Emily Bloss

Last night Trav’s brother called and said he would be down for the weekend because he had work in Tampa on Monday morning. Yay!! They’re staying with us. Today we went to Howard Beach in Tarpon Springs. I’m pretty sure I got sunburned, I feel kinda crispy. Here’s the entrance to the beach:

This is a good beach for kids… not too many waves and nice, soft sand. There’s grass just a ways out into the water, which I don’t like to put my feet in… it feels all mucky and nasty between my toes in that mud. Plus who knows what’s lurking in there. I got to use my snorkel mask to explore a bit today - it was nice because the water wasn’t crowded. I saw some snook and other little fish, plus a few crabs and this really strange ropy snakelike slimy thing. I hope I can figure out what that was - I just got some books about seashore life so maybe it’s in there.

While I was exploring, everybody else was busy building a sand castle which got stomped down before we left!

After the beach we had a wonderful dinner at Carrabba’s - thanks Mike and Tiff! I had one of the daily special dishes - a giant bowl of pasta with Italian sausage, roasted red peppers, sauce and caprino cheese. It was tasty which is a good thing because I brought quite a bit of it home. Trav had some of his Chicken Bryan left, too. Doh!! I just realized I didn’t collect the bread. I don’t like anything to go to waste if I can help it. Recycling at its finest!

So that was a nice day. Tomorrow everybody is coming over here for rotisserie chicken dinner with tiramisu for dessert. Mmmmmm!

Lately, Trav and I have gotten into watching Ultimate Fighting Championship mixed martial arts, and it made us want to take Jiu Jitsu classes. I found what looks to be a great place nearby called Gracie Tampa. Hopefully the classes won’t be too expensive. If we get to take them, I’ll be sure to report back!! Oh and here’s an interview with Rob Kahn, the guy who owns the academy.

I thought this was pretty funny - thanks for sending it to me, Dani! Best for people who participated in the 1980s.

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning…. uphill BOTH ways… yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they’ve got it!

But now that… I’m over the ripe old age of thirty, I can’t help but look around and notice the youth of today. You’ve got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don’t know how good you’ve got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn’t have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter … with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

There were no MP3’s or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ’d usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!

And talk of about hardship? You couldn’t just download porn! You had to steal it from your brother or bribe some homeless dude to buy you a copy of “Hustler” at the 7-11! Those were your options!

We didn’t have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that’s it! We didn’t have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just don’t know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn’t have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari Super Pong! With games like Space Invaders” and “Asteroids” and the graphics sucked! Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever!

And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn’t see, you were just screwed!

Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu and no remote control! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on!

You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel and there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning.

Do you hear what I’m saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards!

And we didn’t have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up. we had to use the stove or go build a frigging fire…imagine that!

If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid JiffyPop thing and shake it over the stove forever like an idiot.

That’s exactly what I’m talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You’re spoiled.

You guys wouldn’t have lasted five minutes back in 1980!

Regards,
The Over-30 Crowd

From: xicestorm

:) :) :) :)

I had an experience today that made me think about my wishes in the case of permanent, irreversible damage to my brain. If I’m not “me” anymore - can’t talk, can’t communicate or take care of myself, please let me go. Don’t place the burden of decision on my caregivers - it’s MY choice to exit gracefully when there’s no hope of recovery.

OK? Thank you.

Love,
Emmy

Aunt Susie and I took a trip up to the Crystal River area to check out the Archaeological Site and Fort Island beach. The Indian site was very interesting, I would like to go back there and explore the entire thing — who wants to go with me? The picture to the left is the way to the top of the ceremonial mound which is built entirely of shells. It’s quite steep and pretty tall (that’s a guy standing at the top of the stairs). It’s fun to think about how the Indians lived and wonder why did they do this or that and to notice the similarities as well. Even then, people liked to be buried with their favorite stuff.

