LifePundit

Now I'm Afraid to Go Outside

I used to be afraid that there were alligators under my bed. Turns out I was not such a foolish child after all.

The alligators have gotten too big for their breeches. I guess that's what happens when you over-protect a species that doesn't appear to need much protecting.

I'm happy to say that it's legal to hunt them in S.C. now, though I don't know when, how or where to do it.

Unfortunately, for the "where" part, it seems you don't have to look very far. A couple of weeks ago, at Betty's Diner on this end of town, or rather, since I'm not in town and Betty's not either, I guess you'd say sort of in this neck of the woods, had a10-12 foot alligator relishing the aroma of cooking hamburgers, fried chicken and tasty customers from just off Betty's property line. Since the marauder wasn't technically on her property and was a good tipper, the authorities wouldn't do anything about it.

Betty said:

“I check under my car when I go out,” said Betty Mack, 59, the diner’s chief cook and restaurant’s namesake who says her specialty is her fast-selling, secret-recipe, nonalcoholic green fruit drink she calls “Jesus.”

The gator hung out all day Friday.

And then, about 35 minutes from here in another town where alligators do not belong, a family heard a noise on the porch at 3:00 a.m. and thought it was a burglar. I think I would have preferred a burglar.

It was a nine-foot alligator. On their porch! And what's with the rug (picture above)? Remind anybody other than me of Little Red Riding Hood? This is serious, folks?

What the heck was a nine-foot alligator -- impersonating an alligator wearing a rung -- doing making a ruckus on their porch? Alligators do not belong next to restaurant parking lots. They don't belong on people's porches.

I'm beginning to believe that they belong in the purse-and-shoe shops. A few alligators is a natural wonder. Alligators leaving their natural habitats (and I'm not talking about how we encroached on them -- they do not belong this far away from their snaky rivers and golf courses near the coast) is how you lose an arm.

I had a friend who used to be in public relations for Jekyll Island. Every now and then she'd have to handle a situation where a tourist would have Poopsie the beribboned poodle on a leash, and an alligator would snatch Poopsie and gobble her down in one bite, just leaving the leash and the horror-stricken tourist. And my friend with a PR problem. (Poodles are apparently alligator chocolate.)

Anyway. I don't know where I'm going with this, but one thing's for sure: I'm not going outside.

I'd Like an Order of Vicarious Goal Fulfillment with That

A few months ago a friend alerted me to some kind of study (I want to say it was in the book, Emotional Intelligence, but who knows) that showed most of us can only press forward in one area of self-improvement or self-moderation at a time. This is good to know if you're setting yourself up for failure by trying to lose weight, save money and write two novels while continuing with everything you are already doing, all at the same time. (Tried it and it does not work.)

The one thing I remember, since I don't necessarily remember the source, is that they found that people who went window shopping before meeting friends at a restaurant ordered more and worse choices for dinner. Because they had already exerted self-control by window-shopping and not shopping-shopping, their self-control tank was half-empty.

Now here's another study that shows the ways our brains work -- or don't. If there are healthy food choices on a menu -- for example, a salad (though I can quickly make that unhealthy and yummy) -- people are more likely to do things such as order fries and other unhealthy food. They're calling this "vicarious goal fulfillment."

Here's a free and better description on Weighty Matters. You can probably google other stories, too.

Airline Makes Big Guy Buy Two Seats

This is a true story and not one that you've heard about. A friend of a friend has a rather large son (though not 555 lbs.) who is all muscle and plays football at some college. He's a monstrous guy with biceps like my thighs, only muscular and without cellulite, and weighs in at over 300 and something. So, when booking a flight, the airline made him buy two seats. This really made him and his mother mad because he's just your average college football player sort. Only in jumbo size.

Now, I have mixed feelings about this airline big-people, two-seat rule. I have flown before in the middle seat between passengers on each side who spilled over quite abundantly into my seat. The two large folks almost met in the middle, which, unfortunately, I was attempting to occupy. The thought did occur to me at the time that I was not getting full use of the seat I was paying for, and in fact, thought about charging rent. Though since they were bigger than me, and I couldn't be seen or cry for help behind the double-wall of flesh, I just endured.

