for safekeeping. Actually, I put my husband to work doing the scanning while I kept sorting through all those old memorabilia.

I love that group photo from my parent's wedding, Mom looking so terribly young, Pop (my maternal grandfather) standing next to her, then Dad looking much too young to get married, then Grandma (his mother) standing next to him. Grandpa Will (his father) had passed away a few years before. That's my Nana (my maternal grandma) in the wheelchair. She was paralyzed at 16 from polio, so I only knew her as "my Nana in a wheelchair." I thought she was cool. I could sit on her lap and she could wheel me all over the place. She even let me play in her wheelchair when she was taking a nap.

I look a lot like my Nana and my Auntie B. I got my strawberry blond hair from them and from my Dad. My blue-green eyes I got from my Dad. Oh yeah, I guess I got my temper from my Dad too. Anyway, so many memories, all packed up in that cedar chest just waiting for me to take them back out again.

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Grandma & Grandpa Will's Wedding

I spent all day going through my old cedar chest, looking at photos, old letters, an assortment of keepsakes. I made one pile of "Why did I keep that?" - ancient newspaper articles that mean nothing to me now, photos of people or places I don't even remember, some photos so discolored and faded they're not worth keeping. I found two tickets for a free dinner at Circus Circus Casino in Reno, only the tickets are 28 years old. That goes back to the few months that I lived in Reno and worked at Circus Circus. I even found my name badge and my Employee Manual (not much more than a pamphlet).

So some of those things went from the "Why did I keep that?" pile to the "I guess I'd better keep this a little longer" pile. That included handmade and store-bought birthday and Mother's Day cards from my daughter, birthday and Christmas cards from my Mom, postcards received from far-off places, and even some postcards that I sent to family members many many years ago.

 In the end, I only threw away a few odds and ends. Mostly I just organized things and put them back in the cedar chest. The chest itself is over a hundred years old, one of the few things I received years ago from my paternal grandmother. In the chest I found her wedding picture to Grandpa Will, who was many years older than my grandmother. They had three sons, of which my father was the youngest. I even found a photo of my Dad when he was just a little tyke with his two older brothers, his dad and his uncle. They were all eating watermelon.  I realized those "ears that stick out" were passed on down to my grandson. So now I can tell him where he got his ears (actually, the ears came from both of my grandfathers).

My Dad (the little guy) with his Brothers, Uncle & Father

I found my old baby album with a picture of me at 2 weeks old with my Mom. I was a skinny little preemie born a month early. Another photo of me at 3 months old shows I quickly started gaining that baby chubbiness. I found some black and white photos of my parent's wedding. They were so cute and so young, only 18. My head is spinning with all those old stories and old memories. Some things brought tears to my eyes, others made me smile. I don't know if it was good or not to take this trip down memory lane.

Afternoons with the Grands

Most weekend afternoons I spend with my three grandkids. No one was sick this time, which is rare lately, so lots of energy all around. My grandson is four years old, has "spiky" blond hair (he used to be a strawberry blond, but now he's a beach blond), young "Brad Pitt" good looks and is already a computer and gamer "techie." On his 4th birthday he got his very own ipad and he can whiz through all his games (many are learning games) at record speed. He knows all the "techie" jargon and I listen to him in awe, because I don't know all that much about computers and gaming.

Whenever I visit, my grandson shows me his latest game (I think for ipad most games are only a couple dollars, so he has bunches of them). He often asks, "Nana, did you have this game when you were a kid?" "Nope," I always tell him. So he turns to his Mom (my daughter and only child) and asks her the same question. "No, sweetie," she says. "We didn't have those kind of games when I was a kid." My daughter was born in '77, so she remembers how primitive computers and computer games were during her childhood. Anyway, my grandson always looks at us with puzzlement, he can't imagine a world without ipads, cell phones, digital cameras, DVDs, CDs and Wii. So I sit there and watch his latest games, usually something about cooking, because he wants to be a Chef when he grows up. His Daddy and Grandpa are the cooks in their respective households, so he thinks Moms and Nanas don't know how to cook.

