A Flyover Blog

I Would Really Like To Forget This...

It's taken me a few days to muster the courage to post this but in the interest of public service and the common good, I decided to do it.

A few days ago Mitch and I went to our favorite park. He bikes. I walk. That's what we do. It was hot. It's July, it's supposed to be hot. That's okay though because some genius invented light-weight quick dry clothing made just for summer workouts.

Oh, how I wish everyone wore them.

So, I'm walking happily along the paved trail observing proper trail etiquette, keeping to the right side of the path. Occasionally I heard "ding ding" or "on your left" as bikers passed me, which is proper trail etiquette for bikers.

I had gone about a mile when I heard a bike approaching behind me. It wasn't a well-made bike; you can always tell because bikes from big box stores sound like they're gonna fly apart after you've ridden them ten miles. As it sailed past me all I could do was stare... kinda like people do when they pass a car accident.

The rider was a woman.

A huge woman.

Wearing a day-glow orange bathing suit.

I. Kid. You. Not.

She bounced and jiggled down the trail at an alarming speed.

Now, I have clearly established early on in this blog that I am not petite - light-years from it - but I know my wardrobe limitations. This woman clearly did not. I was so shocked by the sight of her - that tiny bit of orange spandex straining to contain 150 pounds more than it was meant to hold - that I veered off the trail into the weeds. I'm afraid that mental image will stick with me for years. I'll probably need therapy.

As I walked another tenth of a mile wondering how she got the suit on in the first place, and then why she thought it was okay to leave the house looking like that, another bike passed me. This one was traveling molasses-in-winter slow. It was ridden by a huge man who was laboring to pedal up the tiny grade we were on. He was wearing street clothes, white socks and loafers.  His shorts had managed to ride down in back, clear down to the bicycle seat, exposing - you guessed it - a big sweaty smile.

I physically recoiled. Game over. No amount of pristine flora and fauna was going to salvage this walk. My gross-out meter in overload, I turned around and headed back to the car.

My Indigo Bunting Story

In my Thursday Thirteen post this week (below) I listed 13 birds I see regularly in my neighborhood. Number 9 on that list is the Indigo Bunting.

A century ago - when I was a teenager - I found one of these tiny birds in the alley behind our flower shop. It had been injured; his wing was broken and the little thing could hardly stand up.

I scooped it up, put it in a cardboard box and took it home that evening.  That was in the days before the internet, so I called the conservation department for instructions. They weren't very encouraging, it being a wild bird and all, but I decided to try to nurse it back to health.

I taped the good wing to it's side with some cloth first aid tape, then folded the broken wing into the same position. To hold it in place, I wrapped a piece of cloth tape around his whole body; he could walk but his wings were immobile.

Once the first aid was done, I put him in a cage in a quiet room with a window. I filled it with fresh grass, bugs, seeds and a few worms.  I really didn't expect him to live more than a day or two but, you know, the little thing thrived!  I cared for him 6 weeks, which was how long the conservation agent said it would take the wing to heal.

At the end of that time, I put a little baby oil on the tape to loosen it, then I carefully snipped it with scissors into small pieces so I didn't have to pull it off at once. Mind you, Indigo Buntings are only 5 inches long.  It took a good half hour to get all the tape off that bird, but he was very patient. Once free, he flew around our family room then returned to me and lit on my hand. The wing worked!

I took him outside and set him free. He flew in circles around our house and perched in an old apple tree next door.  That little Bunting stayed all summer. The next spring, a pair of Indigo Buntings made a nest in that tree and raised baby buntings. Now, every time I see one of these gorgeous little birds I think of my first and only wild bird rescue...

And that's my Indigo Bunting story.

The House On Ford Street - Part 3

(I've been sharing true stories about a house we once rented on Ford Street.  Scroll down to read the previous 2 posts.)

Monkeys.  That's where we left off.  One pretty spring day, a few months after we moved in, I was in the laundry room, when I heard footsteps outside.  It sounded like someone was running on the deck; it lined one end of the house and wrapped around the back.  I immediately thought of my neighbor's small grandkids. She watched them every afternoon. I assumed they'd strayed from her yard over to my house, so I left my basket of laundry and stepped out onto the mud porch to check on them.  The Ford Street house had a small mud porch with a wooden plank door that didn't have a knob, similar to an old outhouse door.

I quietly peeked outside through one of the wide cracks between the planks... and saw a round red-rimmed eye peering back at me.  Snow monkey.  I screamed.  The monkey screamed.  I ran inside and slammed the laundry room door.  Now, I know that was not the best reaction I could have had, but hey, if you go outside expecting to see a happy child playing, a red-faced monkey is a bit of a jolt. Cut me some slack; it was my first encounter with a primate! Outside, I heard LOTS more feet running across the deck.  There wasn't one monkey, there was an entire troop.

