Live Out Life

I took the family to Alexander Springs in the Ocala National Forest today. My youngest brother and his family, my mother and two of my older brother's sons came along as well. Florida has many springs like Alexander. The water stays 72 degrees year round and is extremely clear. We had a good time swimming and just lounging around in the shade under the oak trees.

It reminded me of when my wife and I were dating and went to another spring called Juniper Springs. For some reason a load of bikers decided to visit the spring that day and they were all over the place. We found an open piece of ground close to the bikers, set everything down on a blanket and made haste for the cold water.

After swimming a while we came back to find that our tin of chocolate chip cookies that had been made just for the occasion was missing. We immediately blamed the bikers. There wasn't a lot I could do about it. I was six foot tall and hardly weight 150 pounds and the bikers were... well, they were an assortment of leather clad, tattoed, overweight, long haired, furry faced men and women (no furry faces on the women though) and there were a lot of them. I might have been young, but I knew better than to start something with that bunch.

Later on, after bemoaing our lost cookies, we decided to take a walk on the nearby trails. On the way to the trails a movement caught my eye and I looked over toward the trees. To my amazement, our tin of cookies was rolling on the ground and there, running right behind it was the cookie thief. It was a brown, furry faced...  squirrel. We chased him off and took our cookies back. Thankfully, the squirrel never managed to get the tin open so we still got to enjoy them (they were a little crumbly though). I did feel pretty bad about blaming the bikers.

Last year I tried to grow pumpkins. I tilled up rows and planted one hundred plants. I spent so much time out there that my wife nick named the pumpkin patch "The Precious", from the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Unfortunately, I ended up with an infestation of leaf rollers that I couldn't get rid of no matter how hard I tried. Before it was over they had completely destroyed every leaf on every single plant. It was quite depressing.

This year, I decided to scale it down a little and try again. I 'm only planting twenty plants and I have them in a much more controlled area. Now if I can only keep the leaf rollers under control.  

The church we are attending has seats instead of pews. I went in about halfway and sat down beside an older man. On the other side of him was an older woman, so I assumed they were a couple. After the song service we all sat down and I noticed that the man had sat in the woman's seat instead of his. She didn't know he was there and sat down right on his lap. She immediately jumped up and so did he. He scrambled back to his seat, apologizing profusely. I just watched, slightly amused. After a few moments he leaned over to me and whispered, "I meet more women that way."  

I turned toward him with a look of astonishment on my face. He simply smiled. I don't know if it actually worked out for him, but after the service I did see him talking to her.      

     Vince glanced at his ATM receipt and did a double take. He stared at it, positive that he must have read it wrong, but the balance still read the same: $75,137.17. With a shaky hand he quickly put his card back into the machine.

     From behind him an irritated voice called out, “Come on Dude.”

     Vince turned to see a teenage boy in a blue t-shirt and baggy, faded jeans with a black cap sitting on his head so the bill was turned sideways. He started to apologize, but changed his mind simply because of the hat. He always hated it when guys wore their hat sideways, thought it made them look stupid. Vince turned back toward the ATM without saying a word.

     He punched in his PIN number and made his way to CHECKING ACCOUNT BALANCE. He chose to view it on the screen and waited for the display. After a few seconds the screen confirmed his account balance: $75,137.17.

     His mind was racing. There was obviously a mistake. He had no doubt that the hundred dollars was his, but somehow an additional seventy five thousand had been deposited into his account. He stared at the screen, dumbfounded, until the teenager spoke up once again, “Hey old man, can you hurry it up?”

     Vince came out of his stupor. Old man? Did he just call me an old man? Vince was forty five years old and in good physical shape; made that way from years of working road construction. His skin was deeply tanned from the sun and a full head of sandy blonde hair hung down to his shoulders. His muscles were hard and lean and, despite the comment from the teenager, there was nothing in his six foot frame that looked like an old man. He tapped the screen to finish his transaction and retrieved his card from the ATM.

     Turning away from the machine he walked toward the teenager who was already making his way up the ramp. When they drew close to one another the teenager muttered, “It’s about time.”

