You may have noticed that I have not posted any Photo Safari Reports in a few weeks.  Generally speaking, Joy and I usually hike on Thursdays which means I have Photo Safari Report (PSR) ready for you on Fridays!  But, with one thing and another, it turns out that the last PSR I put up was an entire month ago! It was June 26th, I just looked it up! 

I don't know if you've missed reading them, but I've missed writing them and mostly I've missed doing them!  The hiking, the photographing, the spotting of opportunity and the time with my sister are all  things too good to not do!

But life happens.  There have been appointments, travels, and mostly, there has been rain. Lots and lots of rain. Well it is our rainy season, so it makes perfect sense but dang!  Joy and I were both very hopeful for yesterday. After many weeks of NOT, we were sure that finally we'd be getting back out there. And then on Monday we checked the weather prediction and it was wet. Very wet. And worse than wet, it was filled with lightning. We don't mess around with lightning.  But during our usual Monday phone call, we agreed to wait to make an absolute decision until Wednesday.  The plan was that when I got home from work on Wednesday. I would check all of the various weather reports (because they don't always agree) and text her.

As soon as I got back from the museum on Wednesday, as promised, I checked the weather predictions and for a change, they all agreed.  Thunder, lightning, and rain. Full Orchestration. For Thursday morning.  Dang.  Joy and I texted back and forth for a bit trying to decide. After all, things do change. And around here, they change often.  So we agreed to do a zero hour decision Thursday morning. Whoever got up first would look out the window and text the other one.  Reasonable thought process! So we both prepared as we always do, camera batteries were charged, hiking clothes laid out, equipment gathered, we were ready, just in case.

I woke at 5:30 am Thursday morning to what sounded like an unending line of giant dump trucks filled with boulders crossing a metal bridge.  That is to say, rolling thunder.  I slitted my eyes open long enough to read the nearest clock and saw the time and immediately thereafter I was nearly blinded by a lightning flash in the very dark wee hours.  Dang.  I groaned softly, swung out of bed and padded to the window.

It was just a gentle pitter patter of rain at that moment; more drizzle than rain.  I checked the weather app on my phone and it confirmed that it had not changed it's mind about the storm. And in fact, if anything, it was going to be longer and bigger than originally stated. The entire county was now under a flood watch.  Well, that is just craptastic.

I texted Joy, knowing that eventually she would see my report and suggestion that the hike be cancelled even though the rain was just drizzly.  She responded almost immediately and agreed.  At that point it was more about the lightning than the rain.  It's not like we would melt in the rain.  It's not fun to be soaking wet, feet squelching in our shoes (a sure way to invite blisters by the way), clothes plastered to our bodies and hair running with water but it's not a death knell, just miserable.  The problem with the rain is our cameras and my hearing aids.  If they get wet, it's not just a problem, it's an expensive problem. 

We could bring plastic bags, that's easy enough.  They fold up small, tuck them in a pocket and cameras and hearing aids are protected.   Absolutely, that could be done.  But in Florida, the issue is the lightning.  Not only do we get a lot of lightning, and wildfires often start from lightning strikes here abouts, but  - and this is the scary part - people get struck by lightning with alarming frequency and that is ALWAYS a bad thing.    So drizzle or no drizzle, lightning says no.   No Hike.  Ratz.  Yet another week of no hike, no pictures, no photo safari report and no time with my sister.

Wait a minute, no pictures?  I bet I have some pictures.  And it's true, I do!  Just a few, but they are pictures and so they count.  Between rain bands on this past Tuesday, I saw the kittyboys raptly starring out the family room windows in the afternoon. So I quietly crept up behind them to see what they were seeing.  It was a nice variety of birds at and near the feeder :) I watched with Brysco and Wyatt for a bit then, for a change actually thinking, I grabbed my camera and took some photos. I had particular reason in mind, it was strictly, just because. Which is an excellent reason all on it's own. And now, well it's not a photo safari report and these aren't exotic or unusual birds and they weren't in a preserve or state park, just our backyard.  Still counts!

So I leave you today with wishes for a great weekend and a few birdie photos.  I hope all the places around the country today that are desperate for rain, finally get some! I'd send you ours if I could, but stamps do not stick to it!