Today's game had something to do with making breakfast. Pancakes and toast and waffles and fruit and juice and everything you can imagine. Then he added, "But Nana, this is the best part, it's gross." Yep, the "gross part" is that he can add bugs, frogs, worms, spiders, just about any kind of creepy crawly to the digital breakfast. "And then Nana," he says, "you have to eat it." He proceeded to tell me that when he "cooked" breakfast for his Daddy this morning he put a frog on the pancakes and his Daddy ate it. Yep, there's a button you touch that says "Eat" and then you tap the screen with your finger and the food disappears while you listen to gobbling sounds. Ahhhhh!!!! So these are the kinds of games a four year old boy likes?

Within minutes the girls are up from their nap. They're 18 month old identical twins, strawberry blonds with big blue eyes and award winning smiles. Their eyes lite up when they see the ipad and their little fingers join in the game and start tapping the screen. My guess is these two will be little "techies" too. Daddy is a CIS Engineer, so I guess the kids come by it naturally. As the digital food gets gobbled up the twins shriek in delight and my grandson laughs at the girls' antics.

For now, the girls call their brother "Lolo" or "Bubba." They absolutely will not say his real name although it's a pretty easy one. So he tells the girls, "Follow Bubba" and they take off after him into the playroom. Yep, these kids have an actual playroom with every toy imaginable, including a wii and a wooden train table set. The girls, I'll just call them Baby1 and Baby2, because we all call both of them "Baby." They know their own names, but the girls call each other "Baby" too so we all just follow suit. First off, the Kids Bop music CDs come on. Bubba loves to dance. He says, "Nana, I have to dance, I have dancing feet." So I pretty much have him pegged to grow up and be a "Dancing Chef" who has all his gourmet recipes available on the ipad-of-the-future. The girls have dancing feet too.

Hmm! Now what are the girls going to be? They jabber away non-stop in a mixture of "twin talk" and real words, the important words like, "read book" (I read them lots and lots of books),  "draw car" (they love to have me draw pictures for them on their drawing pads), "wait for me" (one is always rushing ahead of the other to get somewhere fast), "outside" (outside is always better than inside), "dinosaur" (Bubba has dinosaurs and some of their favorite books are about dinosaurs) and "bye-bye." They each hoist a Disney purse over their shoulders, grab up whatever baby doll or stuffed animal is nearby, pick up a drawing pad with the other hand and say "Bye-bye" as they're heading for the front door. The girls have a darling southern accent and award-winning smiles, so I'm thinking their career of choice will be "Southern Belles."  Their "Mom-Mom" (not "Mommy") was a quiet, serious child and is now a CPA, so no, the twins don't take after her. They got their strawberry blond hair from me, their dimples from their other grandmother, but their "wild-child" shrieks of laughter and winning smiles are all their own.

On my visits I pretty much just sit on the playroom floor and let the action go on around me. I had back surgery a few years ago and have osteoarthritis and a degenerative back disease, so it's best that I don't pick up those heavy babies all that often. But what can I do when they raise their arms and say "Nanaaaaa..." Which of course is a plea for me to pick up a baby (I think about 24 lbs each right now). The girls are little whirlwinds. They move so fast and can leave a wake of destruction (a genuine mess) in their path. Until recently, Bubba referred to the girls as "Destructo Babies." But the girls are learning to be more careful with Bubba's books and puzzles and other things now, so they're no longer "Destructo Babies." Bubba tells each of them in turn, "You are an adorable baby" and, of course, each baby just beams.

Well, now I'm reclining on the couch with my feet propped on a pillow and the laptop in my lap. I took a pain pill (Vicodin, like "House" takes on TV) a couple hours ago, so I'm doing okay. All day Monday I'll need more pain pills and possibly into Tuesday. So I'll have to take it easy for two days and rest my back. By the weekend I'll be ready for more "Afternoons with the Grands."