I quickly locked every door in the house, shut our 2 little dogs in the bathroom, and tried to convince the primates that the house was empty. Quiet. Boring.  I heard them trying to open the front door.  I heard them running across the roof. I peeked into the living room and saw two of them peering through the big picture window. They were looking for me. 

I called Mitch, who was at work, and quietly told him what was happening.  Then I slipped into the kitchen and grabbed the best weapon I could find - my meat tenderizing mallet - just in case they got inside the house.

Mitch was there in 5 minutes, and let me tell you, there was nothing quiet about his arrival.  We owned an old full-sized Jeep Cherokee at the time - the toughest vehicle we ever had - and the thing absolutely roared when you floored it.  Mitch did, and laid on the horn all the way up Ford Street.  The monkeys scattered, screeching at the Jeep as they ran, and scrambled up and over the fence back into the animal park. 

The police arrived a couple of minutes later. (Our east coast neighbor just happened to look out the window, saw my house was under siege and called the police. As soon as the monkeys left, he ran right over to check on me.)  We were told there had been a few reports of monkeys challenging park visitors, and the owners were trying to get them rounded up and back under control.  Officially, the officer couldn't tell us to defend ourselves with lethal force - if and when the monkeys showed up again - because we lived inside the city.  But the city limits ended just a few short feet away from our house...  'Nuff said.

Mitch is fearless around animals; he was raised with dogs and guns and hunting. That's a good skill set to have if you live next to a wild animal park. (His dad used to hunt bears and wild boars, for pete's sake!) So, that weekend, I overcame my squeamishness around guns and got my first lesson in firearms safety.  Once I learned how to use a gun - by the way, I am a very good shot with a .357 - the monkeys didn't scare me nearly as much.

Not all of our monkey encounters were frightening. I'll share a funny story next time. Stay tuned...

The House On Ford Street - Part 2

In my last post, I began telling you about the house we once rented on Ford Street.  At the end of that post I told you we had some very bad neighbors.  That's right - we had monkeys for neighbors.  Lots and lots of them.

I'm not talking about those sweet thumb-sucking, diaper wearing babies that appear on Letterman and Leno clutching their blankie and a favorite stuffed toy.  I'm talking about fully grown, big, bad primates that travel in troops, show no fear, and are capable of ripping your arm off and beating you to death with it.

There were several species of primates in the park. The scariest were the snow monkeys (pictured here) and the baboons.  The mental midgets who owned the wild animal park next door, had the brilliant idea to create "an experience" - put the visitors in a maze of walk-through caged trails and let the animals roam free around them.  Bad idea. The free roaming primates soon discovered it was big monkey fun to climb on top the covered walk ways and throw poop on the tourists.  When that got boring, they began peeing on them, too.  Of course, the tourists began to scream and ran back to their cars, the monkeys in hot pursuit.  The monkeys learned that humans were afraid of them... and that was not good.

The second fatal flaw in the park owners' plan was animal containment.  To keep the animals inside, they erected a 10 foot chainlink fence around the whole park, and cut down any trees that were within 15 feet or so of it.  Problem: Trees grow.  Monkeys climb trees.  Monkeys jump.  It's not hard to figure out what happened.  Soon, there were monkey sitings all over Tiny Tourist Town.  They were seen at the lakefront campground downtown, dumpster-diving behind restaurants, sitting in music show parking lots.

Of course, the authorites were called.  The human society wouldn't have anything to do with them because they were not domestic animals.  The conservation department wouldn't touch them because they were not indigenous creatures. The park owners were incompetent. So, nobody did a thing and the monkeys roamed free.  Made life interesting.

More about our personal monkey encounters in my next post.

The House On Ford Street - Part 1

I thought I'd start the week with another story from my real life.  This week I'll be telling you a little about the unusual house we rented on Ford Street.

Mitch and I had been married about 6 months, when a man from church asked us to do him a favor.  He owned a house on the west side of Tiny Tourist Town. In fact, it was the very last house inside the city limits on the west side, and that was the problem.  The woman living in that house had been evicted by the city because - are you ready? - she was raising 6 lions and a tiger in the house. (I'll pause now while that sinks in.)

Most of the cats were still cubs of various sizes. She'd load them up in the car, drive to Wal-Mart and charge tourists to pet them. She thought they made a wonderful tourist attraction - until they grew large enough to eat the tourists; then, of course, they'd go to a zoo or something. I did not know the woman who raised the cats, but apparently she hadn't thought through her business plan very well.

This house was about a thousand square feet larger than the 1 bedroom duplex we were living in, so we drove over to see it.  The location was odd - one block off "the tourist strip", right behind Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum. It was also directly under the flight path for the sighteeing helicopter (but we didn't find that out until Spring.)

