Laundry, writing and grapes. What they have in common.

 As I may have mentioned earlier, my grape crop came in early this year.  So far I have three batches of wine going, one at 17% alcohol and another at 15%.  The third is still waiting for the yeast, so its not cooking yet.  Florida grapes don't ripen in big clusters, they ripen one at a time, so picking is time consuming  While I pick, I contemplate the great questions of life.  On this day I thought about the act of grape picking compared to the task of doing laundry and writing.  This is what I came up with:

I don't know how it is at your house, but at mine laundry is a never ending task.  I can wash, fold and put away five loads of laundry, turn around and find something in the dirty clothes basket.  I think little gremlins with attitudes wait until I'm all finished, then dump more dirty clothes in the hamper when I'm not looking.  Picking grapes is like that.  No matter how long I pick in the morning, I can turn around and find one more grape that is ready to be picked.  I could pick 24/7 and still find one more ripe grape.  The only reason picking comes to an end is the grapes that I don't pick eventually get eaten by critters or rot.  Sometimes I wish my laundry would get eaten or rot so I wouldn't have to deal with it.

Writing is like picking grapes too.  Imagine that a grape vine is the manuscript, the out stretched suckers the sentences and the grapes the words.  One grape vine can extend quite a ways.  When I write, I am always walking down the vine, cutting words, sentences or whole sections.  To produce the best grapes, the vines need to be pruned once a year.   Manuscripts are the same, they need pruning to make them stronger and more productive.  Tweaking a manuscript never ends.  No matter how many times I read through it, I find a word I think could be left out or changed for a better word.  It never ends.  

So now you know how grape picking, laundry and writing are connected.  Until next time, keep your words crisp, laundry moving and grapes fermenting.

Video of Gabriel and I swimming

I forgot to add the video of Gabe and I swimming to my last post, so I am putting it here.  Enjoy.


http://www.youtube.com/user/FrancisRitchie

Anything Goes

I suppose I owe my readers a picture of me jumping in the pool with my clothes on.  After-all, I did say I would if I failed to post once a week.  I am astonished my last post was way back in June.  I will post the picture as soon as I find someone to take it for me.

It has been a hot summer here in Florida, fortunately, not as hot as other places.  Did you see on ABC news the steak they cooked on the dash of a car?  And we used to think it was hot when you could fry an egg on the sidewalk.  I just read on Facebook, that a friend of mine had her toenail polish melt on the sand at the beach!  Now that's hot!!

My grape crop is ripening early this year.  I already have two batches of wine started.  I'm excited this year, my white grape vine(it has a proper name, but there is no way I would spell it correctly and I'm sure it's not in spell check) is producing enough grapes to make wine with.  I sampled it this morning and it tasted goooooood.  I go out early every other morning and pick for a couple of hours, then jump in the pool to cool off.  Gabriel, our Flat-Coated retriever swims with me.  He's so cute, when he first started he only used his front paws, so when his fur got heavy with water, he sank.  He can now do two lengths of the pool like a champ.  I'll post a video of us swimming together at the end of this post.

My daughter is getting ready to return to her studies in North Carolina.  We will be joining her in September for her twenty-first birthday.  I now have to come up with $500 to give her.  There's a tradition in my family, my grandmother did it for my mom and uncle, Mom did it for my brother's and I and now I must do it for my child.  The deal is, if you can make it to 21 without smoking, you will get $500 on our birthday.  The reasoning, if you can go twenty-one years with smoking, chances are you will never start.  So far it has worked.  No one from that side of my family tree smokes.  Well, I'm going to sign-off now.  Think of me while I'm out picking grapes, sweat rushing down every crevice of my body, then in a year, think of me sipping on a cold glass of home brew.

My Unique Veiw of The World or Welcome to My World

We all view the world through our own pair of eye-glasses. Some are rose colored, giving everything a bright, positive look. Some are grey or green, they give a variety of views. A few are so dark nothing bright or colorful can make it past the lenses. I almost forgot, RayBan's that deflect the world away from the wearer. Then  there's my pair of eye-glasses, thick and usually covered in salt from my eyes. This helps give me a blurred image of the world around me. Of course, anything more than three feet from my nose is a blur.

Not many people know but I have a rare eye condition called a Coloboma. When I was a newborn, a neighbor gazed into my eyes and made a startling discovery, my pupils were not round, they are keyhole shaped.  Upon closer examination, because this condition often comes with more than one abnormality, it was discovered the optic nerve in each eye did not fully develop.  Pictures of my optic nerve show a large gap behind each of my baby blues.

Between my larger than normal pupils and missing optic nerves, I get a slightly different view of the world around me.  Some of the views have brought laughter while some just plain embarrassment or frustration.  During my first eye test to check my vision or lack there of, I was asked to name the animal on a chart at the end of the room.  I looked in the right direction and asked a question of my own, "What animals."  With that, the nurse said, "Forget it." and the test was over.

In my high school years I took driver's ed, yes, I see well enough to drive.  The instructors knew of my condition and while driving one day with Mr. Jones, he casually asked me what the sign up ahead said.  I looked, and was about to respond, "What sign, because there wasn't a sign in sight.  As I opened my mouth, the sign popped up from behind a tree.  I quickly told Mr. Jones what the sign said, it was a picture which I can see much easier than words.

In college I would wave at passing cars with friendly hands waving at me.  My friends asked, "Who was that?"
 "Gee I don't know, I just figure if they're waving at me I'm going to wave back."

