Christmas at Beagle Manor

This is a picture taken of Ripley by our son (other son, the two legged variety) John B, of his little brother Ripley. J.B. got a new camera for Christmas, and a tri-pod and a camera case. He also got a new "hoodie" sweatshirt so he'll keep warm in this unusually cool season in Florida. He also got a book about "Weird Florida" stories. The camera was something he had expressed wanting to have, as his older camera had only about half the mega-pixels and capabilities of this newer one. J.B. had accompanied me to Orlando a few weeks ago, and was impressed by the Sony camera I had, so now we're an all Sony camera family. I'd offer that old pun, "Sony of my owny" but I'm considering giving up cheap puns for New Year's.

Ripley is pictured on his favorite rug in the living room. This is the rug that came from Badcock & More (yes, that's the name - insert your own crude humor here). We purchased a new living room furnishing with two chairs, a three person sofa, that rug and two vases in blue & brown. The rest of the living room came down from Missouri, except for the Tommy Bahama style entertainment center from the former island condo. Ripley is Sir Skids A Lot when it comes to chasing the tennis ball on the wood floors, ergo this rug is his island of tranquility.

Christmas in Florida is different, to say the least. I suppose native Floridians don't miss the snow, but instead of a white Christmas, we had to settle for a Windy Christmas. As I write this on a Sunday morning, the wind is whipping the palm fronds, and the live oaks trees are casting their acorns onto car roofs, driveways and streets. Ripley has been out with me to take his walk, and experience his first encounter (to our knowledge) with a giant Blue Heron. The bird was standing tall (he was at least 48" tall) next to some reeds near the pond, and watching Ripley as he made a half-hearted stalk. Ripley, who apparently is no fool when it comes to birds bigger than beagles, stopped a good 15 feet away and barked the bird into flight. You had to wonder what the dog was thinking, but then you realized he wasn't thinking......he's a beagle.

The Bark-O-Lounger King

It's been just over a week, but Ripley the Beagle has taken over. He's at least taken over my one room in the house where I've condensed as much of my prior "offices" into a space engineered to hold memories and current files. One of the few pieces I was able to keep from my much larger "man cave" in Missouri was this recliner, which back in the day was known by many as a Barcalounger (a brand name which, like Xerox, became synonymous with the product). There's a small inset picture of that original product in this blog entry.

Ripley has taken over my office. When I moved full time to Florida, I brought with me a desk, a credenza, and a matching bookcase. I also brought a corduroy couch which was a full sized hide-a-bed, and various other pieces of furniture. It became very clear, even before the truck came to pick up stuff in Missouri, that in the new space there would not be room for all of this stuff. That desk had been with me for years, and was a really nice (heavy) piece of furniture. In the planning of the new "office" which began life as a breakfast room, but was redesigned by my wife and our contractor, I showed Jason (the contractor) a picture of the desk - which he said he might be able to use in his expanding business. So, while I now have only the original credenza and matching bookcase, at least the desk found a good home in nearby Sarasota. I gave Jason first right of refusal to re-assemble the suite once they carted my old bones off to the retirement center.

So now I have the credenza, bookcase, television stand (and TV), computer, printer, recliner, and couch/hide-a-bed. Ripley has been exploring every nook and cranny of his new home, and looking for places to hide his chew toys. So far, he's managed to find at least three places in my office, one in the cushions of the couch. I cannot sit down without Ripley jumping into my lap, and wanting a belly rub. He is very spoiled, and wants to help me do everything, including write this blog.

It was a small office to start with, and now this small dog has decided it's his to share with me. Funny how, no matter how small a space may be, there is always room to fill it up with love. And Ripley has moved in, and been crowned King of the Bark-O-Lounger.

Get Your Own Box

Ripley the Beagle boy wants very desperately to sample the Cheez-It crackers, but his daddy is under strict orders from the resident photographer (she who must be obeyed) to "not give him people food". Ripley loves his daddy, and after six full days in his new "forever" home, he has very quickly bonded with me, and leaps into my lap and the tail never stops wagging.

