For all who wanted to see those birds...

Now that Florida has begun to dry up like a contracting prune, the birds have left our yard. The sounds of the wood storks, egrets, ibis and heron have been replaced by the stench of rotting fish and brackish water.

The weather has been lovely this fall. I find it hard to say this as I have constantly lamented the lack of cold air and changing leaves in Southwest Florida. But this fall we turned off our air conditioner a month ago and haven't had it on since... until now. 

It is still in the 70's during the day and gets down into the 50's at night but the stench was so bad I had to close up the windows. I didn't turn on the air until bedtime; it ran once to cool the house down a little and did not run again all night. When I took the dogs out in the morning, the smell was like a foul slap in the face.

Yesterday we escaped our malodorous bit of Florida by taking the kids canoeing in Estero Bay. It is a reasonably quick drive around the bay and whenever I get my first glimpse of the Gulf over the rise of the road, I invariably remember what I like about Florida and why it is growing on me after all the years we spent apart. 

We launched our canoe at Big Hickory Island in an overused spot between some dense mangroves. It was low tide and by the time we meandered out into the south part of the bay we were able to stop on some tiny mangrove islands and walk out onto sandbars in the water. 

Large fish would lunge from the water and land, smack, on their sides. The live Lightning Whelks (invertebrate animals that form a single shell in which they live), covered in beautiful whorls, were numerous as were their strings of eggs rooted in the underwater sand. There were also an incredible number of round jellyfish the size and shape of large translucent marshmallows sitting immobile among short, algae-covered water grass. 

At this point, we were practically immobile as the jellyfish. We had paddled quickly through the boat lane and ended up in some very shallow water surrounding a mangrove island. It took a lot of brute strength, laughter and a wobbling canoe to get us out into deeper water. 

Despite the swamp stench and the summer humidity (which, for the record, is no worse than a good Midwestern summer day that lasts for four months) Florida is growing on me; even more so because this fall I actually have occasion to wear a sweater. Furthermore, my in-laws gave us this fabulous canoe so we have the means to paddle around a little (at times a little too up close and personal with the gators).

For those of you who wanted to come see the birds in our yard... They may have moved on to wetter parts of the swamp but I think we could manage to show you some really great parts of Florida!

What My Nespresso Machine Says About Me

In a nutshell, my ownership of a Nespresso machine indicates that I spend too much money on my coffee. I like to use the Starbucks defense when justifying the existence of such a machine in my home. I received the machine as a mother's day present but it's not like I didn't lobby hard. Thankfully, hubby likes it as much as I do so I don't have to invoke the oft-repeated phrase, Well, at least it keeps me out of Starbucks! I still have difficulty resolving the issue of resource-waste but I ponder it over a really good homemade latte.

To counter-balance the espresso machine, I bought what is possibly the cheapest coffee maker on the planet.... A Black & Decker with a thermal carafe. It took me forever to decide which coffee maker to get when our other bit the proverbial dust. I knew I wanted a thermal carafe but I also knew I wanted to try to be thrifty. 

It was hard for me because the whole Black & Decker thing didn't jive sitting next to my Nespresso machine on the dark-green engineered granite counter top. What would my friends say? Lucky me, I don't have many friends so it doesn't matter all that much.

I took a lesson from a friend and former coworker (you know who you are) about whom someone once said, "If he wanted to buy a toilet plunger, he would go to three different stores to check the price and then he'd still order it on eBay." I didn't exactly order my coffee machine on eBay but I did scour the Consumer Reports reviews and read what people had to say on Amazon.com. In the end, the Black & Decker was a great choice. It keeps the coffee hot and works just fine.

As far as brand names appearing on my counter top, there are conflicts but I've always had that nouveau-riche thing going on... without the riche part. I'm more like nouveau-old-and-ratty. I have these fantastic Ralph Lauren sunglasses that were so two years ago and I wear them with a old shirt I bought from Target sometime during the Third Dynasty.

A good friend was nice enough to pass off a lovely but too-small-for-her Coach purse that I get to use at times when I feel good enough to take it out of it's drawstring bag. It feels sort of cool to have a bag for my bag which keeps the leather pristine; except when I use it. What I love about my friend is that while she has a purse fetish, she is as down-to-earth as I am and hopefully wouldn't begrudge my Black & Decker but she definitely would not spend all that money on a Nespresso machine. 

