When Holidays Collide...

Christmas. Priceless.
Easter. Invaluable.
Put 'em together and it's $32 "firm" at the antique mall. 

And Big Guy Said I Couldn't Do It

And So My Pen Pal Wrote

 

(In response to Christmas Pen Pal)

 

 

 

Well hello (unintentional) pen pal! It's nice to meet you! I'm so glad you have a sense of humor about my incessant Christmas card sending. Oops. I hope Mr. Big Guy didn't bust a brain cell trying to recall me.

My honest first response was, "Big Guy got married?!? And is a stepfather? When did that happen?" Glad I'm not that out of touch with him :)

I have to tell you, the Big Guy I know will get such a kick out of this whole thing. I will never live it down.

My extended family had a full-blown discussion about sending Christmas cards. Is it a lost art? It's not green. It costs some decent "green". Maybe one year I'll give it up. Will I feel compelled to keep in touch with my new Christmas pen pals? We'll see what 2013 brings!

Take care and blessed New Year to you as well.

Mosquito Man

 My neighbor the vampire also gets dubbed “Mosquito Man.” In the summer, he obsesses about standing water. Mosquito Man hates blood-sucking mosquitoes and is well-schooled in their breeding habitats.

During the hot, muggy dog-days of July, I watch from my front porch as Mosquito Man visits every yard--up and down the street—to dump standing water from neglected bird baths, forgotten flower pots and other abandoned yard debris.

 Mosquito Man waves at me as I watch. He and I talk often enough that he holds complete faith in me. He believes I never let standing water collect anywhere long enough for a single set of mosquito parents to breed even one youngster. Sadly, that’s not so. It is usually Mosquito Man’s wave that prompts me to go check the spots where standing water gathers.

 My other neighbors—and we are a block that talks—brush off Mosquito Man’s vigilance as the mission of a man with too much time. I straddle their conversation. Mosquito Man is a bit overboard—but these neighbors, nice as they are, let standing water stand and then, the blood-biters breed.

Usually, by August, county spray trucks have run at least once through the neighborhood. I don’t ask my neighbors what they think as that invites discussion of “chemicals and what’s safe.” And I love chemistry. It is putting my children through school.

My neighbors—with the exception of Mosquito Man—don’t know beans about mosquitoes. I know that the mosquitoes that bite people--and most mosquitoes don't--inadvertently may spread diseases that kill people. Their blood meals are far worse than my neighborhood vampire's evening stroll. As he knocks out the competition, we all win.

 

 

 

Color Choice

Sea Foam Green. Who would have thought it? I bought myself a car drenched in sea foam green. The color choice makes up for never going to prom. I never wore a princess-cut gown of sea foam green chiffon threaded with delicate pink ribbon. That's the sort of  awkward color choice I might have made in high school, if only I had been asked to Senior Prom.

 I think I will tie a pink satin ribbon on the antenna of my sparkling Ford Escape, officially colored "Frosted Glass." Then I will drive past the local high school and honk my horn to celebrate. Times are better. Now, girls can go Senior Prom alone, or with friends, or with a date--who might even be a girl. Or they can decide not to go at all. Whatever the choice, they have the freedom make it.