A Rainy Day in Paradise

Aug. 20 - Rain on my Patio

Today is a rainy day in paradise. Florida might not be a paradise for everyone, but it works just fine for me. We seem to have scooted past the scorching hot "dog days of summer" and are now into the intermittent rain squalls. I like this kind of weather. The rain comes down in spurts and keeps the air clean and fragrant with the smell of whatever flowers are blooming at the moment. Today there's a whiff of Gardenias in the air.

I never realized how much I loved rain until we moved away from Florida to live in Las Vegas for several years. There you learn to pray for rain. Then you want to dance and sing in that rain when it does finally arrive. In Vegas it's like no rain forever and then one day it's flash floods. There's no inbetween in the desert. It's a harsh climate of hot, dry, 117 degree weather through the summer months, blustery Santa Ana winds in the fall, maybe a few snowflakes in the winter, followed by some scattered spring rains. Then for a few weeks the desert comes alive with wild flowers.

When we moved to the Texas Hill Country we had even less rain, if that can be imagined. We lived on the top of a hill with a panoramic view of rolling hills dotted with scrub oaks and red cedars and lots of rocks. The rocky soil there is called "hardscrabble" and it's pretty difficult to grow much of anything in it. I had to satisfy myself with pots filled with brightly colored flowers. We had a big covered back veranda so I had potted flowers everywhere.

The only problem with flowers in the Texas Hill Country is that the deer liked to eat them. And since we had a regular crowd of white-tailed deer visiting us on a daily basis, many of my flowers became lunch. I remember one day when a young buck, I named him Seymour after the "Little Shop of Horrors," decided he wanted some of my flowers. I was at the sink washing dishes and through the window saw Seymour standing among some pots of flowers near the front porch. Rushing out, I caught him red-handed with a whole marigold plant in his mouth, the golden marigolds hanging out of one side of his mouth and the roots hanging out the other. I scolded him and he promptly dropped the marigolds and backed away with a very guilty look on his face. Funny thing, I never caught him eating any of my flowers again. That doesn't mean he didn't actually eat some flowers now and then, only that he made sure I wasn't watching.

Anyway, in the 18 months we lived in Texas there was probably only 4 or 5 days of rain all told. A couple of those days the rain was so pitiful it was almost more like spit coming down from the sky. The other days the rain was so torrential it caused flash floods in the valleys. Those of us living on the hilltops just enjoyed the rain.

Now that we live back in Florida I cherish every minute of the rain. Some days, like today, it's a series of 10 or 15 minute rain squalls interspersed with sunshine. Sometimes it's days and nights of rain with no end in sight. Other times it could be weeks or even months before the next good rain storm. So for today all the flowers and trees and other plants are happy. Today I'm happy too.

A Story About Dogs - Part 2



Maggie

 As I was saying ... here we were living in Las Vegas and I had two big Lab/Chow former "pound puppies," Maggie and Nikki. Maggie was turning into a wonderful companion, very well behaved and she loved to play catch and take walks in the neighborhood. Nikki was another matter. She became an escape artist when we went on walks and could slip out of her collar even if I snugged it up tight. I tried a choke collar and she just tried to choke herself. So then I tried a harness and Nik could slip out of that too. One day she slipped free and took off at a dead run across the desert with me hot on her trail. I finally caught up with her about a half mile away where she wriggled under a creosote bush. I had to crawl on my hands and knees under that bush to get her out and I was not a "happy camper" by the time I got my hands on her. 
 

Nikki

I scolded Nikki every step of the way home as she tried to look remorseful. It wasn't until we were safely in the backyard when I realized I'd run across the desert in flip-flops and had stickers in my feet and my arms were badly scratched from the creosote bush. Well, I looked like I'd tangled with a really big cat. Anyway, Nik pretty much learned her lesson after that and when she'd slip out of her harness she'd just stand there and wait for me to put it back on.