Revising my premise... What my Nespresso machine says about me is that I struggle to balance my wants and my needs in an age when spending is always encouraged. For now, I will just continue to mull it over while drinking my over-priced espresso out of a pink flowery teacup. Sometimes, I might actually make a pot of coffee.

Fighting Obfuscation

I am often confused, bewildered, or stupefied... basically I am the everlasting prey of obfuscation.

Right now a Harry Potter spell keeps coming to mind... "Stupify!" And then there is this image of me, immobile with a look on my face that belies a total inability to function.

Right now, I need to make calls and set up appointments to go sell my wares to natural foods and tourist stores. However, I've managed procrastinate this long by thinking I needed to wait until my brochure was done or until some vendor came to me or whatever... I could confuse this issue for so long that I forget I have a business to grow. I have even convinced myself that it is imperative that I get another blog post done!

To counter obfuscation, I try a number of tactics in my life: The million-post-it-note-march on my bed table worked only so long as the post-its did not have to stand atop each other to command attention. The same problem was seen on my computer screen which used to host an array of post-its with various 'don't forget' items on them. That too was limited in efficacy because of my personal ability to just begin to tune things out.

I have a theory that if I didn't procrastinate so much, my mind wouldn't be so muddled. But since I cannot manage to stop the procrastination cycle, I am unable to figure out if things would seem clearer with an otherwise less confusing stance on getting things done. As a matter of fact, this whole theory is confused by the muddled presentation used to describe my theory on bewilderment.

In the end, this post has no meaning, no insight and no reason. I am merely giving voice to the confusion in my head and thinking that maybe someone will magically appear and come to my aid. Running a business seems to be about either overcoming deficiencies in order to be successful or finding someone who has complementary deficiencies. I'm hoping for the latter as the former seems unreasonable given that not a single thought of mine comes out simply.

A Case for Kansas

I’m from Kansas. Get over it; it’s not that odd. 

Most everyone is familiar with the old adage “Kansas is flatter than a pancake,” Well, Colorado is too. A couple years ago, a group of students at a university proved it. Pancakes are far from flat. 

I have to say that anyone repeating this erroneous cliché has obviously never been to Florida; or Illinois for that matter. Why pick on Kansas? Yes, western Kansas is prone to winters of cold, blowing snow and grain elevators are referred to as “Kansas Mountains.” However, eastern Kansas is a great vast place of beautiful, tall, rolling hills. It is a stark beauty. 

Kansas has people too. I’m not just talking country-bred farmers and pseudo-cowboy residents of Dodge City. Kansas has plenty of people who know nothing but life in city or suburb. 

Recently, a horrible crime occurred in Overland Park, which is located in the far northeastern corner of Kansas. Nancy Grace, speaking to a National audience, worked hard to make it out to be a particularly grave travesty given the small-town, backwards nature of the state. She pointed out that the city was close to Topeka, the state capital, and was a close-knit town where everyone knew everyone. 

Puh-leaseeeee… Can I speak for the entire eastern half of Kansas when I say, “Give me a break!” Why say that Overland Park is close Topeka, which is an hour-long car ride away, when it is really a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri and part of a metro area of 1.5 million people? Most people living in this fabulous city have never even been to Topeka except passing through on the way to Denver. Anyone who lives in Overland Park knows that the city has as much to do with Topeka as Chicago does to Springfield, Illinois. It is Kansas City for goodness sake! 

And, if I may continue my rant, Overland Park itself has 150,000 people and is part of a jam-packed county (border-to-border continuous city) of over 450,000. It is a well-moneyed place with miles and miles and miles of suburban sprawl. There’s not a chance in the world that “everyone knows everyone” or that it is small-town Kansas where people are shocked by crime. 

Kansas City has one of the worst homicide rates in the country and while Overland Park remains incredibly safe, it is difficult to say where Johnson County (Overland Park is the largest city in the county) ends and Kansas City begins. Oh, except that north-south road called, aptly, State Line Road. And what state doesn’t have a State Line Road?

As a matter of overkill, I’ll end my argument by saying that disjointing Overland Park from the Kansas City metro area would be like saying Hollywood is closer to San Francisco than Los Angeles. 

While I’m on a roll, I might as well stand up for a few other states as well. 

