Off to the great land of the shadow of the mighty De Land water-tower

So here were are, at the great land of the shadow of the mighty De Land water-tower.
I guess I’m supposed to render a report of some kind, although I have to shut down while here.
The most depressing result of these great forays is throwing our poor dog in the slammer — an additional day due to her touchy health.
We could have left off the dog at a boarding kennel on Sunday afternoon, but were worried enough to prefer the vet.
At the vet we have to leave her off Saturday, the additional day — they’re not open on Sunday.
They all know and love her there, but they’re not us.
“What did I ever do to deserve this?” the poor dog was probably thinking.
“Confined to jail with yowling monsters. How am I supposed to get any sleep?
And 4 p.m. is walk-time. Will I ever see the outside again?”
We took her to the park that morning, and she almost nabbed a squirrel.
“Yippee! This is what life’s all about!” BOINK!
Were it not for a two-foot deep snowdrift, she would have caught it.
The squirrel was able to scamper across the snowdrift, but at 58 pounds the snowdrift swallowed the dog.
So all day Sunday the poor dog languished in jail, and we got a few things more than usual done, not entertaining the dog.
The plane down was at 8 a.m., direct from Rochester to Orlando.
This meant up at 4:40 to eat breakfast, supposedly leaving the house by 6 a.m.
Actually left at 6:30, due to the usual delays.
Pulled into airport-parking about 7:05.
20-25 minutes in Security, putting shoes and belt back on, and gathering up our widely dispersed stuff.
At gate at 7:35, and they’re already boarding the plane.
The reason the plane boarded early was to de-ice the plane. This was done loaded out on the apron.
The ground was still snow-covered around Rochester, and the transition to no snow was obscured by a cloud-deck far below. (“The sun always shines at 35,000 feet,” I once said years ago unloading a transit bus at the downtown bus-terminal in Rochester in a blizzard.)
Almost 80° in Orlando; the long-underwear got doffed.
We found our way to the Hertz-bus pickup, and at Hertz I noticed about 10 yellow Corvettes, most with black center-stripes.
It’s an entertaining idea, but I have a 93-year-old mother-in-law to cart around.
I need four doors.
We had reserved the cheapest rental online, and our airline, AirTran, renders a Hertz discount.
I noticed online check-in at home, but skipped it. Too many unknowns.
Inside Hertz we noticed ‘pyooter kiosks for express check-in, and were tempted.
A nice Filipino lady with a heavy accent suggested our using them.
The kiosk reads your credit-card, and the barcode on your license.
“So it sounds like I coulda done all this online,” I said.
“But ya still gotta use the kiosk,” we were told.
“What happens after that?” I tried to ask.
“Yada-yada-yada-yada. We have these kiosks because the check-in lines get long.”
“I think what he’s trying to ask is what happens after the kiosk — like how do we get our car?” my wife asked.
The lady probably didn’t understand a word I said. Stroke-effect, people. My speech gets garbled.
“The kiosk assigns you your car, and the key is in it.”
Juan’s folding walker was still inside the trunk of our gleaming rental, a silver Chevy Cobalt with five-spoked plastic fake-alloy hubcaps on steel wheels.
Back to the main building: “Juan is gonna be looking for this,” I said.
The rental apparently had an EZPass gizmo, and it said our credit-card would get charged.
PASS! We paid cash at the toll-booths.
Also missed the exit to the GreenWay; apparently both northbound and southbound use the same exit.
In New York the exits are separated; thank ya, Jeb — deposit $2.50.
Having finally attained the great land of the shadow of the mighty De Land water-tower, we found Linda’s mother’s tiny apartment.
It looks like the mighty De Land water-tower has been painted; previously baby-blue, now faded ivory.
Tampering with it was a federal offense, we noted. Take that, youz geezers with your wheeled walkers.
Linda’s mother still seems pretty spry for almost 93.
We called in a pizza-order to Domino’s, and Linda’s mother went along.
The usual paying war broke out over the charge.
“Here, I’ll pay for it!” Elbows flew and wallets dueled.
Scuffling ensued.
“It’s your birthday,” Linda said.
“But that’s why I came along; to pay for it.”
“93 years old,” I said to the pretty young brunette checkout girl with the blue-winking cricket in her ear.
Actually, my wife paid for it. (It’s a miracle, Bobby!)
But of course Linda’s mother loudly harumfed against eating any of it at all. “Want a brown banana, Bob? A half-black pear?”

