Conquering the Wild Hillsborough

When we go visit family we don't just sit around and visit.  Plus, I mean, we were visiting our favorite European traveling companions, you had to know we were up for some adventure.

And since the last time we were in Florida we never saw an alligator we were becoming suspicious.  Sure, we have heard that Florida has gators, but come on. The world is full of picture books that aren't necessarily true.

So just to prove it's true our lovely sister-in-law booked us on an adventure called "Canoe Escapes",
where you can rent a two person canoe and cruise from two to eight hours downstream.  Since we're old poops we just went on the first leg of the overall journey, from Sargent Park to Morris Bridge Park.

It's a good thing too.  The website states each leg is about two hours, and that the river is from twenty to sixty feet wide.  I got news for them.  Some canoeable spots we went through were only four feet wide at best.  I have a feeling the river was running at low tide.  It made for a much longer and no doubt interesting journey.

We embarked from the park headquarters after a brief instructional by one of the guys, who reminded me of Gunga Din.  You know, if Gunga looked like a 20 year old single surfer dude living in Florida.

He went over basics; like if you paddle on the left side you go right, paddle right you go left.  Up is down and down is up.  And then if you do a swift, deft and shallow swat you can splash your partner with water.  Which isn't necessarily something you should do if you want to get lucky later.

Just sayin.  However, if you're going downstream with an old army buddy then swift swat away.  Unless, of course, Brokeback Mountain.  Then who knows?

Gunga told us to head out from our launch point a few hundred yards and then head right at about a three o'clock angle when the water opened up.  Paddle in another couple hundred yards and it becomes like a nature preserve.  When we were satiated with serene, wildlife viewing, we were to paddle back and sort of hit the river at about an eleven o'clock angle so that we would be headed downstream.

If we made a really hard right at about four o'clock we'd be headed up stream, and if we made an acute hard left, say about eight o'clock, at that point we'd return to base.  So it was important that we make the correct choice.  He said there'd orange flags to light the way and ensure we were heading in the right direction.

"Great," thought I.  "Not only do we have to know left from right and right from left and where the hands are on a clock when everything now is digital, but we also need to know geometry.  I barely passed high school geometry, and that was almost fifty years ago.  Like I'd remember anything from that long ago let alone an isosceles triangle.  I can't even pronounce isosceles let alone spell it.  All I wanted to do was see a gator.  Don't they have a zoo around here?"

"Speaking of gators and the potential of getting lost in a jungle forever," I began to think again, "Maybe we should be bringing along a bazooka and a flugelhorn.  Where's my safari hat?"

I know.  I have no idea where this stuff come from.  I, like you, am just along for the ride most of the time.  

Instead of wearing proper safari attire, I embarked in sandals, shorts, shirt, shades and baseball hat and hoped for the best should we actually encounter one of the big guys. Gunga shoved us off and then said he'd be seeing us at the pick up spot at Morris Bridge in a couple hours.

Both us gentlemen took the rear where most of the work was going to be done, and we were off in search of adventure.  A few hundred yards out sure enough a right was available at three o'clock and we paddled into a wide open lake-ish affair where wildlife galore was popping.  Exotic birds, happy sunning turtles and yes, gators.  Plenty of brazen gators!

Them gators, they're crafty buggers.  They hang out around logs and trees, blending in really well.  Sometimes all you can see is the top of their big round eye lids popping out of the water.  Sometimes they're just hanging out in the flora and fauna, waiting for a delicate human hand lightly tickling the water as a canoe passes by...

Where the hell is my bazooka?

After we thoroughly enjoyed our little nature preserve detour we returned to the point of departure, got out our slide rule, geometric calculus and kitchen wall clock and determined the correct juncture to take.  At least we hoped we did.

As I mentioned, the river was not quite as wide as portrayed in their literature.  Plus, the current was very slight.  We began to constantly wonder if we had made the right angle.  Or the correct hour.

"Anybody see an orange flag yet?"

As I also mentioned, the river got quite narrow in some spots.  Both our canoes hit and got stuck on partially submerged trees.  And since left was right and starboard was keel both canoes ended up backwards and in circles a couple times.  It turned out to be quite an exercise in tandem synchronization for both canoes.  Or lack thereof.

I think we needed one of those guys on the rowing team.  The one with the bull horn.

