Fiberrant

In a stunning feat of CRS yesterday, I nearly forgot niece Colleen’s high school graduation party. It was a beautiful day in the country, good food, family and friends, sitting in the late afternoon sunshine. On the way home, we detoured through Montezuma near sunset.

The swamp is nearly dry. We drove by the sign near the entrance titled “Where did the water go?” but today I found this explanation (pdf link) about a national wetland drawdown experiment. A few pools are still filled, like this one, and dozens of heron (herons?) were lined up all along the canal. The mud flats are covered with small-animal tracks, though we saw none of the makers.

We may have seen an osprey, kestrel* or eagle – some large, dark bird wheeled in the sky, then dove into the mud flats, but we lost sight of it. Poor planning – no binoculars, and only a 4x optical zoom on the camera. We sighted many geese, millions of red wing blackbirds, and a couple of deer.

The purple loosestrife is much less rampant than it was in the late 20th century all over the state. One of the graduation party guests is a central NY farmer, and he told us about a program the state is testing – releasing beetles to control the loosestrife.

So, happy to have spent time in the country with birds, animals and people, we toddled home to our city house. Listening to the traffic from our deck, it felt so good to be home again.

* This kestrel-cam is located near Colleen’s grandparents’ house in Stanley, NY.

… to remind me of things I should never, ever do again.

But first, a picture of Staffan from this week’s Award Ceremony. He won a Math league award, an Achievement award for Spanish, high honor roll, and a Presidential honor certificate. He’s had a very good year. I’m so proud of him!

The thing I will never, ever do again: Get a root canal in one visit. It sounded like a great idea, compressing three or four visits into one. Save me all that extra time in the waiting room.

And the first 24 hrs was okay. I was pretty surprised, even, that I wasn’t in more pain. I should have known that there’s no escape though. By Thursday, I was having “significant discomfort”. Don’t you just love medical terminology?

Luckily, nothing has gone horribly wrong with the tooth – just an infection. I started antibiotics on Friday, and it’s getting better. Eating anything is still a bit dicey, but hey, I can stand to skip a few meals.

Another thing I won’t do again: Keep pulling weeds while I wonder, “Is this poison ivy?” Because, though I used to be immune to it, I’m not any more. And the evidence points to the affirmative on that question. How it got into my back yard, I’ll never know. Compared to the tooth, it’s nothing. And I’m not terribly affected – just a few spots on my arm and shin.

This little guy is a brown-headed cowbird, who’s found a friend in our building’s reflective glass doors. He does a dance and sings a song to his “buddy”, puffing out his chest feathers, even when people are standing a few feet away. The maintenance guy is not happy with the bird crap all over the sidewalk, but I think he’s adorable. If a bit bird-brained.

Yesterday we went gator hunting at Lake Tarpon, just a mile or two from the house. But first, because we don’t have any in Rochester (and those ads on TV look so good!) we ate lunch at Sonic. It’s an honest-to-goodness drive-in, though you can walk-in and order on the patio, too.

On to the park. Staffan was in full nature-photographer mode, and we have pictures of nearly every squirrel in Florida. And no, they don’t look any different from the squirrels up north.

There are nature trails – paved with crushed shells, or boardwalks with rails – through the whole park. It’s largely wetland, hence the boardwalks to prevent destruction of nature, as well as to protect tourists from the gators.

This bad boy was just hanging out in the green river. (these are all shots of the same gator) He wasn’t as big as he appears here – maybe five feet long.

A scenic shot of the river, the gator is in the lower right corner.

He must not have been too hungry, because these turtles were hanging out just the other side of the bridge. Do alligators eat turtles?

Fourteen slime-covered turtles. We didn’t even notice them until one slid off the log.

At last – Lake Tarpon. It’s hard to see over the cattails & stuff, but it’s out there. Lots of shore birds (again, hard to see through the brush). This heron flew up and landed almost right in front of us. There were lots of little brown duck-like creatures, many heron, and blackbirds. The little blue bird in the bush is something else – we didn’t get a good shot of him, but he was very pretty.

There was even a cardinal – not shy at all, we took these from about four feet away.

At one point, you can walk right up to the lake shore (if you don’t mind the bugs – ugh!) and stand on a little protective wall. We were looking at the birds and the lake for about ten minutes before we saw these baby gators, well hidden in the slime.

Paul spotted a bunny rabbit, calmly munching a leaf. He was really good at spotting the small game. This is not funny, because he really is very good at it.*

The whole park was a bit surreal – pine forest, with ferns and pine needles, just like the Adirondacks (except hot!). Only with palm trees.

Today the weather is not so nice – it’s thundering right now, and it’s been raining. We’d planned to go to the science museum in Tampa today, which is perfect.

* Paul was kibitzing on the blog entry – making fun of my “There was even a rabbit” and “We saw a rabbit”. Give me a break … this isn’t National Geographic! When I added this bit, he gave up in disgust and left the room.

