2020 Nutshells, Houses, yards and projects

This old pain-in-the-you-know-what house

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Old house, why do you forsake me so? Like a bad Shakespearean tragedy. Stabbing me in the back. Haunting me with ghosts. Tormenting me.

“Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer …” Oh, who am I fooling? I’m an English major, studied Shakespeare at Cambridge University one summer in college and can’t even remember enough for a half-baked literary … um … well, whatever this is.

I’ll just leave it at, “Et tu, Brute?” which, if memory serves, is Latin for, “So, you’re also gonna’ kick me in the pants, ya’ weasel?!?”

That is my relationship with my old house. Oh, love and hate. It loves to torture me, and I hate how I’m always spending money, time and sanity putting it back together every couple of years. Because when it comes to old houses, there is no such thing as “done.”

There is only “underway” or “what’s next?”

And “what’s next?” is usually the kind of project that makes you wonder why you didn’t buy a nice concrete block home where the only thing you have to worry about each weekend is whether you watch college football or auto racing. Ah, imagine it!

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2020 Nutshells, Coronavirus, Family, Parenthood and Children, Travel

The dad and daughter drive

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“Wo,” she told me while sitting down in the passenger seat. “I’ve never gone on a trip this long upfront.”

“Wo” was right, as the same thing struck me.

A 3-hour car ride to Tampa. Just a few inches apart. What in the heck does a dad and his 14-year-old daughter talk about for that long?

Wo!

It was just a dad and his daughter getting away to visit some family. The two of us. My sister was in town from Chicago. My dad wanted to show off the tear-drop trailer he was building. We hadn’t seen my aunt in who-knows-how-long, and you always need to make sure she’s staying out of trouble.

It was something we hadn’t done – couldn’t have done – in the longest time as everyone battened down the COVID hatches and stayed close to home. As safe as we were being – masked up and carrying an extra 50-gallon drum of hand sanitizer – it was stretching us out of our safe confines and comfort zones.

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2020 Nutshells, In the News

Just a little break from the 2020 presidential election carnage

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Whew! I need a break. You need a break. We ALL need a break. I don’t know what I just witnessed, but the fight promoters … I mean debate producers … said it was supposed to be a presidential debate between the two leading party candidates.

Only, what I saw the other night when I wrote this was carnage. Like when you were a kid and glimpsed something on TV you weren’t supposed to. How it left you chewing your fingernails, feeling dirty and kept you up all night muttering to yourself: “I will never watch TV again! I will never watch TV again! I will never watch TV again!”

Amen.

So, my good friends, with almost a month to go before the end of this mangy, molten fungal train wreck of an election in what has been a mangy, molten fungal train wreck of a year, I think you deserve a break. Something to get your mind off of it. To clear your head and refresh your soul. To give you hope and a sense of humanity. To provide you with some uplifting and inspiring news that isn’t about polls or COVID or all-things presidential election-related.

And because I like you that much, I spent the last 20 minutes scouring the Internet for a bounty of spirit-boosting stories to get the bad taste out of your mouth:

• Believe it: Politics CAN be about relevant and meaningful topics that actually relate to real peoples’ lives. Like in North Carolina where Democratic Senate candidate Cal Cunningham took a controversial stand on an issue close to the hearts of many North Carolinians: BBQ. In a Tweeted photo of himself standing next to a GAS grill, he wrote: “There’s nothing better than BBQ.” Except, since he wasn’t standing next to what looked like a smoking World War II-era submarine loaded with burning hickory chunks and a whole hog, Twitter erupted

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2020 Nutshells, Animals, Childhood, Family, Florida, Parenthood and Children

The Lizard Hospital opens for patients

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“Good morning, Lizard Hospital. How may I help you? Oh, I see. You’re looking for a family of suckers who will take in injured everyday Florida yard lizards, nurse them back to health and potentially adopt them for life? Yep! You’ve come to the right place. Let me just go flush the rest of my sanity down the toilet and I’ll be right with you.”

My house is now … a lizard hospital.

There are two reptilian ICU containers sitting in my dining room. Stuffed with grass and sticks and pieces of drying ground beef. YouTube videos are on the computer about caring for injured lizards. A syringe sits in a bowl of water in the kitchen waiting for my daughter to dribble drops into their mouths.