So I can understand why if a person occupies more than one seat, perhaps the person in the seat who is experiencing the uninvited double occupancy of his neighbor's seat overflow really should either get a discount or a break. Yet, there is something unfair about this selling of two seats to one person. Heavy people and Southerners are the only people it's okay to make fun of.

But back to the true story of this son of a friend of a friend. He begrudgingly paid for his two seats, and showed up on time for his flight...

...only to find that the two seats weren't anywhere near each other!

Happy Confederate Memorial Day!

This is a photo I took on Saturday of South Carolina's State House. That's Lily in the front left. I don't know who the Confederate re-enactors are, but I'm sure they were hot. They were also extremely serious people, like the Beefeater guards you can't get to acknowledge you.

Not that Lily was one to find out. I could hardly get her to stand in the same town with them to get this photo.

"Who are those people?" she asked.

"Why do you think I'd know?" I answered. I have a lot of crazy friends but most keep to themselves and dress normally. "Just stand in front of the State House so I can get your picture." I practically had to haul her over there and sit on her just to get this picture. This was as close as she would get to them.

"They look like rapists," she said.

"They're not. They're just men with a love of history and too much time on their hands," I said.

"Why are they doing that?"

"Smile, honey, and we can get this over with."

We had a wonderful confluence (is that the word) of things this past weekend. Lily had a school project where she has to take pictures of various historic places (about 25 in all) downtown. She gets extra credit if she's in the photo.

And I got a brand new Nikon D60 for my birthday and Mother's Day. Yahoo! As soon as the battery charged, we were off, with Paul driving and Lily and me hopping out in traffic to take the photos.

Today I found out from a friend who works in state government that today is Confederate Memorial Day and she has the day off. So that's why there were sweaty re-enactors standing in front of the Confederate Memorial. (Though I'm beginning to think that a secession might be in order with the Obama administration doing all it can to dismantle what made America great. But that's another topic.)

Here's probably my favorite picture of the day -- Lily standing by the Gervais Street bridge. Sherman's troops sat on the other side of the river and shelled Columbia from there before crossing the river to burn the city.

I remember that Confederate Memorial Day was something my mother observed, but I don't remember how. Maybe just by remembering. She knew her grandfather, who was in Virginia when the war ended and had to walk home to South Carolina. She told me once about how as children she and her siblings would pretend to listen to their grandfather tell his stories, would say "yes sir" and nod their heads and not listen to a word. She said she regretted that she didn't pay more attention, that she didn't remember more. I guess when Confederate Memorial Day rolled around she remembered all that she could remember. And more. Now she can't remember who I am.

For those of us who can still remember, Happy Confederate Memorial Day.

The Concert Begins at 3:58 p.m.

Okay, Obama gives the British Prime Minister a set of DVDs that not only resembles the gift that you keep on hand in case somebody shows up with a present and you didn't have one for them, but also won't play on DVD players in another region. The PM can't watch the DVDs unless he gets a player made for the American market.

I won't go on, because I know that some of my readers and friends are Democrats. But there is more and bigger stuff that makes me feel like We Are Not in Good Hands.

And it's everywhere. I find out (by chance, but that's another story) that Lily has an orchestra concert on Friday that begins at 3:58 p.m.

Who schedules a concert for 3:58 p.m.? (And if they dawdle until 4:00 for it to begin I'm going to start pounding the floor.) I hope that the school administrator who scheduled this thing has an enormous sense of humor and thought we would find this funny. If not, our schools are truly being run by people with no sense.

The Fat Cat Diet

Our vet has an obese white office cat (long-haired and maybe a few pounds less than the cat pictured). I see him every time I go in to get Tiger's blood sugar checked or to pick up more insulin or needles.

When I was recently there, I saw a great big fat white cat -- shaved and sitting in a cage. The cat looked pissed.

"Is that your office cat?" I asked.

"Yes. We shaved him so he could see how fat he was," the receptionist said.

"So the cat could see how fat he was?" I asked.

"Yes. So he'd be ashamed and lose weight," she said.

This is crazy. Does a cat care if its fat? Maybe excess poundage is a turn-on for cats. Who knows how a cat thinks? Does this cat have a mirror? Is he vain?

He sure was shaved. He looked like a cat army recruit. I asked, "Did it work?"

"No."

I stared at him. They had a big sign on his cage that said, "Do not feed, no matter what he tells you." And then instructions to feed him one spoonful of a special food in the morning and one spoonful at night. And he looked mad.