Just before Nik's desert escapade I'd started visiting the pound again on my lunch break. One day I saw this beautiful liver-red Shepherd/Chow pup who just sort of followed me home from the pound. When my husband got home from work that evening he immediately asked, "Who's dog is that?" Well, what could I say? "Uh ... our's?"  So he went on a tirade about why we couldn't have a third dog and I promised to find another home for the puppy. Yeah, right! While all this was going on the pup worked her wonders and within twenty minutes he said "That's a great dog. No way are you going to give her away." So 13 week old Shiloh was home.

We continued on as one big happy family, my husband and I and our three dogs. Then I made a fatal decision that I regret to this day. A stray dog showed up in the neighborhood, a pretty but straggly blond-colored Shepherd/Collie mix with yellow eyes and about a year old. We named her Gypsy and for the next couple weeks we tried to find her owners but with no response. Then Gypsy jumped the wall and a neighbor called the pound who came and picked her up. I then had a choice to make, leave Gypsy in the kill-shelter and hope someone adopted her in the next couple weeks before her time was up or adopt her myself.

After much soul-searching I adopted Gypsy and brought her back home. So now I had four dogs. All four dogs seemed to get along great. Gypsy was the smalled dog, at about 35 lbs, Shiloh was a year and a half and 52 lbs, Nik was about 57 lbs and Maggie 67 lbs. A week later, on the morning of my 50th birthday, the dogs were chasing each other up and down the stairs. The next thing I knew Gypsy grabbed Shiloh by the collar, twisted it and shook Shiloh like a dishrag, choking her and snapping her neck. Shiloh was dead on the spot and I got bit pretty badly by Gypsy while trying to get the two dogs separated.

I learned a fatal lesson that day, to be very careful in adding a new dog to an existing family of dogs. I also learned when the pound carted Gypsy off, because it was considered a vicious attack, that she was actually a Wolf/Hybrid and not a Shepherd/Collie like I'd thought. The animal control officer figured Gypsy was most likely a Collie/Wolf mixture. They hadn't figured that out when they had put Gypsy up for adoption or she never would have been adopted out to me.

So a lot of mistakes were made when I thought I was just taking in a very pretty and seemingly gentle homeless dog. Shiloh had been the baby in our household and suffered by my mistake. I've played those few minutes of time over and over again and I can't really say if Gypsy made the attack on purpose or if it was playing that got out of hand. It all happened in the blink of an eye.

Eight years later I'm still wondering how a 35 lb. dog could kill a 52 lb. dog, but it did happen and the other two bigger dogs, Maggie and Nikki, couldn't stop the attack any more than I could. Suffice to say, I learned a big lesson that day and I'm not too crazy about birthdays. This story continues with ""Part 3" and I can assure you some happy times were just around the corner. That was when Shani entered our lives.

A Story About Dogs - Part 1



Me with my first dog, Dusty

I love dogs. It seems like I've always had one or more as a companion since I was a baby. The first were Dusty and Rusty, red Cocker Spaniel puppies that my parents got for me when I was a year old. The two apparently didn't get along, or so I've been told, and Dusty was given away to a cousin, and Rusty was renamed Dusty. Not sure why they decided to change his name. My favorite Dusty story is when he and my 3 year old brother ran away together. They were waylayed a couple miles away by a sweet little old white haired lady. I can still picture the two of them sitting in the lady's yard when my mom and I went to pick them up. Anyway, Dusty stayed by my side, or my brother's side, for 12 whole years until he died of cancer.



Mr. Binks

 

It was a difficult decision in picking out a new dog. Tear-stained we finally made a trip to the pound and brought home Mr. Binks. Yep, he came with that name, but he was commonly known as Binky or Binks. That's him in the Slideshow photo standing on the rocks on Laguna Beach. Binky was an interesting mix, supposedly from a Cocker mom and an Old English Sheepdog, Hollywood movie star dog. Binky could pull us at breakneck speed up and down the sidewalk on our skateboards. He loved taking me for a walk, only the leash got clipped onto my jeans belt loop and Binky carried the leash in his mouth. Binky loved sunglasses, bright colored bandannas and T-shirts. He loved to swim in the pool or at the beach. I have mourned his loss for all these many years.