DAY TWO:
For once we have the guest-apartment with the single double-bed.
Not the one with the proper two separate singles.
Linda’s brother Jerry was on her mother’s sofa, driving a laptop PC.
No Nancy.
Jerry is older than us, but still working — all to help spawn that need money to maintain the lifestyle they’re accustomed to.
Arguments were staged about his doing this, and his self-imposed obligation to his spawn.
“A girl has to see she can live independently,” my wife said. “Adrien just turned 30.”
Back-and-forth it went; my wife getting nowhere.
“Adrien’s not making enough, so therefore I help her.”
“Okay, if you’re not making enough, ya look for a job that pays better. Or ya cut your expenses.”
“She makes $40,000 per year.
“Holy mackerel!” we both exclaimed.
Jerry has apparently adopted one of his former patients (emotional adoption; not the legal adoption) and is helping her too. Apparently he gave his old car to her; same car he got from Aunt Ethelyn, an old ‘80s Datsun wagon.
If this got spilled there would be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
“The reasons we get by on what income we have, and are as loaded as we are, are: —1) no Corvette; —2) no speedboat; and —3) no motorhome recreational vehicle.
We also own our house, so no mortgage payment.
We don’t owe anyone anything. I pay the outstanding credit-balance in full every month.”
Off we went to mighty Perkins for breakfast pancakes; Linda’s mother staying behind.
We were greeted by a scowling, crotchety “Blanche” wannabee.
“Do we qualify for the Senior menu? We’re both 65.”
“Well, I’m 61, honey; and I have my Senior-moments.”
“This is the Senior-menu,” my wife said, pointing at the back page of the menu.
“We also have a special with coffee — orange-juice. Drink healthy!”
“Well all I want is pancakes and sausage,” I said, not looking at the menu.”
“Well, don’t put your pancakes on the table like ya usually do, to butter ‘em,” Linda said. “Dirty.”
“I don’t see any sausage,” I said to Blanche.
“Woops! Forgot all about it, sir. Senior moment.”
Back at the apartment “looks like this bedspread Carol bought for ya at Wal*Mart that ya don’t like is still in its Wal*Mart shopping-bag, and still has the Wal*Mart barcode,” my wife said.
There had been discussions earlier about no receipt and no Wal*Mart bag, and intimations of martyrdom.
Off to Wal*Mart to return the bedspread, and buy a bag of potting-soil.
“Oh, I don’t wanna do that” and “I sure hope Carol never finds out.”
“Oh why not?” my wife said. “Carol buys portable TVs on a trip and returns ‘em before leaving.”
We were also looking for potting-soil at Wal*Mart, and found a bag of Miracle-Gro organic potting-soil.
Further search turned up a cheaper bag of Miracle-Gro non-organic potting soil; so Linda’s mother suggested any potting-soil was okay as long as it had Miracle-Whip in it.
So I suggested buying a tub of Miracle-Whip in the Food Section.
It’s the old waazoo. Who can keep up with all this insanity, and Linda’s poor mother was out-of-it.
“This house used to be pink, Linda’s mother said. “I thought black people might be living there.
And then they hung funny laundry outside.”
Linda’s mother is not hip to multiculturalism.
Lunch-time; dinner time for Big Dorothea.
Off to the infamous Holiday House smorgasbord, where we’ve been every visit.
We were loudly greeted by yowling monsters protecting a maroon PT-Cruiser in the parking-lot of Holiday House.
“Just like little children,” Linda said.
“Pa and I switched to this place after that other place closed,” Linda’s mother said. “That place was awful; the kids were spooning food back into the serving tins.”
Most ate more than me, although I wouldn’t say they were pigging out.
“15 or 20 percent?” I asked, to calculate the tip on my cellphone calculator.
The total tab was 60 buckaroos, which Linda’s mother would pay.
She had to use her credit-card, because her cash was missing deep in her pocketbook (“pocka-book”).
Except for a loose $10 bill, which became the tip.
“Wouldja like to add a tip to your charge?”
“Tip’s already on-the-table,” we all said.
Back to the apartment, and Jerry back to Orlando to continue working.
I guess he works as a psychiatric consultant for difficult children; although he wants to go into child-photography after retiring, along with his bake-shop, and 89 bazilyun other dreams.
Jerry’s laptop, which had a satellite Internet receiver card, was left behind in case I wanted to parry the Bluster-King.
He put it to sleep, “so how do I wake it up?” I asked. “On my MAC it’s just hit an arrow-key.”
“Nope; gotta hit the start-button.”
I do that and “OOOOOOOOOOOHHMMMMM......” Hourglass city! My MAC wakes up in a second. Seems every move on his laptop takes twice as long as my MAC — or more.
Well, I don’t know as MACs are any better, but an Internet connection took long enough for Garlitz to cover the entire quarter-mile three times, back-and-forth; often longer.
Plus I was fiddling the MyFamblee post-box directly; no AppleWorks and its macros and spellcheck — and Jerry’s rig wasn’t flagging misspells.
So I had to edit — triple the time needed for each post, thereby delaying dinner.
So the almighty Bluster-King gets to foam unchallenged. Parrying him was delaying dinner.
I’d be all over him on my MAC.
(Back to the MAC; back to macros; back to parrying every bluster at mind-boggling speed.)

