CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWELVE: MARCHING INTO SPRING

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND TWELVE: MARCHING INTO SPRING

Spring crept into Key Largo in the middle of last Friday night and brought with it some fierce allergy attack makers. The Admiral and I have both had our sneezing fits and sore throats. I got a weird allergy on my left cheek, which led to a quick visit to The Key Largo Dermatologist -- there is only one, and he’s actually in Islamorada, 20 miles away. Steroids, of course, are the treatment – that’s the ticket! Barry Bonds was treating allergies all those years with the cream and the clear (or whatever). I should find a baseball field and see if I can clear the fences while I’m smearing this steroid on my cheek twice a day for the next week. I’ll be very happy if it just makes the itching and swelling go away and I stop looking like “Chipmunk Face.” It was bad enough going through high school with the nickname “Scars” – thank you, Dick Bauer. I’m not taking on any new, demeaning nicknames for bad facial features.

The Admiral has been working 12 hours a day, almost non-stop – on the data base for St. Elizabeth’s in Rockford, Illinois. Imagine if those were billable hours – alas, only in heaven, where experts like the Admiral who work gratis for nonprofits get their rewards. Would it be too much to ask Pope Francis to make him a saint? I’ve personally witnesses a few miracles he has performed and can attest to them. Like the time he arranged for a first class plane ticket for me for $300 from SFO to Ft. Lauderdale. That has to be classified as a major miracle. And how about the times he navigated Slow Motion through Hell Gate and the super shallow Mud River without running aground? Miracles all. And what about the way he converted my California hovel into a showplace which attracts high end renters? I mean, we were talking a house on its last legs, bursting at the seams with countless boxes, stacks of papers and clothes, snakes and spiders, and God knows what in the bedroom closet. Through the miraculous efforts of the Admiral we have a box-free, trash-free, snake-free environment that is not only habitable, but downright homey, even a little chic, especially if you like redwood highlights in your living room and bathroom. And who doesn’t? So what do you say, Pope Francis, are you shining that halo for the Admiral’s induction into sainthood? Oh, I could rattle off a lot more miracles I have witnessed, but I just want to whet your appetite. I think we can skip the canonization stage in this case and glide straight to sainthood, don’t you?

Speaking of our Miracle Home, I just returned to Key Largo last week from a five week stint in Harper Canyon. It rained for a few days early on, but then returned to the drought mode for the rest of the time. There were signs of spring – Jerry’s daffodils and the purple sage in the park. But the cattle are eating the grass down to the dirt, so there is little chance of getting the glorious burst of color from lupin that my neighbors experienced last year in their walks into the park. And the seasonal stream, which meanders through my property, has not run at all this winter. The weather was perfect for multiple hikes in the park on a daily basis with Zorro and Ruby. It was definitely not shorts weather – I wore about 5 layers in the early mornings – but by noon the sun warmed the trails to the low 70’s. It’s a desert climate, so at night the temps sank into the 40’s. The air was so clear, and after the rain, everything looked so clean and green. Whatever my mood before entering the park with Zorro and Ruby, it only took about 5 minutes to elevate it to moderate ecstasy, as all the cares of trying to find a renter melted away, and I was back to hiking and breathing and enjoying Z and R on their “scratch and sniff” tour of the park.

Ah yes, trying to find a renter took up most of my time in February and March. There were some great candidates, but also a lot of duds too. I never realized that so many people have gigantic pieces of furniture, which require castle size rooms and could not possibly fit into my cozy cabin’s living room, or even out on the spacious side deck. And talk about your oversized televisions! Does anyone have a flat screen TV that is less than 5 feet in diameter? I have no place to put such a behemoth. And I can just imagine what hammering it into one of my walls would do to the wall, nay, the entire structure of the house. So I was restricted in my search for tenants to normal sized people with normal sized furniture, who have not caught the Giant TV Virus. Thankfully, there are still some of those folks around. Shelby and Bill and Alice are my new tenants, and they will do just fine. Shelby loves to garden, and Alice, her daughter, says that she is a meticulous housekeeper. “Meticulous” was her word – that sealed the deal. The Admiral and I put new carpeting in the foyer and living room; the Admiral painted most of the house, inside and out. I made the master bathroom more accessible to disabled persons, with grab bars in the shower/bath and removal of the glass doors to allow a person to sit on the tile next to the tub and swing her/his feet into the tub. Shelby was very grateful for these changes, given that Bill has three months of rehab ahead of him before he can come to live with her, and then he’ll still need some home care. Their world was turned upside down in early February with the discovery that Bill has sarcoma, the kind that damages muscle and tissue. Once damaged, they cannot be repaired. He was unable to walk at first, but the docs have stopped the disease from progressing, and Shelby says Bill’s attitude is great. I hope our home envelops them with love and facilitates Bill’s rehabilitation. I had an immediate affinity to Shelby, who, like my mother, taught school for more than 40 years. Teachers are the salt of the earth – good ones, that is.