"Why's he in the cage?" I asked.

"Because he's so mad he's on a diet that he's been swatting us."

I've been thinking about this a lot. Instead of going to a spa-resort to lose weight while getting massaged and fed slices of cucumber down by the pool, what about going to a local place where they lock you naked in a room with mirrors and stick a spoonful of food through the window twice a day?

Me Mores

A lot of people, including my mother-in-law, have been inspired to write their memoirs. This is a good thing for family history. For instance, if you wanted to see where dysfunctional behavior entered the family tree, a relative's memoir might be a good place to start.

And grudgingly, in my mother-in-law's defense, her memoir is about growing up in war-time England and it is an interesting story that should be preserved though the memoir doesn't need to be spoken about weekly.

Other relatives have interesting stories to tell and I wish that they would tell them. There's so much that doesn't get told in a family, and while these stories wouldn't necessarily be interesting to an outsider, they are treasures to family members.

For example, it wasn't until a couple of Thanksgivings ago that I heard the story of Saintly Brother's daring scuba diving adventures and how he and his friends were almost swept to sea. His own children had never heard the story and we all sat fascinated as he told us how he and his friends had started off their "scuba" adventures by trying to swim underwater and breathe through a hollow reed like they do in the movies (can't be done) and progressed to an elaborate home-made diving rig that used a paint compressor and some hoses to supply air to a modified diving mask. They mainly saw murky water, but they also were nearly swept to sea. None of the parents ever knew. He was a smart kid with a good imagination and access to equipment of all sorts. I wish he'd write a memoir. It would be a good one.

While many of us have interesting life stories, most of us do not. Yet the trend to write one's memoir gets stronger. A friend who just returned from a writer's workshop said that there is a term for this "writing-one's-memoir-even-though-one-hasn't-done-anything-interesting": these are not called memoirs, but "Me Mores."

Just doing my job to keep you informed.

It's 50 Degrees and Cloudy, So They Cancelled School

I love South Carolina. Right now it's 50 degrees and cloudy. I just got an e-mail, a text-alert on my cell and an automated voice-call on the land line: School is canceled tomorrow because it might snow.

I do hope that it does. I could use some snow, so long as it doesn't hang around. Snow is best for one day or two. Not the whole winter.

Snow is a reason for a holiday. Outside will smell wonderful -- the air heavy with pine because our poor trees weren't made for snow. The snow will collect on the needles and in the branches and be too heavy for the tree. Snap! Down they'll fall. Which is all fine provided they don't fall on your power lines because then, in your all-electric, not-too-warm-from-the-heat-pump house, you'll be cold and in the dark. And if you live in the country and are on a well, you'll also be thirsty and stinky because your well won't work without electricity and you won't have water.

But sometimes it snows and the power doesn't go out. That, my friends, is a real holiday. A reason to cancel school, stay home with your family, and drink hot chocolate and marvel at the stuff floating down from the sky. Snow. That rarest of weathers.

Your New Christmas Tradition

This is one of the funniest things I've ever heard. Enjoy!

I Love Good Old Boys

If you haven't seen it already, you must watch this video of a Good Samaritan armed with nothing more than a frozen turkey. I love Good Old Boys.

Here's the story: CBS/ AP) Authorities say a Good Samaritan used a frozen turkey to club a man as the man was committing a carjacking at a North Carolina grocery store. According to police: Thirty-year-old Fred Louis Ervin, of Raleigh, stole money from a Garner BP gas station before running across the street to the parking lot of a Harris Teeter in Fuquay-Varina, just south of Raleigh. There, he began beating Irene Moorman Bailey while trying to take her car. Other shoppers came to Bailey's rescue, including a man who hit Ervin with the only weapon he could find: a frozen turkey. He hit the suspect several times in the head with it. Despite head injuries, Ervin got away in Bailey's car, hitting several other cars as he fled. But he was arrested a short time later. Ervin faces several charges, including assault, inflicting serious injury, larceny and hit and run. He was being treated at WakeMed Raleigh Campus. Hospital officials said he was in good condition. Frozen turkeys are, of course, hard as a rock. "I don't know, in my 30 some year career, if I've heard of someone getting in a fight with a frozen turkey involved! " Fuquay-Varina Police Chief Larry Smith told reporters.