what is it about shoes? and other random musings

I've had a delightful couple of weeks in Florida with a couple of more to go.  I was trying to decide what exactly made me like being here so much.  I finally decided it was wearing sandals. If it is warm enough for sandals, even if I have on long pants, I'm happy.  Putting on those shoes is always a real downer.

I had visitors this past weekend. They left this morning.  Although I loved having them I was also glad when they left.  I'm not used to having people around 24 hours a day and even though you know you don't need to play hostess and handmaiden the entire time you still have to keep track of what to eat, when to eat, what to do, and be pleasant all the time.  Today I've done the laundry to get ready for my next guest.  By Wednesday I'll be ready for a great time with B and it will just be us "girls" - like a slumber party!

Being in Florida the last two weeks has also meant that I'm subjected to ALL the Republican primary political ads. OMG! These people are all crazy and vitupertive.  Hopefully they are all self-destructing before my very eyes. Tomorrow is the primary so tonight's TV commercials should be really insane.

KT had an interview last week with Ohio State for a position for next year. A two day series of interviews, followed by a weekend of looking around to see it they would like living in Columbus.  Pretty intense. I'm anxiously awaiting her impressions of the interviews, the position, the city.  I liked Columbus but that was 40 years ago. I guess I'll just wait and see.

Arrived in Florida last week and have been busy ever since.  Highlight of the week was the fly-in to River Ranch, a somewhat tired cowboy style resort in the middle of Florida.  We were meeting a group of other pilots there for the weekend.  We had a great time - attended my first rodeo, hung out with Steve and Vickie, tooled around in a golf cart, and met Bruce, a fascinating individual.  Bruce is probably in his 70's, way into his 70's, and he is from Ohio.  He flew his little airplane to River Ranch where they have camping facilities and he is living there for the next couple of months in a tent that he has equipped with satellite TV and an electric blanket! I asked how he gets groceries, etc since this place is truly in the boonies and he has no car and he replied that he flies up to Winter Haven to the Wal-mart each week!  You could tell that he was a bit lonely and bored and I guess that it is better to be lonely and bored in a warm place where he can hang around the little airport and watch the planes and talk to the pilots than to be lonely and bored in cold Ohio in the winter.

Now I apparently have a full schedule of guests for the next three weeks.  I'm going to feel like I run a bed and breakfast.  Today I should work out some menus for dinners as I hate to have to do that on-the-fly when people are here and going to a restaurant is always a little iffy here.  I'm happy with a beer and fish sandwich at the fish camp but some of our visitors are critical of the service, the ambiance, etc when it isn't up to their standard. Beach standard is a lot different than city standard and I find it is easier to feed them myself than to listen to the complaints and comments.  If they complain and comment about me they know they won't get invited back!  I'm looking on Skinnytaste.com for recipes as her recipes don't usually require exotic ingredients which I can't get here and they are very straightforward and have never failed to be delicious!  I'm thinking "Crock Pot Chicken a la Criolla" for my first arrival on Friday night, with Cuban bread and a salad. 

Are they avoiding me or is it just a generational thing?

I sometimes must make an appointment in order to talk to my children on the telephone.  For a while I was getting the excuse "there is no cell reception at my house but we can g-chat".  Then when I was visiting I changed the phone settings so that it now works inside the house so there went that excuse.  Now it is always "I can't talk now but I can g-chat".  There doesn't actual seem to be avoidance behavior at communication, just at using the phone.  I find a phone conversation so much more satisfying than g-chat.  I feel that each form of communication has different uses and that g-chat is not a substitute for a phone call.  This may be just my pet peeve and I'm going to have to "get over it" but I'm certainly peeved.

This and that

ok, back to my normal kvetching.......

My father is slowly moving into fewer rooms in his house.  This morning we moved an electric piano from the downstairs family room up to his 2nd floor computer office.   In an much earlier incarnation this was the "children's room" so now we have a piano where the crib used to be, a giant computer table, some bookcases, and a single bed that is still decorated with stuffed animals and an amazingly scary clown doll.  I would offer to help decorate this room to remove the children's remnants (since they are now 32 and 26 I don't think they will mind)  but the clown scares the shit out of me.

C and I are heading to Florida next week.  He has been talking and planning for weeks that we would go in his little airplane (against my better judgement).  This morning he finally got around to weighing all the stuff he needs in order to fly - airplane equipment, safety stuff, books, etc - and determined that we don't actually fit into the plane.  We fit in terms of volume but not weight.  I was joking about being able to carry more when backpacking than I could take on the plane but it turns out it was not a joke.  I think that I will now be able to buy an airline ticket and meet him there.  And I'll ask him to carry the giant bottle of Aveda  shampoo that I was going to have to leave behind.

I am approaching the end of the first year of my retired life.  My closet is still full of clothes that I wore to work.  I am having a hard time determining what I should keep for those infrequent times you need a good suit or dress, and what should be donated.  I will never need all six black jackets of various styles and fabrics but which is the ONE that I should keep??  I am a good candidate for "what not to wear" or at least a new show called "what you shouldn't have in your closet".  Maybe this is a project I should schedule for the anniversary of my retirement.  That means I can put it off for a couple of months.

Thursday evening we are going to attend a casual dinner with a bunch of former and current military people. These are people that my husband worked with in his military life, which thankfully is over, as I was not very good at the "spouse of" role which was required. (They even sent us to 'Charm School" but I did not emerge very charming.  I was more horrified by the people I met.)  I spent a lot of time memorizing people's names, and trying to keep silent and smiling vacantly.  Our political views are not lined up with the  current military mind-set and now that his career is behind him I find it more and more difficult to not say something snarky during conversations with this crowd.  I need to start practicing now so that my head doesn't spin around like in "The Exorcist".