"Left.  Right.  Left.  Right.  No, not you.  You.  Left!  You, right!  No.  What?  Left you idiot!  Not you!  Right. "

And so on.

But wildlife and nature were at every turn, it was a fiesta for our eyes, even if they were looking backwards sometimes.  We probably saw about forty-five gators, ranging from one to eight feet in length.  Many were out sunning themselves, many were pretending to be logs because they were hungry.

That of course was paramount on my mind when it was our turn to get stuck on a log.  I couldn't just pop out of the canoe and sashay it off the timber.  No, we had to push, jockey and shove with our paddles til we got free.

"Anybody see an orange flag yet?"

I mean, we were pretty sure we were on the right track.  There was a slight, teeny weeny little current, and we were heading down stream, albeit quite slowly. Doubt persisted, yet we pressed on.  The thought of turning around and regurgitating submerged logs did not seem too appealing.

So we leisurely pressed on.  And then finally, about two hours down river, we espied our first orange flag.  Halleluiah brother, we weren't going to have to worry about being gator bait at dusk anymore.  Or hiking through the mosquito and snake infested jungle while wailing on the flugelhorn.  Or hillbilly redneck rape, neither.

After the first flag, we saw several more until we finally hit our portage spot at Morris Bridge.  It's possible we missed a couple flags, I suppose it's possible nature took care of a few.  I spose it's also possible some hillbilly moved them to one of the several tributaries that were off the main river...

I hadn't used a few of those upper torso arm muscles for a decade or two and ended up just a bit stiff for a couple weeks thereafter.  Might have had something to do with my lack of long bicep tendon in said arms as well.  Gettin old is not for sissies.

As all good things do our Florida visit and vacation came to an end.  We had a great time (as always)and are buoyed about the fact we'll be rejoining our companions again fairly soon on another European adventure.

Arrivederci.  Baby.

I Hate Flying Too

OK.  So I guess there are two things I hate.  I hate to wait and I hate to fly.

If God had intended for me to fly he would have given me feathers.  And probably wings.

But to get any place far away in any sort of time frame that makes any sort of sense one has to fly.  And then besides the fact we are herded onto a heavy metal tomb that somehow gets way up into the air for an extended period of time, I usually have to wait somewhere along the line too.  Double hate whammy.

I used to do airport bars, really well as a matter of fact.  But since I haven't had a drink in a couple decades I have had to alter my get on an airplane substance subsistence.  Now I usually travel with baked goods that are infused with a wonderful little calming ingredient.  And my lovely wife always has Xanax as a back up.

And since I hate to be herded (I guess there's three things I hate) and can't yet afford my own private plane, I have added an extra service onto our flight itinerary that limits our exposure a bit to herding and waiting.

Rather than driving down ourselves and parking in long term parking 800 miles from the terminal, and then waiting for the airport's shuttle service where we then get to be herded on board (with our big fat luggage) and drive around the parking lot like a Pac Man chewing up other travelers until we finally get to go in slow motion towards the terminal, we now do "The Foxen Shuttle" right here at our front door step.

It's a little different than "The Foxen Shuffle", which I'm not even sure is a real thing.  Though it probably could be.

Deb Foxen drives us down and picks us up.  Ninety bucks each way.  I figure we're really only out of pocket for one way, depending on the length of our travel because gas and long term parking easily eats up a hundred if we're gone for a week.  If gone for longer we're making money by utilizing her service.  She drops us off at the curb and picks us up at the curb.  With a smile no less.

If you're local and want a great airport shuttle, call Deb Foxen at 530-263-9669.  She's licensed and insured and good people too!  She's also on time, spot on, which is sort of important when flying.

I'm also a fan of using a transfer service at the other end of a trip, unless you have family or a friend picking you up.  If you've read any of my Europe travel blogs, you'll know I'm a HUGE fan of ihatetaxis.com.  Besides having very useful information on every airport in the galaxy, you can also safely and securely book a transfer from your destination airport to wherever you want to go.

All that said we just went to Florida to see our favorite Europe travel companion in-laws, with a quick change plane stop over in St. Louis .  We saw the fabled arch from the air and saw a few mid-western old men in shorts and white tennis shoes.  Going somewhere.  Probably Branson.  I'm sure there's more to Missouri and St. Louis, but we only had fifty minutes.  Not sure we'll be back.  We've only got so much travel time left and that state is not high on the bucket list.

