No Questions Asked

That was the rule in our house.

My mother repeated it all the time. “No matter when or where or who you’re with. Anytime….even at 3 AM….it doesn’t matter. If you call, I’ll be there. No questions asked.”

I listened….the way kids do, with the roll of my eyes, and nodded. “Okaaaay……I GET it.”

I didn’t really have any reason to take her up on it.

I was pretty resourceful and independent.

Until……..

One evening I was out with an old boyfriend.

I hadn’t seen him in a while.

When he picked me up he drove like a maniac. Speeding around the single lane, curving cliff roads.

He scared me to death.

And to top it off when we got to the ‘party’ we were supposed to be going to, the house was empty.

I got mad.

“Take me home!” I demanded.

He just laughed. “If you want to go home,” he said, “You know the way!”

Then he did a few ‘lines’ and fell asleep.

I waited for him to sober up and take me home………finally I decided it was time to take my mother up on her oft repeated offer.

Now, remember, this was in the days before cell phones. As a matter of fact this was in the days of rotary phones!

Have you ever tried to quietly dial a rotary phone? Quickly?

It isn’t possible.

Here’s the funny part.

I didn’t want to wait in the house in case my ‘friend’ woke up. So I left the house and started walking home. But then I thought if he woke up and couldn’t find me he’d come looking for me. So I ducked behind some bushes.

Every car that went by I was paranoid it was him coming after me!

So here I was, crouching in some stranger’s yard, afraid that they might call the cops on me, thinking I was a prowler. Scared that my ‘friend’ might find me and do….who knows what….in the middle of the night.

I was beginning to think I had gotten myself into something that might not end well for the first time, when

 S-l-o-w-l-y

down the road came a car and I hear a voice whispering…..”ROBIN! ROBIN!”

It was my mother to the rescue!

I ran to the car and got in; she looked me up and down and asked, “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. Just scared”

And we went home.

True to her word she never asked me another question about it.

Not about what happened, or why I was hiding behind some random bushes.

Nothing.

Not a word. 

Throwback Thursday

My father was on his high school's debate team.

I was never terribly impressed with this knowledge until I came across these clippings.

Eleven years old!

Okay, so now I’m impressed!  

My Boys

Went fishing..........

 And Husband used his new toy, a GoPro camera for these photos. 

But apparently there's a learning curve, as evidenced by this......

I couldn't stop laughing when I saw this shot!!!!!!

Just a Doodle on a Tuesday....

I see 'creatures' everywhere. This was inspired by a photo of a sea urchin (I think) in a tide pool taken by and posted on Alisa Burke's blog.

Punny Monday

Two antennas met on a roof, fell in love and got married. The ceremony wasn't much, but the reception was excellent.

ba-dum-tsh!

Almost As Clever As Mrs. Cox

My father was clever too.

(Almost as clever as Mrs. Cox!)

He used to invent games to keep us occupied.

He would tell us he had hidden 50 nickels outside, around the yard, and any/all you found you could keep.

But you couldn’t come back inside until you found all fifty of them.

It was a fun game.

I found enough nickels to keep myself well supplied with goodies from the ice cream man!

What I didn’t know, until years later when I was an adult, was…….

He had only hidden  49 nickels!

It was his way of getting us out of the house so he and my mother could ‘canoodle’!

Throwback Thursday

Settle in for the next few weeks……my father’s scrapbook is filled with clippings…....

all about him! LOL

I have several theories about this:

          ·         The town was so small this really was ‘news’.

                  ·         The town was so small there wasn’t really anything else to fill the paper with.

                  ·         He had a great press agent.

      I think he came to believe he really was ‘all that’ (my grandmother had A LOT to do with this idea, he being the only son.)     

First prize for best conversation! (and recitation....he loved to hear himself talk! LOL)

Delusions of Grandeur

I have delusions of grandeur.

I mean HUGE, MASSIVE, ENORMOUS, COLOSSAL, MAMMOTH………well, you get the idea.

I come up with these scathingly brilliant ideas.

Like; “Hey, I’m going to get a screen capture app and record how I do what I do and share it on my blog!”

We all know how THAT went.

And as if that wasn’t bad enough, then there’s the whole learning curve.

First you have to capture what you’re doing….

Then there’s post production….editing (you can’t just upload raw video….)

Which requires ANOTHER program to learn.

My free trail of the editing program ran out and it’s too expensive to buy…….

I don’t like the free programs….. (picky me….)

I get totally overwhelmed.

Then I give up.

And so it goes………………..

New in the Shop

Stop by and have a peek! 

Punny Monday

A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse. "But why," they asked, as they moved off. "Because," he said, "I can't stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer."