I hope these two critters have insurance. Someone is going to have a hefty bill for this top-shelf care.

It all started a week ago. My daughter returned from walking the dog to recount the trauma she had witnessed: A massacre! Lizard carcasses scattered about the sidewalk. (There was a flat frog in the street, too, but that was a different problem. Speeders!) The lizards must have had a run-in with a cat. An angry cat. With a grudge. He left the broken bodies as a warning to others.

“It was awful!” she said. “There was just one survivor. And as you can see, he’s not doing so well.” She shoved the lizard in my face. He had one eye bulging out. It’s an image you’ll never forget.

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2020 Nutshells, Florida, Weather

Fear the Florida hurricane jinx

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Don’t jinx it.

Whatever you do, DO NOT jinx it. Because for large parts of Florida, it’s going pretty well. In a record hurricane season like no other, so far we are doing pretty … NO! Don’t think it. Don’t say it. Don’t write it.

It’s not going pretty well. It’s going terrible. We’re literally running out of storm names. The say we start using the Greek alphabet if we run through all the names. Which is crazy because who even knew the Greeks had their own alphabet? And when was the last time Greece was even threatened by a tropical cyclone? So, where do they get off getting to name our storms with their letters? That’s crazy!

Personally, I think the areas most-at-risk should be allowed to do a write-in campaign to name them. Then we can get some really good names like: Little Swirly, ‘Ole Crooked Tail or The One That Licked Us. How about “Tiger Chomp?” Man, that would be good, wouldn’t it? I would take a Tiger Chomp over a Vicky or a Zeta. Besides, Greek alphabet-named storms are going to sound like a bad frat party in the Atlantic.

OK, back on topic: Don’t jinx it. Don’t let it creep into your mind. Don’t think we’re in the clear. Don’t you dare say, “maybe none are going to hit us this year.” Ugh! I feel sick even typing that.

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2020 Nutshells, Houses, yards and projects

The DIY-er painting debacle

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You get these ideas in your head. I don’t know where they come from. Maybe you saw a picture in a magazine of some celebrity showing off their digs. Maybe you just got tired of looking at the same four walls, or the color you picked years ago. Maybe you just figured it was time for a change, or to try to be more sophisticated, or to add something new to your domicile.

Or, maybe you thought: “Hey, my life is pretty easy right now. No major issues. No nagging headaches. Not a lot to do on the weekend except relax on the sofa with a beer and watch Formula 1 racing. How can I muck that up real bad with a house project?”

I got it: Why don’t I paint the front room?

Yeah! That sounds like a GREAT idea! (Cue music from “Psycho” when Janet Leigh gets knifed in the shower.)

Ah, painting. The DIY-er’s greatest nightmare. Worse than active sewer line repair or asbestos removal. Worse than relocating a pack of foaming-at-the-mouth raccoons from your attic and into your neighbor’s backyard. Worse than roof repair in August. Or sod-laying in August. Or that time when you were doing some flashing repair around the chimney and it almost toppled over on you … in August.

There is no home improvement project you can dream up that will be more infuriating, exhausting, time-consuming or out-and-out excruciating than slapping a new coat of paint on your walls. It is written in the Bible. It is a truth handed down through the ages. It was what Tom Sawyer desperately tried to get out of doing. (And that was just a fence!)

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2020 Nutshells, Coronavirus, Family

The COVID-induced, back-to-school rush, rush dance

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And then, “BANG!” like a starter gun, we’re off in a flash.

Hurry, hurry. Rush, rush. No time to think. Just do. No time to ponder or worry. No time to reflect or ruminate. No time to consider whether we’re ready. It’s too late. It’s here. We’re out of the blocks. Now it’s just mayhem and early-morning madness. Something akin to normalcy, only not quite normal. The “idea” of normal in an UN-normal world. And the truth is, it doesn’t matter. Because who cares: It has already begun!

And you better hurry, hurry. Rush, rush.

Yep, it’s school time again. School time in the age of the pandemic. “Fake-summer” is over, and the looming fall stopped looming and dropped out of the sky like a sack of textbooks.

