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Published: February 24th 2007
This is slightly random, but I wanted to include some of what I did when I got home and started getting back into American life. I feel I can do this as I am still "traveling" about and haven't settled in anywhere yet.
Living at home again after so long was strange enough, but add to that both of my sisters living there, along with my parents, my nephew, and my grandmother while she visited for two weeks, put it all in a three bedroom house, and see how the craziness multiplies. But it was nice to spend the holidays with my family. I even thought about getting a crap job for a few weeks and then decided it would be better to spend the time with my grandmother while she was visiting. It was the right choice - we always have fun. I also got to see two of my oldest friends - Jeff, who still lives in the area, and Sean, who was in from his military base in Texas. It was great to see them both.
I came home the day before Thanksgiving, meaning that I was going to start eating well immediately. I haven't been
Baby's first alligator
Welcome to your Floridian backyard.home for Thanksgiving in at least twelve years, so this was a treat. We celebrated with the neighbors who outed me the day before, and we had a great day, and a yummy turkey. This day began my great feasting which has yet to end. I also got to help decorate the Christmas tree, something I love to do but usually miss every year since I get home just in time for Christmas, not early enough to decorate the tree. Christmas was another good food day - we had a grill-cooked turkey and a ham. Christmas Eve we had a lasagne, another tradition. Cristian is sure he hates lasagne even though he refuses to try it and likes other pastas.
Christmas was fun. Cristian got an early Christmas surprise - Santa dropped off a new kitty cat a few days before the big day. But there was a note that explained that he wanted to get her safely there as soon as possible where she would be loved. It's cold in the North Pole, you know? After some big time thinking, he finally named her Flash, because she is so fast. She's gray and tiger striped and just a
Bird Tracks
Looks like Great Blue Heron tracks. Trust me, I'm an expert. good cat, about five months old. Unfortunately, the same day we got her Dick and Cristian were in a car accident. They were both ok but the car was totalled. Even worse, I found out they were planning to give the car to me when they bought a new car! Why did they have to tell me? Now it's my car that was totalled. So sad. But we had fun opening gifts Christmas morning. I got the digital camera I have been wanting and absolutely love, along with a great map of the world and some other goodies and gift certificates. Cristian got everything under the sun - how there will be anything left for next year I have no idea. Everyone got plenty of small things from around the world from me of course, and it was a good relaxing day altogether. We watched bits of A Christmas Story, which plays for 24 hours straight each Christmas.
I was introduced to the TV show Deal or No Deal while I was in Scotland at my friend Steve's. I saw it again when I got home (Jackie is addicted) and was surprised at how different it was. Same concept,
Tracks
These are tracks of some other animal. Trust me, I'm an expert. but so much had changed. In the Scottish/British version, the boxes are red and plain and the people who open them are other contestants. You can win a maximum of about $500,000. In the states, the boxes are now flashy suitcases held and opened by sexy chicks in short skirts and you can win a million dollars. Also, the number of boxes you have to choose are different before your phone called offer comes in. The game even made an appearance on Christmas day in board game form. Amazing.
I grew up in Florida but moved years ago for school. I didn't think I missed it at all - so hot and humid and uncomfortable. But after a little bit of time here again, I can really appreciate some of the classic Florida things that I forgot about. The sunshine (in the winter it's not too hot and just pleasant), beautiful sunsets, and the birds. Florida has a lot of wetlands and canals and along with that, a lot of wetland birds. I see egrets alongside the road, as well as herons and the like. It's different than many places, and special for that.
In my quest to
find new things to explore in Florida, I checked out some guide books from the library. In one of them I found the Blowing Rocks Preserve, a Nature Conservancy site. My friend Jeff and I headed out one day to check it out and had a great time. The coastline is different than many in Florida in that it has limestone caves right near the water line, and at high tide, the water goes in and splashes out the tops. To be clear, these are not large caves that you could walk in. They are more like "caves" with open fronts and tops, but the effect is still stunning. We had a nice walk around the preserve and it was a beautiful day.