Upon landing in Tampa we immediately discovered  Florida is a lot more comfortable climate wise in April than it is in June.  Just saying.  The last time we were there it was ridiculously hot, and moronically humid.  And yuck sweaty.  This time, in April, the air was sultry and silky smooth, lightly caressing your skin better that any Oil of Olay commercial ever could.

We went to Florida primarily to visit family, but we also threw in a day road trip 180 miles or south to Naples to visit some old friends.  It's always great to catch up, even if it was only for a few hours.  And we discovered a couple things on this road trip.

One, most Floridians drive fast on the freeways.  And if you're in the far left (fast) lane, 80 MPH is the average speed.  You have to move over for now and then for a 90.  None of this 65 in the fast lane so that cars that want to go faster have to start passing in the center and slow lanes.  Nope, they're serious in Florida.  If you get in that left lane you better be prepared to giddy-up.

The other thing we discovered is that when it rains there it does not mess around.  The skies can bust loose with a deluge sometimes, simply drenching the surroundings.  They can get more rain in forty-five seconds than we do in a week.

Since we were visiting our favorite Europe travel companions the subject of another trip had to come up.  And it did.  We have tentatively set a date for next year, or maybe 2021, to go to Italy with them.
Why Italy?  Well, there was some culinary TV show on in the background one afternoon, and they were talking about Florentine Steak.  Which of course hails from Florence.  Which is in Italy.  It is supposedly the best steak in the universe.  According to them.  Special cows, special sauce.

We figured, "Hey!  If there ever was a reason we needed to go to Italy it might as well be to have a Florentine Steak."

There's also probably a few historic artifacts and priceless art we can view too, but if there ever was a reason to get us off our duffs it might as well be food.

Plus, I will  get an opportunity to say "Arrivederci" in the actual country where the language is spoken.   See: "Bon Jour, Arrivederci, Por Favor, Where the Hell Am I?"

Before we take off for Italy, which (especially for me) will require a shit ton of pre-planning, we decided to go to the Morse Museum in Winter Park, which only took a few minutes to plan.

The Morse Museum?  Why what?  What's that?  Some place filled with dots and dashes?

Actually, it's not full of codes.  The Morse Museum houses the largest collection of Tiffany objects in the world.  That's why.  What.

On the way to Winter Park we passed through Orlando, where, apparently, every amusement park in the world exists.  According to Travel Advisor there's forty-five water and amusement parks in and around Orlando, including but certainly not limited to Universal Studios, Sea World, Disney World, Epcot, Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, a Harry Potter Park and the Holy Land Experience.

The Holy who what?

Yes.  Someone has apparently turned the bible into an amusement park.

The amount of construction going on is insane.  Buildings, roads, hotels, warehouses.  And not small jobs either.  I counted thirty-two active high rise cranes in and around Orlando.

According to my lovely sister in law a thousand people a day are moving to Florida.  I can believe it.  Every single commercial building is a hundred percent occupied.  Four lane highways are becoming six lane.  And the roads are quite lovely by the way, lacking the potholes, cracked pavement and rough surfaces that are everywhere here in California.

And there are vacant commercial properties for rent everywhere here in California, from our small little country town to the state capital and beyond.  Maybe all that tax money is moving from here to Florida.

The Morse Museum is a smallish museum has a number of galleries featuring American art, but their primary exhibit is the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany.  Every Antiques Roadshow fan will recognize that name.

From expensive, dazzling and classy diamond jewelry to an amazing array of glass work, the Tiffany name is synonymous with style, elegance and excellence.  The museum has a small collection of jewelry, but it does have an extensive collection of glasswork, including lamps and stained glass windows.  There's also an incredible "chapel interior" mosaic and glass exhibition that was featured at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893.

Intricately and ornately resplendent, there are thousands upon thousands of small bits and pieces of tile and glass that are interwoven in complex patterns and designs I could only hope to imagine with a decent hit of LSD.  The scope and scale are almost beyond comprehension.

If you're ever in Winter Park, possibly for a little baseball (Winter Park is spring training home to many east coast MLB Teams) take a break and check out a little culture.  You can see the entire museum in a couple hours and just the Tiffany collection in an hour or so, unless you get lost in a flashback at the chapel interior.

