The Great Fort Myers House
Closing Quest!
April 2006
Friday 21 April 2006
Day 5
Today, I talked the
Comcast people, for TV and internet service. The lady I spoke with was from New
Jersey, so we're practically famiglia.
She advised me to get the el cheapo service until August, then switch to the
service with ESPN and ESPN2, in time for the figure skating season; otherwise,
any kind of premium TV service is pretty much wasted on me.
Everyone I have talked to at utility companies is from somewhere else. The guy
from FP&L is from Oceanside, a town on Long Island. The lady from the phone
company was, I think, from Ohio. The woman from the town (water and
trash/recycle containers) is from Cuba, and she was a laugh riot a minute. She
had me in stitches! My real estate dude is also from Noo Joisey. No one is a
natural born Floridian, it seems.
More work, work, work today. Spoke to my pal up in the Northport, Florida area
(one of the Disney freak "mooses" from my October 2005 trip report - she's from
Long Island, too), and made arrangements to meet for brunch tomorrow, after
which we will go shelling. I'm not sure we'll find much, but I am sure that it
will be fun to catch up with her.
The Nanny had yet another trick in her arsenal today. She has beached herself!
Yes, she is selflessly flinging herself upon the shores in an attempt to obscure
her little charges, namely the Kibbles-n-Bits. I gotta tell ya, I've about had
it with The Nanny. She's squishy and slippery in the water, she clings to your
legs and water shoes, and then when she beaches herself, she bakes into a nice,
hard, khaki colored crust over the Kibbles-n-Bits. It also seems she is
strangling things in the process. I saw a bunch of dead crabs all tangled up in
her this evening - one with the prettiest blue and red claws - and a bunch of
those little silver fishies. I have heard nothing about red tide, so I'm blaming
her.
I took a very long walk this evening after working. I first drove to the Dairy
Queen and treated myself to a float, then to the Lighthouse Beach, where I found
The Nanny thickly covering everything at high tide. It was precarious getting
around the point, trying not to get stabbed by that tree while sloshing through
the Nannyfied shallows, concentrating on not slipping on her slickery self. I
found exactly ONE shell that interested me on the Lighthouse Beach (a cockle,
big surprise). Rather than slosh back and risk a stabbing again, I took the
boardwalk trail back to the parking lot. It's a lot different than it used to
be, without the pines. I wonder where all the pileated woodpeckers live, now
that there are no pines? I know they like pines a lot.
So, I beat it back to the hotel, and began walking west on the beach. Along the
way, I was treated to various and sundry beach sculptures. There are many
enterprising builders on Sanibel this week, it seems. I saw a sculpted gator,
with Kibbles-n-Bits for body armor. I saw castles with moats, castles without
moats, and moats without castles. But the one that took the cake was an
elaborate structure with many turrets, a moat, out-buildings, and an airplane
hanger, complete with sculpted propeller engine airplane in the courtyard! I
really need to remember to buy a couple of throw-away waterproof cameras to
capture stuff like this, because I don't want to take my Very Freakin' Serious
Digital Camera that would Cost A Fortune To Replace on shelling expeditions.
Anyhow, when I got to the airplane hanger, I realized I'd walked all the way
down to the Sundial. Then, I noticed that The Nanny was suspiciously in short
supply just in front of the Sundial. There was hardly a trace of her on the
beach, and not much of her in the water. I wonder - has the Sundial been
indulging in a little Nanny removal program?
A bit east of the Sundial, on my return pilgrimage, I noted an enterprising
youth had figured out a way to make The Nanny useful for something other than
getting in everyone's way and grossing people out. He had stretched out his kite
string far down the beach, and used Nanny-clumps to weigh it down, so the kite
would fly itself while he busied himself with other matters. Very clever!
Then I came back to the room and was determined to figure out how to get my
personal laptop to latch on to the internet connection here. I'd spoken to a
tech support person earlier today, who advised me to disable my firewall. Nuh-uh,
no way. There has to be something else. We do NOT disable our firewall under ANY
circumstances! So I finally figured out that if I typed the gateway address to
the Holiday Inn into my browser's URL bar, I'd get the page that lays out the
terms and conditions of use, with the "I accept" button. Voila!
This means that I can edit my pictures of the house and upload them to my site,
which is what I will be doing sometime during the weekend. Hang tight, they're
coming!