Monthly Archives: November 2011

I saw a raccoon in the middle of the day…

Posted by Lesley on November 25, 2011 None comments

…and it didn’t attack me.  It was just taking a nap in a tree.I’ve never been so happy to see a raccoon before.  This little baby, or kit in raccoon terms, was absolutely adorable and not at all abnormal.  Raccoons are known to nap in trees during the day, and it’s also common for a mother to forage for extra food during the day.

I remember seeing a raccoon skulking along the fence once while gardening; it scared the hell out of me.  With my head practically inside a croton weeding underneath it, it was startling to turn around and see a raccoon right behind me about 20 feet away.  I immediately went running into the house with the frantic thought of RABIES racing through my head.

But thinking back on it after reading this line from the University of Texas Environmental Health & Safety’s website, “If a nocturnal animal is out during the day and is sick you will know it,” I know that raccoon was fine.  The site goes on to say, “The symptoms when an animal is sick or injured can vary, but regardless it’s fairly obvious that something is wrong.”  The raccoon that scared me wasn’t foaming at the mouth; it wasn’t trying to approach me; it wasn’t acting crazy in any way.  It was actually acting quite normal trying to sneak behind me undetected.  I was the one acting rabid running for the door.

I’m not suggesting you try to feed them as if they are ducks by a pond, but day-foraging raccoons have an unnecessarily bad name.  There’s no reason to automatically assume they are all rabid…and look how cute!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted by Lesley on November 24, 2011 None comments

We spent the day with family and friends at someone else’s house…and that may be what I’m most thankful for this year – no cooking, no cleaning and no dishes.  All I had to be responsible for was fruit.  I can’t remember a recent Thanksgiving morning when I’ve had so much free time on my hands; the proof is in the fruit.If all I had to bring was fruit, then I was bringing FRUIT!  Some boring fruit salad would just not do, and as I proudly set my gigantic fruit art down on the table, my teenage niece says, “God, you always have to show off.”  Add an eye-roll and here’s the face to go with that comment.

Mary

LOL!  Thanksgiving is about family, and OMG I’m turning into my father.  Leave it to a teenager to point it out.  Although I don’t think either of us are show-offs per say…over-the-top on occasion?  Yep.

It a weird thing when you realize you are the person you’ve been making fun of.  I was just goofing on him today with my sister because he’s walking now.  To a normal person, this would consist of simply walking more.  But to my father, he has to plan his whole day around his walks because each one has to be two hours long.  He bought a new iPod, that I know of only because he forced my little brother to load it, but I’m betting there are more shiny, new things strapped to him too – a pedometer perhaps, at the very least, new sneakers.  And his iTunes bill probably cost more than my phone bill last month.

But here I sit, the mocking woman who couldn’t just bring fruit salad.  My house is littered with the evidence of past gung-ho efforts – reams of scrapbook paper, pounds of soap, shards of tile, the list goes on.  Oh well, one more thing to be thankful for today – the ability to laugh at myself.

And if you’d like to make a fruit bouquet yourself, it’s actually not as difficult or ostentatious as my niece would have you believe.  It’s all in the tools – cookie cutters and skewers.  I cookie cut all the pieces before assembling the bouquet and kept popping the fruit in and out of the fridge to keep the pieces cool and fresh.
The base is a half a watermelon, fruit kept in tact to hold the skewers in place.  As long as you cut your fruit slices thin enough to clear your cookie cutters, this is an easy project with some show-off, wow factor.  Yes, Mary, you will be seeing this fruit bouquet again.

Hitchhikers

Posted by Lesley on November 22, 2011 2 comments

Having worked at a domestic violence and rape crisis center for seven years, I would never recommend picking up hitchhikers.  It is highly dangerous as a woman and not much less dangerous as a man.  Watch Monster starring Charlize Theron for proof of this; it was based on the true story of a murdering, hitchhiking prostitute.  Still, I’ve had a couple of hitchhikers lately convince me there is such a thing as safe hitchhikers; although they don’t follow the conventional thumb rules.  They just hop on – rude but cute.

Potatoes Aren’t Just for Mashing

Posted by Lesley on November 20, 2011 2 comments

The ingredients for ceviche were a bonus; yesterday’s goal ingredient that we could not and would not leave the farmers market without were organic potatoes…not for cooking, for science class.Cooper’s hypothesis: If I introduce fertilizer and pesticides to a potato, then it will produce more phosphoric acid therefore increasing the voltages.  The YouTube video that sparked his interest: How to Make a Potato Battery.His hypothesis was wrong; the voltages were about the same regardless of organic versus non-organic, but anything that requires a knife and voltage is a fun project for a 13 year-old boy.  And by the end of the weekend he had transformed the potato batteries into potato targets.He made a slingshot out of a stick, clothespin, duct tape, ruler, hollowed-out pen, and piece of elastic.  The arrow is a skewer with a nail duct taped to the top.  The gadget works so well that he was slinging the skewers into our back fence and they were sticking in the wood!