Lady and her two pups were dogs passing through. Lady was one year old stray Collie mix, pregnant by a neighbor's giant German Shepherd mix. Not long after she took up residence with us she had two puppies, born 8 hours apart as my Mother tells the story. Well, Mom named the pups Pansy and Yogi, only when they found new homes their names changed to Sheba and Max. Go figure. I rather liked the original names. Lady found a nice home with a woman who had a lot of dogs. I was in college at that time and moving on with my life and no room for dogs.

After Bob (name changed to protect the guilty, he wants me to say his name is Bob) and I got married we moved from California to Reno to Florida. That's where I found my adorable Dixie Darling, a Blue Merle Australian Shepherd pup who got so excited she tumbled to my feet when I first saw her. Dixie was known for her love of kids and her ability to round them all up in a circle. She was great at "kid control." Her unfortunate trait was that she was an escape artist. There was no fence she couldn't scale, so she'd take neighborhood walks on her own, visiting all her favorite people who gave her daily treats, plus she'd venture on down to the bay for a swim or to hunt for snakes. She could catch a water moccasin by the tail and whip it to death in a flash. Now those are mean and dangerous snakes to have around, so she kept the yard clear of them.

Dixie had a litter of pups before we had her spayed. Three found new homes, Rocky, Rebel and Blackie, but Jambalaya (aka Butchie) lived out his days with Dixie. One day Butchie disappeared and never came back. He was either stolen or hit by a car. Since he was a gorgeous big Blue Merle with one blue eye and one brown eye, I like to think someone took him home. Dixie ended her days when she got in the way of a car. Memories of Dixie just make me smile.

I eventually got another puppy, Rebel, a beautiful Border Collie whose claim to fame was jumping off our neighbor's fishing pier and swimming in the bayou. Rebel had a keen dislike of squirrels who would bomb him with hazel nuts from the trees overhead. So Rebel would bark his fool head off over those squirrels whenever we were away from home. This meant the neighbors complained and since a new "No Barking Ordinance" had just gone into effect, we had to find a new home for Rebel or face a $10/day fine. We didn't make that kind of money, so eight month old Rebel found a new home with a little old lady who was retired and wanted a dog to sleep on the end of her bed and to help her with her gardening.  



Maggie

 

Many many years passed before I ever considered bringing home another dog. By then we'd moved to Las Vegas and spent most of our time working and little time for anything else. But I started visiting the local pound on my lunch breaks and eventually brought home Maggie. She was a 10 week old Lab/Chow mix, full of energy and wanted to play catch for hours on end. So Maggie and I played catch on my lunch breaks and after I got home from work. She didn't care what I threw, a ball or stuffed toy or stick, she'd retrieve anything. At four months old Maggie stopped an early morning break-in, when a guy came over the wall with the intention of breaking and entering. Maggie backed the guy up to the wall and held him at bay until the police arrived. After the guy was arrested, it turned out he was an unregistered felon with a long record, the cops told us that Maggie was a dog to keep and were amazed at her guard-dog traits at such a young age.


Not ten months passed before I got it into my head that Maggie was lonely while we were at work. Hey, that sounded like a good story to me. So I took to visiting the pound again on my lunch breaks and brought home Nikki, a 7 month old Lab/Chow mix who looked very much like Maggie. Nikki was at the pound for the 2nd time, supposedly because her last owners had a cat and a new baby and decided to give up their puppy as they didn't have enough time for her. Nikki was very depressed when she came to live with us, but she took to Maggie right away. So in no time Maggie replaced the Cat Mother that Nikki had lost. To this day Nikki still has a fondness for babies and cats. In fact, we think that Nikki thinks she's a cat instead of a dog. Nik is very vocal and "talks" to us about everything. Her bark is an "uh-ruff" and she winds herself around your legs and furniture just like a cat.