If you're prone to such occurrences you might consider bringing a sandwich, because you might be there all day.

GOT

You know you're getting old when you start doing the math as to how many times you've shampooed your hair.  If it's roughly once a day since the ago of 20 then let's see...I've shampooed my hair somewhere over 16,000 times.  Sigh.

Well, my lovely wife and I have inadvertently got ourselves all wrapped up in HBO's Game of Thrones.  Yeah, we've heard about it, even seen a few episodes at a friend's house here and there over the last few years.  But totally wrapped up?  No.  We don't subscribe to HBO.  $14.99 a month for a half dozen movie channels when there's so much great TV out there now almost for free?  Not in our budget conscious world.

We were noodling around last month looking for a new series to binge on.  We usually go for comedy or murder, and then my lovely wife mentioned (again) what ever happened to "The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency"?  We saw the premier episode a few years back (probably when we had a free weekend of HBO) and then kind of forgot about it.

The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency is a charming detective series based in Africa and based upon a series of books written by Alexander McCall Smith.   My lovely wife read the books somewhere along the line and wanted to see the series.

We discovered there were seven episodes and only one season, which is unfortunate because it was an enjoyable show.  We discovered we could catch them all if we tried HBO for free for seven days.  We figured, easy.  And then we'd cancel right after.  We'd done something like this with Showtime I believe and it went quite successfully.  As I recall.

We jammed through the episodes within the allotted seven days, with days to spare.  It was my job to cancel HBO, I had done the previous cancellation work with Showtime.  I was a pro by this time.  I even marked the cancel by date on the calendar.

When I went to my lovely wife's Amazon site, I had a heck of a time trying to find the place to cancel subscriptions.  I was pretty darn sure I was there, only I probably wouldn't make a bet on it-especially now-and it totally and completely didn't look like there were any existing HBO subscriptions. At all.

Really.

So I figured, "Hey.  Looks like HBO forgot all about us.  They had a little slip in the gitch.  Hahaha."

Ha.  The next decision we had to make was what to do with a month of HBO.

We had heard rave reviews about GOT, and thought, "What the hell, let's give it a shot."

Annnnd away we went.

We started out fairly rapid fire, at a strong, consistent pace.  I mean, each episode is at least an hour long, and there are ten episodes a season through Season 6.  Then season 7 only has seven episodes, with the last one clocking in at an hour and a half.

We initially did forty 1-hour episodes in fourteen days.  Which is a lot, I think, by anybody's standards.  Especially us.  We've never done anything like this. We're gonna get our $14.99 worth even if it turns us into video zombies!

We did slow a bit, but finished the last twenty-seven episodes in the following two weeks.  It helped having two rainy day weekends in there during each assault.

Much to my chagrin, we had to re-up HBO for another month.  We ended up half way through season seven when the bell rang.  Almost, but not quite.  They got us again.  Which is fine.  The final season started April 14th and we're all in until this thing is over.

We have discovered we have viewed this epic in probably the best way possible.  I mean, everyone that's a fan of the show has had to wait EVERY year for months until the next season began.  We blasted through 7 seasons in a  little over a month and only had to wait about two weeks for the final season to begin.

It's a fabulous story about kings and queens, swords and hammers, honor and deceit.  Lots of deceit.  There's also three dragons, which is OK if you like dragons.  There are no unicorns, which is fine, because unicorns aren't real and their existence would only take away from the story.

Season 1 starts a little slow, but as it all gets rolling a number of intertwining tales develop, all well acted and well paced.

There's a pretty fair amount of gore, and a couple of rather sadistic SOB's.  Every appendage known to man, and I mean EVERY appendage, gets lopped off or avulsed somewhere along the line.  Endless beheadings and lots of blood.  I had to look away several times from the abhorrent gore, but I didn't look away when modest nudity was presented.

What can I say?  I'd much rather gaze upon the eternal beauty of the feminine mystique than a headless neck spurting blood.  And there's plenty of modest nudity for women as well, there's no naked discrimination.  Lot's of butts for everyone!

There are heroes and there are villains.  And treachery.  Lots of treachery.  And incest.  Which was apparently semi in vogue back then.  At least in make believe worlds.

