Pigeon Forge - Another Apology

I've been away on vacation, but in my absence a few posts that I had written before I left came out a bit screwy. The previous of which "Polar Bear Opposites" was sabotaged and some of the text did not appear. I blame the NSA but that's what I get for showing my political leanings.

It is fixed now.

Anyway. I'm back and will post some Smokey Mountain spelunking, salamandering and "bear frightening baby" photos over the next few days, but to lighten the mood and assure I have a post that does not mention hurricanes - here's a few photos of our final adventure from Pigeon Forge, TN. (Described in a travel guide as such -"If this town were a haircut - it would be a mullet")

MaLe was too scared to race on the 4 story go-kart track and Ash "had to hold the baby", so Kate humored me and raced around the track of doom. When in Pigeon Forge do as the tattooed, tube-topped, chain-smoking teenage locals do.

Backup

My Computer crashed. (Did I capitalize computer or did it? That concerns me) I'm now in the process of doing what I do every time I panic and worry about losing everything stored in this mysterious little box - I backup.

I'm basically copying files to an 80 GB backup hardrive and I'm currently watching it scan through 37 years of photos. It's freaking me out. The files are flying by and the computer is counting down. "214 minutes remaining". A file from a trip out to Montana just zipped by. That was almost 7 years ago? The Grand Canyon from 2002. The computer shuffles through several dozen files from the Vermont Butterfly Survey in Manchester with Kent in 2003 and the numbered files topple like dominoes. Here comes 2004 and the 2 trips to see Ma-Le in Ecuador. 1200 photos and they rocket past so fast. 2005 - new pictures of baby Peyton, my sister Mandy's wedding, Ash & Kate's wedding, Christmas with the family at Disney and the last picture of my mother - the moment is gone. "42 minutes remaining". The blur and pain of 2006 tears by with digitized moments that seem too quickly forgotten. I did that? Lost in a fog of coping. "19 minutes remaining". I'm watching the last of the photos and my mind hears the sound of driving on the rumble strip that separates the highway from the side of the road. DSCN3384, DSCN3385, DSCN3386 - no time to change the file name. The moment is here and gone. "2 minutes remaining". Does my computer know something I don't?

When I was a kid days seemed endless - now they go by too quickly. I've been back in Florida for a year now. It's been a great year for the most part but I can't help feeling like I'm driving downhill in a fog sometimes. Gotta keep going forward. Have to enjoy every bit of every day that I can. I never know when the ground is going to drop out under me. I can look back - I just can't backup. "finished"

Code Orange: Tales of Captain Kritcher

I loathe flying. I dislike the takeoff. I dislike the turbulence. Not fond of the baggage retrieval. Despise the landing. The only good think about flying is I get to read books which I seem incapable of doing outside of this transportation process.

I don't mind the security at airports. It's absolutely necessary for the most part. But one I resent is the "random checks" they do when heading for your gate. As I traipsed through Southwest International Airport I was reminded repeatedly that we were in a "Code Orange". They never said what that means or why we were in it. Just "be on alert". And so I was, but if they had elevated the security alert to "Code Bananas" while I was there I might have freaked. As I passed through the security check point I was very politely asked to step aside so they could conduct a "random search" of me. They explained the process and despite being asked to do this the last three times I have flown, I acquiesced to what I deem a slightly humiliating pat down. They said it was my cargo shorts that triggered the random search, which makes it not so random. I guarantee it's my facial hair. All terrorists have facial hair right? That's what I get for looking "jungly". I was thanked and sent on my way.

On the plane I was lucky enough to sit next to a teenage boy who sneezed on me as he slept. Gross, but the main trouble with flying for me now is that I met Captain Kritcher recently, father of friend Kate and during that visit I was fortunate/unfortunate enough to hear the tales of a veteran commercial airline pilot. I put my trust in pilots. You have no choice but to have faith, but after talking with the 30+ year captain I have a greater appreciation for what they must endure flying to different destinations. Crosswinds, tailwinds, short runways, altitude, auroras, alcohol levels (not his), terrorism, pretzel depletion and on and on. So as we approached Logan Airport and the landing gear came down and then was retracted and then came down again I couldn't help but think of the Tales of Captain Kritcher and what our captain was steering us through right then. I fear few things, but my blood was flowing at that moment. Apparently the landing gear was momentarily stuck. It was an ugly landing, but any landing you walk away from is a good one.