I’m Overweight

Pleasingly plump………. ample…….. buxom………. chubby……….. chunky…………. corpulent………….. cuddly……… curvy……… fluffy………. full-figured………..generously proportioned………… heavy……….. oversized……… plentiful……….. plump……….. plush……….. Rubenesque………. voluptuous………. zaftig………… (I love my thesaurus!)

But I think I’ve finally come up with a logical and defendable excuse.

I do it for Husband.

Because if I was svelte I’d have to beat the men off with a stick! (LOL, I crack myself up!)

And Husband wouldn’t like that.

He’d be all worried about losing me….. (again, LOL)

So I have that slice of cake for him.

Anybody out there buying this……?

Anybody…..?

Bueller ….?

Throwback Thursday

Another item from my father's scrapbook.

Tough teacher! Four points off for a sloppy 'M'? Sheesh! 

Road Trip!!!!!!!!!!!!

It all started with a new meteorologist on the news.

This new guy kept mentioning a town I never heard of before.

This intrigued me…..

We decided to go and see what it was all about.

Turns out there is no actual ‘town’ by that name.

Just a street.

But I’ve learned not to be surprised by anything here…….

So we just kept driving and splorin’………

Florida clouds are the BEST!

Husband and I have a fondness for what we call ‘fall-downs’. 

The juxtaposition of the rusted roof and the white picket fence just tickles me!  

 The city where we live used to be a mahogany forest. They cut ALL the trees long ago. We have palm trees.  ‘Real’ trees are few and far between so seeing trees dripping with sphagnum moss is a treat!  

 I wonder who lived here? Did they have kids? Were they happy? What did they do for a living....?

I expected Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings to step onto the porch! 

Then there is the flora. I would have loved to see it when the flowers were in bloom.

Pressure Washing, Florida State Pastime

Every weekend there’s a pressure washer running somewhere in the neighborhood.

I think it must be the state recreation.

I bet if you look at our state charter it’s in there!

Happy Birthday

Wherever you are…… ♥

Monsters Lived Under My Bed

BigBrother told me monsters lived under my bed.

He said they had long, stretchy arms that could reach across rooms, around corners and down stairs.

Ready to pull you down into the dark and terrifying monster underworld!

When he realized he had gone too far and I wouldn’t go to bed….. (and in order not to have me snitch to our mother) he told me they were afraid of rock and roll music.

So to keep them from coming out from under my bed I slept with my radio on.

♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪

Throwback Thursday

Another photo from my father's scrapbook, circa 1927-ish (I'm guessing.)

Dig those knickers! 

It Feels Like Homework

I’m reading The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.

A recommendation from Carol over at Tall Tales fromKansas. 

I take her recommendations seriously. She hasn’t steered me wrong yet.

Unfortunately I didn’t realize how long it was when I downloaded it onto Tablet so I didn’t pace myself. (I only borrow books from the library; I’m too cheap to buy them.)

I got an email saying I have to return it by tomorrow and since there’s a wait list I can’t renew unless I go to the end of the line.

I have 188 pages to go!

And Tablet just beeped at me telling me his battery is low!

I haven’t felt this pressured since I was in school!

Daniel

Husband has a GPS.

He named it Daniel because the voice he chose is English. (Makes perfect sense if you know Husband…)

We occasionally make fun of Daniel.

Okay, we make fun of him all the time.

Because he calls all of the venues that are ‘drives’; as in Madison Drive….Madison Doctor!

Hysterical!

We laugh every time!

(I know, we’re twelve!)

He also has a way of pronouncing ‘boulevard’ that cracks us up too!

Our mistake is we make fun of him right to his face.

But he gets his revenge.

Every so often he takes us on a detour, just for the hell of it.

He waits until we are in an unfamiliar area, where we don’t know any better, then snakes us around in questionable neighborhoods totally ignoring the more direct route or the main roads.

One day when we were in St. Pete he had us turn into a rather seedy neighborhood.

Past yards with chained up pit bulls charging their fences as we passed.

We drove for several blocks before Daniel had us turn back onto the main drag.

There was no reason for the detour.

No road construction, no traffic jam, nothing!

As Daniel continued giving us directions I swear I could detect just a hint of a giggle in his voice! 

Funny Story………..

Husband noticed teeny, tiny ants in the house the other day.

Being the appointed ‘critter control authority’ he took out his trusty equipment and sprayed.

Here comes the funny part…..

For some inexplicable reason, the only place said ants deemed a safe zone was my desk.

Literally…………

They were using me like their own personal jungle gym.

As I was diligently trying to get some writing done (aka reading blogs and checking out Facebook) they were creeping up my arms, scrambling up my legs, tickling my neck……there was even one dancing on the rim of my glasses.

I was whacking at them like some deranged drug addict going through withdrawal.

The final straw was the one rappelling down my décolleté!

That was it!

So if there are no new posts here you know why!

I’m busy calling a professional.

Cuz I’m not going back to that desk until I know it’s been declared a Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency where no living thing can survive!