He is very well behaved, and whoever lost him must have taught him to behave on a leash, as he will sit quietly around other dogs if you shorten the lead and tell him to stay. He is not a vocal beagle, unlike our dear Millie (now in beagle heaven), and only barks when we come home and let him out of his crate. He goes into the crate every night with little urging (a cookie thrown in first, and a gentle shove of his beagle butt to close the door). Once inside, he settles down and does not whine or complain. Now, this is not to say he spends a lot of time in the crate, as in the week we've been privileged to have him with us, he's only been alone in the house for one hour today during church. My wife gave me implicit instructions on how to secure him - apparently wives think husbands are brain dead around adorable beagles - and he went into the crate at 9:50, and came out at 10:40, to much beagle howling as he was SO happy to see me. I ditched the sermon and sneaked out while the congregation was singing the second verse of a three verse hymn. We live all of two minutes from church, till the new church is finished anyway.

Ripley apparently spent some time in cages earlier in his life, before being picked up by Hillsborough County, and ultimately turned over to Tampa Bay Beagle Rescue. We know that because of a mystery solved by TBBR volunteer Madeleine who explained a curious behavior. Ripley, like other dogs who are caged a lot, is not only an "optimum pooper" (like the pet food commercial), but a "unique pooper" at least to our experience after five prior beagles who were pretty much conventional when it came to relieving themselves. Ripley backs up to a tree, placing front paws firmly on the ground, pushing his rear legs higher on the trunk, then proceeds to "push off" with his bomb load. He's also done this on a bed of closely planted flowers, a cable TV box, a broad leafed tropical plant, and numerous low bushes. At first, we suspected his prior owner didn't believe in picking up after his dogs, so trained them to avoid grassy lawns and find clever hiding places. Madeleine solved it with a simple answer - "crated and caged dogs don't want to poop where they're contained, so they 'expel' their leavings OUTSIDE the cage".

Well, Ripley has given me a new phrase to replace "go piss up a rope". But look at his picture sitting in the back of the Corvette as we drove the 60 miles from his original foster home to our place. He went right in back, did not complain, and has for all trips thereafter taken the "crew chief" position behind the pilot and co-pilot. One week with my boy Ripley, and joy has replaced the grief of losing our girl Millie. Some people just have to have a dog. Like the tee-shirt said "he's not my pet, I'm his human".

Call Sign Change......Jericho now Ripley

God Bless the Tampa Bay Beagle Rescue - they've helped fill a void after my wonderful Millie went to join her four preceding sister beagles in heaven. My wife and I went up to the Tampa area several weeks ago to meet the group, and we filled out paperwork to foster and adopt. We watched the web site, and saw a boy beagle named Jericho. We fell in love over the Internet with this little guy, and were fortunate enough to take over his fostering, with intent to adopt.

Beagles who go through their program, which serves many, many counties out of the Tampa area, are given a new leash (pun intended) on life, and the guy we loved came from the Hillsborough County pound. He did not have a microchip, and therefore the family who lost or abandoned this wonderful dog could not be notified. We've chipped all of our dogs, and beagles are known to roam, so it's only prudent. They also provide shots, and in the case of our little guy, they check for heart worms.Our boy tested positive, so he still has a heart worm treatment ahead of him. He's taking pills, but sometime in January he'll go to the vet (provided by the TBBR people) for an overnight stay, and then will have to be kept calm for fifteen days while the shots take effect and hopefully purge any remaining worms.

Anyway, he's going to be fine, we're certain. He was living with a lovely person an hour north of us, and after tearful good-byes (he grows on you, very quickly), we got into the Corvette and brought him home. He sat in the back, and was a very good traveler. This is probably only the first of many stories about Ripley, believe it or not.

Cars all tell a story

OK, this is a hypothetical question of course, but which of these cars, seen at Universal Studios, would you like to drive? That is, assuming you could get the one out of the tree? Knowing me, I think you'd guess my answer, but I suspect you'd be wrong.

I'd take the Elwood and Joliet Jake "blues mobile", a retired cop car, and gleefully park it all over Longboat Key. It would drive my neighbors (and the cops) crazy. Cars with this much character are routinely stopped along Gulf of Mexico Drive, for real or suspected infractions of the law. Longboat Key, where I live, is an island which is perhaps all of ten miles long (although the addresses don't seem to run any higher than the 7900 block), and at it's wide spot, maybe three quarters to seven-eighths wide. The town was incorporated in 1955, and severely "down-zoned" in the mid 1980's. Original zoning allowed for up to 100,000 people, much like the high rise nature of Miami or Clearwater, but now you'd be hard pressed to find 20,000 people in residence. That would be "full up", and since many of the condos and homes are second, even third, residences, we just don't see that much traffic. After 7:30 PM, when many of the residents have gone to bed after watching the news, you could shoot a cannon down GMD, and not hit anything except perhaps a very confused sea turtle. The speed limit is 45, although a few locals believe 30 is more appropriate to their age, and diminished reaction times. A Corvette never gets a chance to exhibit it's talents, and the dearth of passing zones eliminates showing off that 430 horses.

