Adults Make Trade-offs…….

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Serious Content Alert! In a number of conversations over the past few weeks, I have solidified my belief that goals, dreams, and fantasies are a good way to measure maturity. One has dreams and sets goals to achieve those dreams and who doesn’t enjoy thinking how one would spend that $560 million dollar lottery winning? I’ve written other posts on this subject before, yet there are constant permutations to the theme. Recent events have caused us to once again take a look at plans we’d made for our future and begin to make some adjustments. Those are not the subject of this post since a) we’re just beginning that process, and b) multiple factors are involved and we don’t know for sure how they will play out.

The point, however, is that in the real world where most of us dwell, a time comes when it is important to differentiate between dreams and fantasies. Mature thinking means that you sit and realize, “Okay, this is the likely scenario of what our real resources are and what we can accomplish/have/do.” Clinging to a fantasy of what you want to have “someday” even when you are faced with limited resources of money, time, or availability, is a path to disappointment and stress. In some cases, it can also damage relationships as you seek to “blame someone or something for preventing you from having what you want.” That, my friends, does not always mean giving up on a dream – there are times when some adjustment, a slightly new angle of looking at something, a change here or there might still make it happen. However, you may also have to take a hard look at, is it a dream, or has it crossed into the realm of fantasy? Years ago when I had my ROTC assignment, there was a sign in the Business Department that said, “1968 – If I could just make $40,000 a year, I’d be on Easy Street. 1988 – They moved Easy Street.”

If you are indeed faced with Easy Street (or whatever the equivalent is in your situation), having moved, it’s moved. Do you work longer, do you change some plans you had, do you adjust some priorities? These are trade-offs, and for your and your spouse/partner/significant other’s, sake if you are required to make some of those serious trade-offs, then do so consciously in the least painful way possible and then understand it for what it is. Genuinely come to terms with it and understand that a little grieving may even be in order. The loss of a dream is a loss. Not on the scale with some others, but there can definitely be a pang of longing. It’s better to feel and recognize that moment of sorrow than to bury the resentment where it might well fester. Life happens and letting go of the dream of making a cruise around the world doesn’t mean you can’t take shorter trips to other places you’d like to visit. Will it be the same? No? It means you add that cruise to your fantasy list and enjoy the good things in life that you do have,

Crashing on Deadlines…..

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This will be closer to a tweet than a blog because I am in my second straight week of crashing on what was two and became three critical deadlines all due by either yesterday or today. More to follow with a decent post tomorrow that will be entitled, “Making Trade-offs (Updated)” since that topic is closely aligned with what is going on at the moment. Ah well, we can’t always control the timing of things around us.

Root of Responsibility……..

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Musing content alert! We are fans of the series, “Game of Thrones”, although we haven’t read the books because, quite frankly, I tried and the body count was simply too much for my taste. The series is bad enough with that and I will attempt to be careful in writing this so that if someone hasn’t watched the last few episodes, it won’t be a spoiler.

As a quick summation, the “Game of Thrones” refers to the constant jostling among the seven major houses (kingdoms) as to who will rule and sit on the Iron Throne. The king who had brought everyone more or less into line died and an event occurred that caused a war to erupt with the claim that the very young (and quite unbalanced) King is not the rightful heir. His maternal line is the powerful house of Lannister and so far, they’re managing pretty well to retain their hold on power. It is the grandfather who not only wields the real power, but who understands the machinations and has outmaneuvered those he considers a threat. Which brings me to the point of the blog.

In the season finale, a brutal event is set into motion by the grandfather and one of his sons questions the lack of honor in the action. “I did it to stop this war,” is the answer. “Why is it considered more honorable for 10,000 men to die on a battlefield than for a dozen to die thusly?” (I just paraphrased that). Okay, that would seem to be a good question and you think, well, yes, perhaps that would be justified. Except – the core point is that while the war was launched by another house, it was the specific action of the young King that precipitated the response. And, if the grandfather was willing to face the truth, he would learn that perhaps the young King’s hold on the throne is in fact dubious at best. Ergo, his claim of desire to end the war (while ensuring his family stays in power) fails to address where the actual responsibility lies.