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Way back toward the beginning of July when I was writing about Tim's and my birthday, I neglected to mention the biggest and most unexpected gift I got on my big day.  My washer broke down after the very first load.  Dang. And before you ask why on earth I was doing laundry on my birthday and isn't that against my own birthday rules, let me remind you that the rule is that I get to do exactly what I please on my birthday and one of the things I was pleased to do (initially anyway) was laundry.  It was my dang day, I'll spend it the way I wish.

The way I knew that the washer was broken was that it was holding my laundry hostage.  That's right, the cycle was complete, the door was locked and it refused to unlock.  Well, that was unexpected.  My first thought was to try to trick the washer into unlocking by running a second, shorter cycle and surely, when the cycle was complete, the door would pop open and all would, once again, be well with the world.  Great idea.  Except for the part where it didn't work.  Double dang.

So I went online, typed in the model/serial number/etc  to check for trouble shooting tips.  Door that refuses to unlock was a category (not those exact words, but close enough) and they had three ideas for how to correct the problem. The first was to unplug the washer, let it sit a minute and think about what it had done, replug it and voila, the door should magically unlock.  It did not.  Is there a triple dang?

The second tip was what I had already done, run a different cycle.  It did not work the first time I did it. It also did not work the second time. And in fact, the second time it not only did not unlock the door, it also did not run the cycle.  Clearly things were not only bad, but getting worse.

The third tip involved opening some mysterious hidden panel that was beyond my ability OR interest.  By then I had given up. Feeling dejected and a little bummed, I told Tim about the issue.  Of immediate importance was getting that door unlocked so that I could rescue the clean wet clothing.  The dryer still works, after all. But if the wet stuff sits too long it'll become moldy wet stuff and that is never good.  

I suspect that Tim tried the 3rd tip and was able to find the secret hidden panel because he was able to open the door. Huzzah!  I quickly tossed everything into the dryer and was feeling pretty good about things.  Tim suggested that before I attempted to actually wash anything else, I should run an empty cycle first just in case the door locked me out again.  Good Thought!  

Once again, I set the washer to run the shortest cycle, hit start, it lit up and then about 90 seconds later, turned itself off.  Well crap.  Just to be thorough, I tried every cycle available and the same thing happened each time.  Insert big annoyed sigh here.

I really didn't want to even think about it for another moment on that particular day and so I did not.   Except to book a repair person. It turned out that the washer was still under warranty so yes, I abso-freakin-lutely was going to go the repair route.  our washer, by the way, is only two years old. I know that appliances do not last like they used to in the olden days, but two years is crazy.  I called the number on the warranty paperwork and got a robot phone answerer.  It asked pertinent questions, I answered them and then it sent me a website and an identification code.  So I went to the website, answered more questions, put in my secret decoder ring code.  The website authorized the repair, acknowledged the warranty *yay* and offered me dates for the repair person to come out.  I took the first one which was Tuesday.  (remember this all began on my birthday which was a Thursday this year).

  Obviously I was going to have to do somthing I realllllllly did not want to do and that was, go to the laundromat.

 I waited until the next day, gathered baskets full of the remainder of the wash that did not get done the day before, laundry pods, dryer sheets and my keys and headed to my local laundromat.  It had been probably ten years since I'd been there and things change so I wasn't positive what I was walking into and I'm sure that I showed my hesitation on my face.  I stood there like a statue, two very full baskets in my arms, purse slung cross body, sunglasses popped on top of my head and cast my eyes around the room trying to, I don't know orient myself to a new environment?  Within about 5 minutes, a very nice lady came up to me, introduced herself, told me that she ran the place and she kind of toured me around.

The last time I was there, quarters were the thing. A person had to have quarters to run the machinery. Lots and lots of quarters.  I used to go to the bank first and get a couple of rolls of quarters before going.  This time I was able to get the job done with a credit card.  So Much Easier!  Every machine had it's own card reader and it was just a matter of getting the knack of making that particular machine pleased with the speed of the swipe. Not too fast, not too slow.

So I got the laundry done, the lady was nice, the machines were easy to use, the laundromat is ON island which means I was able to drive there without having a heart attack and so I really have nothing to complain about. But I will anyway.  

