Two months ago I moved out of the “Ship Bound for Tarshish” and started blogging under the title “Life on the Lighter Side.”  If you haven’t checked me out there yet, please do.  Also, I invite you to SIGN UP to follow me on that blog.  Thanks!  Hope you’ll stop by.  Here’s my post for today.

Competitiveness has taken on a whole new look in our family.  We all pride ourselves on being serious game players.  Whatever we’re playing and whoever we are playing against, we play to win.  I know we’ve passed down this quality to our kids (sorry, kids), and they’ve even married people who fit in with us quite nicely.  But, like I said at the outset of this post, we’ve just taken it up a notch.  To continue reading click here

This is a reminder that My Ship Bound for Tarshish docked last week.  Please check out my new blog.  Today I even have a little contest.

Click on this link to view my new blog Life on the Lighter Side.

Reminder for my followers here:  Thank you so much for reading.  Please sign up to follow me on my new blog as you will not automatically get posts unless you do.

I’m launching my new blog today so this is the last post on the Ship Bound for Tarshish.  I’ve been on this ship for a year and a half – it’s time to get off the boat and enjoy life on the shore.  I hope you will join me.  It’s easy, just click on this link to my new blog Life on the Lighter Side to see what I’m up to now.

To my current followers, thank you so much for reading and please sign up to follow me on my new blog as you will not automatically get posts unless you do.  Thank you!

The Queen of England jumped out of a helicopter last night.  There’s a sentence I never thought I’d read or write.  It was part of the dazzling display that was the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games.

Her Majesty was joined by Bond, James Bond, a.k.a. Agent 007 of Her Majesty’s Secret Service, in a scene originating in Buckingham Palace.  Daniel Craig portrayed James Bond and the Queen was played by herself, of course.  It was a regal scene with poor James looking a bit awkward for once as he followed the Queen down the corridor and eventually into a chopper to make their entrance at the ceremony.

Bob and I watched and our eyes could not believe what they beheld.  Bob, logical Bob, insisted that there were stand-ins for them both in the chopper, but I chose to believe otherwise, especially when I discovered the weak name they gave the Queen’s stand-in.  Really, can you believe they used the name Gary Connery?  It sounds real enough and I even heard an interview with a guy claiming to be him.  Oh, he did an excellent job in convincing us that it indeed was him, but I have chosen to suspend belief.  I think they came up with the name Gary Connery like this.  Gary has four letters, just like Bond.  Who is the most famous James Bond actor of all times?  Sean Connery.  I hope you are getting the connection here.  There was simply no way they could allow the world to believe it was the real Queen who was risking her life jumping out of a helicopter, but you can’t hold a good monarch down.

So, bravo, Your Majesty, and kudos for the brilliant forethought of wearing bloomers.  You continue to be a woman and world leader whom we can all look up to – in this case way up.

Note to My Readers:  I’m very excited about a change in my blog.  Look for it by the end of the month!

Two of my grandsons (ages 4 and 5) spent last week with us.  It was fun to put on my everyday Grandma hat, except their day starts a little earlier than mine typically does.  I’m no longer used to the early morning wake-up calls, but after seven days of them, I think I could do it again.  I won’t, but I think I could.

I took all three grandsons on an outing.  Lots of craziness from the cousins.

I did learn a few things after spending concentrated time with these sweet boys.  One important thing is that you should never hang a towel right next to the toilet.  Since both boys have been potty trained for some time, it isn’t necessary to follow them into the bathroom anymore.  I’m glad I did on one occasion though, because I got to witness Winston doing one of those disgusting little boy things.  As he finished peeing and pulled up his pants, before he washed his hands, he wiped them on the towel.  I guess you don’t want pee dripping off of your hands when you turn on the water faucet.  There’s a certain logic to this that unfortunately, having raised three sons of my own, I understand.  I corrected it and moved the towel, but I understand.

There are two things that I wouldn’t want to tell their parents.  I’ll share them here with you as long as you promise not to squeal on me.

