Jump in the car yesterday, off for
a fun, fun needle fest at the dentist.
Oooops, in hops one of the million or more leaping lizards that infest
this place. Natch the little sucker went right up among the wires behind the
dash.
Since I was already cutting it close,
there was simply no way I could spend five minutes looking for him (fat chance
of plucking him out anyway). So, for about
four miles, I had to steel myself to the possibility that a leapin’ liz might
leap down on my trigger foot. To avoid
being startled to a panic and stepping on the gas right into the teeth of meat-grinder
traffic, I reminded myself every second of the way, “It’s a little lizard, just
a little lizard, just a lizard. . . .”
It worked; no mishaps.
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As if it ain’t bad enough to be
bat shit blind, bat shit deaf, bat shit crazy, and older than petrified bat
shit, Geezers up at one Bradenton retirement community must now put a bit more spring
in their creep when they go out doors to fetch the morning paper, the daily mail
or when they feel compelled to stroll near a neighboring canal. Seems a
family of nesting red-shouldered hawks set up shop in a tree above the
community and the old, slow and befuddled make perfect targets for these
territorial raptors. The birds, on the
endangered species list, are too fast for angry canes swung and feisty walkers flung and so the old folks
just go out now with umbrellas up and swat at the swift birds. Mostly, it works. Still, any number of seniors have received
slashes and gashes on their knots by the swooping parents. Since the fledgling process can last a couple
of months looks like lock down for the canal walkers and bingo crowd up at
Bradenton.
“I just don’t know what the world
is coming to,” said a resident who asked to remain anonymous. “We seniors are prisoners in our own
homes. It is not fair. Just think about it. Back when I was a kid we would have just shot
these pests.”
Hate to say it but . . . I will: “Back
in the 1890’s when you were a child, Orville, this was all wilderness down here
and the ancestors of those hawks didn’t need to dive bomb retired humans
creeping along canals ‘cause there were no retired humans here, nor were there
any canals for retired humans to creep along.
You and canals are the problem, Orville, not the hawks. That is ‘what the world is coming to,’ Orvie,
viz., too many people, too few hawks.”
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Somewhere in the next few,
Michelle and I are gone for a few to either 1) Costa Rica, 2) Belize, 3) Trinidad,
or 4) we have no idea. After the happy heady events
of the past couple of days, we feel like we both could use a break. There should be no big gap in this blog and I
promise to submit a full report when we return (if I feel like it, that is). And so, dear faithless bloggees, when you
hear not from me for a span of 5-7 days, one of the four places named above is
probably where we be. With some luck,
maybe the news will pick up locally and I can report when we return on a few
pit bull attacks, a beheading or two in a nearby hobo jungle, or maybe that
rarest of all events down here, an internet sex sting in which 30 pervos have
been netted as well as some miscreant exposing himself to kids on a local beach.