     On the way by Vince bumped him, giving a solid push with his shoulder. The boy tumbled and caught the metal handrail in the square of his stomach, causing him to double over. The violent jerk sent his hat flying off of his head and Vince chuckled when it landed in a small mud puddle.

     The boy recovered quickly and yelled after Vince. Vince continued to walk away at a leisurely pace. Without even looking back he said, “Looks like you could use a new hat.” Then, with a satisfied grin on his face, he headed to his truck.

     Before he even got into the driver’s seat his mind was back on the seventy five thousand dollars. Where had it come from? One thing was for sure: it definitely wasn’t his. The bank had made a mistake, he was certain of that. However, it was in his account. What would happen if he withdrew it? Wasn’t there something about possession being nine tenths of the law? Could he even withdraw that much money at once? He didn’t know. He had never withdrawn more than a couple of hundred dollars at the time. Come to think of it, he never even had more than a couple of hundred dollars at the time. Every paycheck seemed to be already spent before he got it and spare cash was a commodity that he seldom had the luxury of. Seventy five thousand dollars. That’s a lot of money.

     A movement caught his eye and he spotted the teenager in front of his truck. He was walking with his head down, staring at the soaked cap in his hands. He looked up and saw Vince, gave him the finger.

     Vince jerked his door open and made like he was going to jump out. The boy took off and quickly made tracks to his car, pushing down on the remote unlock as he ran. He went past a tall van and disappeared on the other side of it.

     A few seconds later there was a squeal of tires and Vince caught sight of a car in his rear view mirror. It was a red, Ford Mustang. There was a large white racing stripe across the hood and the windows were tinted black. It stopped directly behind him with its passenger side facing his truck and sat there a moment, engine revving up and down. Then, the tires started spinning, but the driver held onto the brake and a large cloud of smoke rose up and drifted right over Vince’s truck. The driver took his foot off the brake and left the parking lot, squealing his tires all the way onto the main highway. He turned left and drove in front of the bank. As he went by the teenager rolled down his window and, through the smoke, Vince could see the smirk on his face… and the wet hat sitting sideways on his head.

     Vince shook his head as the smell of burnt rubber filled his nostrils. How do kids get cars like that anyways? He glanced around at his own vehicle, a ten year old Chevy S-10 pickup. It was a good truck, but it was getting old and had well over 150,000 miles on it. The headliner was starting to sag and there were a few cracks in the dash. He had thought about getting a newer truck plenty of times, but there just wasn’t enough money. After the divorce, there never seemed to be enough money. He survived from paycheck to paycheck, barely scraping by and, to be honest, he was pretty tired of it.

     A small band of onlookers had rushed outside to see what was going on. They stopped gawking after the speeding Mustang and slowly made their way back inside the bank.

     Vince sat in his truck, staring at nothing in particular. Seventy five thousand dollars. That’s a lot of money. The sound of passing cars filled his ears. Somewhere, a bird chirped happily. Seventy five thousand dollars.

     Suddenly, Vince knew what he was going to do. With a new found confidence he opened the door, stepped out and walked toward the bank.

Preston Walters rolled his eyes and sighed heavily as warm air started coming from the air conditioning vents. This always happened when he was in the car line; it was one of the reasons that he hated picking Misty up from school. He shut the air off and pushed down on the electric window buttons. The front, passenger window glided down with ease, but the other three stayed put. He slammed down on the buttons with his fingertips repeatedly, hoping to get some kind of reaction, but the windows didn’t budge.  

 By the time he got to the pick-up point he was soaked with sweat and totally frustrated. Misty saw his car and started jumping up and down, waving excitedly. When the all clear signal was given she ran to the window and shrieked, “Hi Daddy!”

In a sour voice he uttered, “I’m hot. Just get in the car so we can get out of here.”

She opened the door and jumped in, throwing a pink book bag in the floorboard. Totally oblivious of his bad mood, she said, “I like it when you pick me up Daddy.”

Preston looked her way, forced a smile and lied. “So do I Honey. So do I.”

