Almost Two Weeks Later - October 16, 2021

Here we are, day 14. I thought I would have been writing every day or so but it took this long for my brain and body to settle down some. I don’t feel truly settled yet, really. I guess I expected I’d need a few days or maybe even a week, but alas, I should know better than to have expectations. About anything. According to author Paula Rinehart,

“Dreams and expectations have a way of inflating.”

My energy level has been in the basement and the yawns are an all day thing. Falling asleep or trying not to, somewhere around 8pm, is a nightly occurrence. I don’t know if it’s the humidity, the heat, the brisk and biting wind or just my body’s way of trying to recalibrate. Perhaps a combination. They say as we get older it’s harder to adjust but that’s not something I like to accept.

The first days were a whirlwind, getting groceries, opening a post office box, getting a desk chair I can be comfortable in and figuring out the house and it’s quirks. Going to Publix, the grocery store down here is challenging but fun. Challenging because if you’re not in your home grocery store, you don’t know where anything is and they don’t have some of the items you want. But they do have some items you definitely want, like Key Lime Pie and Key Lime Cheesecake as well as yummy salmon burgers and lump meat crab cakes. These alone are worth giving up the Italian bread they did not have for me to make garlic bread or my favorite tortilla chips.

Now, what do I mean about the quirks of the house? Let’s start with the fact that there are no towel bars in the master bathroom. We know the place has been renovated but they missed an important item. Also, there are no wastebaskets. When we put our first dirty dish in the dishwasher, it tilted and wobbled. It was not secured to the counter. Adam was sent by the manager to fix it and then clean out the bugs in the bathroom light. We think we’re all set now.

Enter a bug – a two inch bug crawling in the bathroom. Paul told me about it and I shuddered, then decided not to use that bathroom and to put it out of my mind. After looking on the internet, he told me it was a palmetto bug and very common here. Hmm. I don’t care how common it is here. I am sufficiently bothered. Things turned quickly the next night as I saw it crawl into the dining room. OMG!! It was the size of seashell . I sat on the couch for the rest of the evening staring at the floor after he sprinted away like he was running the hundred meter dash, with my stomach twitching and my eagle eye transfixed. He didn’t re-appear but as I sat there I wondered if I would get any sleep that night.

The next morning I called the manager and back came Adam to spray until the professionals came on Friday. When Bill from Beach Pest Control arrived, in true southern fashion, he gave us his personal bio; born in Atlantic City, came here when he was 1, father was a navy man and what this land used to look like before the condos were built. Then he was hoping I would buy what he was selling – these palmetto bugs are everywhere and they’re no big deal – especially to Floridians. Well, I’m not a Floridian and I do not want to co-exist with bugs, that according to Bill’s humor, “you just saddle them up and ride them.” The poison was sprayed and we haven’t had a sighting since. I’m still holding my breath.