DAY THREE
Back to snow and frigid temperatures, and long-underwear, and our dog.
“Well Bob, I hope ya had a good time,” Linda’s mother said.
“Strange mysteries were occurring with your ‘pyooter,” I said to Jerry.
“We’d get Internet for a while, then we’d get the ‘Internet-Explorer can’t display this site’ screen.
We’d kill that and get an ‘institute roaming’ window.”
“Well that’s just mother’s apartment,” Jerry said. “Cellphones cut out in here too, and the Internet service is a cell service.
I join the squirrels outside, and then no problem.”
“Once it shut down completely when it was supposed to just ‘hibernate.’
We weren’t sure we could get it relit.
And we weren’t about to chance roaming; that $2.50 mighta cut into Adrien’s house-cleaner budget.”
Plus, wakeup from hibernation took 10 times as long as my MAC.
And startup of that thing had me wondering what gives?
My MAC is up in about 15 seconds — at least four minutes with Jerry’s rig.
“What’s it doing?” I’d ask. “Calculating the value of Pi?”
“We didn’t do anything special,” Linda’s mother said.
“Well, we did do mighty Wal*Mart,” I said; “the height of this visit.
And there was the entertainment,” I thought. No Elvis-impersonator driving the Hertz bus, but there was Blanche at the Perkins.
And then of course was Linda’s poor mother.
We walked outta Wal*Mart without a tub of Miracle-Whip.
All-in-all, not that bad a visit, although as usual it was just “you kids” on vacation.
And Jerry was there, a “Liberial.” (Dread.)
We had a good time bouncing words around, which cut the boredom some.
There was the usual weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
“O for the good old days long ago (snuffle), when Carol and Jerry and Linda all used to visit us in Thurston (“THIRST-nnnn;” Linda’s original New York home).
I don’t know how Jerry got his life all messed up — he shoulda stayed with Carol” (wife number-one of four).
There was discussion of Linda’s mother’s eventual death, although she’s been at death’s door since Linda was a teenager.
Some question about a life-insurance policy that only paid $500.
“That won’t pay for your funeral,” she was told.
“Just drag me out to the berry patch,” she said.
I was tempted to suggest a Hefty-bag, but didn’t.
Years ago, at the mighty Mezz, I wrote an obituary with “Arrangements by Pratt Disposal and Flint Landfill.”
“Don’t file that,” I was told. “It will get printed!”

NOTES

Good old 4896.
Home at last; turn on power-strip equivalent (actually it’s a Belkin® SurgeMaster™ monitor platform with power-strip elements inside).
Push start-button on the mighty MAC, TA-DAAA; and there it is in seconds, OS-X starting, and my GG1 #4896 desktop wallpaper. The usual 89 bazilyun icons and folders, and all the additional apps in my dock.
No more waiting five minutes for Windoze XP to fire up, plus a familiar keyboard that doesn’t punish me with a blizzard of mistypes.
And a familiar mouse, without 89 bazilyun bells-and-whistles.
And good old Appleworks-5 with its spellcheck and my many macros.
And good old “Fox-Fire” -a) bringing up web-sites in seconds, and -b) saving all my tabs so I don’t have to log in to -1) the Curve web-cam, -2) Facebook, and -3) MyFamblee.com.
No more “What’s it doing?” while Windoze calculates the value of Pi. No more watching the hourglass for every move.
I hate to say it, but I’m used to Macintosh performance — Jerry’s machine seems slower than even Linda’s, and I’ve had “What’s it doing?” moments myself on Linda’s machine, and heard the “Now Whats!”
It’s nice to be able to parry the Bluster-Boy from the great land of the shadow of the mighty De Land water-tower, but it was a struggle; as it has been from various PCs in libraries all across this great land, as well as the Tally-Ho motel in northern Delaware, and the motel in Raynham.
But what a relief and joy to get back to good old 4896.