Have you ever noticed that whenever a movie needs a naïve, country-bumpkin, they most often grew up corn-fed in Iowa? Why not North Dakota? It is, after all, the state with the least population. Why not Nebraska? Are those hard-working descendants of Eastern-Europeans not good enough for uneducated, rural status? How about Kentucky? No movie character ever comes from Kentucky unless they are apparently the product of incest or hooked on Oxycontin.

I visibly recoil when I see those stereotypical portrayals of Kansas. I hate when people say Kansas City is nothing but a cow town with fabulous barbecue. At least Mission, Kansas has the gall to celebrate this image and march a bunch of cows down the street as homage to its heritage. I’m not even sure why they do it given its history as nothing more than a planned suburb close to downtown Kansas City. 

I miss Kansas and the Kansas City metro area. I miss those soccer fields and I miss our friends and I miss our old neighborhood where the kids could walk to school. I miss being able to drive out to a friend’s farm and let the kids play around the creek. I miss the snow, the ice and the tornadoes. Most of all, I miss the atmosphere. Kansas is my adopted home and is closest to my heart. 

I now live in Florida, a vacationer’s paradise. I cannot give many reasons to vacation in Kansas but I can give a million reasons to raise a family there. We may have 350 days of sunshine here in Florida but I can make a good case for clouds; and I can make an excellent case for Kansas. 

My Mother was a Travel Agent for Guilt Trips

I saw it on a bumper sticker once:  My mother was a travel agent for guilt trips. 

Now I find myself feeling too much of this onerous emotion and I am writing about it in order to assuage my self-reproach over the previous post about traveling north. Talk about a guilt trip...

I didn't intend to make others feel guilty. I was simply magnifying a small tidbit for the benefit of my existential prose; but it came out a little too dreary. I even went back and edited the post, as some of you will no doubt notice. 

As hard as it is to deal with personal feelings of guilt, it is even harder to make sure I don't foist guilt on my children. Then again, after an online search about the value of guilt (and guilt vs shame), I'm not sure it is entirely a bad thing. The trouble seems to come when guilt is 'foisted' rather than allowed to happen in a healthy manner.

According to various sources, guilt is about a specific behavior whereas shame is more intrinsic to our sense of who we are as a person. Guilt can lead to positive changes but shame often ends up as a vicious cycle of self-loathing with no real value. The dictionary states that shame actually comes from a powerful sense of guilt.

I personally feel that it is okay to let your children take personal responsibility (feel guilt) about their own choices and decisions without laying a childhood-long guilt trip. Is guilt a good thing when the opportunity exists to actually make amends or change a behavior? Maybe guilt turns bad when we let it eat at us because we are unable to take back something we said or did. 

It is possible to allow children to feel a healthy sense of guilt, make necessary amends and then let go in a practice of self-forgiveness. I think that it is okay for children to feel guilt but it is not okay for a parent to put guilt on a child, especially for something over which they have no control (i.e. When a parent makes a child feel guilty for everything they didn't have as a child; when a child feels guilt for their parent's divorce; when a child feels guilt for everything their parent sacrificed for them; or when a teenager grows up feeling lifelong guilt for something they did when they were younger).

So, is guilt all that bad? If it can motivate us to make positive changes, why has guilt gotten such a bad rap? As parents, we have to help our children navigate a wide range of emotions and if we are afraid of healthy guilt then our children may grow up feeling they don't have to make amends or feel bad for the things they do. Guilt can be a learning tool as long as we recognize both its positive and negative sides.

In doing a little research while writing this post, I've come to see and understand guilt in a different light. Guilt may have a bad name but it can be a good tool when experienced appropriately. There is a time for guilt and its attendant follow-up action and there is a time for letting go and forgiving oneself. Knowing the difference is crucial to a healthy sense or responsibility towards the world. 

So, was my mother a travel agent for guilt trips? I'll never tell!

This Family Must be Crazy

Ahhh... The holidays... Yikes!

Nothing is ever easy for us except the trouble we cause ourselves. Too much guilt? Check! Too much pressure from friends and family? Check, check! Gotta drive north to make everyone happy? You can bet your happy little minivan on it!

Moving from Kansas to Florida has presented a logistical problem for our family when it comes time to decide what to do about the holidays. The kids see two long weeks which could be spent in the company of friends and family, playing cards in front of a roaring fire and sledding down snowy corn-free hills… Is this heaven? No, it’s Iowa. At least the kids are pretty sure it is.

