Florida, Week 3!

I am still alive and well after last week's post on Mansplaining. Thanks for all your cards, letters, phone calls and wellness checks to make sure I was okay. I think the danger has past so let me create a little more danger. (Sometimes I just cannot help myself). 

Did you know that there is such a thing as Womansplaining as well? It is only fair that I explain the other side too. I know most of the married guys out there are nodding their heads or at least want to but are too afraid for fear of getting a frying pan upside the head. Let me elaborate. 

After last week's beating though, I am not going to use Barb as an example in my examples of  womansplaining. Instead, I will use a few examples that some readers sent me this week.  But first, an explanation of what womansplaining is; It is the uncontrollable urge for a woman (many times a wife) to make a statement about the completely obvious. 

The first comes from Dino in Fergus Falls, MN. Dino writes: On the rare occasion that my wife and I save up enough money to go out to eat at a restaurant the following scenario always happens. We are sitting there at a restaurant, having a lovely meal and Lisa has to use the restroom. As she gets up, she looks me in the eye and says, "Watch my purse". Really? Apparently, it is uncontrollable. She just has to say it as if she doesn't say it, I am going to sit there and let some stranger come up and take her purse. She would come back; her purse is gone. "Where is my purse?". "Oh, some guy just came by and took it, you didn't say anything about me watching it, so I thought it was okay he took it". But, when she says, "Watch my purse". I spend the next 3 minutes staring at her purse without blinking. I don't know why I am watching her purse, but she told me to, so watch I will. Is it a magic purse that will transform into a puppy? So far, in the hundreds of times she has asked me to watch it nothing happens.  Even if the waitress comes by and asks if everything is okay I do not remove my eyes from her purse as I say, "I am fine, I am just watching my wife's purse". When Lisa comes back, I do not get any kind of thank you for watching her purse, she just says, "Okay, I am ready", picks up her purse and heads to the car.

Another writer, Steve from California wrote: I don't know why this always happens to me but whenever someone hands me a baby they always say the same thing. Debbie and I were over at a friends house who just had a baby. Debbie was holding the baby and came over to give it to me. As she is handing it to me, she says, "Don't drop the baby". Now, it is not only Debbie who says this, mothers have said this to me as well. They just cannot help themselves as they hand you their precious bundle of joy. The word's just spurt out.... "Now, don't drop the baby". I think to myself "Thank God she said that, I was just going to dribble it like a basketball and slam dunk it into the crib!".  Everyone knows that a baby is to be treated like a fine bottle of bourbon, cradled in your arms like it is the most delicate thing in the world.

Harry, from wherever Harry happens to be at at the moment (They are world travelers) writes: The other day we were backing into one of our RV sites when I hit a post on the edge of the site. My lovely wife Vicki turned and looked at me and said, "Didn't you see that?". I wanted to say, "Of course I saw it, but we don't have a dent on that side of the camper yet, so I thought I would add one. 

My last letter comes from another Steve, this time from British Columbia: I don't know if this qualifies as Womansplaining but this is what my bride Dianne does to me all the time. She must think I have horrible fashion sense. The scenario goes something like this: We are getting ready to go out to one of our local pubs cuz that's what we do up here in Canada eh? Dianne will ask me, "Should I wear the beige shirt or my red one?". I will respond, "Wear the beige one, it looks really good on you." Invariably, her response will be, "I think I'll wear the red one". Same goes for which pub we are going to go to; "(Her) "Do you want to go to Rummer Runner or Brentwood Pub?" (Me) Let's go to Brentwood, they have ½ price pints today." (Her) I want to go to Brentwood". Same goes for shoes, necklaces, what to have for supper. It does not matter, she gives me two choices, I choose, and she picks the opposite option. I finally got her figure out though. I beat her to the punch and will now say something like "You'll never guess where I am taking you for lunch. She will respond by saying "Bard and Baker Pub?" And I will say "How did you guess!?!" Win/Win, she gets to go where she wants to eat and thinks I was know where her favorite place is! 

The Steve's, Harry and Dino probably won't remember sending me those examples and will accuse me of making them up. I in turn, will say they were just too drunk to remember and will never really know whether they sent them or not. There were other letters, but I think these are sufficient enough to get these boys into trouble this week and take the focus off of me. 

