January
As has been our way for a number of years now, Nancy and I awoke on New Year's Day on Captiva Island, just off the coast of Ft Myers, Florida. This delightful habit has been enabled by our good friends Robyn and Dave who have hosted us over the New Years holiday most years since the mid-90s.
After a day of college football, and renewal of 2015's unfulfilled resolutions for the new year (saves having to come up with new ones), we headed north to my mother's in Zephyrhills. Here is the first picture of the year - me with my two buddies Lacy on the left and Baxter on the right.
Baxter was my mother's dog of 11 years. I say was as Baxter has since gone to that luxury puppy spa in the sky. More on that later. Lacy was the dog of my sister Wendy and her daughter. But through a chain of unforeseen events, Lacy had relocated to Carnation Lane and become Baxter's live-in partner. She was almost 10 years old at the time of this picture.
But the real story of January was my discovery of the Pasco County Recycling Center. I need to back up a bit to tell this story properly. In 2013 my Dad purchased a house in Zephyrhills and rented it to a family member at a bargain price. The idea was to provide this family member a head start as she worked to establish credit, obtain a mortgage, and buy the house from him. A well-intended plan. But due to unfortunate circumstances (one of which was the family member losing her job due to a fire at her place of employment), the plan didn't work out. So by May of 2015, the house was standing idle and in a state of disrepair.
My sister Wendy is pretty handy from a house maintenance perspective. So she took the lead on cleaning up the house, installing a few improvements, and in general getting it ready to sell. By late 2015, it was ready to go on the market except for one thing. The residue from all the fix-up work was piled up inside of and around a freestanding shed in the backyard. And it looked very unappealing.
Enter the purge king (moi). As part of my holiday trip to Florida, it became my job (due to a well-documented obsession with neatness and order), to remove the impressive accumulation of rubble to shall we say a more appropriate spot. The first step of course was to sort through the debris, salvage anything that might have future value, and prepare the rest for transport. Here are some shots of the problem. First, inside the shed.
And outside the shed.
And some shots after the cleanup.
And the load. This was actually one of two loads it took to complete the job,
Now, the fun part. Actually getting rid of all this stuff. Enter the Pasco County Recycling Center. A very cool place.
I have had previous experiences delivering materials to landfills, or what I knew in earlier years as dumps. But I had never seen anything like the PCRC. There were no dirt roads riddled with twisted metal and broken glass winding around nondescript piles of refuse. No garage-sized bulldozers pushing mounds of detritus hither and yon. And no tell-tale aroma of decay, as life's expired treasures are burned and/or plowed under.
No. The PCRC is like a modern theme park. There are smooth, concrete passageways, brightly painted activity centers, and "cast members" in neat uniforms stationed at key locations to help you enjoy your recycling experience. Here is a shot of the entrance. Looks more like the gateway to the Magic Kingdom than the "final destination" for tired and no longer wanted possessions.
And here I am at my first "activity station" (#6), properly gloved and anxious for the fun to begin. Note the super clean surroundings complete with overhead protection in the event of inclement weather.
As you can see from this shot, each station is really a concrete portico with a half wall, over which you pitch your items. Yes, you actually get to "throw" your items away, like this unfortunate futon. Can you tell from my expression the primordial joy that this experience can awaken?
I'm told that at the point you release your grip on an item and it clears the wall, that it's customary to utter an appropriate farewell message to the victim. Something like "good riddance" or "you're toast". Here I am honoring this local ritual with full vigor. I think my parting expression was "have a nice day".
As you can see from this additional shot of the futon's demise, these disposal stations are actually elevated above jumbo-sized dumpsters into which the flung items are supposed to land. A sad end for the flotsam of daily life. But tidy.
The highlight of my tossing that day was definitely the last stop - bathroom fixtures. Here I am toying with this jewel of a disposable item, muttering insincere words of comfort as I let it teeter on the brink, it not knowing exactly when the final push would come. It was shortly after I let this poor creature tumble away in confusion that I realized that lingering too long in a state of purge euphoria can bring out one's dark side.
And what about items too large to toss, you ask? They've thought of that, too. There is an area where large items (stoves, refrigerators, Chevies) can be unloaded. Neatly, of course.
You can't see him in this shot, but just out of the picture on the left was the guy who had the best job at the PCRC. He's in a front-end loader that he uses to smash the recently delivered items (in front) into smaller, more manageable shapes (the stuff piled up in the back). How fun is that.
I'll end the tale of my discovery of the Pasco County Recycling Center with this shot of my happy client - Mom - congratulating me for completing the job. I think I can expect some repeat business.