I will grant that in this scenario, admission of responsibility is likely to end in significant bloodshed, but in the metaphorical sense, the “bloodshed” can mean adverse career or relationship impact. It is, too often, the wish to avoid those impacts that cause individuals to obscure responsibility when an action he or she goes badly.

When You Want a Sports Bar……

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Keg South, Hwy 1, Homestead

Keg South, Hwy 1, Homestead

When it comes to a hard business to run, restaurants are right up there at the top. There are so many different things to juggle that have nothing to do with your ability to cook or how much you enjoy dining out. So we always have a fond spot in our hearts when someone takes that big step and is willing to put their heart and soul into making a place a go of it. Keg South is a local sports bar that we knew about and had intended to visit, but also had in the “Get around to it” category. I had written a piece about them for the weekly paper, but had been there around 11:00 in the morning – too early for a burger and beer. Our actual first time to visit was in fact connected to a radio show.

As anyone who follows this blog knows, my husband is a big NASCAR fan. And the Country and Western station, FM 100.3, Thunder Country, does a live broadcast, “The Octane Hour”, every Thursday at Keg South at 7:00 p.m. While the show is devoted to NASCAR, they also provide generous time to community and non-profit event promotion. I have been involved with several such events during the past year and so have been on the show multiple times. A lot of guests of course just come to do their spot, then head out, but for us, it was the perfect combination – supporting whatever cause it was, a little publicity for me as a writer, an hour of NASCAR talk for my husband, cold beer, excellent wings and burgers. I mean, what’s not to like? Keg South is in fact, a family place as much as it is a sports bar and there is nothing fancy about it. What it does have is good food run by a good guy who has much of his family involved with helping to run the place. The guy took it over from a man who had, quite frankly, let it slide apparently and he’s been re-building ever sense. He’s made it past that tricky first two years and that’s important. So if you’re in the mood for the environment of a sports bar – Keg South is a good one to pick.

Interesting Walk This Morning……

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One of the pleasures in walking here – other than the fact that it is very flat – is the wonderful fauna and flora that I often mention in either a post or a tweet. Today was no exception, although some encounters are more enjoyable than others. There is the large flock of green parrots that lives in the general neighborhood, so that we have them fly overhead a couple of times a day and I always see them when I walk. The number that I see tends to be the only question. Today, for some reason, there were more than I could count – some flying quite low. They gathered in a couple of trees though and were so well camouflaged that I could hear them squawking away, but could see only one or two. That was fine and then as I was passing by, there was this intriguing reptile that I had seen once before. I’m not entirely sure what he is and he won’t stay still long enough for me to get a photo. He is either a really juvenile iguana or perhaps another reptile in that family. He’s too large to be a lizard unless it’s one I am just not familiar with and he is very bright green. The neighborhood flock of ibis was also poking around in a couple of the yards.

While I very much enjoyed all of the above, the snake in the grass – literally – I didn’t get such a kick out of and the two rats I saw scurrying from one clump of bushes to another, definitely not. On the other hand, perhaps the snake could make his way to where the rats were. It wasn’t a very large snake though so I don’t think he could take them. As I said, you never quite know what you will see around this place.

An Interesting Aspect of Group Dynamics…….

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This will be a short post and part of the reason for that is that I am engaged in a project that has taken a complicated turn. It is related to previous posts when I’ve discussed mistakes that people make and how to respond to those mistakes when you are on the receiving end, and how you might react if you are the one making a mistake. This is the time when by “mistake”, I don’t mean you forgot to buy ketchup when you went to the store and you have to go back for another trip or do without. I am referring instead to one of those types of mistakes where you impact multiple other people to the point of risking both the end goal of a project and the deadline. Discovering a major error is one thing. Discovering a major error when there is a serious time crunch is another.