“You get outta here,” Linda’s mother said to Jerry, who had the awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity to be rinsing a dish he had used. “I can tend to that!
“Boy, pretty bossy in your old age,” Jerry said.
“Yep, and I never could tell you anything.”
“Still can’t,” Jerry snapped.
“Yep, ya shoulda never left Carol (sniff). After all, she was the best (snort), even if she did do laundry at 3 a.m., and also the first one ya married, the one ya promised ya’d be faithful to.”
“Mother..........”
“Oh, woe is me; I guess I’ll go eat worms. Speaking of worms, Pa and I were fixin’ to see the manatees at Orange City, and thousands of worms were falling outta trees. I never saw so many worms in my entire life. They were falling down our necks. It was DISGUSTING!”
I’m not making this stuff up, everyone. I had so much material, Jerry was afraid I might not have enough paper to write it all down.
“I sure ain’t doin’ the Lord any good down here — probably wouldn’t do Him any good up there either.”

The plumbing authorities (especially the self-declared Porta-John authority) will wanna know the toilet in our guest-apartment plugged.
Don’t know why — we hadn’t deposited much in it — but it was one a’ them lo-flush toilets. It wouldn’t even fill the bowl when flushed. Do that with our toilets, and they overflow.
We poured water in it all night from a bucket, and it never computed. No access to a plunger; and usually hot water makes it compute eventually.
So now, back home, we can resume going to the bathroom.
Perish-the-thought we deflower the De Land sewer system; although what it really is is we can’t go to the bathroom at the great land of the shadow of the mighty De Land water-tower.

No mention of the shortness of our visit; only two days: down on Monday, back on Wednesday.
—A while ago: “Ya’d think they could do better than that. When Carol comes it’s for two weeks. They are retired.”
It’s mainly because of our dog, but also because we don’t like Floridy.
“They did move down here,” Linda always says. “Coulda stayed in New York.”

Linda’s brother had an interesting thought; that our current economic downturn will be worse than the Great Depression, because America is no longer a producing nation — production has been farmed out to China and Mexico, and China holds our national debt.
Our airport-parking jockey at Rochester International had Rush Limbaugh on his radio and I have to agree with Limbaugh — amazingly. Limbaugh doesn’t think our nation is no longer a producer, although quite a bit of production has been shifted off-shore.
Limbaugh’s caller was repeating the same gloom-and-doom as Jerry.
My question is what about the price of gas?
Last summer we were told to get used to high gas prices, and look what happened.
For every prediction of doom we get an offsetting surprise.
Jerry may be right, but he also may be wrong.
Plus Obama’s stimulus isn’t aimed at producing widgets to sell at Wal*Mart.
It’s building roads and schools here at home.
That’s not China.

AMAZING! (It’s a miracle, Bobby.)
We managed to do this entire trip without losing anything. No wallets, no lumbar-rolls left in airliners or rental-cars, no pencils, etc, etc, etc.
I tried awful hard to lose my sunglasses at the airline ‘pyooter kiosk. —They wouldna done anyone any good, since they’re prescription.
It’s not always me that fiddles ‘pyooter terminals, but it often is, due to: -a) Linda’s deference to let me try it first, and -b) my eagerness to try.
I remember trying to key in a sub order at mighty Sheetz in Altoony, when a certain Bluster-Boobie butted in and shouted “I speak English” to the trembling clerk.
No matter the ‘pyooterized order mighta been quicker than a bellowed order; a macho Git-R-Dun NASCAR-dad wasn’t about to try a computer gizmo.
And it was much quicker when I got to try it myself without the Bluster-Boy. Begin-order-to-receive-sub: about a minute.
I managed to retrieve the sunglasses after I noticed them missing. No one had found them yet.
Last summer I left my railroad scanner beside a telephone-pole in South Fork, PA; but managed to recover that after driving back for it.

“Shadow of the mighty De Land water-tower” is where my wife’s almost 93-year-old mother lives, in a retirement community in “the shadow of the mighty De Land water-tower” in De Land, Florida.

Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s three-plus, and is our sixth Irish-Setter. Recently she had an upset stomach and diarrhea.

“Transit” equals Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years (1977-1993).

I had a stroke October 26, 1993, and it slightly compromised my speech. (Difficulty putting words together.)

An “EZPass gizmo” is a radio transponder that triggers a toll-charge, as you blast through the toll-booth.

The “GreenWay” is a bypass around Orlando.

“Jeb” is Jeb Bush, brother of George W. Bush, and at one time the governor of Florida.

“Blue-winking cricket in her ear” is the ear-mounted Bluetooth® cellphone transponder. Many such gizmos have blue-winking LEDs.