From Fort Myers to Boston I started and finished The Last Pick: The Boston Marathon Race Director's Road to Success co-authored by Linda Fechter (mom of VINS campers). It was a great book about endurance runner David J. McGillivray who ran from Oregon to Boston in 80 days. I can't believe this isn't a movie yet!

Arriving in Boston, the PA passively reminded travelers that we were in a Code Lobster. All things normal.

Waterlogged: The Magic Toilet

One of the differences between Vermont and Florida other than the sun, the heat, the traffic, the development, the flat land, the beaches, the alligators and Walgreens on every corner is the fact you have to pay for water. Pardon my naivete if anyone pays for water in Vermont. I never did in the 10 years I lived there...

I'm fine with it. I think we should pay more for it. I think there will be a day when we have wars over fresh water as we already have annual droughts and severe water restrictions. But I figure the more people have to pay for it, the more likely they will conserve it.

• You can turn the water off when you brush your teeth
• You can wash the dishes by hand instead of running the dishwasher
• You can get in the shower and then turn the water on. (Don't try this in Vermont. or with clothes on)
• You can do as Ash & Kate do and not flush the toilet every time - "If it's yellow, let it mellow". Why flush three gallons every time you pee? Be grateful the famous credo of native Montanans has not left the outhouse state - "If it's brown, keep it around."

I've taken to the Mellow Yellow idea and when I moved here in January, I noticed that I had a magic toilet. Pee in it and it disappears after a few minutes. Magic! I tightened all of the valves. Checked for leaks. All was well. My water bill seemed normal until the second bill when the consumption had jumped from 40 gallons a day to 70! 40 seemed outrageous. I blamed my sister for a few of those gallons from when she came to visit (and I still do so, especially since she no longer reads the blog due to her impending childbirth. What is up with pregnant women....can't go to the Everglades at night, can't read my blog). So I checked with maintenance who said - no leak...I'm apparently just wasting water. So when the next bill arrived at it was 84 gallons a day I said no way. Come check the magic toilet again.

They came out again and apparently had not noticed the leaky flap. The maintenance guy told me most apartments have the faulty flap. No big deal. It's a huge deal! I made him change it and asked how many other apartments needed to be changed.

The landlords were still skeptical and had me wait 2 more months to see how the water bill would change. What do you know, I'm back down to 42 gallons a day. They made maintenance change hundreds of toilet flaps.

By my crude calculations, my apartment was responsible for the waste of 9600 gallons of water in 4 months time. If 200 people had the same issue (and there are 2000 people in this complex), than that is 1,920,000 gallons of water wasted during one of Florida's worst droughts. I can't say they would not have fixed the issue if I had not complained, but I'd like to think a little credit can be given to the magic toilet.

The Anteater: A Hallucination Agreed Upon

If a lie agreed upon becomes the truth, than a shared hallucination must be reality. I know what I saw. It was 1 am. It was the middle of the Everglades on the famous Loop Road and Ash and I both saw a 5-foot, arch-bodied anteater scamper across the dirt road, illuminated only by the bouncing headlights of the truck as we raced down the road towards it.

Let me back up here. Ash is a Terrestrial Ecologist, on vacation from frog research in Maryland. I don't have a current photo, which is not true, so I had to go back to this picture from December 31st. Ash is the Giant Mr. T Smurf pictured with wife and Smurfette Kate, also on vacation. He's certainly qualified to verify our late-night and completely sober sighting.

The previous day we had an Everglades appetizer adventure; a quick trip into the National Park, stopping at the famous fruit stand "Robert is Here" for Key Lime and Guanaba Shakes and an up close Emu experience. Hardly worth it!

The plan had been to explore a bit more, but a nasty lightning storm rolled across the sawgrass prairie,

truncating our trip, but not before seeing a few sights including this gator, resting peacefully within biting range on the Anhinga Trail.

I was as close as it would appear, but took a cell call seconds later and did not hear someone yell "it's moving". Ash ran and jumped into his pregnant wife's arms just out of the picture. The gator moved all of 2 inches and I was not eaten.

The next evening, the plan was to venture out to the Loop Road with Ash, Kate and family. But they went to see Harry Potter and the Chamber of Commerce first...and then we would go after that. But Kate's father Larry made a fantastic antipasto,

so we would eat and go after that. But someone brought an all-berry pie and by the time food was consumed, it was very late. But if we had not gone, we would have always wondered what we had missed.