Apparently, I left many of you in suspense last week when I was telling the story about how one of us had to quit our jobs after getting married some 39 years ago. We talked it over, we both loved our jobs, but in the end, it was Barb who decided to quit. It ended up being the best decision for both of us. She went to work for a private attorney in New Richmond, Wisconsin, that only lasted a year of two, but then she got a job in the Washington County Attorney's Office in Stillwater, MN where she stayed for 24 years and loved it. Me, I stayed at my employer for 30 years and really enjoyed my job as well.

Now, let me tell you about the rest of our week. Sunday was Superbowl Sunday, and we were invited over to one of Dan and Jeannie's neighbors. I have never met any of them, Barb had met a few of the women. Here is the interesting thing about this neighborhood, it is very interesting and diverse. Of the 20 or so people at the party, over half of the men have Venezuelan wives. Most were 2^nd (or maybe 3rd?) marriages having divorced or become widowed. Some of them spoke very good English while others spoke none at all. Very nice people and quite the festive group! 

Dan and I went fishing on Monday, we did a lot better than we did the two other times. The day started out cool and foggy before the sun burned through and made for a beautiful afternoon. 

Over the past week, it has been warm and do you know what warm means down here in Florida? It means every creepy crawly thing in the swampland comes to life. Where are the creepy crawly things? In the flooded cypress trees along the edge of the lake. Where are the fish? In the flooded cypress trees along the edge of the lake. So, off we went, risking our safety just to put food on our table. In doing so, we had no less than 6 risks to life and limb. 

The first risk comes into play as you approach the trees, thousands of cormorants and ibis roost in the trees overnight and I think these things make a sport out of seeing if they can crap on you as you go under them. We made it through that barrier unscathed. A few close calls, within feet of us, but no direct hits. 

As you enter the first row of trees, you often have to pull yourself through the tight spaces by grabbing branches and pulling your boat through. These trees are home to several things that want to kill you. First, are the wasps. Every, and I mean every tree has a wasp nest in it. Not big nests, but it only takes one or two wasps to ruin your day. 

Next up is the one I hate the most. Spiders! Oh, how I hate spiders. And these are not just tiny little spiders, these are palm-sized spiders who look like they want to imbed their eggs under your skin and have the babies eat you from the inside out. 

Then there are the gaters. We were sitting there fishing when a loud splash a mere 10' from us. We both jumped to see a 10+' gator laying right behind the boat. I am not sure who scared who more. 

This next critter is probably the most dangerous and the one we had our closest call with. We were turning the boat around to get out trees Dan was grabbing limbs and pulling us along when he said something like "Holy Sh#t!". I am not sure if those were the exact words, but it was something like that. I turned around to see him staring at a snake, at eye level, a foot away from him! 

I do not know my snakes, but Google Lens identified it as a Cottonmouth, not a snake you want to mess with!

Our last near-death experience of the day came when we were again in the trees. We were in a remote section of the lake within 5' or so of shore. We see this derelict cabin just ahead of us and start talking about how bad of shape it is in and wonder how long it has been abandoned when all of a sudden, this pit bull bursts from the cabin. Barking the entire way, it charges the boat. Now, I have met some very nice pit bulls in my day (Hurley), but this was not one of them. Just when we thought it was going to launch into our boat and rip our faces off it stops at the edge of the water and just barks. We thought it better to just paddle backwards away from the cabin and fish somewhere else.  

In the end, we made it through the day battling the elements and providing food for our families so we can survive another day. Dan caught his personal best bluegill!

While Dan and I were doing that, Barb and Jeannie were at The Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park taking a boat ride and looking at all the animals. 

One of the most interesting things she saw there was how they feed the manatees. The drop cabbage into a floating enclosure and the manatees swim under it and get their treats!

Then they went off to Monkey Island to look at the monkeys. 

Tuesday Barb and I continued quest to get to the Freezer each week we are here. Another pound of shrimp sacrificed their lives for us. 