Now, the Harry Potter car (in the tree) never was in the running, and the Jurassic Park SUV might be a good second choice...........considering the number of old dinosaurs living here, but that old black & white would be "the" dream car to own.
And that air raid siren speaker on the roof would be great, just to ease up behind one of the local slowpokes and suggest "either lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way". An air horn tied to that speaker might also facilitate frightening some of those old farts enough to give up driving completely.

Florida State Road 789 runs the length of the island, and in most months you don't have to worry about bumper to bumper traffic. If it is bad at all, it's bad at the north end when the bridge is up. Oh yes, you can't get onto the island except from other islands, north and south of us. That's why we really don't have a crime problem - only a couple of ways in, and twice as many police as there are exits to cover. We have a very good police force, but they can get bored. We have neighbors who think any car older than five years must be driven by a criminal, or worse yet, a day laborer. That's why the Blues Brother's car would be so much fun to have, just to piss off those who think of themselves as better than the rest. It's great to live here, but I haven't let it go to my head (and hope I never do).

Dazed and Confused

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. This one is worth a thousand laughs.

Enter the tourist with camera and prop guitar, and his amused son who thought this picture was so great that he actually paid good money for it. I guess the tips at Outback Steakhouse were better the prior several days. I was saving it to give to my wife (who generally never reads this blog, unless I insist) as a gag gift at Christmas, but she is off at Sunday school, and I have time to work without getting caught.

This of course was from my trip to Universal Studios, where we ate lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. Like Chickenman, they're everywhere, they're everywhere, but this was the first time I was met at the door by a photographer who pressed an electric guitar into my hands and suggested I strike a pose. Enter "Johnny D. Goode", standing by his very amused son. My son actually can play the guitar, like ringing a bell, but I am musically deprived. When I was VERY young, I took piano lessons. I took them, they didn't take however. I know the scale (well two actually, if you're preparing a fish)and it goes, C.D.E.F.G.A.B.C. and I can find "middle C" on a piano. My recital piece was called "Puppy Dogs", and I played it, but in the wrong key. So, I do have an ear for music, but after my year of living dangerously as an Air Force DJ in SE Asia, I also probably damaged that ear by playing rock and roll too loud in my headset. I also developed some talent for carrying the harp - my mother was (still is at 91) a harpist, and before my younger brother took over, I was the harp slave, who carried the damn things over hill and vale. That ruined me as a musician - the idea of carrying a piano was even far more odious.

So, back to the story - here we were, me with the guitar, the camera, the too-light jacket for that cold and blustery day, and the hat. The guy said smile, but I apparently wasn't paying attention. The look was worth one thousand words - sorry you had to read the thousand anyway.

Hogwarts Castle by Express Train

Last week, my son and I took a magical trip to visit Harry Potter, son of Colonel Sherman T. Potter, in Orlando. It was a cold and blustery day, but with sufficient crowds of wizard seekers, we found human windbreaks galore. Harry was a no-show, perhaps off to Korea to visit his dad, but we did see many of the local inhabitants garbed in their Olde English clothing. All seemed a bit overweight, until we realized these were native Floridians wearing ski parkas under their cloaks and gowns. It was that cold, I swear.

Universal studios for me was a first time visit, and the Studios side of the park featured a number of familiar street landscapes, and several interactive rides. We also had an opportunity to watch two guys doing a great takeoff on the Blues Brothers, complete with driving off in the old police car from the movie. we got to take the Men In Black ride, and participate in a disaster movie.

Leaving the studio side, you passed once again through the City Walk and headed to the Island of Adventure. And, of course the feature this year was the town of Hogsmeade (which I thought at first was a ham flavored beer), the many shops (all offering tempting trinkets to purchase), and of course the rides. If so inclined (inclined, get it?) you could ride the "Flight of the Hippogriff", a roller coaster pulled by a giant bird. J.B. and I passed on that one, and we also declined to eat at the Hogs Head Pub, or the Three Broomsticks restaurant. I did take a number of pictures, and should I actually read the books, I might gain a better perspective of that funny little car, or why you'd name a store "Dervish and Banges".