A lot of characters you root for end up dying, shockingly so.  And many of the villains do to.  Believe me, you simply can't wait for one of the bad guys to get it, they are that bad.  And when they finally do go, most in spectacular fashion, you can't help but to cheer.

We're not gonna go out and buy any GOT merchandise, like a play sword, coffee mug or underwear.  But we are going to keep HBO for probably another month or two until we see this journey through.

On an extremely positive note, my lovely wife and I are heading to Florida in a few days to visit family and see the sun.  And I will have exciting travel to blog about.  Stay tuned!

One of The Most Exciting Things EVER!

My lovely wife and I have been on this planet for sixty-four years and we have experienced many varied peak moments of excitement.  Physical.  Emotional.  Cerebral.

Enough so that our combined bucket list(s) are short.  They could probably fit on a post-it note.

But we have recently experienced something quite unexpectedly, courtesy of our nine-year-old grand daughter, that we had no idea how exciting it could be.

I marveled about it with another spectator at the last event and we both exclaimed, almost simultaneously, "Who knew?"

What could possibly be as exciting as a Le Mans car race?  A SF Giants pennant winning game?  Paris at Midnight?  Conquering Mt. Lassen?  The Grateful Dead on acid?

While all of those experiences were quite dandy, this one ranks right up there with 'em all.  So what am I raving about?  What is so dang exciting?  Are you ready for this?  

Co-Ed 3rd/4th Grade Youth Basketball.

It is simply one of the wildest and exciting events we have ever witnessed.

Think about it.  Most players are under four feet.  The basket is the same height it is for the seven foot pros.

The dribbles.  The shots.  The double dribbles.  The shots.  Triple dribble.  Pass.  Travel.  Shot.  Rebound.  Shot.  Rebound.  Shot.  Rebound.  Tussle.  Shot.  Rebound.

Dannng.  The other team got the ball.  Time for defense.

Whatever that is.

Dribble.  Pass.  Shot.  Rebound.  Travel.  Shot.  Rebound.  Shot.  Rebound.  Tussle.

Yay!  We got the ball back.

Rinse.  Repeat.  When a basket does occur, and they are rare, the entire crowd erupts, from both sides of the aisle.  Those baskets are very hard earned in this sport.  Most forty minute games end up with scores in the low teens.

What is fantastic about this experience is it is happening all over America as we speak.  And it's free!  Even if you don't have a vested interest in one of the players you need to check it out.

And if it's not on your bucket list put it on.  It's a heck of a lot cheaper than jumping out of an airplane.  Safer too.

I just turned in a bucket of change to one of them Coin Star machines.  About twenty pounds and four years worth of change.  Came out to a bit over $230, even after their 12% fee.  But the fee of 12% is well worth it considering the amount of time it would have taken to roll up all them coins.

But the point of all this is the machine kept kicking out a dime.  About the fourth time I checked it out.  Turns out it was a very bright and shiny 1964 Roosevelt silver dime.  Worth about $1.21 at today's silver prices.  And the machine kicked it out.  The only coin worth a damn and the machine didn't recognize it.  Sometimes I get amazed.

Another up scale fee I recently paid was for a lamp switch.  One of my lovely wife's antique lamps kept fitzing so I had a look see.  All things considered I figured out it was the on/off switch where the wires also connected.

I took it out and went to the local lamp store.  When the sole proprietor got up to the counter I took the switch out of my pocket and said, "I need one of these."

He took it to the back room and was back in about forty-three seconds with a $7.00 replacement.

I'm pretty certain I could have found that switch somewhere for around $2.00.  But where is somewhere?  That could be anywhere.  And do you know how long it would take to search anywhere for an older lamp switch when there are probably a thousand different ones out there?

My answer is a long time.  And since I won't have a spare ten seconds for another decade I don't have a long time.  I will happily pay the guy a few dollar surcharge just so I can mosey in and say, "I need one of these."

Anytime.

Brrrrr.  Been a cold winter so far.  Colder than the last several.  We've been dusted with snow several times now.  Though we used to get a couple feet every year when we first moved here in 1979, it's been a couple years since we've just been dusted.  Something's going on.  Whether it's global warming, climate change OR the magnetic poles shifting...which could be the reason all this big weather is going on.