Attrition plagued our crew and eventually just Ash and I headed out at 12 am. Pregnancy gets Kate off the hook....

As far as wildlife goes, sightings were slim, but the chorus of frogs, including Bull Frogs, Pig Frogs, Barking Tree Frogs, Green Tree Frogs, Narrow-mouthed Toads, Cricket Frogs and Chorus Frogs was like window shopping for the blind with every patch of grass or cypress revealing a new song from a new species. We saw maybe 5 frogs but heard thousands.

As we bounced down the remote dirt road, our eyes growing weary and desperately needing sleep, we both noticed something in the headlights hundreds of feet ahead. Dark, long, slender and arch-backed, it scrambled from the cypress, onto the road and slowed as it slunk into the grass on the other side. As we approached, both of us had the initial, nonsensical, farout thought....Anteater!

But it was an alligator. Standing up high on 4 legs, back arched, and in a hurry to avoid our intrusion. Funny what lack of sleep does. Odd we both considered an animal found thousands of miles away.

It may not have been an anteater, but to see a fast moving alligator out in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night was well worth being worn out the next morning. Thanks Ash and Kate for another fun adventure.

I Paid For a $360 Haircut

Truth be told I haven't paid to have my haircut in 11 years, but when you have a long-haired coon cat in Florida, you don't have much choice but to go Poodle-cut on the fluffy beast.

General Tso is 6 1/2 years old. (Poor thing was born on 9/11/2000. I don't think he understands).

He was named after the delicious Chinese dish because Bill, my mom and I had just been to the China Buffet and my mom had convinced me I needed another cat. We were not too sure where in Rutland, Vermont to find a cat, so she asked the waitress who either didn't understand the question or was being defensive. After that, naming him General Tso was a no-brainer.

He sheds his fur in massive quantities this time every year and if I'm not quick to brush it out it forms dense mats of fur that tugs at his skin. It can't be pleasant. I tried at first to shave him. I can shave my own head so how hard can it be to shave an animal. With claws. and teeth. He's a sweet cat, but that was not going to happen. He was shaved for the first time in 2005, much to the dismay of cat #2, Ticonderoga who responded to his return home by hissing at him and chasing him around. As if looking like a poodle were not bad enough.

I decided to go with a preemptive shave last year and brought him in before the mats became too painful. The nice vets at Green Mountain vet were warned that he's a sweet cat in a bad mood. They said not to worry. No cat could be as bad as Missy and pointed to a picture on the wall of a gnarled, one-fanged, mangy beast that looked as if it had been peeled off the road. I knew he was in good hands.

When I returned, the vet began laughing, handed me a pair of gloves that workers at nuclear power plants use to handle plutonium and suggested I would have to handle the Tasmanian Devil in Vet Block #481516. It took a lasso, a squirt gun and a burlap sack, but I was able to extract the angry monster from his temporary lair. Missy's picture had been removed, there was a new vet devil champion. He hissed and growled all the way home and was again not greeted as the liberator that many thought he would be. Oh wait that's another story.

Since I've moved from Vermont to Florida, this would be his first trip to the vet down here. He was fairly calm on the trip over. He asked at one point "what's up with coconuts?" which I took to be merely an existential question and not a botanical inquiry.

I warned his new vet that he's a cuddly, lovable cat but gets medieval when he hears the clippers. She jotted that advice down, giggled when I gave his name and told me to pick him up after 4 pm.

Apparently the vet forgot to tell her assistant about the clippers. Before Tso was knocked out he turned them on and the cat expressed his own anal glands in the poor assistant's general direction. I paid for it in the end.

The shave only cost $50. And that was all I was bringing him in for anyway. But somehow he got his teeth cleaned, 2 vaccines, blood drawn and who knows what else.

In the end, it all worked out well. Tso got the Poodle Bob - which is a new style for him. If I had thought about it I would have gone with the Mr. T Mohawk in honor of Ash (pictured below being shaved by wife Kate on New Year's...a story for another day)

Maybe next year. His return elicited a few hisses and one camel spit from Ti. I'm not sure what that material was she spit, but it had some distance on it.

You gotta love this cat. And aren't pets supposed to look like their owners anyway?
Look at that tail!