That night we went to Dan and Jeannie's for a fish supper. The very fish we had risked out lives for the previous day. The meal also featured the one and only lemon from their lemon tree!

After supper, Barb and Jeannie loaded up the kayaks for a full moon kayak ride on the Rainbow River while Dan and I stayed back with the dogs, drank a little bourbon and solved many of the world's problems. 

After two quiet down days of reading, cleaning, laundry and blog writing we were ready for our next adventure! Friday, along with Dan and Jeannie, we headed off to The First Magnitude Brewery in Gainesville for some food and a beer.

After that we traveled a few miles over to the university for a Florida Gators baseball game! This was a first for both Barb and I, we have never been to a college baseball game. 

Saturday was again our "Mike and Liz Day", we went to the two remaining distilleries they wanted to take us to. First was NJoy Distillery. This one is waaaay out in the sticks, but what a cool venue!

This was followed by Aggregation Distillery in Crystal River. They have only been open a few months and are a small, family-owned operation. Very nice family and I hope they make it. We did not buy any bottles but enjoyed a cocktail while talking to the owners. 

I thought it was a very strange name for a distillery, so I had to ask them where they came up with the name. After he made his first sentence, I knew the answer. The first thing he said was, "What do they call a flock of crows?". It was then that I knew a group of manatees must be called an aggregation.  Who knew?!?!

I want to personally apologize to Harry for the lack of puppy pictures this week, it just went so fast that I did not take any! Zoey did have a birthday this week though! She turned 4 on the 14th, yup, she is a Valentines Day baby!

I heard from Farmer Bob once. After two days of travel, he had just gotten to the mission compound in Kenya. They are 8 hours ahead of our time here. I will try to give a better update of what he is up to next week. In the meantime, I dare some of you to send you your womansplaining examples!

Mansplaining

Mansplaining. It is a necessary means of communication when explaining something to women. I don't think I do it. Barb thinks I do. I call it detailed information. She calls it me thinking she is stupid. For example. We needed some nuts and bolts for a part that broke off medicine cabinet in the rig the other day. She was going to the store to get some food, and I asked her if she could pick up some two small nuts and bolts while she was there. I explained to her in a loving way, that the bolts had to be long enough to reach through the items we were bolting together, yet not so long that it protruded above too far and the diameter wide enough to fit through the hole but not too wide. She was intently listening with adoring eyes. Well, that is what I thought anyways. When I was done explaining all this to her, her response was, "Do you think I am Fxxxxing stupid?" 

I was slightly confused by her response, and I did not know if I should be taking her question figurately or literally.  Thinking she was maybe having a mini bout of terrets, I decided to ignore her outburst and continued, and told her that I needed some Loctite as well since the camper rattles so much, the nut would eventually loosen and come apart from the bolt. I told her it could not just be any Loctite though, it had to be the blue, not the red. 

She grabbed the parts out of my hand, shoved them in her purse and muttered something about mansplaining was necessary because men were to stupid and walked out the door. She returned an hour or so later with nuts, bolts and the locktite exactly as I described. I went and fixed the cabinet thinking what I good job I did explaining things to her so she could get the right parts. What a good husband I am!

In fact, I am such a good husband, she has kept me around for 39 years as of last Friday. 39 years ago on that day, we snuck away from work at lunch (we worked at the same place), went to the courthouse and got married by a local judge. We went back to work the following Monday and shocked our boss who did not even know we were seeing each other by telling him we were married. He was so pleased that for a wedding present he said that we could decide which one of us was going to quit as the company had an anti-nepotism policy. 

What did we do on our special day this year? We went to The World Equestrian Center to watch some horse jumping. What an incredible venue! The grounds were immaculate, definitely a must see if you are in the area. 

After that we had lunch and I made the mistake of asking Barb what she wanted to do next. Her response almost my heart stop, "I want to go to an RV dealer and look at Class C's!".  Oh, dear Lord, I thought, but off we went to look at Class C's. I hate, hate, hate going to dealers and looking at vehicles and told Barb I am going to just stand in the background as she talks to the salesperson. It was as dreadful as you can imagine. We sat down with the salesperson at his desk while he took down all of Barb's information and they talked about what she was looking for. Then we jumped into a golf cart driving around looking at several models. They did not have the model she was looking for, nor did they have the one she was interested in on their website. Call me skeptical, but sometimes I think they put items on their website just to get you in the door, only to tell you that that unit is no longer available. When we were done, he said, "Let me grab my manager, he wants to say hi before you leave". Ugh. I get the guy has a job to do and it just trying to make a living, but I find this entire process sooooo painful! 