“It’s a miracle, Bobby!” is something my born-again Christian mother said regarding answers to her prayers. —I once had a John Deere riding lawnmower I had to cut the battery-cable on, so I couldn’t use it. I kept hoping for a miracle, but had to fix it myself.

“Jerry” is older by two years; Linda younger — only two children, Jerry and Linda. (“Linda” is my wife of 41+ years.) —Jerry’s fourth (and current) wife is “Nancy;” she was sick. First of the children by his third wife is “Adrien.”

“Aunt Ethelyn” (deceased) is Linda’s mother’s older sister.

RE: “If this got spilled......” —“If Jerry revealed this to his mother.”

“Carol” is Jerry’s first wife. She still maintains relations with Jerry’s mother.

Linda’s mother is named Dorothea; I call her “Big Dorothea,” because she long ago told me I was reprehensible and unworthy.

“Yowling monsters” equals barking guard-dogs.

“Pa” is Linda’s father; deceased.

My mother referred to her purse as her “pocka-book.”

The “Bluster-King” (“almighty Bluster-King,” “Bluster-Boy,” “Bluster-Boobie,” “Git-R-Dun NASCAR-dad”) is my all-knowing, blowhard brother-from-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say. He continually foams at me on our family’s web-site.

RE: “MAC......” —My computer is an Apple Macintosh. All my siblings use Windows PCs, so I am therefore reprehensible and stupid.

Don Garlitz was the best fuel drag-racer during the ‘60s through the ‘80s. (Drag-racing is standing-start to finish over a quarter-mile. Instead of gasoline, a motor could run “fuel,” essentially nitromethane [model-airplane fuel] to generate much more horsepower.)

“MyFamblee” is MyFamily.com, the location of our family’s web-site. Usually I just generate a response in my AppleWorks-5 wordprocessor, and copy/paste that in MyFamily’s post box.

“‘Pyooter” equals computer.

RE: “Elvis-impersonator driving the Hertz bus.....” —Two visits ago our Hertz-bus was being driven by an Elvis-impersonator, who kept singing Elvis songs.

“Liberial” is how my loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston noisily insists “liberal” is spelled. (Recently it’s “liberila” or “libieral.”) —All my siblings loudly hate “liberals.”

The “mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over three years ago. Best job I ever had.

“OS-X” is Apple’s current computer operating system.

To my mind, the Pennsylvania Railroad’s GG1 is the greatest railroad locomotive ever. I have a photo of GG1 #4896 as my computer desktop wallpaper. (#4896 is the only GG1 I’ve ever been through.) —I saw many as a teenager, and every time I did, they were doing 80-100 mph.

“Apps” are computer software applications. They start from a “dock.”

“Fox-Fire” is the computer Internet browser “FireFox.” —My siblings all mispronounce it as a put-down; they all use Microsoft Internet-Explorer, and claim FireFox is only a Tinker Toy.

The “Curve” (“Horseshoe Curve”), west of Altoona, Pennsylvania, is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. (I am a railfan, and have been since I was a child.) —Horseshoe Curve has a web-cam, but it’s awful, and currently not working.

“Windoze” is MicroSoft Windows®, a put-down by MAC enthusiasts.

At a wedding two years ago of my brother-in-Boston’s only daughter, we stayed in a motel in “Raynham,” MA. (It had a Windows PC.)

“DISGUSTING!” is how she says it.

RE: “The self-declared Porta-John authority.....” —My brother-in-Boston claims he is an authority on Porta-Johns; his supposed major at college. One of his duties as a project supervisor is to monitor Porta-Johns.

RE: “They did move down here........” —Linda’s parents originally lived in “Thurston,” N.Y., but moved to Florida; and now Linda’s mother won’t move back. —Thurston is very rural, with only a few citizens; a small town that died.

Greater “Rochester International” Airport.

A “lumbar-roll” is a lumbar support; a roll of foam-rubber.

“Sheetz” is a convenience-store chain based in Altoona, PA (“Altoony”). They sell subs, etc as well as gasoline.

A “railroad scanner” is a scanner programed to receive railroad radio frequencies, so one can better know what’s going on on a railroad line. It picks up engineer-to-dispatcher radio transmissions, as well as trackside defect detectors. —I put mine down along the old Pennsy main in South Fork, PA; and forgot I had. (“Pennsy” is the Pennsylvania Railroad, no longer in existence. It merged with New York Central Railroad in 1968 as Penn-Central, and that tanked in about eight years. “Pennsy” was once the largest railroad in the world. —The old Pennsy main across Pennsylvania is now Norfolk Southern Railroad.)