Apparently The Earths magnetic poles reverse every 200,000 to 300,000 years, and a complete reversal usually takes thousands of years to complete. Although it has been twice that long since the poles have last reversed, scientists now say that the poles are shifting at a rate of forty miles per year.

Google it.  It's a thing.  And I'm not too sure we humans can do much about it other than go along for the ride.  I spose it's better than going along for the ride with a super volcano.  That would reduce our species to living like bugs in the earth much quicker.

Cheers!

I Hate to Wait!

I hate to wait.  I mean, I really hate to wait.  There is ALWAYS something more important for me to be doing than waiting.  Like nothing for instance.  I'd much rather be doing nothing anywhere else than waiting wherever I am, though I typically don't engage much in doing nothing.  I'm usually always doing something, and sometimes it's even productive.

Check me if I'm wrong Charlie, but don't we only have a limited time on this here planet?  And we all have to spend a pretty big chunk of that time waiting.  A quick check on this inter web thingy allowed me to discover we spend an average of six months of our lives waiting.  And I don't think that includes traffic.

One site said the average person throughout their lifetime waits about five years.  FIVE YEARS!  What are they, average age centurions???

I mean, some waits are unavoidable.  Like the DMV.  Or the ER.  (Unless something's been traumatically amputated and you're spurting blood everywhere.) Or the bank at 9:00 AM on a Friday.  Or the grocery store at 5:00 PM on a Friday.  Or the local Starbuck's drive-through.  Anytime.

I once walked out of a doctor's office without ever seeing the doc.  I got tired of waiting.

My lovely wife and I had recently moved to Monterey, CA and had been looking for a new GP.  She found a guy and just raved about him.  One of his slogans was a patient never had to wait.  I like slogans like that.

I showed up for my appointment on time.  (I am quite punctual by the way.)  The nurse got me in a room quite expeditiously and took my vitals.  She said the doc would be in right away.

An hour later I had to go.  Not for any real particular reason except for the fact I had been stewing for fifty minutes (I'll give anybody ten minutes) and had been listening to the doc playing ukulele in the room next door for some old coot for about thirty minutes.

Now don't get me wrong, playing ukuleles, or any other musical instrument for that matter, for anyone, even an old coot, is a wonderful endeavor.  But it was on my time.

And I wasn't the old coot.

So I got up and walked out of the exam room where I immediately stumbled upon three female employees of the doc's.  They all looked at me quite surprised, wondering what an unescorted patient was doing wandering the hall.

I said, "I gotta go.  I don't wait well."

One of them mentioned that I looked a little flushed and flustered.  And then they all three looked aghast when they figured out I had been sitting in the little room for an hour.  All by myself.  Without even a magazine.  And before smart phones were invented.

The doc called later that evening, apologizing quite effusively and profusely and even mentioned his slogan that nobody waits.  Ever.

He turned out to be a pretty good guy.  I'll give anybody a second chance.  But we were only in Monterey for a year so that doctor-patient relationship didn't last too long.

I have a great GP now, waits are always minimal.  Same with my dentist.  Life is good.  In those arenas.

Ya mostly can't avoid a line at the grocery store, unless you go at 8:00 AM.  Which I usually do.  But if I can't go in the morning for whatever reason and there are any lines at all you can be sure I'll pick the slowest one.  Almost always.  It's ma thing.

Take Raley's early one Sunday afternoon.  My lovely wife and I were getting a hand basket of groceries, which turned out to be quite ironic since we ended up in hell before we even had a chance to leave the store.

I have to be careful here, because I have been referred to as an "old timer" and "older gentleman" before, but this old guy has his act together in any check out line 99.99% of the time.  Hell, I even bag half the time.  

I guess I feel it is my responsibility to move through time as efficiently as possible so as not to inconvenience or slow anybody else down.  Boils down to respect.  Besides, maybe somebody in line behind me has to poop.  You never know.  

And probably don't want to.    

At any rate, the little old lady in front of us didn't quite have a seeming form of cognizant wherewithal anywhere within her realm.  I can't really recall what the issue was.  Coupon confusion?  Discount dystopia?  Trying to count out eighty-eight cents in exact change with no quarters from a forty year old coin purse?