It hits particularly hard in a house like mine that runs the education spectrum. My wife teaches pre-school. My daughter just started high school, and for now is taking the remote route online. I work at Flagler College, where part of my gig is teaching journalism students. Throw in the fact that we think the dog has a side hustle lecturing about French romantic poetry with an online course and it’s a world of education in the Thompson household.

After a summer of planning and worrying and speculating and trying to sort it all out, we’re all suddenly thrust back in it, just like that. And it’s kind of anticlimactic really. The starter gun just went off and we threw up our hands one day and said, “OK, I guess we’re running!”

GO!!!

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2020 Nutshells, Coronavirus, Florida, In the News

Predictions for the rest of a jinxed year

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Yeah, it’s 2020. A year ruled by Murphy’s Law, that good ‘ole adage about anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. And go wrong in spectacular fashion. In fact, “go wrong” might include one of your body parts spontaneously combusting, and then you get attacked by a murder hornet … WITH MANGE!

All in the actual law. Look it up.

We’re eight months into the year, and if you’re keeping track, we’ve had a major pandemic, an economic crisis, riots and unrest, wildfires in California, some weather event in the Midwest called a “derecho” (I thought that was a breakfast burrito, but apparently that’s not right) and most recently two hurricanes in the Gulf nearly colliding in an ultimate violation of social distancing. Earlier models even called for the two storms to meet on Bourbon Street, which would have just about topped it all.

So, if you’re like me, you’re asking yourself, “What else could possibly go wrong in 2020?” And if you’re like me, you should NEVER ask dumb questions like this because the universe will promptly respond: “Are you mocking me? How about I make your pinky finger spontaneously combust and send a murder hornet for you!”

We still have a rip-roaring presidential election to go, a long hurricane season to slog through and another four months before we can flick 2020 the middle finger goodbye. What else could go wrong? I’ve decided to try and answer that question with a few predictions and prognostications that might come to pass before the dawn of a glorious new year:

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2020 Nutshells, Animals, Family

The porch cat creeps on inside

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So, this is what a near-death experience feels like. It feels pretty … um … furry?

Yes, furry. Not what I expected, but there it is.

Furry, and it screeches with an offended, spine-tingling wail. The sound of a feline who thinks HE has been wronged. That when he plants himself behind me while I’m washing dishes, I’m the one at fault for turning around and nearly toppling over headfirst into the oven, which is on and covered with pots of boiling oil.

Poor critter! That my near-death experience should cause him distress. I woke him from his itty-bitty kitty slumber. Boo-hoo!

“You’re a porch cat,” I cried, trying to slow my racing heart and calm my frayed nerves. “Why are you even in here?”

“Why?”

Such a good question. And one never worth asking, especially when it involves family, your house or something a pet has done. It’s a rhetorical question, isn’t it? Screamed in desperation, and if it garners any kind of answer, it’s never a good one.

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2020 Nutshells, Florida, Houses, yards and projects, Weather

Things Floridians forget we shouldn’t do in August

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Oh … right! So, that’s why you’re not supposed to get back into running in August … in Florida … when you can melt tar on your forehead.

Yeah. Oh yeah … it’s hot!

I spent all summer getting out of shape, so why not pick this perfect, balmy month to start getting back into it? It’s beautiful outside. The trees are bursting into flames. The oxygen molecules boil as you inhale them. Your shoes stick to the pavement if you stand too long in one place. And all around you, people can be heard saying: “That poor moron is gonna’ die. Look away from the running dead man!”

Welcome to August.

It occurred to me on one of these runs that we true Floridians – not exactly God’s gift to the IQ farm – never quite remember just how bad August gets. Because we’re Floridians! We like to shrug it off and say things like, “Heat? Ha! I spoon it on my cereal and eat it for … wait … which meal is that?”

We revel in the heat. We excel in the heat. We wear it like a badge of honor.

And then we get to August, remember how miserable it is and wonder why we chose to live in THIS state when people in other parts of the world are wearing light sweaters and saying things like, “Buffy, darling, can you throw another log on the fire before the guests come over for crudités? We don’t want them to catch chill.”

Man, I wanna’ “catch chill” and eat August crudités!

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