Family Time In Florida! Lock Up Your Guns

This weekend, my husband and I are going to Boca Raton, FL to celebrate his grandfather's 90th birthday. 90! Isn't that neat? I won't make it that far, mostly because after spending a year working with the elderly, my husband and I agreed to a suicide pact that takes effect when we hit "elderly."

I spent time grocery shopping, dog walking, and visiting doctors with creaky old slowpokes that mostly I loved, but who also assumed everyone was trying to steal from them. One lady dismissed me because she felt I was too in love with her lumpy dog who always had seizures and that I was going to steal him, and another lady dismissed me because she thought I was stealing her identity when she found out I liked to write and she'd written a really smutty romance novel in which the same character seemed to lose her virginity fifteen times. She self-published. I pounded on the door of a deaf man I was supposed to take to the doctor - a steel door for thirty minutes! Finally, he wheeled up behind me, having forgotten the appointment and gone to the corner store for cheese popcorn. It was the most polite shouting I'd ever engaged in with anyone.

JKR and I are offing ourselves before we get too annoying. I have at least five years left. It'll still be nice to escape the winter for a couple of days in Florida, though. When I get back, I expect that winter will have packed up her sh*t and moved the f*ck out of Philly.

Florida is a neat place because it's where COPS is filmed. I think I have an aunt in jail there, too. If I ever have loads of money and can set up my own foundation, the mission will be to help anyone of color move out of Florida. Also, a side project will be helping families who want to go to Disney afford the extra expense of visiting Disney in California rather than having to risk their lives by going to Orlando. Florida is a dangerous place if you're not old and white. On the plus side, sunscreen is cheap.

I think that in this day and age, vigilante justice should be passive aggressive and frustrating, rather than  fatal. For instance, we're having a stand-your-ground battle with the bar downstairs over the trash cans alongside our alley. First, they casually locked the door to the trash alcove once a week, then every day. Luckily, my husband has bony wrists and can slide his arm through a crack and pop it open. After a few months, they put a combination lock on the door. It was easy enough to watch the "waste management technicians" open the door to figure out that combo (6-0-0-1), but now giant sacks of glass are put on top of each can and only removed when pick-up is imminent. Today, a bag of orange liquid with a tear in it was leaned up against the door so that a funky, vomit-like river flowed into the alley in front of our door. I thought they liked us. Maybe they do, but they hate our new neighbor? That must be it.

Guess who had check-ups today?

Ruth peed in her carrier and it took three techs to clean it all up and wipe her down. Truffles had to be taken in the back away from my view because she acted like a jerk and I think she bit somebody. They were vague about teethmarks making skin contact and how Truffles seems to "not enjoy being restrained." It was the most fun $363 I've spent today. Can you see my creepy monstrous shadow looming ominously over them? This was taken last night, thus making what Shakespeare would call foreshadowing. The vet did go on and on about what a healthy weight my girls are and what a great job I'm doing not letting them get fat, because it's so easy to do if you aren't careful. I let her gush for about fifteen to twenty minutes before describing the blob at home that will be on her table in May.

I don't know where we went wrong.