The remainder of the week was filled with fun activities as well. We got together with our friends Dan and Jeannie a couple of times. Dan and I got out fishing twice. Once on Noonan Lake up near Gainsville and then out on Panasoffkee Lake. 

Both were great days on the water even though the fishing was a little slow. I think between the two outings we caught 7 fish between us. I did, however, get some great photos of the local wildlife! I don't know what a lot of these birds are except the Great Blue Heron, and I think the one below is an Ibis?

While Dan and I were doing that, Barb and Jeannie were out enjoying the water as well with a 2-mile(ish) swim one day and then kayaking with the manatees the other time they went out. Barb did not have a waterproof camera with her so there are no pictures to share. I do have this picture to share though. Barb bought some new goggles and was trying them out one day outside our trailer. As she was doing it, our neighbor decided to come over and introduce herself at that very moment. Do you think Barb took off the googles? Nope, Barb proceeded to sit there and have a conversation with her with the goggles on, stickers and all. I am sure she walked away thinking she was parked next to a couple of whack-a-dos!

We got out to eat at several area restaurants. Our favorite so far is The Freezer in Homosassa, we have been there several times over the years, we always get the steamed shrimp, delicious!

Next up is Cracker's in Crystal River, we went there with Dan and Jeannie. The food was decent and the atmosphere is pretty good. On Wednesday, it was off to Crump's Landing again in Homosasa with our friends Jim and Diana who were passing through on their way to Melborne Beach. We met via our blogs several years ago and have gotten together several times in South Dakota, Michigan and Florida over the years. The food at Crumps was very good food, we would go back there again! 

Our last dining out experience was at China Lee's buffet in Ocala. Talk about a cattle trough, all you can eat for $11.99 (weekday lunch). Again, it was very good. I did not take any pictures while there except these chopsticks. It says "kids", but I think even Dino would be able to use these!

What a difference a week can make. To think just a few days ago, we were in snowy, cold and frigid temperatures. Now, we are sunburned and bug bitten and bloated with all this delicious cuisine!

Saturday was a day of more food and drinks as we got together with our friends Mike and Liz. First we were off to The Biscuit Barn for breakfast. We spent the afternoon visiting a couple of local distilleries. Mike has 4 of them he wants to take us to while we are here. That day we checked off two; The Homosassa Distillery is a modern facility with some great tasting spirits. The owner was there and kept giving Barb a hard time as she was wearing a competitors shirt. Very nice place. 

Then it was off the Fish Hawk Distillery. This place was the total opposite of Homosassa. Where Homosassa was in town and convenient to get to, Fish Hawk was out in the sticks and hard to get to. Where Homosassa was model and clean, Fish Hawk was about as rustic as you could get. It is literally out of some guys shed and only has a covered lean to for seating. 

Regardless of their size and location, they do a good business, putting out over 32,000 bottles a year. It was a great day with Mike and Liz, one of these days we will remember to take a picture of all of us!

I also had to call Farmer Bob on Saturday as it was the last day he was going to be in the U.S. for the next 11 weeks. He is on his way to Africa for a mission trip. He does not know exactly what his role will be yet, but he will be in Kisii, Kenya helping out a church. This will be an experience of a lifetime for him, and I will try to keep up and write about his activities in the next few weeks as I am sure many of you will find it as fascinating as I do. He has been preparing for this for several months now, getting everything ready at home for his absence as well as a vaccine regiment that made him into a human voodoo doll!

I better wrap this up, I see Barb is about to see if she can find a blown fuse, I am sure she needs a man to explain to her what to do and look for! 

I will leave you with this picture of Zoey. She has been complaining that she was not in the blog the last few weeks. Here she is with her "Can I have a piece of that bacon" look. Something I see quite often!