The second stop of the day was lunch. We ended up at Applebee’s after picking a random place called Oyster’s. When we walked in to the first place, it smelled of seafood really bad and now that I think back on it, the people at the tables didn’t really look very happy. We looked at the menu and decided it was too expensive and smelly, so we shucked on outta Oyster’s and found Applebee’s instead. Aunt Susie says they have the best raspberry lemonade of anywhere. I’m glad we went there because we had a delicious lunch of shrimp & spinach salad and half a turkey sandwich on ciabatta bread. It was yummy!! Both dishes had bacon, mmmmmm :p~

Next stop was the beach, where there was not one good shell to be found. So instead of picking up shells, I picked up two loads of trash! It’s an OK beach if you just want to lay in the sun or something boring. You have to go south of where we live to have a good beach. Next week, Honeymoon Island!

On the way home, we stopped at a bargain outlet mall place that we’ve been meaning to check out. That was a really good part of the day! Aunt Susie found some nice yarn for cheap, and I found a place to buy a guitar when I’m ready. Plus the guy can get my flute repadded, which is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I like to get out the flute and play along with my favorite songs, hey it’s instrumental karaoke! hehe

Then we took the extra scenic route home, via Aripeka… Aunt Susie noticed how it’s like stepping back in time when you pass through. It’s just a sleepy little town on the shore with tiny houses tucked amid sawgrass marshes, with lots of sabal palms and bear crossing signs. It’s not a shortcut home, but it sure is a lot prettier than strip malls and endless traffic.

So we had a good day of exploration, can’t wait for next week’s trip!

Here’s a fun little test you can take to see what your influences have been, dialect-wise. I scored 42, which means I’m pretty close to the middle of the scale… 0 being Yankee, 100 being Dixie. Neat!

Yankee or Dixie quiz

Thanks again, Trav (who scored 31), for a fun way to spend a few minutes! Love ya.

Trav found this really neat optical illusion - you have to scroll down the page a little, past the ads. Just follow the directions and you too will be amazed!!

Illusion at very-bored.com

The peeps are almost hard enough now, and there’s still one row left! Cool.

Bleys got something in his basket this year which reminded me of some really neat confections we used to get as kids… candy eggshells with the side cut out and pictures inside. The outside had fancy, hard icing - the kind that dissolves almost instantly. In fact, the whole shell was made out of that stuff. I wish I could remember what those were called. I looked on google but couldn’t get the right keywords.

Our family got all kinds of interesting Easter candy… big chocolate eggs with filling inside which we would put on a plate and slice into slabs of gooey chocolaty goodness. And our baskets were hidden by the Easter Bunny, all over the house! One of my favorite things was to dig around in the grass to see if I could find a stray jelly bean or some other bonus stuck down at the bottom. It kinda felt like I won something when I found candy hidden away in the grass.

Update:

It turns out I did have the right keywords, I just didn’t look far enough! I found out those eggs are called Panoramic Easter Egg (here’s a close-up). I also found a recipe for them, which I might try some time! I’m sure it would take some practice to get them so beautiful. I also found a fun site featuring old-time candy.

For Easter, we went over to Gramma’s house and had quite a feast. Here’s Bleys, carefully cutting the picture-perfect lemon meringue pie Aunt Susie made. I really like this picture of him because it represents much of what he is… careful, thoughtful and fully paying attention to what he’s doing at the moment.

I always love the days after Easter, too, because you can get the best candy of the year at half price or better! Today’s find was peeps - I’ve torn open the wrapping so they’ll get nice and stale (it takes 4 or 5 days). Mmmmmm! Crunchy peeps.

Last weekend we went to New Smyrna Beach to visit Trav’s grandma. After a delicious meal of roast beast, potatoes, green bean casserole and rolls, we took a little trip to the beach (it’s only a couple of miles away). It’s very strange there - you can drive right down onto the beach. It’s weird to have to look both ways before going to the water. I don’t care for it at all.

There were lots of critters washed up on the beach that day… portugese man o’ war with their long, stinging tentacles, and these little disks called blue buttons.

The beach is my favorite place to go. We often wonder, if we lived that close to the beach, how much work we would get done! I suppose one might tire of it after a while, but I don’t think I would. I could make a new business… doing something with shells… or something.