Suburban Island

Snowman to Sunshine

One thing I love about modern life is how quickly everything can change around. Last week there was snow abounding. Finally our snowman flag has yielded some results. Substantial snowmen populated the front yards of the neighborhood including this particular snow person below, who I think ought to get a snowman award for curb appeal.

Sunday I flew into Tampa and the view is snow-less. There's no snow. Not here. Palm trees. That's the deal. Everywhere. I love it. Sorry, snowmen. I'm a palm tree girl.

Mammoth snowman in the afternoon. Palm trees in the morning. Now that's what I call the beauty of modern living.

I am here in Tampa for work. Translate that to mean that I am not really getting to enjoy all this temperate beauty. Now it that isn't one of life's little ironies I don't know what is.

Just Wondering

QUESTION: Me, wonder?

WHAT I LEARNED: Wonder is wonderful.

I wonder about this modern life sometimes.

I wonder…

If the guy standing by the fish counter at the grocery store with his hands on his hips giving his kid a good talking to via his cell phone headset knows that he looks like a lunatic and his kid is probably only half listening anyway.

I wonder just a few minutes later…

How come the gentleman in the black leather jacket talking loudly on his cell phone in Spanish next to a long line of endlessly rushed yet eternally hopeful souls standing in the express check-out line actually thinks that he is having a private conversation. Even more fascinating to consider is why he looks visibly offended when he it dawns on him that perhaps a few of us are being forced by his sheer vocal volume to listen in.

I wonder about other things too like…

Why the lady from a gutter covers company feels obliged to call me at 9:45 AM on a Saturday morning - my sleep-in day - to make sure my gutters are shielded from the realities of life attached to our mundane suburban roof. She woke me up to inquire without even considering that perhaps I care for sleep more than the possibility of my gutters' potential for a more sheltered life.

I endlessly wonder…

How many times a family member can shout my name when I am on the phone doing a 20 minute radio station survey, or taking a business call, or hiding in the bathroom so I can read a few pages of a good mystery novel, or sneaking in a nap upstairs under a heap of cozy covers.

I have ceased wondering…

How it can be that my husband needs my help in the task of switching between the cable and the DVD player, going online to research exercise equipment highlighted on infomercials, reading all manuals, locating all paperwork, and finding anything at all that goes missing in our household. The wonderfulness of being needed is highly overrated.

I can’t help but wonder…

What the next mystery ingredient will be on the Iron Chef. What I can give up for Lent that won’t make me cranky. Exactly how many songs, podcasts, and TV shows I really can fit on my new iPod. And how come I can’t find the time to do the stuff I love like writing a Suburban island entry but can find time to load the dishwasher, check another thing off my work to do list, and clean the clutter from the living room coffee table again.

Life it seems is full of wonders, and wonderings. The beauty of it is that some things just come to you out of all this wonderment. For instance I now know that:

I’m not getting gutter covers.

I may have to learn Spanish.

The Black-Eyed Peas, Chet Baker, Tori Amos, Rhonda Vincent, Frank Sinatra, The B-52s, Evanescence, Tom Petty, The Gipsy Kings, John Mayer, The Beatles, Al Green, Astrud Gilberto, and Aerosmith can coexist in peace right in the palm of my hand.

A family member who wants you to do something for them will always track you down.

Some mystery ingredients are better left a mystery.

If I don’t make time for my favorite things, my favorite things won’t get any time at all.

And what are your wonders?