If you are in the Orlando area, and anxious to drop a couple of hundred easily, I would suggest that you visit Universal's Island of Adventure. It is a true Marvel, where Spiderman and you can ride the Incredible Hulk Coaster, among other rides. I personally chose not to sacrifice my expensive Hard Rock lunch over the side of any coaster, and on a day that spray from the water rides was freezing in mid-air, I stayed high and dry, although not necessarily warm.

Very much like "Downtown Disney", there are some nice places to eat and browse outside the gates of the two parks ("City Walk"), but then you go through the turnstiles where they scan your finger (or thumb) print and the bar code on your ticket, which upon visiting the second park (one is Universal Studios, the other Islands of Adventure) you simply present your chosen digit and they allow you to pass back and forth all day long. Of course, when I gave them the finger, it failed to scan before finally working. I guess my prints are now FIRMLY in "the system". I'm sure our federal government has hacked this database as well. Maybe I should have bought one of those magic wands in Hogsmeade, so I could erase my presence, although those bright flash memory erasers sold at MIB might do the trick as well.

The literature in the tourist brochure tells you "be courageous, be outrageous, be extraordinary" - shucks, I mastered that crap in eighth grade. What's next?

Turkey and the fixins, poodle not included

At our condo in Florida, we've developed a Thanksgiving tradition, which we share with wonderful friends from Philadelphia - one year at our place, the next year at theirs. And there's always a dog around, but this year we invited Sophie as our beloved Millie never made it to the new house.

Millie in 2008 was the "host dog" and we had dined at the Evergreen condo, inviting two additional neighbors who were not all that "up" on the Thanksgiving tradition. Tony was a Brit, and his wife Hanna was an Austrian, before marrying and moving to Massachusetts. Now, we suppose they still celebrate Thanksgiving in Massachusetts, but apparently not everybody makes a big deal out of eating too much turkey, followed by falling asleep on the couch. Following that 2008 dinner, all six of us went next door (I had a key) to inspect the work done for my "roof-mate". They were getting ready to sell their place, and had contractors in to fix it up. They left me with a key. We left our plates on the table, including the desert dishes where June had made a magnificent peanut butter pie.

Millie, the beagle, loved peanut butter. Either I failed to push my chair back, or perhaps it was Dick (June's husband), but Millie took advantage and when we returned the top of the table was disheveled, and all of the food left there was GONE. It was Doggone Gone. I think we might have lost one glass, but fortunately no injury to the beagle, and the tile floor was easily cleaned. Millie was sitting in the corner, looking guilty while licking her chops. Ah....life with a beagle.

In 2009, we went to Dick and June's place, and it was a wonderful meal, but no canine adventures. For 2010, the venue would shift to our new home, but we were all sad that Millie had been taken by cancer and would not be around to entertain us.

This year, Sophie came with Dick & June, since it wouldn't be Thanksgiving without a dog present. Sophie is an apricot poodle, and VERY spoiled. Sophie however likes me, and very few others than her mom and dad (June and Dick). We also invited my son, who recently had moved to Florida, and Robert DeSero Jr., the facilities manager at our old condo association. That rounded out the preferred seating of six, and it also decimated the turkey. We were a little worried that having run out of turkey, we'd have to prepare poodle as a fallback, but Sophie was spared at the last minute when she reminded us that French fries go with burgers, not turkey.

Kitchen Magician, Part Deux

It's been about twenty days without a blog entry, so I must be slowing down, but before I closed out this topic I wanted to share a couple more pictures of the kitchen project, now that it's done. The side of the kitchen with the small peninsula is where the original kitchen had a "pass through" into a breakfast area. We closed up that wall, and developed a really nice space to be used as an office. For two of us, that peninsula and two counter height stools is enough, for coffee in the morning, and even an occasional dinner when we're eating light.

The project wasn't just the kitchen, as the whole house benefited from an upgrade. That same granite in the kitchen reappeared throughout the house, as the window sills, the seats in both showers, and the fireplace hearth all came from that same quarry. I even have a piece left over in the garage, not sure what I'll do with it, other than perhaps get a hernia moving it around.

Kitchens have become the new living spaces in the American home, and when you come to our home you'll find it warm and inviting. Come on down to Florida...the weather's great and the beach is only a quarter mile away.