It was sad. Almost pathetic. There I stood in the light bulb aisle of the hardware store. An entire aisle of insanity stared down at me. Laughing at me. Taunting me. “Hahaha. Whatcha’ gonna’ pick, silly man?” I didn’t know. I was a humbled doofus. A HUMBLED doofus! I had hit rock bottom. The only thing that made me feel any better were the two guys standing there with me. One was growing visibly frustrated. Like he might start throwing bulbs. “Halogen!” he mumbled to himself. “No, no, no. I don’t want halogen!” I gave him a sympathetic look. I was in my own miserable state. In my hand I held two different compact fluorescent lights, those funny shaped bulbs that look like strands of DNA with their coiling white glass. It seemed simple enough to go into the store and pick replacements. But I quickly realized that lighting is now a brave new frontier. Lower energy bills have come at a price: massive confusion. Furious frustration. Partial insanity. Why? So many options. So many variations. So many bulb sizes. Wattages that don’t mean what they used to mean. The new measurement is “lumens.” Lumens?!? I thought you ate lumens to lower your cholesterol. There were various shapes, codes and colors. I think there were scented light bulbs, and one that scolded you if you didn’t turn it off — “You just wasted 13 cents!” I had to remind myself that I’m all for this. That the old timey light […]
New invention: The pop-up yard
I am using my column this week to officially request proposals from top inventors around the world who are prepared to bring to market (and more importantly, me!) a product that will revolutionize landscaping forever. The proposal I am requesting is for the world’s first … wait for it … Pop-Up Yard™. (That’s good, right? A yard that you can buy to replace your own brown, weed-ridden, unkempt winter yard. Don’t try to steal the idea. It’s trademarked.) Guidelines for proposals will be addressed below. This is a competitive bidding process, and all proposals will be judged on their merit, as well as their ability to submit documentation that does not have any food spills or stains on it. Good luck and I look forward to your ideas. 1. The Pop-Up Yard should be easy to install. I am envisioning something akin to a bouncy house that you hook up to a giant inflator. Or possibly something you unroll across your weed-covered, mangy-looking landscape, revealing a bright, shiny green oasis of spring-time wonder. Extra points will be given for proposals including hummingbirds, the scent of jasmine and a device that prevents my dog from relieving herself in the EXACT!!! location where my morning newspaper lands.
Goals for turning 42 years old
“So, do you have any goals for 42?” my wife asked me over dinner. She and my daughter had taken me out to celebrate the day of my birth, some 42 years ago. Forty-two is an odd, neither-here-nor-there age. Basically, the only thing that happens when you turn 42 is boring, mundane stuff — you take up eating barbecue potato chips, you have conversations about mutual fund expense ratios and you start to ponder deep, universal questions like: Why do we have concrete AND asphalt roads? It’s getting serious in my world! So the question at dinner really kind of stuck with me. “Goals for 42?!?” I said out loud, thinking about it for the first time. I hadn’t even considered it. Well, aside from taking up barbecue potato chips, but that’s legislated. There’s no choice in that.
A Floridian’s apology for thinking it’s ‘cold’
I’m sorry our cold isn’t really cold, but the fact is, I’m still cold, and I’m not sorry about that. This is the lament of a Floridian every winter. How we poor, wretched, warmth-deprived beings have to fear how our commentary on the temperature will be taken the wrong way if mentioned in the wrong company. Know what I’m talking about? Happened to mention to a visitor from up north how you feel about our weather — even casually. “How am I doing? Well, it’s cold enough outside to freeze the freckles right off my body!” I will say. You know pretty quickly you’ve made a mistake by the indignation on the person’s face. It is as if Mount Vesuvius is about to uncork. That you are about to be beaten to a pulp for something you have said that is so insulting, so degrading and so blatantly ignorant that it could freeze the freckles right off your body. “Cold?!?” comes the reply, and it’s icy. “You call this ‘cold?!?’ It’s 134 degrees BELOW zero back at my home in Boston. It’s so cold, the ice got frostbite.” Ouch! And then, shivering Floridian that you are, you have to apologize and blush and feel awkward and say things like, “Well, shucks, that is cold! I just meant for us, we bronze-skinned Southern natives who don’t own any clothes that don’t incorporate flip-flops and shorts. We just find it a little … you know … chilly.” By that point we have […]
A little advice on turning 40
As my younger brother prepares to turn 40, I thought I would take a moment to hand down some sage advice that I have acquired after two years in the “Enchanted Land of Four Decades:” ? If you’re going to have a mid-life crisis, make it a cheap one. I’ve been fortunate because my indecisiveness means I’ve never settled on the ideal mid-life crisis for me. And I will probably draw it out until I’m 62, when it will seem silly, absurd and just too time-consuming. But if you’re going to choose one, don’t go the expensive route. You know, crashing Ferraris or anything like that. Just take up drinking milk straight from the carton or diagnosing other people’s illnesses. Much cheaper that way. ? If people ask your age, don’t get upset. Just politely reply that “it’s none of their (insert curse here) business” and to get away from you because you’re about to have an unmedicated episode. That should solve it pretty quickly. ? Remember that 40 is only half way to 80. And consequently, 80 is only half way to 160. And if you calculate the square root of 160, it will require going and finding your calculator. By the time you find a calculator, you will have forgotten what you were thinking about in the first place. ? Remember that turning 40 is not the hard part. No, that’s actually quite easy. The ticking clock does all the work. The hard part is actually BEING 40. […]
Some brotherly advice on turning 40
As my younger brother prepares to turn 40, I thought I would take a moment to hand down some sage advice that I have acquired after two years in the “Enchanted Land of Four Decades:” • If you’re going to have a mid-life crisis, make it a cheap one. I’ve been fortunate because my indecisiveness means I’ve never settled on the ideal mid-life crisis for me. And I will probably draw it out until I’m 62, when it will seem silly, absurd and just too time-consuming. But if you’re going to choose one, don’t go the expensive route. You know, crashing Ferraris or anything like that. Just take up drinking milk straight from the carton or diagnosing other people’s illnesses. Much cheaper that way. • If people ask your age, don’t get upset. Just politely reply that “it’s none of their (insert curse here) business” and to get away from you because you’re about to have an un-medicated episode. That should solve it pretty quickly. • Remember that 40 is only half way to 80. And consequently, 80 is only half way to 160. And if you calculate the square root of 160, it will require going and finding your calculator. By the time you find a calculator, you will have forgotten what you were thinking about in the first place.