The first day we had them was Saturday.  Bob and I took the boys with us to run errands in the afternoon.  It was the second stop before I realized that one of them was still in his pajamas.

Secondly, I misplaced the directions for the appointment I was taking one of them to.  I remembered the name of the doctor (thank you, Jesus) so I googled it.  No problem, except I was running rather close time-wise on that Monday morning so after I dropped the younger brother at my daughter’s house, I used my GPS to get the directions.  If you’re a regular reader you know there has got to be a problem with this.  My request was answered by “Directions could not be found between these locations.”  So I called and got directions, only there were too many turns for me to remember so I got lost.  I pulled over to look at the map and realized I had not entered the word “road,” but had typed “toad.”  My thoughts were you’d think the stupid GPS would have figured that out.  I mean I use this thing a lot and it’s linked to my phone and thereby more information about me than you can shake a stick at.  So it should have known that I would never get directions to anything remotely resembling a toad (or frog or snake either for that matter).  And if it couldn’t make that deduction, it should have asked itself, “How many people are looking on a map for a toad?  She must mean road.”  And this thing calls itself a smart phone!  Shame, shame!  The happy ending was I did arrive on time.

When they were picked up on Friday night, they had no injuries, one less tooth, and were healthy.  Yeah, sure they ate a lot of chicken nuggets and peanut butter and jelly this week, but all in all, success!

I’m trying to be sensitive in many ways today as I write this entry.  I don’t want to get anybody in trouble, so I hope you can read through my code and ambiguous wording to figure out this story.

Good friends of ours were traveling with their two kids who are in their mid to late teens.  We will call our friends Jorge and Katerina, just to protect their identities.  They began their journey in a place where you pick up transportation of the flying type so that means they had to go through a special area to be greeted by a special agent from a group we will call OMG (the initials are being changed to protect everybody).

Jorge and Katerina are a party waiting to happen, so they thought the flying transportation place should not be excluded from their typical agenda.  They went through the greetings from the OMG people with no trouble, being seasoned travelers of this type, and they thought they spotted a greeter with a sense of humor, a rare thing with the OMG crowd.

They conveyed their idea to the OMG guy.  It involved their two sons.  They pointed discretely at them.  “See those two guys, one with a hat and the other with glasses?  How about you give them the full greeting treatment today?”

OMG said, “Sure.”

I know what you’re thinking – OMG has a sense of humor?  It’s a miracle!  Well, hold on because OMG may have a sense of humor, but OMG is not very good at following directions because in no time at all Jorge and Katerina witnessed him stating the following in a loud, clear voice.

“Ma’am, you look very suspicious to me.  Would you please step over here?”

I know, OMG, how could he!  Poor Jorge and Katerina about busted a gut laughing while the poor lady was being approached by OMG.  Thankfully, Jorge convinced the young OMG guy that the two young guys he was pointing to were not this unfortunate lady, who I’m sure next time will want to travel by land.

We went to see The Amazing Spiderman and even sprung for the IMAX 3D version.  It lived up to its billing and went far beyond my expectations.  Initially I thought – didn’t we just have a Spiderman movie?  Wasn’t it just a year or so ago?  It was ten years ago that Tobey Maguire debuted as Peter Parker/Spiderman, and let me tell you, he just got us warmed up for this version.

The stand-out part of today’s movie was the brilliance of the casting.  Andrew Garfield was the perfect awkward geeky teenager dealing with family responsibilities, hopeful for a girlfriend, getting beat up, surviving a spider bite that transformed him into a superhero – you know, normal stuff.  But the clincher for making the entire movie work was the casting of Aunt May.  Who would have thought to have Spiderman’s aunt be the Flying Nun?  It works beautifully.  Think about it.  Both have an innocence about them.  Both are good people.  Both fly through the air in unconventional ways.  Genius.  Pure genius.