First of all, I am grateful beyond measure that we have a laundromat and, again, that is was reasonably clean and easy to use and the lady who runs it was so nice BUT I do not like going to the laundromat. Not even sure why, just know that I don't.  And I never have.  There have been huge portions of my life when going to the laundromat was a regular bi-weekly thing.  During college when I'd take text books with me to study while the machine hummed along and during the warmer seasons, walk over to dairy queen to get a cone to eat while waiting.  When the boys were babies and I'd carry baskets of laundry, handfuls of toddlers and a hipful of baby to juggle while taking care of laundry business.  Again, when I was a single mom and the boys were older and we would go early on a Sunday morning when nobody else was there, the boys could entertain themselves and help fold/carry baskets/keep me company.  And of course, as I said earlier, when we first moved here and the house didn't have a washer/dryer hooked up yet.

So I'm familiar with the concept.  And to be honest, some laundromats are more disgusting than others.  I'm thinking way back now, to a particular laundromat when someone had relieved themselves in an "inconspicuous" inside corner despite there being bathrooms on site, there were remnants of gum in a dryer that I did not notice until I took the dried clothes OUT of the tumbler (sigh) and someone walked off with one entire load of my stuff out of the dryer.  (bigger sigh). In comparison, our local laundromat is heaven sent. But it is still a laundromat and I have to load stuff in the car, drive over, haul it out of the car into the building, afterward haul it back out into the car, drive home, carrying it inside and THEN put things away or in the ironing pile.

I think the worst part is the inefficiency.  When I do laundry at home, once the loads are started I can then move on to doing other things.  As every woman knows, multi-tasking is how things get done around the house.  Laundromat is single tasking. Humph.

ANYWAY, Eventually Tuesday rolled around and the repair guy showed up, found the problemS  yes, that's right plural problems.  There were three issues.   Told me he had to order parts and would be in touch to schedule the actual repair once they had come in and no, he had no idea when that would be.  I felt as if I was held hostage by the washer once again.

So I continued going to the laundromat  multiple times a week, getting better and better at the swipe timing as time went by and then one glorious day Tim got the call and booked it, Dan-O.  Last Friday, late afternoon, a repair guy came with three boxes (I assume the parts in question) and spent a few hours taking out the old, putting in the new and making sure it all worked. Beefore he left,  I told him he was my new favorite person. He grinned.

I do not believe I have ever been so happy in my life to do laundry as I am right now.  I have not only done the usual clothes and towels but blankets, comforters, mattress covers.........basically anything that fits in the washer has now been washed.  I am absolutely delighted.

Y'know it occurs to me that I ought to be at least a little embarrassed by how affected I was by not having a working washer.  After all, I'm just a few generations out from women who used to wash board to scrub clothes and boiled them in big pots.  I'm not sure if they would think I was weak and spoiled, or if they would be envious of how good I have it.  Maybe a little of both

This is familiar experience around here during Rainy Season, which is right now.  Actually it began June 1st but we honestly didn't see all that much rain for the first six weeks. In fact, we saw so little rain for the first part of 'rainy season' that we were official under drought restrictions especially regarding such things as sprinkler systems and garden watering.

It got worse too.  Wildfires began to pop up almost every day or so  primarily due to lightning strikes (lighting yes, rain no which is a bad combo) and smelling that acrid awful smokey air outside was beginning to be a regular thing.  You knew immediately who was flouting the lawn watering rules just by walking down the street.  Any good looking beautiful green carpet of a lawn was somebody who was sneakily watering more. OR they had artificial turf, it was for sure one or the other. The rest of us had patchy, brownish, crispy looking lawns.  Things that normally blossom like mad this time of year were stretching themselves to blossom at all.

It was all getting to be pretty sad.

Then last week, just in time to save us all, the rain finally came.  Huzzah!  But then it kept raining.  And raining.  And Raining.  Eventually every day was gloomy, dark & grey with thunder in the distance and lightening strike notifications pinging on my phone continually.  It was either currently raining, had just finished raining or was about to rain every moment of the day or night.  There were a few nights where we woke up from such rockin' and rollin' and full  orchestration that we couldn't sleep. It sounded as if the storm were directly above our house (and who knows?  Maybe it was!)