Misty talked non-stop all the way home, going into great detail about every minute of her day. Preston simply drove and half listened, offering an obligatory, “Really?” or, “You don’t say?” during the rare quiet moments. When they reached the house Misty jumped out as soon as the car stopped. Before he could even get out of the car she was bursting through the front door. As he watched her run inside he could hear her small, excited voice, “Mommy, Mommy! Guess what I did today?” Preston sighed and leaned over to pick up the book bag.

Later on that day, while walking to the garden, he relived his drive home with Misty. He didn’t like the way that he felt toward his six year old daughter, but he just couldn’t seem to get over it. Misty was their third child and the only one that wasn’t planned. In fact, she was a total surprise, coming nine years after Tiffany and eleven years after Jack, now a senior in high school. He thought about having one child ready to graduate while another was just starting out. He suddenly felt tired… and very old.

He stopped at the gate and looked out onto the garden. This was his favorite place to be, his silent escape from life. He spent at least thirty minutes a day here pulling weeds, picking off bugs, looking for new growth and just enjoying the time outside. It always helped him get his mind straight. His eyes moved to the end of the garden. There, completely covering the fence was the plant that had become the central point of his backyard getaway.

He had found it about a month before, one little leaf poking out of the ground at the end of the bean row. He had started to pull it up, but it looked like a squash plant, so he left it where it was. He checked it almost daily and the little plant seemed to take on a life of its own. Before long it had put out large green leaves and Preston decided that it was a pumpkin. Then, it started branching out with long, wispy tendrils that reached out and took hold of the fence. One day he looked in on it and a beautiful white flower had opened up. There, attached to the flower, was a small green fruit shaped like an hourglass. He knew then what it was; it was a gourd.

Disappointed, he thought about pulling it up. It was, after all, in the bean row. Besides, you can’t even eat gourds. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He enjoyed watching it too much. So, he left it where it was and every day since then he had rushed out to the garden to check on it. He spent a lot of time manipulating the vines so they would grow up the fence and it had practically covered every square inch of it. He was amazed how something that started out so small could grow so quickly. 

Preston was still admiring the gourd plant when he felt something brush against his leg. He looked down and saw Misty. Her small hands were holding onto the chain link gate and her face was pressed up against it so that one eye was staring through a rusty link. She only said five words, “I like your garden Daddy,” and then she looked up at him and smiled. Then, as quickly as she was there, she was gone.

Preston watched her skip away and a disturbing thought crossed his mind. Misty was, in fact, just like his precious gourd plant. The gourd plant came up unexpectedly; so did Misty. The gourd plant showed up in the wrong row; Misty showed up in the wrong part of his life. He was disappointed when he found out what the gourd plant really was; he was disappointed when he found out his wife was pregnant with Misty.

His heart melted as he thought about Misty. Was he treating this gourd plant better than he was treating his own daughter? How much time had he actually spent with her, talking to her, really listening to what she had to say? Was it possible that he was holding a grudge against her for coming along so late in his life? Was he actually blaming her for some of his marital and financial problems? The more he meditated on it the more he shamefully realized that it was all true.

 He thought a moment and then looked back toward the flowing plant at the end of the garden. He had been so wrong about that plant. In a matter of weeks, with a little care and nurturing, it had become the centerpiece of his garden. What if he would have pulled it up when it was just coming out of the ground? He would have never gotten to watch it grow or see it bloom. He would have missed out on so much.  What was he missing out on with Misty by acting the way he was?

A sound shook him out of his thoughts and he turned to see Misty running across the yard with her arms held straight out to the side of her body. She turned and waved, “Come play with me Daddy.”

Preston looked at his garden, then back at Misty. He could almost hear the gourd plant silently pleading with him to step inside the gate. There was a moment of indecision. Then, somewhere in the back of his mind a distant voice spoke to him, Go play with her.

He spoke out loud, in answer to the voice, “But what about the garden?”

The voice answered back, Are you raising a garden or are you raising a daughter?

The question shocked him and he was still thinking about it when Misty called out to him again, “Come on Daddy, play with me. Please?” She stopped right in front of him, arms still extended, making bubbly airplane noises. Then, she stepped forward, wrapped her arms around his legs and said, “I love it when we play together Daddy.”

