Friday, April 19, 2013

An Ordinary Day?

Sarasota, FL        High:  86     Low:  69

Another great morning for a bunch of pickleball games for Sparky. On the way home on her bike, she saw this leatherback turtle. He had his head wa-a-a-y up in the air, sunning or expectantly waiting for what that lady on the bike was going to do. Sparky got close enough to take a quick photo on the phone, and as soon as he heard that "CLICK!" he turned around and boogied into the water. Sparky thought turtles were SLO-O-O-W, but NO-O-O-O...that turtle scuttled so fast, she couldn't believe it! Ever  notice how turtles sunning on a log or anywhere up for air dive so fast when you come around? Even if you are stealthy, like Sparky, they still skee-daddle as fast as they can, plop, plop, plop off logs when they see Sparky's gliding kayak coming when she's trying to get a photo......Do they have good eyesight? Can they feel the vibrations of people coming?  Just wondering......

Eldy went off to investigate Sarasota on his own and to pick something up for Sparky, saving her LOTS of money as HE went to Michael's instead of her to get the one item which would have turned into TWENTY, must-have, can't- do -without items if Sparky had gone. :-)

Sometimes, a calm, ordinary day turns into a little something unexpected, like a chip clip flying off a bag of chips and wedging itself between two slides and disappearing! STOP, LOOK, and LISTEN. HOLD EVERYTHING! The priority is to get that object out before 1) we forget it's there, 2) it stays sight unseen till you start to bring in the slides and you hear the horrendous crushing noise and wonder if you are damaging the slide as it makes mincemeat out of whatever has fallen under the slide. So-o-o-o-o, how to get this little chip clip outta there?

First, out came the flyswatter....using first one end, then the other, first Sparky, then Eldo attempted to move that little booger into a spot where it could be seen and retrieved. It took two attempts and a lot of teamwork holding the flashlight to move it into position. Success! NOW we can see it. Now, HOW do we get it? It's too far to reach down into the space....See that little red clip with the black tip? Eldy was yelling, "DON'T DROP THE PHONE DOWN THERE TRYING TO GET A DAMN PICTURE!"

A string or loop with a slip knot was considered. AHA! Sparky had an idea..."We need one of those grabber thingies that people use to pick up roadside trash!" She headed down to the welcome center, thinking, naw, they won't have those in the office. They DID! Woo-hoo! Battle half won....
After a couple of attempts and more teamwork, (Harumph! Sparky kept grabbing the flashlight out of my hand trying to do it all herself! She's so damned independent, grouses E.) Sparky nabbed the chip clip. It was NASTY down there in that space. Time for cleaning the motorhome in the not-so-usual places!  And we think we might invest in one of these little handy dandy picker uppers for future uses or other such times we might need to retrieve something. You just never know....(Is there something else down there I should know about, Sparky? wonders E. ) Uh, nope, honey!    Bye for now.......

7 comments:

  1. Good fishing, all is good not, hope you got to eat some chips!

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  2. I'm actually on my second "picker upper". Some of them are marketed as "easy reacher". Whatever. I used to do the maintenance at an apartment complex many, many years ago. Saves a lot of bending over, AND is great for getting at lost chip clips.
    Surprising what kind of *things* get down next to the slide out. Gah.

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  3. We had a similar experience with a dish breaking and glass getting under the slide. Oh dear what an ordeal that was. Patience is not in Paul's vocabulary. I finally told him to go outside and I would clean it up myself.

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  4. I can't for the life of me figure out how something that big gets in the slide :) I guess I need to be there to see! We have a 'grabber' too, use it all the time.

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  5. Good job describing the crush of something that gets caught in the slide. My first oops was a small candle in a glass jar.It sounded really serious so I was glad to see it was something inconsequential, but we still find small pieces of crushed glass from that one.

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  6. Oh lucky you to have seen that turtle. I guess he was in the park. Is that pond he lives in? Very cool.

    Nice description of trying to get something in a tight squeeze of a place. Let me know if you find those grabbers. I want one too. I want to do volunteer beach clean up and who knows what else they might be helpful for as you've just pointed out.

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