That also leads into two issues – the first is resolving the error and meeting the deadline, the next is how to handle the error with the individual who made it. That happens to not be my concern here, although I will get drawn in simply because it is a small group and that’s part of group dynamics. In helping resolve the error, we are working to do so in a manner that will permit everyone to save face. However, that may not be a perception shared by everyone in the group. In that event, as they say, “Things could get messy.” Hopefully, despite the significant extra work, all will be smoothed over. So, how about it, readers? Care to share tales of similar situations?

Rainy Season…….

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We have entered the rainy season here in South Florida, although it isn’t quite like the rainy season in some parts of the country. The rain is pouring at the moment and that will last for a while longer. Then, it is just as likely that the sun will come out with the humidity obviously hovering in the 80-plus percent category and steam everything. Then again, threatening clouds may roll in once more with intermittent rain throughout the day or perhaps not until late at night. The forecast pretty much stays at 30% chance of rain, chance of scattered thunderstorms during this time. Having an umbrella in the car is always a good idea and at least we don’t have to worry about putting water in the pool for a few weeks.

Had I progressed in my desire to learn more about our wonderful South Florida botanicals, I would also know which ones that I could be planting at this point, but somehow, this skill has once again escaped me. Okay, I supposed escaped is not the correct word – more that I have yet to put my mind to it. My, what “branching” thoughts occur when you start on a particular topic. My other act of procrastination is in not getting a rain barrel which I truly meant to do this year. However, we also apparently have some sort of gutter system that isn’t particularly compatible with a rain barrel, although I haven’t checked into those details.

There is one other aspect to rainy season and that is the arrival of the Black Water (or is it Black Water Sound?) mosquitos. They’ll start to hatch and if we’re lucky, it will be a short period of only about three weeks when it is miserably “buggy”, then we’ll be beyond it in general. There are, of course, some areas around here where bugs are fairly constant.

Ah, the rain seems to have stopped, but since it’s only 5:30 a.m., I can’t tell what we might have in the way of clear skies once we have sunrise. We shall see and keep the umbrellas handy.

Leaving Ocean Springs……

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Okay, now for the twist to what should have been a really pleasant. day. I was booked on the 2:30 flight out of Gulfport-Biloxi airport which is about a forty minute drive from Ocean Springs. The plan was to have a leisurely breakfast with my brother and sister-in-law, take them to one more scenic spot, then us go our separate ways. I had booked the late flight because one never quite knows what may happen when my brother and sister-in-law are involved in a trip and I wanted to give myself extra time  in case they had been delayed in arriving in Ocean Springs or even if I had needed to make a last minute adjustment and dash over to Louisiana where they lived. Anyway, that was a logical decision on my part and that was going to put me into Miami around 8:00 p.m. The kicker to all of this was that I had a commitment to an event beginning at 3:00 p.m. on Monday.

At any rate, all was going well – pleasant breakfast, took care of last minute family business, and off we all go. I obviously arrived at the airport in plenty of time, planning to have a cold beer or two, see if the airport had Wi-Fi. (Not only did they, but it was free.) Then things began to unravel with the delay of the in-bound flight that would cause me to miss the Atlanta connection. Okay, well, there are a lot of flights between Atlanta and Miami. Apparently, however, not as many as I thought. I was told that they could not in fact get me out of Atlanta on Sunday and I could choose to go to Atlanta and spend the night or stay in Biloxi and take the 6:00 a.m., but in either case, I wouldn’t go out of Atlanta until the 11:45 flight on Monday. In retrospect, perhaps I should have gone on, but I decided to stay in Biloxi. So, it was up very early to catch the 6:00 a.m., then not very long at home before I had to change and get to the 3:00 p.m. commitment that went until 7:00 p.m. Needless to say, I was definitely ready for an early night. Ah well, the week has now literally dissolved in a series of commitments and I hope that today with complete me recovering my balance.

 

Ocean Springs, Day Two…..

