Pat Made Me Tell on Myself

 

Wesley Chapel, Florida  (high 75, low 58)

Our above average temperatures have been replaced with more seasonable temperatures.  It’s down right chilly this morning at 50 degrees.  For some reason, 50 degrees always seems to feel colder here in Florida.  It’s supposed to warm up fast and it looks like it’s going to be a pretty and sunny day in the mid 70’s.

I never hesitate telling stories about dumb things other people do, but I do not post unflattering pictures of anybody. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for some of my blog friends!

What I don’t normally do is tell stories on myself.  Hey…it’s my blog, I can write or NOT write what I want to, right?

The other night our friends and neighbors, Pat and Ron came over for a campfire.  

I wasn’t going to tell this story, but Pat keeps prodding me to put it on the blog.

So here goes…..

When Pat and Ron came over, we were unfolding our chairs, and setting them up so that we could sit by the fire and chat.

When I unfolded one chair I felt something odd hit my left leg.   I looked down, and to my horror, there was a lizard stuck to my calf.   Anybody who knows me, knows I am deathly afraid of frogs and toads, and only slightly less afraid of lizards.

As soon as I saw the lizard stuck to my leg, I started screaming and jumping around like a crazy person.   Poor Baxter was outside in his cage and he didn’t know what was going on.   I wanted it off, but was too afraid to brush it off with my hand.    Al was busy unfolding another chair and couldn’t rescue me quite as quickly as normal.    Pat and Ron had no idea what was happening, and they didn’t rescue me either.  

I was jumping up and down trying to dislodge the lizard from my leg, screaming all the while.  I could feel his little claws holding onto my leg, and he wouldn’t budge.  I couldn’t find anything to brush him off and I certainly wasn’t going to use my hand.   All this time, I was screaming to the top of my lungs and jumping up and down.   I wonder what the other neighbors thought?   I’m surprised nobody called the police.  After what seemed like minutes, the lizard finally fell off due to my leg shaking and jumping. 

Once he was gone, it still felt like his claws were on my leg, until I wiped my leg with a rag.   Yuck……..  

I would have thought the poor little lizard was scared to death, but two more times in the next few minutes, that same darn lizard tried to climb on my chair.   The second time, Al chased him away.  If we see him again, he will be escorted to someone else’s campsite…..a long, long distance from us.

So Pat….here it is.  I told on myself.  Happy now?

And to get you back, I’m going to do what I never do.  I’m going to post an unflattering picture of someone.  Here’s the one of you I took the other day.

 

Nothing much else happening around here.  We wanted to get back to finish up our zoo visit, but I’ve been having trouble with my contact lens irritating my eye.  I hate to go anywhere without my contact because I can’t see, so we’ve stayed close by until my irritated eye gets better.

We did get our order from Amazon with our waterproof under coach LED lights.   As soon as Al figures out how to permanently attach them to the coach frame, I will take some photos.  We also ordered some bulbs for the interior lights.  I had resisted changing to LED’s  because of their cost. It seems like they have come down in price recently, so we took the plunge and purchased some from Amazon.  We replaced the lights on the entry steps, and the new led’s are much brighter, which is what we wanted.  We also replaced bulbs over the couch where Al reads in the mornings.  These are also much brighter, but I think a little too “cool” white.  I think I’ll put  them elsewhere, and get some warmer bulbs.  Al thinks they look okay….but what does he know.  :)

We got a LED for the the porch light, and we were anxious to see if it was brighter.  Unfortunately, our porch light seems to have quit working.

We had been considering installing a new LED motion sensor light, like the following.

I guess we’ll go ahead and order it.  Pat and Ron put one on their coach last year and like it real well, and said it was an  easy installation.

 

Not Quite the Day We Expected

 

Wesley Chapel, Florida (high 82, low 60)

 

We’ve been back in Florida about two weeks and yesterday was the first time we’ve gotten back to the gym.   I don’t know why we couldn’t seem to drag ourselves there before, but at least now we’re back.    It felt good, and we especially liked the therapy pool with it’s nice warm water. 

After we left the gym, we  found that we had worked up an appetite, so we decided to go and get a pressed Cuban sandwich.  Just what we needed after burning off all those calories.     Of course it’s not the most vegan place to go!

After lunch, we decided to head over to the Lowry Park Zoo.  We bought annual passes last summer when they had a newly born elephant that we wanted to see.

The following picture is the baby and his older cousin.  Weren’t they adorable?

 

The last time we were there it was mid August and extremely hot, so we didn’t see much besides the elephants.

Our plan yesterday was to meander around towards the elephants.

We saw some pretty interesting critters.

How about these singing dogs that climb trees?

The only thing we saw them doing was napping.  Too much tree climbing, I guess.

The kids seemed to prefer the water features over the animals.

We discovered a train that took you around the areas where the larger animals were kept.  We decided it would be fun to ride it,  and at the time, it wasn’t very crowded.  We jumped into the back seat and had it all to ourselves.  They waited a few more minutes and before we knew it, the train was getting full and two people sat down beside us.  Unfortunately, they apparently were smokers and reeked of cigarette smoke. I wanted to jump off immediately, but not knowing when the train was going to start moving kept me in my seat. I knew I couldn’t sit next to Mr. and Mrs. Stinky for the entire train ride.  They smelled like they had bathed in cigarette butts.  We sat there a minute contemplating what to do, when my phone rang.

It was Mom.  She was having trouble with her CPAP machine (sleep apnea).  She said the night before it was burning her nose and eyes when she tried to use it.   Long story short, we did manage to exit the train before it started to move, and had a loooooong drive in Tampa traffic over to Mom’s to pick up her machine and then over to the place that provides these machines.  They said they would have to send her machine out for repair, but they would provide a loaner.  

Once we got there, we had to wait for the manager to get back to the office.  He hooked up her machine and found it to be working properly, except for a strong odor of vinegar.     No wonder it burned her nose.   Grrrrrrr…..   She swears she only used distilled water in the machine.  When we got the machine back to her house, we noticed a jug of vinegar sitting right next to the jug of distilled water.  ??

So…..after about 4 hours between picking the machine up, driving to the place to exchange it, and driving home in rush hour traffic, back to Mom’s house in the dark and then home…..we arrived back home.   Not exactly how we planned on spending our day, but hopefully the machine is working better now that we rinsed it out carefully.  I’m almost afraid to call her…..

 

We haven’t decided what to do today, but our day has already started out nice when we saw some otters swimming behind our site.  It’s the first time we’ve seen them since we’ve been back.

We might go back to the zoo.    (al says to leave my cell phone home)