I was reluctant to leave the house at all because, seriously, who wants to dash through rain coming down so hard it looks like a wall?  Once while driving, Tim - who is an excellent driver and never flinches - actually pulled over into a parking lot to wait until it let up a wee bit.   That's how you know  was a gullywhomper of the first order.  

Umbrellas are fairly pointless in that kind of rain. The wind will pull it inside out in no time flat and even if your bumbershoot remains whole, the rain is often coming in sideways and you are going to be wet regardless- umbrella  or not!

The green growing stuff was delighted.  Suddenly all the blooming things began blooming like mad, colour in every direction.  The lawns are filling back in looking green and lush and the birds are responding enthusiastically.   Lakes, creek, rivers and ponds are filling back up too and that's loverly to see though it also means, beware of gators. They are sneaky and can literally be in any body of water you can see, whether it's a just a gully on the side of the road or a full sized lake.
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Last Sunday, even though it was rainy with a prediction of yet more rain, we went for a drive.  We ended up by the water up in Sarasota and stopped for a few minutes to enjoy the view. I hopped out of the car between rain bands and took a few photos:

Today is sunny, at the moment and 88 degrees, and not quite a humid as it might be for a Florida July, but rain is expected this evening once more and that will keep the green stuff green.

I'm sure eventually things will settle into the normal rhythm of the daily 4 o'clock rain band coming through and then going on it's merry way until Rainy Season is once again over and things cool off and the humidity lifts a bit. That would be Tourist Season which is a whole other thing.

Wishes you a balance of the perfect amount of rain and sun!

​Have a great weekend!

We are lucky enough to have a live performance theatre here in our city. Not just in our city, mind you, but right here on Venice Island.   We can easily walk there, which I love. While were aren't season ticket holders by any stretch, we have seen a number of terrific shows there and had hopes to see at least a few more.

But back in 2022, Hurricane Ian tore through Venice and, as you can clearly see from the above photo on the left, pretty much destroyed the nearly 100 year old building.  Everyone, theatre go-er or not, wondered what the future would bring regarding our theatre.  There were loads of theories and gossip, of course.  That's what always happens.

But now here we are, six years later and, after some very impressive fund raising, donations,  grants and Government assistance it appears that the Venice Theatre is repaired. Well that's what it looks like in the photo on the right, right?  

The truth is that it's only partially repaired.  There is still a ways to go.  And Tim and I found that out, up close and personal, last week when we were able to tour the building!  I adore "behind the scenes" stuff.  Our tour guide, a very personable and knowledgeable soul took us through all of the "do not enter" and "staff only" doors that I've long wondered about (I'm so nosy!)  We were even able to don hard hats (check out photo at the end to see Tim and I sporting very fashionable hardhats) and witness the part that remains under construction.  It was so much fun and quite the transformation.

Lets go backwards before we go forwards.  I will begin at the beginning. It's a very good place to start.  Our adorable little city of Venice Florida is only just now one hundred years old. So there you go, we were official in 1926. The roaring twenties!  And as such, it was a beautiful and very fun place that had quite a good number of Enormous and Gorgeous Grand Hotels for the folks with enough money to travel and vacation.   In 1927, on the exact site of the Venice Theatre, was an automotive garage (to take good care of the vehicles of those grand folks). It was called the Orange Blossom Garage.  Things were rolling along beautifully in this amazing gulf-side city filled with Mediterranean Architecture, lots of things to do, palm trees galore and a gorgeous beach.

By the time of the Stock Market Crash that changed the world in 1929, the city of Venice was already in trouble due to some iffy financial decision and mismanagement of funds. The Crash just finished it.  The city went from a thriving community of about 4000 people to around 400 virtually overnight.  It was practically a ghost town filled with huge empty hotels and so many other business closed down, including the Orange Blossom Garage.

In 1932, the Kentucky Military Institute (KMI), a military school, first rented and then bought several of the big empty hotels and the garage, among other buildings, to use as the winter quarters for their school which began to breathe new life into the city.  The KMI continued to house those building until the school closed in 1971.  The garage, which was being used as an armory, a chapel and a basketball arena, once again, sat empty.