A fairly uneventful trip … the usual (I gather) 90 min delay in NYC, but otherwise very smooth all the way through. Here we are last night, relaxing last night in the back yard, with Lisa and Adam. They have a “forever-wild” area behind the house, with Valencia orange trees (presumably left from the days when this area was an orange grove). Though it’s a bit past the end of the season, they are the tastiest, sweetest, juiciest oranges I’ve ever had.

This morning, after sleeping in til almost 8 am (!), we were startled by a pair of red-headed woodpeckers in the tree just over the fence. I wasn’t quick enough with the camera so early, before the coffee kicked in. But Paul insists I need to include a shot of me writing this post.

Today we’ll go for a boat ride to some island (I didn’t catch the name, but it has one – so it’s probably a good size, and not far away. I’m such a wimp about boats) for a picnic lunch, then back home to Meet The Parents: Adam’s mom is coming for a barbecue.

Adolescence is a drag. But it’s nothing compared with AA – Asperger’s adolescence.

Staffan has had a rough week, due to some thoughtless bullying from a friend. The usual junior high stuff, some teasing, nothing really awful. But he melted down* Wed. night at Scouts, and out poured thirteen years of catching-up on the whole social thing. He never really had friends (or cared) until this year; so there’s no foundation for how to behave, how to fight, how to make up.

The boy’s father, fortunately, is a thoughtful man: they discussed Asperger’s, looked it up on the Internet, and talked about how they can be better friends. I was a little leery about this. It’s a label, and one that can be used hurtfully. But the next day at school they made up. He told Staffan that his echolalia (my word, not his, of course) was very annoying, but that he (the other boy) shouldn’t have behaved as he did. And would Staffan please come to the Scout campout this weekend?

So, all is well in junior high again. For now. We’re off to the camp site this morning.

I didn’t knit a single stitch this week. Or spin, or even do more than pick up a swatch that was on the floor. The cat got into the bag of lambswool roving I’ve been spinning – does that count? We lost our IT guy on Monday, so I get to pick up the pieces. (The loss isn’t that awful – It only took about 10 hours to do his entire week’s work, and that includes debugging and simplifying a huge accounts-payable mess he’d made.) Long week.

* We call it a “meltdown” when he can’t stop crying, and can’t tell us why. I think the crying is due to his inability to understand, or explain, his feelings. Typically he does this when there’s a change in his schedule or expectations. We try to help him by taking him outside (if it’s a public situation) and teaching him self-soothing, such as counting or deep breathing. Some Asperger’s kids melt down with anger and violence; he is out of touch with his anger, and cries instead. Not so good for the teasing.

My Fortune Cookie told me: Better start drinking now. Get a cookie from Miss Fortune

Too late – I started last night, after a teary day. It takes me a while to figure out what’s eating me, emotionally. At the post office I finally got it: If I don’t mail these presents, maybe Lisa will come home to open them on Christmas morning.

Silly me. I couldn’t stop crying. I’m sure the postman thought I was right out of my tiny little mind.
Don’t worry, Lisa, I’m much better now. It just hit me all of a sudden that, after 25 Christmas mornings in a row, you won’t be with me this year.  Staffan suggested that I send you an Emergency Email, and you’d come home, and I could stop crying. (Please don’t, but I know you would if you could.) (And please, forgive me for your presents being late. They’ve been in the box, in my car, since Monday night but I couldn’t seem to get to the PO. They should arrive Tuesday.)
Then I got home to find a lovely plant & card from Adam – more tears. I wish he could be here, too. Cap it off with weirdness from my SIL and father, and I needed a drink. Two, in fact. What other little emotional time bombs are ticking away in my subconscious? Will they explode before Christmas? Tis the season, after all, when our carefully constructed defenses melt down under the pressure of unrealistic expectations.

On a related note…

One more shopping trip to go. I’ve been putting off buying Paul’s gift, but today is the deadline. I tried to stop yesterday, but after 30 minutes in a traffic jam outside the mall – from which I could see the EMPTY PARKING LOT – I got too pissed off to shop. WTF? Are there no traffic planners in Henrietta? They should read this, showing that a small investment in planning can save many, many gallons of gasoline (in addition to the tranquility of drivers).

For the 10 traffic signals around the mall, they’d spend less than $30,000 annually. In just 30 minutes yesterday, I spent $5 or more in gasoline. Multiply that by the 1,000 cars stuck in traffic with me, and in only 6 episodes you’ve saved a year’s planning fees. No-brainer.  Or at least, during these peak traffic times, post a human in the intersection to prevent gridlock. (Remember how cops used to direct traffic? I haven’t seen one in years, not even when a signal goes out.)

I’ll be writing to the mall management, the store owners, and the town, county & state, to explain why I didn’t spend my Christmas cash with them this year.
It’ll make me feel better, anyway.
{/rant}