TampaBLAB

A moment of levity

Originally uploaded by Dineen

There I was Saturday morning reading “Florida’s Best Newspaper” when I was confronted with ugly news.
“Damn,” I said to Baxter the dog.
“DAMN!”
My beloved camouflage pants and my cammo shirt are gauche, trashy, low-class trendy, says ”Florida’s Best Newspaper,” which went on to say I should can my favorite pants and shirt.
My slinky Chico’s gauchos, too.
“DOUBLE DAMN!!!!!”
Thank God I don’t have any of those short sweater-shrugs or a cammo visor or rubber thong heels that writer Sharon Fink says should also be relegated to the garbage can, or I’d really be bummed.
I’m not sure why I’m so outraged. I’ve never been accused of being fashionable although I buy a lot of clothes. My idea of being chic is that there should be no visible stains, no missing buttons and no split seams or sagging hems.
Beyond that I buy what I like, wear what I like – and usually don’t pay a lot of attention to fashionistas who try to tell me what’s in or what’s out.
So what’s up with my visceral reaction to the banishment of cammo?
If the indictment of cammo was that old ladies like me shouldn’t wear it because it’s too young, I wouldn’t be so pissed. (Of course, I would pay no attention to that admonishment, either.)
Maybe I just don’t want to be considered, well, so common.
If cammo is common, it means I have to give up my cammo Crocs, too.

Stride for Strays, the Animal Coalition of Tampa’s major annual fundraiser, is over. The event last Saturday featuring the Johnny G Lyon Band, 26 teams of walkers and 30 vendors, raised about $42,000. Hundreds of folks showed up to Al Lopez Parkdespite horrendous traffic at nearby Raymond James Stadium due to the USF Bulls football game at noon.

Special thanks – and great admiration - to Linda Hamilton, executive director of the coalition and its low-cost spay/neuter clinic, who works tirelessly towards making Hillsborough County a humane community, one in which no companion animals are euthanized because they have no home.

ACT employees and volunteers went far above and beyond the call of duty to help at Stride. They arrived at the park as early as 3 a.m. to set up tables, get food ready to sell, made coffee and staffed the registration table.

I’d been to the event in years’ past as a guest. But now that I’m working with the coalition I learned first-hand this year that the event is a lot of work, but a lot of fun, as well.

OK. So I’m in Publix with a short grocery list.

I take a gander at the Monday crowd, which is relatively new to me since Mondays were not shopping days until I was recently released from Camp Tribune for time served.

It’s a mixed group of shoppers including the usual folks walking around with blue tooth phone thingies in their ears, talking to themselves – or so it seems.

Other people sans blue tooth talk on their cell phones as they stroll down the aisles driving the basket with only one hand instead of two.

I sniff to myself. I wouldn’t do that. It’s rude, particularly in the check-out line. Dangerous, too, when some mom with one of those huge car-carts filled with kids is trying to navigate around corners and other shoppers while yelling at the kids and talking on the cell phone all at the same time.

Anyway, I continue my quest for half-and-half, eggs, yogurt, Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwiches (I take statins, so I can indulge), paper plates and “Cooking Light” magazine.

As I head around into the frozen food aisle, I notice some old dude looking at me.

I’m relatively clean with only a tiny coffee stain or two on my shirt. I surreptitiously check the zipper on my jeans (it’s zipped) and my nose for boogers (none that I can feel).

So what’s this guy looking at, I wonder.

Then it dawns on me.
While I’m sniffing in disgust at the cell phone users, I’m rocking down the aisles. Not skipping, mind you. Just sort of dancing – you know, doing the head bob and the shoulder shrug.

It’s impossible NOT to do that when U2 is blaring “Bloody Sunday” in your ears.

Damn iPod makes it hard to feel superior to the tech-addicts these days.

My horoscope the other day promised that the sun was finally in my house (whatever that means) and that for the next few months things will be rosy in my life.
Since 2007 has, so far, been kind of a bummer – the job loss, the dog with chronic diahrrea, the revelation that my cheap junky watches turn my wrist green – I was reassured. Relieved even. After all, who can argue with astrology?
Then … and you knew this was coming … Then my just-three-year-old air conditioner’s whatchamacallit’s thingamabob sprang a leak and allowed Freon to waft up into the already depleted ozone layer – Freon that my Carrier air conditioner needs to cool my tiny little house. Without Freon, the air conditioner blows air but not COOL air. By the time I called Larry, the air conditioner guy, it was 84 degrees inside.
Larry, the air conditioner guy, understood my angst and in a span of just three hours found replacement parts and installed them.
There was a but, though. A big BUT.
Turns out, the warranty on my Carrier air conditioner doesn’t cover the whatchamacallit’s thingamabob – just the whatchamacallit, thingamabob attached.
If I wanted to replace only the thingamabob, the part would cost $600. The whatchamacallit AND the thingamabob cost about $1,000. So it was penny wise and pound foolish – not that I care about money in the least – to replace the thingamabob without replacing the whatchamacallit, as well, which is what Larry did.
I haven’t yet gotten the bill.
Well, whatever it is it will just have to go on the card on which I charge all of Baxter’s vet bills. A visit on Tuesday cost $386. That’s the fourth or fifth pricey trip to the vet in the last couple of months.
But this morning, as I drove to the Animal Coalition in Tampa, I thought about how lucky I am. I have a card on which to charge all this stuff, the air conditioner is now working, my horoscope says life is going to be all thumb’s up for the next little while, at least - and Baxter no longer has diarrhea.
I enjoyed this smug high until I got home.
Then … and you knew this was coming … I discovered Baxter’s bad poopies are back.
At least the air conditioner still works – at least for the time being.