In the same vein, I wanted to see some more of natural Florida so I went to two wetlands sites, Wakadahatchee and Green Cay. Both are near my mom's house and are run by the utility company. Both also have nice loop boardwalks where you can go to see the birds and alligators. I took Cristian with me when I went to Wakadahatchee, or Watahatachoochee as I seem to remember it. He was nervous and afraid
to walk around there because of the alligators. But he very quickly got ok with it all and we saw out share of gators, birds, and turtles. It was a great day and as always, he hammed it up for the camera. Good boy. I went to Green Cay solo one afternoon and it was similar, but with a longer boardwalk and a small educational facility with live baby alligators. Quite nice actually.
Having not driven for such a long time, I had forgotten how much I loved driving with the windows down and the music turned up (and on the right side of the road!). I find I'm not much for speeding anymore - enough of that craziness in third world countries - but just slowly cruising and signing my head off is definately for me. One day I was driving and it started to rain. Then it became a deluge of rain, with bucketfuls falling out of the sky. The canals were instantly overflowing, new "canals" were forming on the sides of the roads, it was something. We got something like 8 inches of rain in a few hours, though it drizzled all day. Usually in Florida
it rains and then the sun comes back out, but this day was a little more atypical.
One amazing thing about living in Florida is space shuttle launches. Although my mom lives at least 150 miles from Cape Canaveral, where they launch the space shuttle, we can still see the shuttle rise if there is a night launch. Fortunately, there was one while I was home and I was even able to get a photo. Sort of.
December 10 is my sister Jackie's birthday. We all went out for dinner that night at the Outback Steakhouse. We all had a good meal, and I even got the waiters to sing "Happy Birthday" to her, knowing she would hate it. But it's fun and I couldn't resist.
The day before my nephew had his soccer play offs, serious stuff for a six year old. He had one early game, and then if his team won that, they would be in the final game an hour or so later. Well, he played very well and scored all the goals in the first game, sending his team to the finals. He just tends to get very frustrated when he's playing
Turtles climbing a tree
Can you see them about a third of the way up? Amazing. and things don't go. Other than that, he's a superstar. They didn't win the final game, but in all honesty, it wasn't a fair game. Those boys were all a couple years older and bigger and Cris' team had no real chance. But they played well and it was fun.
One of my favorite restaurants in the states is Chili's. It is just a plain chain restaurant, but they have some of the best chips and ranch around. Usually, you would order chips and salsa, but since I was a kid we have always ordered ranch dressing as a side. They have amazing ranch and this is one of my favorite things to eat. I went all year without it and now can't get enough. I am trying not to spend money when I don't need to (since I have none) but figured I could go there for lunch one day without spending too much. Boy was I right. I sat at a booth in the bar with my book, ordered an iced tea and chips and ranch and left with a bill of about $2. Turns out if you sit in the bar the chips are free. Score.
Best lunch ever.
Rant: One thing that has been killing me since I got back is American health care. I have no job, therefore I have no insurance, making it just about impossible to afford to see a doctor. I was supposed to have a lab test done, to make sure I had no lingering infection from my kidney stone surgery. I went to a lab and found out you can't have any lab work done without a doctor's order. So in essense I would need to pay a doctor $90 to tell him that I need him to tell me that I need a lab test. So frustrating. I looked into free or cheap clinics but didn't qualify since I wasn't a resident of the county or a migrant farm worker. I finally consented to see a doctor and tried to use a credit card to pay at the appointment and they didn't take credt cards! So I passed altogether. Unbelievable.
Next stop Georgia - we're going to visit some relatives and bring in the New Year!
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Jeannine
non-member comment
welcome back
Hey Jenn, welcome back to blog land. It was good to hear from you. All is well here at the zoo. The new gorilla exhibit is working out great. We have temp positions if you need something to do for a while.