National Geographic or Suburbia, USA?

Our weekend was relatively quiet until last night. The spousal unit and I turn down our road with the official Mother's Day pizza, the family let me have onions and peppers to go along with the pepperoni, and the whole street is standing out in the middle of the road. We look at each other like, "What is going on? Crazy Lady is out of town, what could possibly get everyone out of their houses?"

As I get out of the car, I holler over to a neighbor, "What's going on?" She says, "Bear! In the tree, right there!" and she points to the tree right across the road from my house. Sure enough there's a Florida Black Bear sitting in our neighbor's tree. Of course I run in the house to get the camera because that's just the way I roll. Of course, none of my pictures turned out because again, that's just how I roll.

Mr. Bear enjoyed the garbage from many trash cans along our road for the better part of the evening. People stayed outside watching him roam from yard to yard, jump a few fences and then my friend across the road emailed me that Mr. Bear was enjoying the swinging ball on their playset quite a bit and had some tasty grease off their grill's propane tank as dessert to the lobster he had out of our other neighbor's trash can. Yes, he ate well. He was detemined to be about six foot tall as he was climbing fences, 200lbs give or take and maybe two years old. I was relieved at that. I thought since he was kind of small that he might be a cub and momma might not be too far behind.

8 Random Things

Missy Ann tagged me for the 8 Random Things Meme going around.

1. Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves

2. People who are tagged write a blog post about their own 8 random things and post these rules

3. At the end of your blog you need to tag 8 people and post their names

4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.


1. I graduated from the same high school as Dooce, twelve years before she did.

2. I always wake up at 4:00a.m. No matter what time I go to bed I wake up at four. It's my favorite time of the day. I love the peace, the dark, the feeling that for a little while the neighborhood is all mine.

3. I discovered Jackson Browne at the age of nine, The Pretender record to be exact, to this day he is my all time favorite singer/songwriter. I never get tired of his music.

4. When I was a kid and I didn't like the way one of my shows would end I would rewrite it. I wrote plays for my Barbies. I used to try to write down the dialogue of my favorite shows, Carol Burnett, Mary Tyler Moore, I Dream of Jeanne, I Love Lucy, and then reenact that show with my dolls. (When I heard Rosie O'Donnell tell Mary Tyler Moore she used to do this-copy the dialogue from the shows-, I freaked. I thought I was the only one that ever did anything like that.)

5. When I was in high school my goal was to live on Pensacola Beach and write Harlequin Romances or to live in LA and write songs with Jackson Browne. How close have I gotten to any of those goals? I live about 20 miles from Pensacola Beach, I've entered a couple of Harlequin Contests, obviously I didn't win. I've never been to LA but have seen Jackson Browne in concert about 20 times.

6. Even though I've been stitching for 30 yrs I made my first French knot a month or so ago and it was while doing embroidery not cross stitch. I still can't seem to make one on evenweave or linen.

7. I hate cooking. I try very hard to make good food but I get no inner joy out of food preparation. If not for my family I could happily live on cereal and grilled cheese sandwiches. If I could I would eat out every meal. I do think a little more excitement from the family about the food I prepare would be helpful.

8. I love coffee, really good coffee. I love tea, iced, hot, or herbal.

Added later....8a. I voted for Al Gore for Congress when I lived in Tennessee, my very first election. We lived in Little Rock when Bill Clinton was governor, we were still living there when he was elected president. We lived in Florida during the 2000 election Chad-A-Palooza.

I tag anyone reading this who wants to participate.