I often squint trying to get a better focus, my glasses help but my corrected vision will never be 20/20.  Words that look alike often get mixed up in my head. Just before sitting down to write this I took out a can of hairspray.  I read, "Frizzy" I thought, why would I want to use hairspray that makes my already wild mop more so.  I brought the can closer, it said, Aussie Freeze.

I enjoy watching the Discover Channel and one day a program came on that I think explains why I see better than anyone ever expected I would. It showed two patients with irreversible brain damage.  One had lost the ability to speak when that part of the brain was damaged by a stroke.  Eventually she was able to learn how to speak again.  This puzzled her doctors who knew her brain function for speech had been destroyed.  The did an MRI of her brain and found an amazing sight.  While the speech part of her brain was still gone, another part of her brain not connected to speech had taken over that task.  I firmly believe that part of my brain not normally connected to sight has found a way to connect and take over as much of the functions the optic nerves as it can.

Until next time, keep those rose colored specs near by, you never know when you'll need to put a rosy glow on things.

Do Opposits Really Attract?

There's an old saying, opposites attract.  I've met many couples this applies to.  One such couple I met when I was in my early twenties. A minister and his wife.  If opposites attract they must have been Siamese twins.  The minister was a very scholarly man, quiet, well read, impeccable manners and very fastidious about his appearance.  His wife on the other end of the spectrum was boisterous, a casual dresser who liked to have a roaring good time.  She was the type of minister's wife who could easily wear a scarlet red dress to church and think nothing of it.  She is the one who introduced me to Planter's Punch.  It was a hot afternoon in South Carolina and we were swimming at the summer camp(before the camper's got there) I had gone to work at as a counselor for the summer.  She and our companion, the camp's secretary, brought along a thermos of punch.  Being a hot Carolina afternoon, we drank often.  Did I mention it was HOT, they had brought a large, I mean large thermos of Planter's Punch.  There was plenty to go around and around and around.  To make a long story short, the thermos was empty when we left the pool area. Not being from SC, I had no idea Planter's Punch was full of rum.  They must have made this potent potable with very smooth rum because it went down very fast.  It wasn't until they took me back to the director's house laughing and giggling that I learned what Planter's Punch was.

 The minister and his wife came from upbringings that were also polar opposites. Imagine my surprise when I learned later that summer he grew-up on a farm and she in a well connected family.  I would have thought it would be the other way around.

To outward appearances my husband and I are very much alike.  We grew up in the same economic class and we have the same level of education. We are very opposite in what we enjoy watching on TV.  For instance this past week he chose to watch, The Winds of War, on Netflix.  I on the other hand sat and watched, Howard the Duck. I can't say I'm proud of this but my husband had commented on it until I had to see for myself what it was all about.  I thought it was going to be a risque flick with a duck. It turned out to be a sci-fi flick with a person in a duck suite.  It is such a fine example of movie making that Wal-Mart had copies of it in their $5 bin.  I could go on but why should I embarrass myself with full disclosure of what I like to watch.  Until next time, beware of minister's wives offering Planter's Punch pool-side, you could end up plastered to the bottom of the pool.

Poll:

Have you ever watched Howard The Duck?

____No, never.

____Yes, every chance I get.

____Yes, but it's my dirty little secret.

_____No, but I will as soon as I find a copy.

Leave your answer in the comment section.
For those who want a copy go to your local Wal-Mart.

Getting From Here To There

I'm back!!!  I took time off to mourn my father and take care of family business.  My new goal is to add a new post to my blog once a week.  If I miss my goal I will jump in my pool fully clothed and post the picture on my Face book page.

You'll notice I updated my picture.  I'm truly not a procrastinator, I just take Scarlett O'hara's view, "I'll think about that tomorrow."  Of course, when tomorrow comes I'm still saying, "I'll think about that tomorrow," and so it goes on and on.  I think, I'll think about whether I'm a procrastinator tomorrow.

Now for the main focus of this blog post.

Have you ever stopped to think about the evolution of travel, finding the way from here to there? Here are a few of my thoughts on the matter.

I wasn't there but I imagine the earliest people simply followed the food supply.  Next, hunting parties had to remember landmarks to find their way back to the right cave.

I don't know who discovered constellations, but following the stars was popular for a number of years.  Compasses came along and pointed people in the right direction as did maps. With the development and use of the automobile gas stations were needed to fuel up.  Inside the station was the helpful attendant who was always ready to point and rattle off a series of left and right turns. 

It is now the 21st century and we have the GPS.  They started out as a separate unit that you carried with you, you put in a coordinate and the GPS showed the location with a dot on a grid.  The GPS has evolved into a very sophisticated unit that is standard in many automobiles.  They not only show you a map of where you are but they give verbal directions.  My brother's smart phone has an AP for a GPS, you the phone where you want to go and it starts giving you blow by blow directions on how to get there. It even tells you when you've gone too far.  The draw back to this and any other GPS is that they aren't always up to date on road construction and detours.

Over the years people have come to depend solely on their GPS's to get from here to there.  I have seen people actually hold their GPS in front of their faces to find their car in a parking lot.  The sad thing is, the parking lot was small.  The GPS has another major draw back, no signal, no directions.  Recently I went to the boondocks of Alabama with my brother.  We were trying to find an old family cemetery, he spoke the name into his smart phone and we were on our way, that is until it announced "out of range, no signal."  We didn't have a map, there were gas station attendants to ask and of course the stars were not visible. It took us awhile, but we did find our relatives that arrived in Alabama in the 1700's from Scotland.  We then found our way home to Florida without the GPS, map or friendly gas station attendant.  Until next time keep your maps of stars and roads handy, you never know when you will be out of range or if the car it is attached to breaks down.