Meanwhile, as the city had begun to revitalize itself over the years, the Venice Little Theatre, as an organization  was created in 1950 in borrowed space at our little airport which had previously been used during WWII by the Army Aircorps.   The community loved having its own live theater and eventually, in 1973, bought the old Orange Blossom Garage and slowly turned it into the Venice Theatre.

And now,  ack in current day, the Venice Theatre is actually a little campus of three separate buildings and once repairs are complete, there will be the one large stage, one smaller stage and in a separate building that will primarily be used for education, several other yet smaller stages. It is a genuine marvel!  And a serious one at that.  The folks involved are so very serious about the business of entertainment and education that in the world of Community Theatre, the Venice Theatre ranks #2 in the entire USA by the official organization that ranks such things.  Wow!  By the way, the #1 ranking community theatre in the US is in Omaha Nebraska.

Now that the history lesson is complete, I would love to share a few of the behind the scenes photos that I took:

I'll start with the under construction area which will ultimately be the main theatre.  What I neglected to get a photo of was the fly bridge which is where that massive staircase goes. It is incredibly high up and is such a lovely big space that it will be able to accommodate dozens of backdrops at a time along with catwalks, lighting and so much more:

Then some of the smaller rooms that I remembered to take pictures of (some of them I was too busy ogling instead of snapping):  

First here is the costume design studio. It is a surprisingly huge room@ One wall alone was just one sewing machine after another (with people manning several while we were there), the other three walls were lined with bin-stuffed shelving.  Every bin was labelled with such things as "sequins", "buttons" "lace"  "zippers" and far, far more.  The room was further crowded with worktables, some of which had partially completed projects laid out, mannequins in various states of dress, and rack upon rack of colours of threads. It was glorious!

One of my favourite rooms was the costume closet which is actually an entire room full to overflowing with carefully labelled and organized garments, hat, shoes and jewelry:

Another of my favorites was the Small Props room which, as the title suggests, holds small *but essential* props.  It was so quirky and fun:

One of the three building encompassing the Venice Theatre campus is the Set Design and Construction building. It is a builders paradise with a dedicated paint room, at least one of every tool ever created, storage of the pieces currently unused but possibly useable again the future and it was filled with one of my favourite scents, sawdust!

Some of the rooms I neglected to get photos of were: the backstage waiting area, where the actors and dressers wait for their cues to go on; the orchestra pit which is really just small room with a video screen so the musicians and singers can see what is going on and prepare for their turns to perform; the music directors office which has a grand piano in it - of course it does - and so many more.

We also got to sneak into the smaller theatre which is up and running and watched the builders and electricians prepare for the next show:

It was a fascinating and so very fun peek into what goes into creating these award winnning plays that the audience gets to enjoy.  I had to laugh a little bit because the tour, which was touted as a 90 minute show 'round turned out to take more than 2 1/2 hours. We were actually nearing the 3 hour tour mark and well, we all know how that worked out for Gilligan and his friends eh?

If you are lucky enough to live in close proximity to a community theatre, I urge you to, at least once in awhile, go see some of the shows.  The people who work there, hundreds (literally) of them volunteers, really do put their hearts and souls into creating some magic for their audience.  And the shows themselves are a perfect escape from our real, stressful, normal lives for just an hour or so. I believe we can all benefit from a little bit of that ;)

In case you wondered, these are all flowers from around our yard.  It's like living in a botanical garden!

Wishing all of you a Beautiful Weekend!  See ya'll next week!

Hugs all 'round

You knew that my birthday was last Thursday, but I'm not sure that you also knew that Tim's birthday was last Saturday.  Yes our birthdays are the 9th and the 11th of July which is kind of crazy, eh? It has been Birthday Central at our house, lately. Tim and I, both separately and together, have been thoroughly birthday-ed every single day for about a week now.  And it has been absolutely Awesome!

We have been treated to brunches, lunches, dinners and desserts. We've received phone calls, and texts and emails, mostly from folks far away who we love and miss so much.  There were also lots of cards (some sparkly, some funny, some sweetly sincere) which are currently on display on the kitchen table defying any resident kitties attempts to knock them down.  There were shopping expeditions, gifts and surprise visits. We received a homemade and absolutely luscious pie (see above - it was exquisite) and a birthday card that was also a puzzle, so fun, so cute, so clever and unique!  We were hugged and celebrated and made much of.  And I think Tim and I both have gained at least 3 pounds from being so very wonderful-ed. 