I see weeks of driving around and visiting and eating too much and rehashing the same long-winded story about what life in Florida is like... Then again, people do care to know. 

Can we afford to fly all of us north? Do we want to kennel the dogs for two weeks? Do we want to spend money renting a car to drive to multiple state family destinations once we arrive? Do we even want to spend the holidays with all those people? Are we really related to them or can we drive by quickly pretending we didn't even notice they were there?

In the end, we generally bow to pressure and decide to drive. Since we have family and friends in a number of Midwestern states, it doesn’t make financial sense to buy four plane tickets, kennel the dogs and then rent a car. “We’ll drive!” she says with an affected smile of graciousness.

We have always driven a lot. For us, much family means much travel. Imbued with a sense of guilty necessity about seeing family, we have always traveled a lot. Considering that we’ve always been in the youngest generation of our family, it makes sense. The grandkids go to the grandparents, etc.; but I like to whine about it anyway.

The kids are great in the car. Starbucks is a lifeline. McDonalds is hell in a paper bag. Give us a good Harry Potter book on CD and we are one happy family with visions of sugar plums and snow flakes and the cell phone ringing mindlessly… “When are you going to get here?!”

(Love you all! See you in December!)

The Suburban Sprawl Conundrum

I struggle with my small yet colluding role in the plight of Florida's natural resources. After all, I did choose to move into a gated neighborhood which at one time was swampland. 

I watched a documentary recently called The End of Suburbia. In it the narrator says (my friend Jan said the same thing independently) that these far-flung, cookie-cutter neighborhoods are usually named after the very thing they displace. This would be true for quite a few places in Southwest Florida: Wildcat Run, Pelican Sound, Raptor Bay, Quail Creek, Olde Cypress, Grey Oaks, Bear's Paw, Rookery, and Eagle Lakes are just a few.  

The End of Suburbia is one of several compelling documentaries I've seen on suburban sprawl and peak oil. (The Long Emergency is a great book on the subject.) I think that no where is this a more interesting phenomenon than in South Florida where people have single-handedly ruined an entire, totally unique ecosystem (The Everglades). Then our family decides to up and move here and contribute our little part to this conundrum.

Ironically, hubby is a water/wastewater engineer. For him, Florida is nirvana: A place where water is the central theme of every State, County and Municipal discussion. Water is everyone's preoccupation in Florida; whether in consideration of its role as a source of fun or worry.

I sit in my family room and enjoy watching the egrets, wood storks, ibis and spoonbills sway on toothpick-size cypress tree branches and poke at fish in the swamp behind the house. A lone gray heron catches the biggest fish, bringing them one by one onto the grass to flip it around until it is dead or at least stunned enough for easy gulping. Today, a bald eagle came by and spent a couple hours watching all the activity from the canopy. A pair of red shouldered hawks swooped at it occasionally but the eagle was unmoved by their outbursts. Even when I would take the dogs out, the birds would merely ignore us; and if we got too close, they would fly en masse to the trees, the wood stork being the most ungainly in its quest to achieve liftoff.

Being as far from the city as we are, I also get to see various mammals and reptiles including the ubiquitous gators, armadillos, panthers, snakes and black bears. It is fascinating.

But it is also guilt-inducing. We are part of a system that has eaten up the land upon which so many of these animals depend. Yet, I love where I live. 

Personally, I believe that we are going to run out of oil before we have enough alternative energy sources to make the transition easy. Paradoxically, we picked a house that is quite far from the city where hubby works. Furthermore, his Toyota 4-Runner just screams, "Fill me!" 

From the point of view of resource allocation, our choice of house sucked up more than our fair share. 

I truly believe that we are causing so many problems with our suburban lifestyle; a lifestyle we happen to have chosen for ourselves. I can't offer any explanation for it and I can't offer any excuse. I can offer my children ideals towards which to strive and I can see all these ideals ruminating in their heads. It's a different generation and they are taking their call to environmental action very seriously.

I talk to my children about our choices and the alternatives available to us. I discuss options for the future and what we might do differently next time. There are so many things we never thought of when we moved here; things that seem so obvious now. 

I would like to think that if we had it to do over, we would pick an existing house in the city; I would like to think that we would choose a small vehicle for hubby to drive; and I would like to think that we would be more environmentally conscious in our use of precious resources. I know there are better choices to be made and we work hard to make sure our kids know about them too. 

But I sure do love watching those birds...