Suddenly the garden didn’t look so enticing and he found himself leaning over to hug her back. With a slight tremor in his voice he said, “So do I Honey. So do I.” And this time, he really meant it. 

Call me easily amused, but I continue to be amazed at the gourd plant I mentioned a few posts back. It just keeps growing and growing. The pictures below are only nine days apart.

 

I was talking to my wife the other day and she mentioned that her tummy was upset. I said to her, "You know, most men would never use the word tummy."

"What?"

"The word tummy. Most men would never use it in a sentence."

"Why not?"

"I don't know... it just seems like... like a feminine word."

Sarcastically, she asked me, "Well, what would a "real" man say instead?

I responded with, "Stomach. A "real" man would say stomach. It's possible that he would use the word belly, but that even has a slightly feminine edge to it."

This started a conversation on other words that I would never use and I think I can speak for a lot of other men as well. I have listed some of them below. Feel free to add any.

 

TUMMY - Stomach.

PANTIES - Come on! Moms, never tell your son to put on his panties. Use the word underwear please.

PEE-PEE (POTTY) - This is mostly used in potty training. "Did you go pee-pee (potty)?" How about simply, "Did you go pee"?

POO-POO (POTTY) - Again with the potty training. "Did you go poo-poo (potty)?" Isn't it confusing to a child anyway to use the same phrase for both body functions? This is where us guys have to almost give in because there isn't really a good way to say this. I mean, it just wouldn't be right to say to a two year old, "Did you take a sh**?" Even "Did you take a crap" is inappropriate. So, most of us will use a variant of poo-poo and say poop. It still doesn't feel right to say it, but I don't think there are too many alternatives.

BOO-BOO - Not to be confused with poo-poo. There are plenty of other things you can say here instead like hurt, pain, scratch, laceration, gouge, severed limb, decapitation. It all depends on the situation. 

YUCKY - Disgusting, terrible, unpleasant, nasty, vulgar, gross.

ICKY - See above.  

KITTY CAT - It's just plain ole' cat. OK?

I know there are plenty of others, but I honestly can't think of any right now. I actually went to Google and tried to find some more, but either I didn't use the right search term or there just aren't a lot of people really concerned about this sort of thingy... I mean, uh... thing.

Before I planted the garden, I noticed a plant had come up at the end of one of the rows. I could tell that it was from the squash family, but I wasn't sure if it was a squash or a pumpkin since I planted both last year. It was on the row that I was planning to plant the beans, but I decided to leave it and see what came of it.

Well, it is clear now that it is not a pumpkin or a squash, but a gourd. This plant has literally gone crazy, completely taking over the fence at the end of the row. The leaves are big and green and it has dozens of beautiful white blooms every single day. There are at least fifty small gourds growing on it and more seem to show up constantly. Funny thing is, I'm still not sure how it even got there.

I am amazed every morning when I go out there and find that it has somehow managed to grow even bigger than it was the day before. It has become, quite accidentally, the center piece of my garden.

I'm glad that I decided to leave that little plant where it was. It would have been easy to remove it while it was still small, simply because it was in the wrong row. But what would I have missed by doing so?

Perhaps there is a lesson here somewhere. Too many times we try to remove something from our life because it doesn't seem to be in the right place. Maybe, just maybe, by doing so we are removing a small piece of joy that would have grown and blossomed into something beautiful if we had only given it a chance. 

This is going to be a "quick" version of our night out last weekend. If I threw in a lot of details it would be too long to read.  

I promised my son that my wife and I would take him and his girlfriend to a concert at Downtown Disney this past Saturday, so we headed out about 4:00 pm. The ride only took a little over an hour (plus an additional 35 minutes when we were headed the wrong direction - but that's a different story).

We dropped them off at the market place in Downtown Disney then I parked the car and my wife and I walked around. We had my digital camera so we took a couple of pictures in front of Planet Hollywood. Donna had an idea to,"Take the picture of ourselves like the kids do!" So, we sat in front of the big blue globe, camera held in front of us, and tried to take a good picture of the two of us. After about four tries we finally got a pretty good one. 