The house was a 1960's ranch, on about a half acre that backed up to the woods. There was one house next door, and one across the drive. On the other side of the house was a 10 foot chain link fence - the outer parameter for a now-defunct wild animal park.  You heard me - Wild. Animal. Park. Somewhere between the house and the fence was the city limit. (See, this is why Planning and Zoning is important; this county doesn't have it.)

When we pulled into the drive, 2 peacocks walked over to greet us. That was a nice surprise. Then we went inside; that surprise wasn't so nice.  I'm sure most of you pet owners have encountered an accident or two in your lifetime. I don't care how "not housebroken" your pet is, you cannot imagine the mess 7 wild cats can make. And talk about smell!  The older cats were kept in the 2 bedrooms.  The windows had been boarded up so they couldn't push out the glass and escape.  The walls were marred by huge scratch marks that absolutely ruined the drywall.

I was running out the door when the owner showed up. He said he'd pay to have the place completely renovated (which he was going to have to do anyway) and offered us a deep discount to move in and oversee the work. We decided to do it. Over the next week, the carpets were replaced, the drywall repaired and then we repainted the whole house. We moved in Christmas week, 1990. I went to the dime store on Christmas Eve, bought a tiny table top tree, sat it on some unpacked boxes and decorated it. That was our Christmas tree that year.

We had two great neighbors, that I truly miss.  The elderly couple that lived beside us supplemented their retirement by playing Mr. and Mrs. Santa Clause - and they certainly looked the part!  The couple that lived in the large house across the drive were from the East Coast.  They retired in Tiny Tourist Town - why, I don't know - but they tried their darnedest to bring culture to Ford Street. It was a losing battle.

Our other neighbors - the wild ones - were mostly quiet, well-behaved, and stayed on their side of the fence.  Some of the park's residents however, did NOT stay on their side of the fence, and became a constant threat.  We had several encounters with them in the 4 years we lived on Ford Street. More about our unwelcome neighbors in my next "Real Live Story Vault" post.

I'll bet you can't guess what they were...

Are You Guys Okay?

After my last post, I received several nice emails and a few phone calls asking how our medical tests turned out.  Thanks for caring!  Overall, the results were good.  My iron level dropped a bit.  I fell off my regimen the last 6 weeks or so.  That's an easy fix.

Mitch's EKG was great, but his blood pressure is a little high. No surprise there, not after all he's been through in the past few weeks. Doc was not concerned.  Our cholesteral numbers were pretty darned good; we test again in 6 months.

So, while I was scheduling our August appointment the nurse said, "Remember, you fast before this test."

"We do?" I said. 

"Yeah, just like you did this time."

"Uh-oh," I said.  See, our appointment was mid-afternoon, and I suggested we get blood work done - I didn't think we'd actually do it all right on the spot.

"What did you eat?" she said. 

"Let's see, I had a bagel and some smoked cheese."

She began to chuckle.

"Mitch grabbed a Sausage McGriddle on his way into work that morning.  And the night before we went to Richardson's (gourmet candy shop) and bought a box of chocolates for Valentine's Day. We ate some of those... it was a holiday." 

She repeated every word I said to the office staff; I could hear them howling with laughter.

"All things considered," she said, "your numbers are outstanding.  We'll see you in August."

Real Life Story #1: My Nurse

So, in my last post, I decided to share some of my odd "real life" moments on this blog.  I waffled a little this morning - I'm still plagued by that little voice that screams, "what will they think?!" - but what the heck, here goes.  I'll begin with a recent story; it happened last week.

Many of you know that Mitch and I went to see our doctor on Valentine's Day.  I was 6 weeks overdue for my iron check and we've both been run down since his dad passed away in December. So, I decided a check up was in order.

We visited with our doc.  He's a big guy, very sweet, likes to trout fish.  He ordered blood panels for both of us and an EKG for Mitch, (his dad died of a heart attack but was in perfect health.)  So, the nurse comes in and starts hooking Mitch up to the EKG machine.  She is a very nice woman, about my age, and taller than either Mitch or me.  I'm making small talk, just to keep Mitch's tension level down.

I'm in the habit of asking people how they ended up in the line of work they're in.  As a writer, I'm always looking for a new dimension to add to a character, and sometimes you hear interesting things.  So, she told us about her early days as an ambulance attendant for a large rural county.  After that she became an EMT.  Mitch was an EMT on a coal mine rescue crew when he was very young, so they had something in common.

The EKG was done by then and we moved on to blood work.  Mitch was first. 

After a few years, the nurse got burned out in the medical profession and went to work in commercial agriculture. 

"What kind of crops did you raise?" I said.

"We didn't raise crops; we raised hogs." Then she told us about the joys of raising little piglets.   

My turn. I hopped up on the table and rolled up my sleeve.

So she said, "We didn't 'live breed', but occasionally I did have to collect semen specimens."