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Al Frecso Italian Restaurant in Ocen Springs, MS

Al Frecso Italian Restaurant in Ocen Springs, MS

Dinner my first night was at Al Fresco, a pleasant place, family run with a menu that was not extensive, but had all the essentials. Something interesting did occur though. I judge all Italian restaurants by the way they do veal. My waiter was friendly and as we discussed this, he assured me I would love their veal. As he delivered my fresh bread with a nice dipping oil that had both cracked black pepper and parmesan cheese in it, he said the chef wanted me to know that they had received their veal delivery from a different source and they were not happy with it. They were having problems getting it as tender as it should be. I thanked him for the warning and ordered the shrimp scampi. It was freshly prepared and with a surprisingly light sauce.

Okay, my plans to poke around some of the lovely shops in Ocean Springs on Day 2 was disrupted for reasons that aren’t important. My brother and sister-in-law arrived right on schedule though so we walked into town and had lunch at the Government Grocery and Restaurant. (It’s on Government St and I assume it was once a grocery store). Great burger and cold beer – what more can you ask for?

My brother and I then took care of some family business as my sister-in-law did roam the shops. She is an incredible seamstress and fabric artist and Ocean Springs has several shops that she loves. I had some residual work to take care of after my brother and I finished, plus I snatched a little nap. Hey, it happens.

Even though I had Italian on Friday, Leo’s has wood-fired pizza and I am a sucker for that. The outside dining was full and inside was filled with marvelous black and white photos of movie stars and singers. Lena Horne, Audrey Hepburn, James Dean, etc., – the iconic photos. Most of the restaurants downtown are not large and I have been impressed with the service. It has routinely been attentive without hovering. There are multiple restaurants downtown and I’m making my way through them. The others are spread out on either Highway 90 or on Washington just past the bridge up to the I-10 exit.

There is a nice mix of cuisines available with fresh seafood and the Cajun influence prominent along with standard Southern favorites. Mississippi was one of the first states to enthusiastically establish catfish farms, so that is plentiful. We did not go to those places on this trip, but we will keep them on the list.

 

Belated Blogging From Ocean Springs…..

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View from Ocean Springs Park

View from Ocean Springs Park

 I have of course explained before that I am not a technically savvy blogger. That lack of skill became apparent during my recent trip to Ocean Springs as I was unable to access my blog for two reasons. One was an error on my part and the other was the decision to stay in a sort of B&B (that means the Bed and not Breakfast part) where there was no connectivity. At any rate, the next three posts will be catch up as to that trip. Under the circumstances, I will post in daily sequence with wrap-up at the end.

I spent the first night of the trip in Biloxi, and did not arrive in Ocean Springs until the morning of Day Two. As I wrote in a previous blog, we discovered Ocean Springs as we were en-route to New Orleans. It is a really inviting small town on Biloxi Bay. In fact, it is so inviting, that I wanted to come back and look around, plus it’s only an hour and a half from where my brother and sister-in-law live. The plan was for them to come down (well, down and over) on Saturday for a pleasant lunch, then dinner, and my return to FL Sunday afternoon.

The fact that Oak Shade Retreat where I stayed was a short walk to the beach made up for the inconvenience of no internet. I am not at the point in my life to where I need to be “wired 24/7” for most trips.

I saw lots of brown pelicans which I dearly love and a number of other birds as well as plenty of Spanish Moss dripping from the plentiful oak trees that have survived generations of hurricanes. Katrina did a huge amount of damage here and in some places people decided not to rebuild. While the property prices plummeted as they did nation-wide, they are headed back up and waterfront, as always, held its value.

Breakfast my first morning was at the Bayview, a place that does breakfast, lunch, and catering. Enjoyable ambience, had a superb lemon-poppy seed muffin and excellent coffee. Lunch was back over in Biloxi at McElroy Seafood, a place on the bay that has been around for quite some time apparently, but was destroyed by Katrina and re-built. Dinner – we shall see.

 

Brown Pelicans at Big Chill in Key Largo

Brown Pelicans