 

Then, we walked around to find a place to eat. Well, we didn't find anything that we wanted, so we got in the car and drove into Buena Vista. We ended up at the Kobe Steak House. Just as we arrived a slew of teenagers headed to the prom showed up in their prom dresses and tuxedos. We had a nice meal, but Donna still can't get over the fact that I actually ordered the "Pupu" platter. She giggled at me when I ordered it. After the waiter left I told her, "That's the first time I ever ordered pupu for dinner." We laughed and had a good time, taking more pictures.

 

Next, we headed toward Disney World because Donna wanted to see if we could park at a hotel and ride the monorail. Fortunately, it was around 9:00 by then, so we didn't have to pay a parking fee to get in. We pulled into the Polynesian Resort first, only to find a guard shack. Instead of making something up when the guard asked me where I needed to go, I found myself saying, "We just need to turn around." Then, we drove on to the Grand Floridian, but it had a guarded entranceway as well.

Donna told me not to worry about it, to go ahead and leave, but I wasn't ready to give up yet. I had seen a walkway through the trees and started looking for a place to park. I found a parking lot not too far away, but it said "Cast Members Only." Since it was so late the lot was mostly empty, so I parked, taking a chance that we wouldn't get towed.

I have to admit, we had to walk farher than I wanted, but we found the walkway and entered the Polynesian parking lot. A bus was unloading at the hotel, so we caught up to the people and tried to blend in. We felt like big time crooks, doing something illegal. When we made it to the entrance to the hotel we stopped and took some more pictures. By this time we were getting pretty good at taking our picture "like the kids do".

 

 

A Polynesian Native

Then, we headed in. We walked around for a bit and finally stopped at the game room. Donna wanted to play pinball so I got a card (no, they don't take coins) and we played some games. She somehow managed to beat me at air hockey, pinball and a shooting game. For someone who used to practically live in a game room, I was quite humiliated and was quite happy to move on.

We thought the monorail had stopped running, but I saw a sign that said the station was upstairs, so we headed up and hopped on. It didn't go very far before it stopped at the Grand Floridian, so we decided to get off and check it out. This time, instead of taking our own picture we asked someone else to take it for us.

It was a much more glamorous hotel than the Polynesian, but there wasn't a lot to do there, so we jumped back on the monorail. We filed in and the people filed in behind us. We made one more stop at another hotel, but decided to stay on. Good thing too because even more people piled in this time. At one point, a large man was standing in front of us holding onto the bar. His rear end wasn't too far from my face and my wife leaned over and whispered, "The things we do for free." 

The next stop was actually Disney World so almost everyone got off, leaving us virtually alone in the monorail car. Of course, we took some more pictures.

On the Monorail

 

The next stop was the main parking area and after we pulled away we saw our car. So, to keep from having to walk all the way back from the Polynesian, we rode around again and got off where we only had to walk a little ways to the car.

We had a lot of fun and it only cost us $6.00 (not counting the meal of course). Who says you have to spend a lot of money to have a good time? 

        

It really irritated me this morning when I turned to the news and found that the incredible Navy Seal rescue on the Indian Ocean got less attention than the story of a new dog in the White House. Who gives a flying rip about Obama's new dog? The United States Navy pulled off a seamless rescue operation by simultaneously taking out three armed pirates and our media wants to focus its attention on "Bo" the wonder dog. I don't get it.

Not only that, after I did find the story of the rescue, one newspaper actually reported that we probably did more harm than good. We are told that the pirates are mad now and will be seeking revenge. By rescuing a US citizen, killing three pirates in the process, we have placed others in imminent danger, especially those who are still held prisoner.

What?!? So, instead of taking action we were supposed to pay the ransom and let the kidnappers go on their merry way? We should have given in to terrorists to keep from making things worse? I don't think so. That kind of thinking will encourage more terrorism. That kind of inaction would only turn the United States of America into a mandy pandy, mama's boy, no back bone nation. And I pray to God that never happens.    

No. We did the right thing and I don't care if every Somalian pirate in the world is mad at us.