Without thinking, I blurted, "How do you ( --) a hog? Talk dirty? Blow in its ear?"  Okay, if you're ever having blood drawn, DO NOT say this to the person who is trying to find your vein. Not smart.

After she stopped laughing, she told me how it's done - in WAY more detail than I ever wanted.  I will not pass this information on to you - I haven't eaten bacon in a week.

All you need to know is, it does not involve dirty magazines... or Barry White's greatest hits. 

File this one under "Medical Moments."

DK the Storyteller

For as long as I can remember, I've had a little obsesive/compulsive editor living in my head that says, "Why can't you be normal, DK? This story is just out there.  People will never believe it... or they'll doubt your sanity." 

Over the years I have tried to appear like everyone else.  But the fact is, I don't feel like everyone else.  I grew up in an odd little tourist town hundreds of miles away from my family, I had a poor childhood (in nearly every sense of the word), worked since I was 13, had several careers, married late (31), don't have kids, hyperventilate at baby showers, and prefer the company of my dogs to most people. 

I am empathic. I read crowds and individuals easily.  Relax.  I'm no psychic, I simply learned to really observe people at a very early age.  It helps when you're dealing with the public.  People tell me things.  Complete strangers.  Most people say I'm warm and approachable.  Folks I'm closest to say I'm aloof and intimidating.  Go figure.

I have stories - hundreds of them - about my life in Tiny Tourist Town.  I rarely share them because, frankly, some of them are bizarre.  Most of them are funny.  None of them fall within the realm of "normal." 

I've been blogging for six months now.  I love it.  I've met a lot of people whose backgrounds are just as twisted as mine - (that's a compliment!) - so I've decided it's time to open the old Real Life Story Vault and share some moments from my life with you.

I think the easiest way to do this is to give each week a little theme.  That'll keep me in the neighborhood of a topic, anyway.  Of course, if I see my visitor stats drop off sharply, I'll know it's a failure... and then I'll delete those posts and go back to pretending I'm "normal" again.

I'll post my first story tomorrow.  Can't wait...

February 15th

Ah, the day AFTER Valentine's Day - known as Loser's Day in the florist trade.  Some of you know that I was a florist for many years.  This is the day when all the guys that screwed up royally on Valentine's Day rush in to buy large bouquets of roses in the hope of salvaging their relationships.  Oh, the stories I could tell you...

Okay, here's one.   Many years ago, a guy swaggered into our shop and asked for a dozen roses. He had an attitude.  I said, "She's mad at you, right?"

"Yeah," he said.  "We had a date last night, but I went to friend's house and played cards instead.  This should get me out of hot water."

I put the roses back in the case and tore up his ticket. "You can't have the roses," I said.

"What? Why not?" he said, truly confused.

"Because, in a weak moment she might take you back and I don't want to be responsible for that.  You're an idiot. You don't deserve a girlfriend." 

He blinked, like I'd slapped him in the face - which, verbally, I had.  "What do you think I should do?" he stammered, all traces of attitude gone now.

"Fall on your knees and beg her forgiveness, then get yourself to a therapist or a counselor or have a long talk with an old married man, and find out how you're supposed to treat a woman!"

He carefully backed out the door and I assumed I'd lost a customer for life.  At that moment, I didn't care.  Florists can be quite cranky after a major holiday; they're sleep deprived and exhausted. 

One year later - right before Valentine's Day - I got a phone call.  It was this man's girlfriend.  She called to thank me for what I said to him that day.  He did everything I told him!  Long story short - they eloped and were happily married... all because of my blunt advice. 

I don't know where they are today but I hope they're still happy.

Countdown To Love

The moldy old photo at right is a gentle reminder that Valentine's Day is just 9 days off.  That's the old florist in me talking.  Valentine's Day is the most stressful of all the holidays in the whole calendar year - not for women... for MEN. 

Every year a man's current relationship - and future happiness - rides on this single flower selection.  Never mind the fact that February is the worst month to buy fresh cut flowers.  Supplies of all things red have been tapped out by Christmas and the Rose Parade.

And there is nothing more pathetic than watching a shop full of men sweat bullets as they labor to come up with the perfect message to write on the enclosure card.  It's kinda like going to Pet's Mart on Saturday adoption day.  Anyway, once they get the card right and wince at the market price a dozen roses fetches, they still aren't out of the woods. A number of things can still derail their best intentions:

• did the flowers get there on time?
• were they pretty enough?
• were they more spectacular than their co-worker's flowers?
• and God help the poor guy whose Valentine is PMSing!

This year, ladies, help your hubby or boyfriend out.  If you have your heart set on something special - TELL HIM.  He is not a mind reader.  Don't expect him to create a perfect romantic evening all by himself... probably ain't gonna happen.  Take an old florist's advice:

Lower your expectations, ignore all the marketing hype, and have fun!