While my lovely wife and I were soaking up way too much of Raley's early afternoon atmosphere, the lady behind us brought up a good point.  Perhaps this completely oblivious to her immediate surroundings ding bat was keeping us from being in a horrible automobile accident.  Many circumstances that occur are merely seconds away from happening to anyone as we dance through this time machine.

So there's that train of thought. Which was good.  I needed that perspective.  Cause I was about to shoot somebody.

I had to leave a K-Mart line one time because both the customer and cashier were trying to out stupid each other.  Something to do with about two dollars and a coupon.  I was next in line, with my three-year-old grandson in tow.  You know, a three-year-old, the epitome of patience.

I offered both of them two dollars.  Didn't work.

So these two seventh grade drop outs we're trying to un-wit each other for at least five minutes, maybe more.  The alcoholic lady in back of me was getting vocal.

She started with not so quiet sighs and harrumphs.  Which then led to, "Are you kidding me?  Jeeeeeze.  Come on.  You've got to be kidding me. What are you doing up there?  I need a drink.  Why don't you idiots call management?  Hey managemennnnnnnt!"

And so on.

I finally put my stuff down and left with a rather impatient grandson in tow. Nothing on earth was worth further witness of that circus.

Don't get me wrong.  I know stupid exists.  I just prefer minimal exposure.  To keep me sane.

If there's gonna be a stupid fest, just do it over there.  I'm not in two places at once, so generally speaking, when you consider the size of the planet, there's really plenty of room to be stupid and not be anywhere near me.

Even with those odds, oddly enough, I still get caught up in all kinds of it.

I've covered quite a few unavoidable lines and waits, now I'll let you know what I do to avoid those that I can.

Let's start with the dump.  I used to go first thing in the morning, just like the grocery store. But somehow, someway, everyone decided that was a good time.  I got caught in a major CF about a year ago at 8:00 AM and was close to forty minutes in line.  That almost gave me a coronary.

I have since revised my strategy and am once again enjoying relatively wait free dump runs.  In lieu of any natural climatological event, I usually go about 1:00PM.  It's always been pretty quiet with minimal waits.

But if there are natural climatological events, like rain or excessive heat, it's on.  I have found that most dump runners are fair weather players.  I will plan a dump run in line with rain, always.  Who doesn't mind a little weather now and then?  AND THERE IS NOBODY THERE!!!

I mean, like, nobody 'cept the employees.

Another potential wait I always try to avoid is the post office.  The downtown Grass Valley post office is always a mess, always.  I try and avoid that place like I would a colonoscopy.

There's a local independent grocery store that's close by and has a US Postal outlet.  That's where I usually go.  And if I'm out and about I'll also swing by the Cedar Ridge post office.  It's a couple miles out of the way, but I'd rather spend a few minutes driving through gorgeous terrain than stare at the back of somebody's head.

And I usually go in the morning.  Like 8:00AM.  It's my magical, mystical time to run all my errands. I have found most folks, it seems, spend their mornings getting things together around the house and then venture out in the late morning/early afternoon.

Case in point:  I had a priority box to mail. I was going to my son's house the next day to help fix his broke tailgate handle and the grocery store PO is on the way.  Simple.  8:00 AM and off.

But Wednesday afternoon I had an emergency dental appointment, another tooth gone south.  Lucky me.  So I had to take what they had, a 4:00 PM appointment.

By the way, given the choice and time, I always book my appointments for the morning.  Again, less idiots out and about and there's less of a chance one of those idiots didn't foul up my appointment time by being late before me.

Nothing chaps my hide more than me having to wait for my appointment because some inconsiderate asshole that was scheduled before me was late for theirs.  

By the way, just thinking about it, and this is sort of scary if you really think about it, I don't think I've ever been late for an appointment.  Ever.  And I'm sixty-four.  I'm also, apparently, somewhat anal when it comes to matters of this nature.

No wonder I hate to wait.

So I was actually running a little ahead of my game, and at 3:00 PM I thought, "Maybe I can drop this by the PO and then head over to Grocery Outlet for a few minutes before my appointment.  That way I'll have a few extra minutes tomorrow."

This turned out to be an incredibly ugly thought.  One of the worst I've had in a long, long time.

I hope I never have one like that again.