"Why yes, I believe I will have that ice cream, thank you. After all it is my birthday"  and "Thank you yes, I'd love a bit of that pie/cake/cookie!  Birthdays come but once a year". It may take me 'til next birthday to work all those goodies off. BUT it was totally worth every calorie :)

Every single special effort that anyone made for us, was special and heart warming and often brought me to tears. We both feel so very loved and what could possibly be better than that?    It was a lovely, magical, amazing birthday week for us both.

In fact it was so wonderful that it completely balanced out the fact that Tim's car is back in the shop and my washing machine quit (I spent way fun time at the laundromat today yay).  And honestly, neither of those usually really annoying things which would normally have set me off are making me give much more than a shrug and a sigh today because we are still riding our Birthday Specialness High :)

Thank you one and all for EVERYTHING that made us feel like we are important in your lives and helped make our birthday truly a celebration!!  We feel as if you all  love us and I promise you, we love you right back  
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Today is July 10th which means that yesterday was my birthday. Wow! Another year, gone, *snap* just like that.   As of yesterday, I now have to answer "73" when asked my age. Dang that sounds old.  Which is only because it is.  That said, there lots of different sorts of age 73!  I consider myself to be very fortunate to be the sort of 73 that is still active, as social as I ever was (which isn't all that much really), capable of getting into all kinds of trouble AND with most of my facilities still intact.  Not too bad.

I have interests and hobbies, family and friends, a sense of purpose and a calendar filled with loads of things that are not just doctor appointments.  For this I am truly thankful though I couldn't say exactly why I have been so lucky. It could be due to some really great genetics I suppose - my family tends to be quite long lived, historically.  Or perhaps I can take a little credit on my own because, outside of a penchant for cookies and ice cream, I have taken pretty good care of my health.  Or maybe it's simple blind stubbornness in my refusal to give in or even acknowledge the carnage associated with being elderly.

Wait a minute, 'elderly'?  Whoa!  I am not elderly. Am I? Okay I just looked it up. Yes, I am. Apparently, a person is considered elderly past the age of 65.  And I definitely qualify for that.  Dang!  Elderly?  I don't think I like that word.  I'm okay with old.  I'm fine with senior. (I don't like either one, but I can deal with them). Elderly however feels fragile and vulnerable and kind of decrepit.  Not a pretty picture. 

So I'm tearing up that picture. I've mentally put it through the shredder and it's gone.  Yes, I am now Seventy-Three Freakin' Years Old!  But I'm also fabulous!

And now, as per tradition, the Birthday Rules because they will ALWAYS apply regardless of age:

BIRTHDAY RULES

1. Number one and most important on this hit parade:  It's all about the birthday person.  It really is.  No exceptions. If it's your birthday, everything that day is about you. Period.

2. Of course, to be absolutely fair, I am not a person who really likes being the center of a big crowd of people. But a small, comfortable, familiar crowd is fine. In fact it's awesome.  A small group of people that I really care about it absolutely perfect.  If that group consists of me and one other person, sometimes that is the best group of all.

3. And there should be at least one treat that a person rarely has, like cake. Or ice cream.  Or cake AND ice cream.  And for heaven's sakes, if a person is going to indulge, it should be the good stuff. The real deal. No fake, crappy substitutes.  And speaking as a person with Lactose Intolerance, if I'm going to suffer later, I want the suffering to be worthwhile, which means the ice cream must be primo.

4. There should be a few cards, some of them should have sparkles, some flowers, some funny, some touching or maybe thought provoking. I like cards.  I set them up on top of the big display cabinet in the living room and admire them for far too long afterwards.

5. There should be some sort of contact from people far away, whether it's phone calls or emails or texts or facebook posts or telepathic thoughts, heaps of good wishes from folks far away makes a birthday extra special.  To think that all of those people bothered to take the time to acknowledge your existence on your birthday shows that you matter in this life.  That's important.

6. There should be no chores on your birthday.  Not one single solitary gotta-do should be done by the birthday celebrant.  Those things can either wait a day to be done, or someone else needs to do them.  I'm immovable on this fact.