Nikki

 My husband (Bob?) took the addition of Nikki to our household with mixed feelings. For the first year Nik tore out our drip water system in the backyard. My husband would painstakingly replace the drip lines and the next evening Nik would greet us at the door with 10 ft. of drip hose hanging from her mouth and her tail wagging so hard it shook her whole body. How can you scold a dog who looked that cute? Eventually Nikki learned better manners, but not until I had a long long talk with her and promised to return her to the pound if she tore up the drip lines one more time. Now Nikki is a very smart dog and she never tore up anything again after that. I guess Nik and I should have had that talk long before? (Read more at "A Story About Dogs - Part 2.")







The Frog in the Shower

On Friday night I had a visitor while I was taking a shower - a frog. Now don't get me wrong, I like frogs, particularly the little ones. They're cute. When I was a kid I used to collect small frogs and put them in a paper bag to carry them to their new home in my backyard. Afterwards I'd frequently find the frogs swimming in our pool. So I liked frogs back then. Here in Florida we live close to wetlands, so it's Frogs-R-Us at night around here. Just open up the back door at night and their croaking is almost a roar. In fact, it's so loud at night that my dogs are hesitant to go outside when the frogs are singing.

So as I said, I like frogs in general. But I didn't much care for the tiny frog that tried jumping in our bed the other night. Nor did I care for the one who ended up in the shower with me. Now I know my grandson tells me, "Frogs can't hurt you, Nana." So I wasn't worried about getting hurt by that little green/brown frog. However, when the frog  landed with a plop in the shower-water at my feet, well, I let out a holler that sent my dogs and husband running. So my husband had to catch the intruder and put him back outside.

This is the third frog visitor in a week. Now I've always loved the story of "The Frog Prince." But I'm too old to be interested in "kissing a frog." I already have my own "Prince Charming" though he's getting a bit gray and worn, I'll stick with the one I've got. Those frogs need to find someone younger and single.

Black Cats & Friday the 13th

Chester

Friday the 13th and visits from our neighborhood black cats. We have two of them. One is bigger with a leonine walk, cocky and acts like he owns the world. The other is smaller, takes her daily strolls, looking in all our front windows and examining all the flowers in my flower pots. I assume that one is a female, only because she's inquisitive, like I am, and we share a love of flowers. My husband is not a cat person, so we don't have any of our own, but I love cats of all shapes and sizes.

My Mom and Brother have three cats. "Chester," the newest addition, is a two year old pure Maine Coon, 20+ lbs. in size and has the loudest purr I've ever heard. He likes to put his cheek up next to mine and "sing" to me. It's definitely a love song. "Larry" is a Seal-Point mix, a contented fat cat who only "talks" to my Brother. "Sabrina" is a senior lady, a tortoiseshell who becomes a contortionist when she's getting petted. She has a deep mellow purr that won't quit. Well, as for my neighborhood Black Cats, I've never heard a sound from the bigger (male?) one. The smaller one will wind around your legs and say demurely, "Mew, mew."

As far as this Friday the 13th goes, it started out cloudy, gloomy and humid. Now this afternoon we have bright cerulean-blue skies, still humid, but with a light ocean breeze. Before I end today's blog, I want to mention that I was delighted this morning to find that the Slideshow feature, that I installed yesterday and wasn't working then, is working fine today. So in explanation of the current slideshow photos, these were taken in '65 to '67 in southern California where I was born and raised, before I moved to Florida. Some were taken at Catalina Island and one even shows the Casino at Avalon Harbor on Catalina. That's a place that will always hold special memories in my heart. Two of the photos show me at 15 learning to tandem surf at Doheny Beach, in So-Cal. The one shows me at 14 in Huntington Beach with my very first boyfriend, who moved away to northern California not long after the photo was taken. We wrote letters back and forth for a while and then that was pretty much the end of it. But that's another story, not a Friday the 13th story.