The board game switcheroo
My daughter and I will have to come to terms with something pretty soon. For her, she will have to understand that for much of her life I’ve been mostly letting her win at games, or at least giving her a fair chance. Parents do that, right? Don’t want to discourage their children, so they let off the gas. Give them a shot. Feign exasperation as they’re completely dismantled by their little one. It happens. But me, I will have to come to terms with the fact that she’s 9 years old now and none of that matters anymore. Those days are gone. Letting off the gas is stupid because it makes me look stupid. She can beat me out right. I learned that the other day playing Monopoly. When I didn’t have to feign anything and was completely dismantled by a not so little one. At one point she had a stack of $100 bills that must have been a foot tall. I had $32, mostly in $1 bills. I don’t know if it’s her getting smarter, me getting dumber, or just the natural order of things. That I should start asking her to cut up my chicken and drive my friends and me to the movies. Boy, some of that could be great. But for now it’s disorienting. To have lost fair and square in Monopoly! She had a hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue when I went out. A HOTEL on Pennsylvania! And she owned all the railroads. On […]
The official St. Augustine chalupa rowing team
“Do you want to row a chalupa?” I was asked. A strange question. Not one you get every day. And not one easy to take while keeping a straight face. “A chalupa?” I thought to myself. “The Mexican dish? Like a taco! How do you row a taco?!?” No, no, no. Not a taco. That would be good, wouldn’t it? But this is a chalupa — a 16th-century, 37-foot Spanish longboat. Early settlers used them for all manner of purposes as they navigated local waters, offloaded supplies from larger ships and explored Florida’s uncharted coastline, probably looking for taco shops. I’ve been informed there were no engines in the 16th century. Men rowed these boats with their calloused hands and strong, bulging arms. The St. Augustine Maritime Heritage Foundation, with the help of the Lighthouse Archeological Maritime Program, has been building a chalupa at the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park for a while now. It’s to commemorate St. Augustine’s 450th anniversary, and they plan to float it soon. “We need people to row it — this ‘nontaco’ chalupa,” I was told (added emphasis was placed on the “nontaco.”) “You want to join this historic team?” A million questions raced through my mind. I set them all free. “Do you need to know your starboard from your port?” I asked. “Because I always thought ‘starboard’ was up — you know, where the stars are — and that ‘port’ was where you parked your boat. I’m told this is incorrect and could […]
Re-learning the childhood game of ‘playing’
It took me a moment. Or a few. It always does. We had walked down to the churchyard to knock the soccer ball around. That was the promise from my daughter. The plan. “Want to kick the soccer ball?” I distinctly remember her asking. She knows I’m a sucker for it. Like an overly excited dog who learns he’s going to the beach. “YEAH! YEAH! YEAH! Oh no, I just wet myself.” She got a World Cup replica ball for Christmas — a swerving wave of color that screams, “kick the stitches out of me, will ya?” I planned to. But I forgot children don’t make plans. They break them. They lure you in with one thing, then pull the carpet out from under you in a classic bait-and-switch. How quickly our simple game of kick evolved into something that involved no kicking whatsoever. It started subtly. “OK, so here’s the thing,” she said. “My goal is from there to there…” She pointed from Lawrence, Kan., to outer Ft. Myers “… And your goal is this tiny twig that I’m going to snap in half and bury 11 feet underground.” Huh? “Ready? GO!” she yelled, and the game was on. It lasted for exactly 13 seconds before she stopped, thought about it and then tried to convince me to play chase instead. “Chase?” I said. “I don’t want to play chase. I thought we came here to play soccer!” and I tried to steer us back to simple kicking. Sensing […]
Beating the January Blues
You’ve got ‘em. I’ve got ‘em. We’ve all got ‘em. It’s like the flu. Spreading. Overcoming. Pummeling us into some sloth-like state where we slump around, dragging ourselves out of bed each morning and answering every question with a mopey, “I don’t care!” “Here’s that $1 million you won in the lottery.” “Nope! I don’t care!” It’s the January blues. Got ‘em? Feel em? Hard not to when the holidays are over, the weather’s turned cold, gray and gloomy, and your credit card melted from overuse. There are a lot of tips from so-called experts on how to beat January blues, but they’re all balderdash. Here are my tried-and-true Blues Busters: ? Launch a massive yard project — Nothing eliminates January blues quicker than undertaking some overwhelming, and equally depressing, yard project. We’re thinking about one right now that has me dreading spring so much I would much rather stay right here in crummy January. ? Plan a trip — We always do this coming back from vacation — right when the realization sets in that the good times are almost gone. Perfect time to plan the next trip — something to look forward to. You don’t even have to go on it; just plan it! Cruise to the Mediterranean. Bungee jumping with penguins. A trip to the International Space Station. Feeling good already, huh? ? Take up exercise — That’s what I see a lot of experts recommend in advice columns and website posts. But no one ever specifies […]