When not working to ready the house for the new tenants, I managed to schedule a few lunches with work buddies. About a dozen secretaries and support workers joined me for lunch at the Monterey Brewing Company in downtown Salinas. Three of them have retired since I left at the beginning of 2012. Janet, Angie and Ruth all enjoy their retirement and don’t know how they ever had time to go to work. Janet has a very tight schedule of singles tennis and water aerobics – she made a huge sacrifice to leave her water aerobics early to join us for lunch. Angie is always traveling somewhere, having just returned from San Francisco, where she could get a job tomorrow, if she wanted. Ruth just looks happy, and she is so funny. I didn’t know that she had posted a sign “Dean’s Favorite” at her work station. (Ed. Note: “Dean” is the District Attorney, and we were all his minions.) Too much! She wasn’t his favorite during the Stapler Wars with Maria, that’s for sure. Angie ran to Dean to ask him if Ruth really was his favorite. He sat silently, apparently stunned by the allegation. Ruth took him off the hook, telling him that, as a politician, he didn’t have to answer that question. Funny! It didn’t take long to find out who was sleeping with whom at the office and on the bench – galloping libidos surge throughout the criminal justice community. Not quite as bad as a police agency, but close.

Chris and Ed and Chuck took me to the Shark Tank for a big win over Toronto. Before that we ate at an Asian fusion restaurant in downtown San Jose – great food, and now I can only remember the crab puffs and the fettuccine. It’s a kick to watch and listen to Chris as she cheers on her Sharkies – “Go Paddy!” “Come on, Joe, don’t pass, shoot the puck!” I now know what it’s like to sit next to me at a Giants game. Speaking of whom, Vogelsong got blasted again yesterday in one of the last Cactus League games, and Lincecum was ripped the game before that – sounds like mid-season form. Thank God for Mad Bumgarner – 17 scoreless innings, having thrown 67 out of 97 pitches for strikes in his last outing. Scutaro’s back is in pain more days than not, so second base is a toss-up. Posey’s getting back into MVP shape, and the Panda, well, losing 40 pounds “reduced” him to 240 on his 5 foot, 11 inch frame. He carries this weight better than most fat men, but he’s still fat. Can’t we limit his diet to bamboo shoots for the next month? Are you following the spring training games, or are you caught up in the NCAA hoops tournament? March mediocrity, so far. Oh sure, a couple of close games – bye bye, Wichita State; so long, Syracuse and UNC. Close, but no trophy this year. Virginia and Michigan State could change the tempo a bit. Please, if there is a God outside of Florida, don’t let the Gators win this year. Any team but the Gators. I’m sure all their tattoos are very religious and meaningful, but just once, I would like a team without etchings up and down their arms to win the Big One. Yes, there is a Website – “Tattoos of Florida Basketball Players – Image Results.” Yuck.

Rain poured down on Slow Motion in the night, and we just got another cloud letting. I say this to show my empathy with my brother and sister in law in Pocono Pines, as they expect freezing rain today. Ours was not frozen. And I understand that the remaining snow on the ground around their house is gray. This is not a pretty time of year in the colder climes. The pristine white powdery stuff has turned to gritty, sooty roadside stacks of ice, waiting for that warm day to melt them so the spring flooding can begin.

Today is Tai Chi Graduation Day. Having missed the first three weeks of classes and then the last 5 weeks of classes, I am not ready to graduate with my class. However, the instructors humor me and try to hide me in a middle row between the students who have actually learned all 108 moves and can do them with little prompting. I’m pretty good at “grab the bird tail” and “single whip” and “hands like clouds”, but those kicks and taking the tiger to the mountain, fugedaboudit. I’ll have to start over with the new class in April. Even with my limited knowledge, I love, love, love the movements and my balance has already improved. I can now stand on my right foot without falling over.

We’re waiting for the arrival of Jake and Michael – by car. They have a story to tell us about their catamaran. The Admiral believes they sold it. Jake wants to open a book store in Oregon – with me. I asked her to consider Monterey County as a perfect location for book-a-philes, but she’s set on Oregon, where she and Michael bought a house on the seacoast. They have been sailing all their lives, since their adult children were very young. That’s at least 40 years. Last year they headed for the Panama Canal, only to be waylaid by pirates dressed up as Mexican officials who boarded their catamaran on a daily basis at Isla de las Mujeres to exact a fine a day for some ephemeral infraction. It was too much corruption for them – for anybody – and they turned away from Mexico and returned to the Keys to spend last winter. This year they hunkered down in North Myrtle Beach at Lightkeepers Marina, where the dock master is just about the most fascinating person in the world. I wrote about him before – CIA, DEA, old South Carolina plantation family, 120 countries, 6 wonders of the world, raconteur extraordinaire.

Meanwhile, we’re going to be the last transient boat standing – er, floating – at the Marina del Mar marina in Key Largo. Even Glenn and Linda, the stalwarts from Atlantic City, have left and taken their boat to Stuart to get it out of the water for the months they spend at their home on the Jersey Shore. Andi and Tom are leaving soon. Then it’s us and the dive boats, snorkeling catamarans, the Princess 2 glass-bottomed boat and the African Queen. We’ve got barnacles on the propellers, according to the diver who cleaned the boat bottom. He doesn’t do barnacles. Nobody does them when the boat is in the water. We’ll be heading north about mid-April, after Sonja visits and our neighbor, Brenda, visits. All winter we’ve had no visitors, and now, as we plan to leave, our family and friends are arriving. We’re thrilled to have them, whenever they come. It’s really fun to share Slow Motion with others. The Admiral has been working his long 12 hour days on the data base for the Rockford, Illinois nonprofit, so that he’s done when our guests arrive. I have my own selfish reasons for welcoming visitors – they always give me something to blog about.

Don’t expect daily blogs until we’re back on the ocean and the intracoastal waterway again, but I’m back! And I’m ready to share the next chapters of this transient’s life with you all. Happy Spring, wherever you are!