I knew the traffic around the grocery store PO could be heavy, especially in the afternoon.  There's a strip mall and a Kmart in the same center, and a block away is another center with Penny's, Raley's, fast food, Starbucks.  And a number of other obsequious little concerns.  Yeah, it could be a nightmare.  But I reasoned I had time to burn.  Which is rare in my world.  No worries.

Until I got to the glass door of the grocery store and noticed the PO line was at least five deep.  That was going to cut into my Grocery Outlet time.  I swiftly turned around.

"What the hell," I shrugged, "I'll just swing out to Cedar Ridge, then mosey to Grocery Outlet.  It may take more time but at least I won't have to stare at the back of someone's head."

I still had forty minutes and it was sort of on the way.  In a very round about sorta way.

As I pulled in to the Cedar Ridge Post Office parking lot about 3:30 PM, I immediately noticed a line of at least five deep.

Apparently everyone goes to the post office in the afternoon.  I made a note.

I also left. I would fall back to my original plan and hit the grocery store post office in the morning.  But I still had a few minutes to burn.  Off to Grocery Outlet I went!

Grocery Outlet was a couple miles, a few pine trees and two traffic lights away.  It is also located in one of the most commercial areas in the county.  What was I thinking?

As I approached the center, traffic instantaneously became a nightmare.  Poof!  There were cars and humans and commotion was everywhere.  It was as if everyone in Nevada County had descended all at once to the exact spot where I was.  I wanted to be sneaky, unfettered and free.  I turned out to be a magnet for frenzy.

I did not pull in to the parking lot.  There were about fifty cars trying to get out.  I feared if I went in I would never get out.  And I'd be late for my appointment.  And I've never been late for an appointment.

I fled to my dentist's office parking lot a couple blocks away and hid for fifteen minutes.  I took the back route too.  I left the afternoon world of chaos and confusion behind.  

Moments like those only reinforce my preference of running errands in the morning.  I hit the grocery store post office the next morning at 8:02 AM.  No one was in line.  It took about forty-five seconds.  And I didn't have to stare at the back of someone's head.

Ever wrangle manzanita?  It's kinda like bull riding, or playing rugby with a swarm of bees.  Or maybe a rousing tug of war against the entire front line of the Oakland Raiders.

See that stuff up there?  It's a whole little forest with trunks from one to four inches in diameter and up to fifteen feet in length.  Some grow vertically, but many grow kinda horizontally vertical at about a thirty degree angle.  

When thinning, you cut from behind and then pull backwards to remove it from the pack. If they just laid on top of their cousin, sometimes they give fairly easily.  But many times the tops have intertangled themselves with their next door buddies and the tug occurs.

Great exercise for the shoulders and back, sometimes hard on the butt and knees when it finally "gives" during a ferocious tug and both you and the branch fly backwards.  Sometimes landing hard on previously cut trunks.  

Good times.

I'm trying to find a market for this stuff.  I have hundreds of feet of it.  Prime manzanita.

If you know anyone that has a couple pet Condors, or a herd of other large birds that might need a perch, please give me a holler.

We just had a hell of a time finding fire insurance.  Or previous carrier, Merced, went bankrupt after the Camp Fire in Paradise last November.  They were taken over by the State of California, and our insurance lapsed on January 2nd.

Our previous broker as well as ourselves probably called every insurance carrier in existence.  Twenty? Forty?  Trust me, every one you've ever heard of and then some.

We've finally found one through the high hazard arm of AAA.  $4,800 a year!

You see, apparently we are in what is called a high risk wildfire area.  It doesn't matter that I have done an incredible amount of land clearing as well as adding a lot of fire protection.  Water tanks, sprinklers, generators etc.  Doesn't matter.  Our zip code comes up as a wildfire risk and the insurance companies are running scared.

Besides the increased premium, property values could also take a hit.  Of course there are a multitude of factors; like climate change, lazy property owners and PG&E for instance.

I think every property owner needs to take living in the hills a bit more seriously.  Yeah, I know,

land clearing and maintaining is the hardest darn work a property owner has to do.  But if everyone was a good steward and simply took care of their own ground we wouldn't see the conflagrations like the one that took the town of Paradise.  

And folks could save a lot of money on gym fees.  Plus get clean, renewable fuel for heat.  

Win Win Win.

Happy winter 2019 y'all.