My title makes it seem like my life is challenging, but it’s not too bad right this minute.  What I’m referring to is the Ultimate Blog Challenge taking place during this month.  The challengees are supposed to post 31 times – once for each day.  Let me tell you, they don’t call it a challenge for nothin’.  I thought the first week would be the most challenging because I was on vacation.  That was a piece of cake.

Since Friday I have had my two grandsons staying with us.  There’s the challenge.  The boys are great, but I’m no longer used to doing things while being distracted.  Here’s a sample of life for me this week.  Winston is four and is quite fixated on time right now.  He has lots of requests – when can I play my game – can I have a snack – when will the rain stop so I can go outside – will you help me build a train track – wipe my heiny.  My answer is often I’ll be right there or in a little bit, but he wants a count down.  How many minutes?  I try to start high to give me more time, but minutes fly with Winston.

I’d tell you more, but I’m being paged because it’s snack time, so I guess I’ll go now.  I’ll get back with you in about 1,440 minutes (or less if they take a nap).

Our Guide – Looks Like the Right Guy to Follow into the Everglades

Bob and I did something that we’ve never done before in our 36 years living in Florida.  We took an airboat ride through the Everglades.  It’s kind of wrong to live someplace so long and not take part in the iconic adventures available.

So we’re cruising along enjoying the sights and counting alligators (five if you count the one the lying in the canal adjacent to where we parked the car).  The temperature down there (near Fort Lauderdale) was cooler than most of the country – about 90 degrees, but the surface temp of the water was 118, according to our guide.  He claims they refuse to advertise that or nobody would come down here.  He may be right.  When the boat is going, the air is moving.  When the boat is still so is the air.

Riding along with wind in our faces, we hardly noticed how hot it was as we looked at the birds and gators.  Then he’d stop and engage us in conversation until we were sitting in a pool of our own sweat, nearly passing out into a heat-induced coma.  It was during one of these talks that Bob and I were mercilessly mocked for being from Orlando.  It seems those from up north gave us who traveled within our state the cold, or I should say hot shoulder.  It was like we shouldn’t have been allowed on the boat since we probably trip over alligators every day on our way to the grocery store.  Hey, I may be from Florida, but I still like going on boat rides.  I like seeing alligators (from a safe distance).  It’s not like I see them every day, though I could if I wanted to, which means I’ve got one on you people from Ohio.

Everglades Trails

But I digress; one of my points here is that it’s easy to put off doing what is in your own backyard.  I lived right outside of D.C. until I was 20 and never went up the Washington Monument until I returned to the area on vacation.  So let me encourage you to look around and see what you’re missing.  It may be corny like going on an airboat ride, but corny can be a whole lot of fun.  Is there anything in your area you should put on your to-do list?

On Father’s Day we had a house full of people so it was no surprise when we found a puddle on the family room floor.  The real surprise was when we mopped it up, it came back.  Sadly, it was from my dishwasher.  The tub had gotten a small hole in the bottom and aimed its water load in that direction.  My wonderful husband took me to Lowe’s the next night and we bought a new one (dishwasher, not floor) and he installed it right away.

The only problem was I hated my new dishwasher.  It was a fancy schmancy German made beauty that proved once again it’s what’s inside that counts.  Inside were two levels of trays that did not fit my dishes, even with several attempts at reconfiguring them.  And, and this is a biggie, it did not dry my dishes.  It was hugely energy efficient, but the energy I am most interested in conserving is my own.  So after a couple of weeks of grumbling and drying dishes, last night Bob uninstalled and returned it.

He told me, “Don’t use the disposal side of the sink.”

I heard, “Don’t use the disposal…”

Thankfully Bob was sitting at the kitchen table this morning while I was washing the dishes.  I’ve never seen him stop me from working with such lightning speed, but it was too late.  A small lake had already formed under my sink.

To his credit he never complained.  We worked together to empty the cabinet, towel dried everything and put a fan on it.  Good as new.  And, he’s installing my new, new dishwasher as I type.  I made up my mind already that I will love this one.