7. The birthday person gets to choose what or where to eat for dinner.  And no matter what they choose, that's what dinner is.  Doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.  It is the ONE day of the entire year where nobody else's likes/dislikes/or personal opinion should take precedence regarding food.

8. It should be a happy day.  Only positive comments and thoughts please.  It should be a day of smiles and laughter. If there is something negative or sad that needs to be said, keep it to yourself for one more day.  Not even boredom is allowed.

​Happy Birthday to ME!

You see before you, Exhibit A, an ordinary pump dispenser.  This one happens to be body lotion. We use a lot of moisturizing lotion in this house.  Both of us. Even Tim.  I know this comes under the header of TMI, but since we have moved to Florida, Tim and I have fallen into the habit of taking 2 showers a day.  The first one, in the morning, is just part of waking up. While Tim drinks coffee, I do not. So for me, my morning shower is my "perk me up" instead of caffeine.  But, again, as Florida residents who spend actual time outside year 'round, we get sweaty, so before bed, we shower again.  We do this year 'round.  In the hot weather it is a necessity. In the cooler months, I suppose it's just habit.  The point remains, we shower, twice a day.

Which means we are very clean. But it also means we are drying out our skin which makes our skin itchy.  I hate itchy. I would rather be in pain than be itchy and I mean that seriously. Moisturizer, especially a super de duper moisturizer, applied liberally and often, helps tremendously (as does taking a less hot shower interestingly, but that's a different future post).

Anyway, that means we go through a goodly amount of moisturizing lotion on a regular basis.  We've tried a number of brands and kind of landed on Gold Bond in the end as one that we both liked.  As a product, I am a fan. A big fan.

However, the pump dispenser itself, as a means of accessing the lotion, is seriously flawed.  I mean it starts out just fine.  Tralalala, merrily we go on our way, pumping out lotion willynilly, until the bottle is about 3/4 empty. Then, suddenly, nothing. It seems to be kaput!  No matter how firmly or gently pumped, nothing else comes out. The bottle appears to be empty.  

Turns out, it is not. It was my friend Marsha, who cued me in on this.  "Good heaven's," she said to me when I whined about it to her, "it's not empty, don't just throw it away".  When I questioned her, she explained that she just cuts open the container to get access to the remainder. I raised my eyebrows with interest and curiosity.

On the one hand, I do like getting my money's worth.  Not a big fan of waste. On the other hand, is there enough leftover cream in the container to make it worth all of the pain-in-the-assidness of cutting open the bottle?  Only one way to find out.

First, I needed my tools, the most important of which was something to cut it open with.  I tried a number of things but it turned out that a box cutter was the best option.  As little scary, as I am not graceful and the bottle is every so sightly curved and I could easily imagine it slipping out from my clumsy hands and accidentally cutting something that bleeds rather than the container.  I vowed to myself to be extra careful.

Also got some paper towels because I anticipated at least a little bit of a mess and a different empty lidded container to hold any leftover moisturize.  Then I gathered up all no longer producing bottles of moisturizer that were in the house. Turned out to be two.

I laid each one carefully on it's side and took a deep breath, got a good grip on both bottle and boxcutter and began. Turned out to be more a series of punctures in the bottle than straight forward cutting as one might do on a cardboard box. But it worked so I suppose it doesn't matter.  In the end there were two half bottles of lotion and no blood lost so that's a win!

I was truly surprised at how much lotion remained at the bottom of the bottle.  At least a week's worth of application, would be my first guess. Easily. Probably more.  That's how much I was wasting by assuming that the pump dispense knew what it was doing when it stopped producing.  The container, after all isn't clear. I cannot see in!  And even if I unscrewed the top and peered inside, the lotion and the bottle are both white.  It would be somewhere between difficult and impossible to know for sure if the bottle were empty or not.

I suspect this is by design. I hate to be that suspicious of anyone's motives but come on!  I began to think about other pump dispenser products that I have used throughout my entire life and it's a crazy big number.  I wondered if it were true of ALL pump dispensers or just this one.  Well, I did a little investigating, and it turns out that the reason it happens is one of three things:

1.  a tube that is too short
2.  the bottle shape. A flat bottomed bottle tends to result in more residue 
3.  pump suction loss.  As the bottle empties, the pump loses suction and draws air instead of         product 

I hmmmmed on that for a wee bit because all of those reasons seem to be easily resolved with a design change so what the what?   I continued to read, perhaps there is something mechanical or physics related that I was missing in my thought process.  Turns out, Nope!  