It was in the news recently that many of the techies in Silicon Valley send their children to a Waldorf school that doesn’t use computers and even discourages their use at home because they stifle creativity and intelligence.  The potatoes and slingshot have me believing.

Cooper has suffered a series of unfortunate events lately.  First his computer blew, literally, it was smoking.  Second, our cable company made a change that requires a new box we haven’t picked up yet, so he’s down on channels.  Third, he came home with a terrible report card and got his tablet taken away.  His situation is now what I grew up with – basic cable…boohoo.  But on the sympathetic side, in teenage wasteland today, no Facebook equals desert island.  I can’t wait to see what the upcoming five-day holiday weekend will bring…hopefully nothing sharper or faster than flying nails.

From Farmers Market to Table

Posted by Lesley on November 19, 2011 1 comments

This is the time of year to live in Florida.  The weather is either warm or cool with absolutely no chance of snow, and the farmers markets have all reopened for the season.  Two stops at the Sarasota Farmers Market this morning led to our dinner tonight – ceviche.  We used shrimp, crab and tilapia marinated in tangerines, lemon and limes mixed with strips of jalapeno pepper and red onion.  Normally ceviche calls for cilantro, but to me it tastes like soap, so I never use it in anything. Any combination of seafood and citrus will do for ceviche.  Maggie’s Seafood and Brown’s Grove are the two stands to look for.  Maggie’s is on the corner of Main Street and Lemon Avenue.  Brown’s is at the corner of Lemon and State Street.

But here’s an insider tip on Maggie’s Seafood: if you can swing it, visit her stand at the Phillippi Farmhouse Market on Wednesdays.  The market is open from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and there’s never a line.  Saturday mornings downtown, her line runs around the block and she often sells out.The market has expanded quite a bit since the vendors took over control from the Downtown Partnership two years ago.  An extension along State Street was added last year, but now the market stretches further along Lemon Avenue as well.  One of my favorite morning treats is pure maple syrup, so I was happy to see this sign and a few others…We also ran into a Lukey look-alike!  It was a good day.

My Two Best Tips for Visiting Busch Gardens

Posted by Lesley on November 12, 2011 1 comments
  1. Keep your head erect when riding the Gwazi.
  2. Splurge on the nectar.

“Keep your head erect,”  something I read while strapped into the front seat of a wooden roller coaster that boasts 100 mph speed.  I was unaware of that fact at the time and had even gone so far as to comment to my brother how bored the people returning looked compared to the Montu riders from earlier, so I was completely puzzled by the seemingly pedestrian instruction.  How else would I keep my head? 

Well, let me tell you that as my head flipped back like an unhinged Pez dispenser, those four words became all too clear.  I spent the rest of the ride with my shoulders and neck stacked like a linebacker ready for impact.  I was sure my souvenir from the day would be whiplash, but so far so good.  I can turn left, right, up, and down.  Life is good.

And it can be made even better with a shot of nectar in the Bird Garden…although it should be noted that it probably costs less to get drunk.  But for five dollars a pop, you can have birds lining up to your arm like drunks to a bar which is pretty cool…  …and sometimes a little scary!And here’s a money-saving tip.  The birds won’t drink half that nectar, so look around for people leaving the garden.  The kids were given nectar while I was outside buying it, and we also gave ours away when we left.

Sarasota Chalk Festival

Posted by Lesley on November 5, 2011 None comments

Artists from around the world have been crawling around Pineapple Avenue on their hands and knees for a week transforming the downtown street into an outdoor art gallery for the Sarasota Chalk Festival.       John and I enjoyed dinner on Main Street and walked over to Pineapple after.  Many of the artists were still at work.  And as if the street art wasn’t enough, there was street opera too.  The cafe on the corner of Pineapple and Orange had the most delightful opera singer out front.  I’ve never been a fan of the overly dramatic and seemingly depressing art form, so I would have never imagined describing an opera singer as delightful, but she really was.  She was joking and pulling people from the crowd.  It was fun.  After 17 years of living in Sarasota, I may finally check out the opera house.The power-washers don’t start blasting away the chalk until Monday; it’s worth the trip if you get a chance…and one more picture just because I’m jealous of the view; this woman was enjoying the music from the comfort of her apartment above the cafe.  The building was built in 1925 and was originally the home of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. 

{this moment} John Sweeping

Posted by Lesley on November 4, 2011 1 comments

{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Sorry, Soulemama, this moment simply must accompany words.  Especially since these particular words that were uttered during a recent cleaning-related spat can now never be truthfully said again, “I’ve never even seen you hold a broom.”  Ta-da!