Telling Time by the Pint

It's hard to believe I've been down here in Florida this long. The blood center at the hospital just sent me my seven gallon certificate.

At 8 pints per gallon, figuring in a donation every four weeks (next one is coming up on Thursday), allowing for maybe not starting right on the first month I got here and missing a few scheduled sessions because of either forgetting to stop my aspirin in time or complications (infiltrations, a collapsed vein, etc.), I'm still coming up on five years down here.

And the worst part is, I'm getting used to it, too. A lot of the redneck behavior is starting to seem more-or-less normal. I'm beginning to understand (although, thankfully, not yet sympathize with) the local politics. The endless procession of identical sunny days. 65F seems downright chilly, now, when the sun is behind clouds.

I may have to move back to someplace with seasons.

One of the Inmates May Be Making A Break For It

Neighbor Mike may be serious about moving.

First he had someone come in and officially delineate the property line between him and us. Shortly after that a family with a young daughter was wandering through his back yard. Last week a fat old beagle, answering to the name "Jersey," came snuffling around our lanai and two gentlemen I have never seen before came from behind Mike's house, apologized, and guided him back to their side. I suspect the parties in both instances may have been potential marks casing the joint.

This weekend there were a number of vehicles parked in Mike's driveway and along the side of the road in front of his place. Either they were friends/relatives there for an impromptu (and very quiet) daytime party, or he was holding some sort of garage sale to unload stuff he has no intention of packing when he goes.

He's being very discreet. There is no Sale sign in front of his place. So, no gawkers. Interested parties only, and through an agent.

I have noticed a number of new For Sale signs popping up around town in front of houses that are obviously occupied and well-tended so, apparently, the market is finally coming back up pretty near the lip of the crater that was the aftermath of the 2008 crash.

Who wants to be our neighbor? Can we get you to mow our side of the line, like Mike did? (Bonus: He tended to use our mower which he often borrowed without asking. We took his ladders. We're all kind of a commune that way.)

Otherwise, Yeah, It's Been Pretty Boring Around Here Lately

I find it hard to believe the geography on the other side of the road is that much different from our side but, apparently, it is because the sidewalk construction crew is improvising on the fly as they work their way back north.

Our side proceeded in a strict linear progression. I took a look at the other side as it moves closer and they're all over the place. There's about fifteen feet completed at the beginning of the project followed by a section where the forms have been placed but nothing poured, followed by another completed section, followed by a long scraped area interrupted by several driveways (at least one of which they have already rebuilt), followed by another completed section and ending up close to our place in a long patch with the forms installed.

It would seem there are some significant but otherwise not very noticeable low places that require filling in for which they were not prepared. There are a number of semi-buried drainage pipes along that side of the road. Perhaps they are afraid of altering the water flow. In any case, the work zone looks extremely haphazard and not nearly the model of managerial co-ordination that swept past us last month.

Large dump trucks keep dropping of mounds of dirt in the empty field across the way and the front loader shuttles back and forth carting the stuff away again but I see no more finished sidewalk than I did two weeks ago.

Miscellanea

We're still officially in the middle of Dry Season. (We are also in the middle of The Season, and High Season, both involving tourists from up north and the money they bring with. We have lots of overlapping "Seasons.") So, of course, tthe first big thunderstorm of the year arrived at noon, exactly as predicted, and my brother announced that his truck was dead. Fortunately, just the battery, so we spent a few minutes in the pouring rain using my new battery to jump his.

The sidewalk construction is over (directly in front of us, anyway). Tuesday morning a gang of six or seven came by with the front loader. It was carrying a stacked cube of lawn turves, each like a large flooring tile about two feet on a side. When the scraper went through at the start of construction, the path it made was more a suggestion of where the sidewalk could go rather than the exact line it would take and so the scraped area was a couple times wider than the ultimate installation. This bunch was filling in the divots, as it were, walking along beside the front loader as it crawled down the street, pulling turves from the stack and plopping them in place on both sides of the sidewalk. It was absolutely the largest crew I've seen working on any aspect of this project. When they were gone, the guy with the leaf blower came down the street again al by himself, pushing their dirt and droppings off the road, cleaning up after the parade. Today the cones came down and we are officially out of the construction zone.

The mango tree is covered, engulfed, smothered in blossoms. If even one per cent of them survive to become fruit we are going to be buried this summer. We gave away half our crop last year, ate mangoes every day for six months (mango ice cream, bowls of mango and mixed fruit, pancakes and French toast topped with mangoes, chilled mango salad, sweet potatoes with mango glaze, mango salsa, mango lassi, mango chutney, . . .), and we still have stocks in the freezer.