"This design is a manufacturing and cost‑reduction choice — automated filling machines often round up to the nearest volume, so bottles are filled slightly over the labeled amount to ensure the pump delivers the stated volume. It’s also a practical compromise for mass production, as it’s easier to fill and test bottles at the factory."

And that is a direct quote. 

Ok, since I am not in charge of the world but also do not want to pay even more for the moisturizer, nor do I want to go without it (and making the necessary design changes would absolutely result in charging customers more), I guess I will just continue to do what I'm currently doing and preforming surgery on all pump dispenser bottles to garner every last pennies worth of product !!!!

You doubt me?  Here is what I scraped out of the two bottles I just cut open yesterday:

As an aside, I also learned that the pump dispenser design itself is literally thousands of years old.  Ancient Egyptians used it way back in 2000 BCE. The design has, of course, been refined  and modernized since then but still, I'm kind of impressed that the same basic concept used by Cleopatra and Ptolemy is still sitting on our bathroom vanity!  

Anyway, I guess the whole point here was to suggest to any of you who have noticed the same issue and maybe wondered if it was worthwhile that yeah, as lazy as I basically am, even I see the value in putting forth the effort to get every last drop in this particular case.  

No actual surgical license necessary  :)

Today is only the 3rd but I wish you all a safe and very fun 4th of July tomorrow!  And Oh my Goodness, It's not just the anniversary of our Independence Day but the 250th birthday of The United States of America!  That's a big deal.  Especially when consider that the concept of the way our country was originally structured, the idea of it all, the hard tack and whimsical ideals that became our Constitutional Republic, was really an experiment.  Nobody had ever done it before.

Oh other countries have created something perhaps a little similar here and there around the edges, but nobody ever in history has done it the way that we have.  And what we have, particularly as compared to most other places in the world, is pretty amazing still, 250 years later.

Oh it's not all rainbows and roses for sure.  There have been some moments of great tragedy where many people feared that it was all over for us. But somehow, someway, we managed to bandage the country back together. We are not a perfect nation by a long shot. But, we seem to keep adapting and changing as the years pass, while still holding on to those core beliefs that the whole idea of us sprang from. We constantly take the temperature of the times, the needs of the people, the state of the planet and adjust accordingly.  Maybe not as fast as many folks would prefer but eventually, it always seems to happen. 

For the naysayers in the crowd, ask yourselves why so Very Many people from other countries want to live in our country?  Because it's better than what they have. Very simple.  

I absolutely refuse to argue politics these days.  It is a very rare individual anymore who is willing to have a discussion, a simple exchange of ideas with someone who doesn't feel exactly the same way without it devolving into a screaming  match, a severing of ties, and pointed accusing fingers. I don't need or want that in my life so I keep  my political opinions to myself.  But honestly, I do not feel that I have to believe the same way as everyone else (freedom, remember?) to love my country.  I don't have to turn a blind eye to any flaws to still be proud to be an American.  I can hope for and work toward, changes that I believe should be made and still say the Pledge of Allegiance without feeling like a hypocrite. We are all works in progress, so why would our country, which was created by people who were also flawed (because we all are) be perfect? That's just kind of ridiculous.

I love that we all have a voice. We have opportunities to try to change things, we can freely speak our minds, ask questions, and agree to disagree.  But considering that there are about 350 millions souls in the USA right now it is flatly impossible to please every single one of them every single day.  Just won't happen.  That's 350 million opinions on how to do it right, how to interpret the laws, the constitution, the Declaration of Independent for heaven's sakes. We are never ever going to all agree on one thing.

But maybe the majority can agree that tomorrow is the 250th Anniversary of one of the Greatest Countries that ever existed!  Perhaps in 250 more years, we can come together more on topics, agree more, or at least disagree more politely.  But probably not because people are people and in this country, the people have had generations of training to be free with their thoughts, their opinions, their ideas and their rights to expression.  

What a beautiful thing.

Happy Birthday America!