Month: October 2022

Keep It Simple

/ Ann Coleman / 106 Comments

My husband and I recently returned from a wonderful vacation.  We were lucky enough to spend a week with our daughter, son-in-law and grandsons in a rented house just a few blocks from the beach, stores, and restaurants.  Spending time with the people we love is a good thing, and spending time with them in a vacation setting is even better.  Overall, it was a very good week.

Very good, but not perfect.  And yes, few things are perfect, and the key to a good vacation is to overlook the things that don’t go quite right.  We did that.  When it rained, we read and did jigsaw puzzles.  When it was too windy to walk the beach, we swam in our pool instead.  But the problem that we couldn’t quite conquer was the house itself.

It was a very nice house, but it also equipped with “state of the art” technology.  I know that sounds like a good thing, and in some houses, it probably is.  But in this particular house, it meant we spent way too much time just trying to figure out how to turn out the lights at night.

Every room had several switch plates that operated the various lights and window shades, and every switch plate had several buttons and finger-operated “slides.”  The trick was to push the right button and use the right slide in the right sequence, which apparently varied from day to day.  What worked to turn off the porch lights on Monday night did not work on Tuesday night.  Other lights turned on by themselves a few minutes after we turned them off.

And the problem wasn’t just the lights.  The front door refused to lock from the outside, so we had to lock it from the inside and then exit via the garage.  The ultra-sophisticated dryer started to make strange, loud noises instead of actually drying the clothes.  We decided we could air dry our clothes as long as the washing machine worked, so of course the washing machine promptly broke down, mid-cycle, with our clothes inside and the door still on “lock.”

But the worst was the stove top.  It was equipped with a control pad and six invisible burners that were supposed to light up when you placed a pan on them.  So I put my pan on, adjusted the temp and waited for my pan to heat so I could scramble some eggs.  The burner stayed cold, and the control pad informed me the “pan is not detected.”   I muttered words I didn’t want my grandsons to hear and pushed the setting button on the control pad, which produced a recipe for New England Clam chowder, complete with photos.  Eventually we discovered that the stove top only works with certain pans.

I’m not against state of the art technology, per se.  But I am against making things so very complicated that people who are trying to have a peaceful vacation have to waste time trying to figure out how to turn off a light or scramble some eggs.  I can do those things at my house, I swear.  My stove lets me use whatever pan I want, and I can dim our lights with a simple dimmer switch.

Sometimes complicated doesn’t mean better.  It just means more things that can go wrong.  The KISS (keep it simple, stupid) motto may not be nice, but it’s not wrong either……

Home to Stay

/ Ann Coleman / 84 Comments

I’ve always thought of myself as a pretty smart dog, so it’s hard for me to admit that I’ve been fooled.  And to make it even worse, I’ve been fooled by the people I love most in this world:  my mom and dad!

I know how lucky I was to be adopted into a human family.  I spent time in two shelters, and I can tell you that no matter how well a shelter is run, living alone in a cage is VERY hard on us dogs.  (And the situation is even worse now, because most shelters are both full and short-staffed.)  So on the whole, I count myself lucky.

But like most dogs, I believe that my parents’ number one priority is taking care of me.  I want them to stay home, all the time, with me.  Dogs are social creatures, and we like having our loved ones around us.  Always.  So you can imagine my dismay when I realized that Mom and Dad think nothing of leaving me at home alone, sometimes for hours, and sometimes even for days when they go off somewhere they call “vacation.”  (Sure, they hire a dog sitter to come over a few times a day, but the rest of the time, they’re off having fun on a beach and yours truly is sitting at home alone.)

And I’ve made my feelings known.  I give Dad my best sad face when he leaves in the morning, but he just pats me and says, “I’ve got to go to work now, Finn.”  Mom does the same thing when she leaves to go to the shelter, or the grocery store, or any of the other places she finds it necessary to waltz off to without me.   I can whine all I want, or do my best to slip out the door with them, but it always ends the same way:  they leave me.