After the grueling "rubbish runner" ordeal, Nancy and I headed off to one of our favorite haunts, Disney's Vero Beach resort, for a few days of R&R. On the way we stopped by the Market Place at Disney World for lunch and a little shopping. What we discovered was a lot of construction on new stores, parking ramps and yet another redesign of the corner of Buena Vista Drive and Hotel Plaza Boulevard at the Southeast corner of the Disney Springs shopping complex. That corner now features walkovers to the hotels and additional parking. For those of you familiar with that corner, here are a couple of shots of the new look.
After lunch, we headed on down to Vero. The resort was of course all decked out for the holidays as shown in these pics of the main lobby.
We spent most of our time there relaxing, enjoying the view and taking the sea air. The beach was spectacular, as always. Here I am on a beach walk in my typical Florida winter garb - shorts and a hoodie.
The nice thing for retirees about walking on the beach is that it's hard to get lost. Not of that embarrassing silver alert stuff.
One moment of excitement during the Vero visit was an unusual lunch. Nancy and I had taken a drive down the coast for a seafood lunch by the ocean. We had just ordered when we saw this impressive conveyance in the parking lot.
No, it wasn't the local firehouse stopping in for a bite. There was actually a fire in the kitchen, according to our waitress. No alarm was sounded. No evacuation through the closest exit. No stop, drop and roll. It was sort of a "swelter in place" protocol. A half dozen or so large burly types in what must have been 90 pounds of equipment each walked demurely through the aisles and went into the kitchen. Like, nobody would notice. We and the other patrons (restaurant was about one-third full as I recall) just kept chatting like there was nothing happening. About 15 minutes later, the firemen emerged from the kitchen and waltzed back through the front door to their truck and drove off. I've wondered since if it all was just a creative floor show to entertain the tourists.
Having recharged our batteries after a few days in the sun, Nancy and I had an uneventful trip back up north. The weekend after our return we made our customary mid-January trip to Wiser Times to check on things. This time we were joined by Cathy and Matt who were looking for a little getaway time. Here they are playing some sort of game from "a galaxy far far away". It looked a little complicated. More pieces than my original Erector set.
So I headed out for a little fresh air and a walk around the place looking for things that might make the spring fix-up list. It's fun to traipse around in the snow at the cottage in January. Fun for about 15 minutes.
The following weekend we were back up north with our friends Robyn and Dave at their Petoskey condo for what has for years been a joint family ski weekend. Nancy and I don't ski, but our kids do and they have always loved taking advantage of this opportunity to trade parents for a couple of days. So while Robyn and Dave would take their kids and ours to the slopes, Nancy and I would enjoy shopping and dining out in this quaint community. The kids aren't around as much these days, but the parents are keeping the tradition alive. Here's a shot of Nancy and I with Dave reunited for happy hour and dinner after a day of parallel play. I think Robyn was soaking in the hot tub.
Upon returning home from our trip to Petoskey, I returned to Florida for a few days to attend the closing of the sale of my mother's rental house (the one that led to my great rubbish adventure). After the clean up, it sold quickly. We were so excited to have
February
We spent most of the month of February at home sitting by the fire, avoiding ice and snow as much as possible, and catching up on hobby projects. Coco sort of captured the spirit of the month for us with this fairly regular evening pose. Can you say happy dog?
We did take a long weekend that month to see my son Ted and his kids in Austin. We had a great time sharing parenting duties for a few days and seeing how much the kids had grown since the previous summer. I took some pride in demonstrating a few trampoline stunts for the kids. Here they are trying what I call an upright double quantum leap with an ankle twist (I had performed one myself earlier, but it went undocumented as the kids couldn't figure out how to take a picture on my android phone - they're Apple people).
Here they are, coming over to get their scores. They both were awarded 10s. And as you can see in the first pic, Leili is getting to know the tooth fairy (totally not connected to her trampolining - I swear).
We spent an afternoon at the park during the visit. Here are some shots. First Cyrus showing his versatility.
Here Ted and Grandma are assisting on swings.
And the grandparents, happy to be in the Texas sun in February.
And the perfect ending to a day of fun at the park - happy hour. The kids with their form of escapism.
And the parents with theirs.
On the last day of our trip, we relaxed a bit with indoor activities. Here I am getting destroyed at a game of Princess, by the princess in residence.
Here Cyrus has invited us into his Lego universe. He tried explaining what everything was and how it works but I kept glazing over, longing for my Lincoln Logs.
My sister Wendy came to Michigan for a visit the last weekend in February and to attend an Il Volo concert. For the uninitiated, Il Volo are three young Italian tenors with world class pipes. Both my sisters are wannabe groupies. Here I am with Wendy and Cindy all gussied up and heading to the Fox.
To keep the length of this post from getting out of hand, I'll go ahead and publish Part 1. Part 2 will resume with the very interesting month of March.
Grosse Pointe Chuck
