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When I was a kid, my dad started a short-term gig in Florida. We might have been there for only a few months, but I remember learning about and falling in love with manatees. These passive marine behemoths just struck me as extremely sweet. I remember seeing their backs all torn up by boat motors, and my heart went out to them.
When we arrived in Hawai’i my wife and I had racked up a ton of points on our credit card. Enough points to spend a few weeks at a hotel as we looked for more permanent lodging. The hotel we stayed at had a nice pool with a hot tub that occasionally worked, free snow cones a few times a week, and daily activities.
In 2015, I had the good pleasure to take a long-term stay at my grandparents’ place in Costa Rica. They live high in the mountains and there is a steep winding road to get up to their place. The scenery is beautiful and I would walk down the hill to the road and then back up every morning.
The air is amazing in the mountains, but the emission controls in the country are not. When I would pass a car coming up the road, I would choke on the fumes until they were long gone.
Last December I mentioned the furry forest friends we met during the pandemic. Baby Squirrel and later Big Mama became hand-fed squirrels. I don’t think of them as pets but more like hairy long-term campers that scrounge for food around our neighborhood. But also happen to be cute so we don’t mind them.
I’m not a squirrelologist and do not have any degrees in squirrelchitecture but I have noticed a few things about our backyard buddies.
Midway through March of this year, when the pandemic really started to set in, my boss told everyone at the corporate office that they could start working from home.
The next day I worked until about 2 pm and I heard my wife talking to our neighbor, so I went outside and he mentioned how he hated being cooped up inside and would rather be working. I joked that we could cut down the tree that was dying in my front yard.
To my surprise, he took me up on it. But it was not the first surprise of that day.
Many weeks I start without any idea what I will blog about on Wednesday. This week was no exception. But something fell into my lap so to speak.
By now, most of you have felt winter’s cruel bite. As of late, my office is no exception. To make things worse, our heater was out for part of the building and it was chilly.
Have you ever been somewhere with a crowd you know you shouldn’t be around and later it bites you in the butt?
This happened to me recently.
Last Friday I was mowing my yard, minding my own business. I noticed some wasps near the curb. Usually, they fly out of the way. This time they were out for revenge.