Category Archives: florida files

Gone Fishing? Well no, we’ve gone (Carrie) Fisher instead

I was going to post a clever Wonder Woman-themed gif to let you know we’re off to spend some quality time doing as little as possible on Siesta Key.

Alas, Florida had to suffer without our presence, because I broke my foot the day of our scheduled departure. That’s probably also why I forgot to post. It’s been a challenging time.

To be fair, our week hasn’t been nearly as challenging as the one had by this family in Cape Coral, Florida. They discovered a 4 foot monitor lizard living in their attic.

I figure not having a giant carnivorous lizard living in the attic is a big win and I should stop complaining.

Story courtesy of Craig Pittman, aka @craigtimes on Twitter.

But back to me, because this is all about me, damnit.

Husband named my cast Boba Foot. Admittedly, it was funnier when I was still taking painkillers, but it still makes me laugh.

We almost immediately started referring to it exclusively by name. I go back to see the surgeon next week and you know it’s going to blurt out of my mouth, so that could be fun.

On a Star Wars-related tangent, we started listening to Carrie Fisher’s audiobook of The Princess Diarist. I read it the day it came out, but since Husband hasn’t, it was in our road-trip entertainment stash.

I enjoyed the book when I first read it, but now that Fisher is dead it’s a bit sad, especially since I keep picturing her reading selections aloud to Gary.

Last night while we were listening, Husband suddenly sat bolt upright on the couch and snatched up his laptop. I paused the book and asked the most obvious question: “Are you looking for pictures of Gary?”

Husband didn’t actually think this was the most obvious question. I don’t know what’s wrong with him sometimes.

Happy Wednesday everyone, I’m back ??? #garyloveshisfans #garyloveshismom #garyfisher #garymisseshismom

A post shared by Gary Fisher (@garyfisher) on

He never did tell me what he needed to look up, or maybe I was too distracted by pictures of Gary to hear him.

For variety, we celebrated Christmas after New Year’s this year

Siesta Key - 2017

We kicked off the new year doing as little as possible for a few days on Siesta Key, in preparation for a whirlwind bout of Family Fun that we had to schedule for the 1st week in January because…well, just because.

Despite the delay, we did indeed have a fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. One could go so far as to say it was the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fucking Kaye.*

Seriously, does anyone ever actually get through the holidays without someone shouting “Hallelujah! Holy shit! Where’s the Tylenol?” at least once a day?

Today’s the last day of our visit, so Mom and I made it as challenging as possible for Husband. Mostly, this involved taking both cats to the vet. Mom makes separate appointments because it’s too difficult to manage both cats at the same time.

In the morning, Tom T. Cat struggled a bit while we inserted his ponderous bulk into the cat carrier, but then he settled down and spent the car-ride singing the song of his people. Tom may be of mysterious parentage, but that voice is all Siamese.

Getting Count Scratchula into the carrier later in the afternoon wasn’t quite as easy. It involved 3 adults running around the house after a cat acting as though her hindquarters were being licked by the very flames of perdition. Did I mention the screaming? There was a lot of screaming. And, at one point, mom and I collapsed in a heap on the kitchen floor and laughed until we nearly passed out. Husband didn’t find this terribly helpful, for some reason.

I believe this day will go down in family legend as a spit-drenched fiasco of feline proportions. No video exists of this incident. All witnesses are currently resting comfortably and expected to make a full recovery. After we staunch the bleeding.

*I’m appalled how many of you don’t get that Christmas Vacation reference, so here’s the whole NSFW clip, for your post-holiday enjoyment:

embedded clip: Christmas Vacation

I don’t know what it means when JunglePete & I start sharing dreams

Yikes, it’s New Year’s Eve and I’ve neglected you all for months and I should probably be writing something profound about the new year (or something snarky about resolutions). Instead, I’m posting a draft that’s been hanging around since last New Year’s Eve.

I’ve been a little disorganized this year.

Last year, we drove to Florida and spent a few weeks with my mom for the holidays. The night before we set out on our journey, I had a nightmare.

A terrible, crazy nightmare.

A wake-up-drenched-in-sweat nightmare.

Here’s what I remember: Husband and I were driving on I-4 in Orlando, near Gatorland. There was a huge traffic jam and we weren’t going anywhere.

Suddenly, Harrison Ford sprinted by the car. We leaped out of the car and ran after him to help. It was the (dream) logical thing to do.

Ford was being pursued by Florida Governor Rick Scott, who was in the process of shedding his human skin and turning into a giant Chupacabra-like monster.

Now, in real life, I’d recently presented a conference paper on archaeology in feature films. Gatorland was on my mind because it was used as a location for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Also, because it’s awesome.

Clarification: Gatorland is awesome. Temple of Doom was kind of a stupid yet lovable mess of a movie. The racism, however, not lovable.

I went back to sleep after my heart-rate returned to normal and didn’t give the dream a second thought in the morning.

Until I got a text from JunglePete.

JunglePete was a bit disturbed about the dream he had that he was stuck in traffic on I4 and Rick Scott turned into a Chupacabra.

I have no explanation for this shared brainwave. We’ll be visiting him again in a few days so I’m sure we’ll figure it out.

One year later….

We never did figure this out. The only logical explanation is that the Governor is a Chupacabra.

image: meanlouise


image: meanlouise

I know, I know – my photoshop skills leave much to be desired.

Floridiana in Slate

It’s Wednesday, you love Florida, and you want to disappear down an entertaining internet rabbit hole for a while? I have just the solution for you: Craig Pittman’s month-long Slate series Oh, #Florida!

Here’s a teaser from the 1st post:

The other day my friend Shannon called me asking for help. She said her women’s group was putting on a luncheon for a group from some other country. Each member of her group was supposed to sit at a table full of the visitors from, I don’t know, Shteyngartistan or something, and somebody came up with the idea of arming the ladies with fun facts about Florida as icebreakers.

The problem, she said, was that the facts they’d compiled about Florida so far just weren’t all that fun. Leading industries, form of government, that kind of thing. Then she said, “I was wondering if you … ”

“You got a pen?” I asked. “Take this down: In 1845, when Florida joined the Union as a state, the first state flag that flew over the capitol bore the slogan: ‘Let Us Alone.’ ”

I went on to tell her about Ochopee, the town with the nation’s smallest post office (it used to be a tool shed), and Carabelle, the town with the world’s smallest police station (a phone booth bolted to the side of a building), and Cassadaga, the town that has so many crystal balls per capita that it’s known as the “psychic capital of the world.” I even mentioned Sweetwater, the town founded by a troupe of Russian circus midgets whose bus broke down.

I reeled off about a dozen oddball bits of Floridiana but avoided the really weird stuff—the nude biker gangs, the Wiccan Klan members, the convocations of furries who sometimes throw costumed parties at the beach.

You should go read, from the beginning, because I’m too lazy to reproduce all of the links (and there are a lot of links). Plus, you should just go read it, because it’s fun and interesting and, dare I say it, educational.

You can also follow Pittman on twitter – @craigtimes.