One of the photos is of my old dog, "Mr. Binks." Now "Binky," as he was commonly known, was a connoisseur of beaches. He preferred the ones with rocks he could climb on, like the photo of him at Laguna Beach. But he also loved the beaches on Catalina Island because he could swim in the crystal-blue waters and watch the bright orange Garibaldis and gray-and-white Sheepshead swim underneath him. I'm sure "Binky" would have been a scuba diver if he could have figured out how to wear the gear. However, he was rather fond of colorful bandannas and sunglasses. He was also partial to seafood, particularly lobster, and once ate two whole lobsters, shells, antennas and all, when our cat "D.C." knocked them off the counter onto the kitchen floor so "Binky" could help himself to the feast. "D.C." on the other hand was more into fresh fish and once ate a hole in the side of a marlin that my Dad caught and brought home.

My Dad had a sports fishing boat so I grew up eating seafood: swordfish steaks, yellowtail tuna, calico bass, lobster tails, fried abalone. In fact, I ate seafood so often that I was prone to groan, "Not again!" Ah, but now I'm older and wiser and would love to have some of that great seafood every now and then, particularly the lobster and abalone. Well, this lets you know a little more about me, that I was a California "beach girl" who later moved to Florida and am still a "beach girl."

Beach Memories

Pensacola Beach through the Sea Oats

I hadn't realized this would be a trip down memory lane, but that's what it is, at least today. I pulled out some old photo albums, the ones from my teen years, to look for beach photos. The pictures were old, faded, some even in black and white, but each one has a memory attached. So I've decided to install a Slideshow of beach photos, a few as far back as 1965. My parents weren't into cameras, so though we frequented beaches as a family from my earliest days, there are no beach photos older than 1965.

I grew up in southern California and frequented beaches all up and down the coast, from Coronado Island, San Diego, to Doheny Beach (where I learned to tandem surf), Laguna Beach (where I learned the basics of surfing but spent most of my time underwater trying to avoid the rocks), Newport Beach (where I lived for many years), Huntington Beach (where I watched some surfing championships & had some great beach barbecues), Malibu (only to watch the surfers there with awe), Big Sur (where I camped by the beach in my college days). In my teens I spent many a weekend or summer vacation on Catalina Island, transported there on my Dad's sport fishing boat, first the "Jon-Dee" (an Owens 24')  then the "Jon-Dee II" and the "Jon-Dee III" (both Owen's 32's with a flying bridge). There were Baja California beaches I frequented as a kid and later in my 20s when I sailed from Newport Beach south to Costa Rica. There were those beautiful Hawaiian beaches that I visited only once, at age 17, after I graduated from high school (gee, that was 1969). Those beautiful Caribbean beaches on St. Thomas and Tortola,  that I sailed around in my 20s.  The Jamaica beaches, Ocho Rios and Montego Bay, in my 30s.

Through the years my husband and I have traveled up and down the East Coast, visiting beaches from Miami to Kitty Hawk and parts between. For a while we lived on St. Simons Island, Georgia, (where our dogs could run the beach off-leash, chase seagulls and play in the surf). We lived in Florida off and on for over 28 years and so consider just about every Florida beach as home. Then there's visits to Australia and Alaska beaches (spectacular). Now we're finally settled almost a stone's throw from Pensacola Beach. So yeah, I guess you could say that beaches have always been a part of my life. Are there more beaches that I want to see? You bet! I can't surf any more, my back and arthritis give me pains so I can't walk all that far, but I can take short walks on the beach and can just sit and watch the birds and the surf and dream and remember. I hope through this blog that I can share some of those memories with you and that you'll share some with me. As I sit here I can feel that sand between my toes and that soft ocean breeze ...