But here’s the worst part:  I’ve discovered my parents weren’t being honest when they said they had to leave sometimes.  These days, people can work from home, and have everything they need, including groceries, delivered directly to their house.  They can use the internet for all their entertainment, and even “go to church” while sitting at home in their underwear, staring at the screen.  They don’t need to leave the house to see their family and friends, because they can use “FaceTime” on their phones.  The truth is, there is absolutely no reason, with the possible exception of an occasional emergency, for my parents to ever set foot off their property again.

Now all I have to do is figure out a way to teach my parents about this basic truth.  I know they’ll resist giving up their vacations, but seriously, every day spent with me is just like a vacation, right?  And they do love holding their grandchildren, particularly the baby, but I’m not against having the little ones come to our house.  I rather like them, honestly, and not just because they leave trails of food in their wake that I can snarf up.

It won’t be easy to convince my parents never to leave home again, but I bet I’ll be successful.  Because when you come right down to it, I really am a pretty smart dog!

Love,  Finn

Sanibel Strong

/ Ann Coleman / 100 Comments

Sanibel Island is my happy place.  I fell in love with the island the first time my husband and I visited in 1986.  I was pregnant with my daughter at the time, and appreciated the laid-back feeling of the island, which had no stop lights, no fast-food restaurants (unless you count the Dairy Queen) and no buildings over four-stories high.  The beach was natural, and full of shells.  There were just enough stores and restaurants for convenience and a huge nature preserve where we could spot all sorts of birds and even an alligator or two.  Sanibel provided exactly the relaxing and rejuvenating vacation we needed.

When our children were grade school, we began taking our family vacations on the island.  We booked only a four-night stay on our first trip down, because we worried the kids would get bored with the lack of theme parks and other kids’ activities.  But they loved it as much as we did.  My son became interested in photography and took tons of great photos, including one of an alligator on the beach. (We saw that only once, and it was safely returned to the Sanibel River.)  We’ve had many great vacations with our children, but my fondest memories are the times we spent together on Sanibel Island.

Our son and daughter are grown with families of their own, so now its usually just my husband and I when we visit the island.  There’s still the feeling of peace when we cross the causeway that connects Sanibel to the mainland, and catch that first sight of the island.  We have many favorite restaurants, and I always reserve at least two hours to browse through Gene’s Bookstore, which is one of the best bookstores I’ve ever visited.  We don’t own any property on Sanibel, but both of us think of the island as our second home.

As anyone with access to the news knows, Florida was recently devastated by Hurricane Ian, and Sanibel Island took a direct hit.  It was completely engulfed with water as well as battered by category-4 winds.  Many buildings are just plain gone, and the ones that are still standing have severe damage.  The causeway, which is the only access to the island, collapsed in at least four places.  There is no power, which means deadly mold will grow in the water-logged buildings.  People had to be air-lifted off the island, and most home-owners have lost everything. There are at least two confirmed deaths.

It’s hard for me, from the safety of my home in the MidWest, to wrap my mind around this tragedy that happened in Sanibel and across much of Southwest Florida.  I see the photos from drones and try hard to identify familiar landmarks.  I can only imagine the pain of those who lived and worked on the island, and the desperation they must feel as they wonder, “what now?”  I heard that the city of Sanibel is setting up an official fund for donations, and I hope that people who are able give generously.  I know I will.

I also know that eventually, the island will come back.  People will rebuild as best they can, and the time will come when the island will be open for visitors again.  It won’t look the same, because hurricanes change the actual landscape of islands.  The “old Florida” hotels with their little framed houses won’t be rebuilt that way, because they are far too vulnerable to strong hurricanes.  Many things that made Sanibel so charming are gone forever.  But I also know that when Sanibel finally recovers, it will still be a very special place.  The people who live there, work there, and visit regularly will make sure of that, because we know that the spirit of Sanibel is too strong to be destroyed.  And that’s why we love it so much….