Think Spring

One more month to go!  We're almost at the end of January, one-half of the "Just Get Through These Months of the Year" duo of January and February, two of the coldest, grayest and dreariest months of the year here in good old Southern Delaware.

Dew on Iris in Spring (Ronald Tipton photo)

I was going to get Bill to drive me down to BJ's in Millsboro this morning to stock up on spinach artichoke hummus and Panero potato leek soup, but the rain dampened our enthusiasm to ride the roads of southern Delaware this morning.  Instead I spent a good deal of time on the phone with Carbonite, my offsite backup solutions for my computer.

Since summer I've suspected Carbonite hasn't been backing up my precious iMac computer files to their offsite facility.  I now have over 54,000 photos and many hours of video on my computer that I DON'T want to lose.  Yesterday I was on the phone with Kyle from Carbonite.  After Kyle explored by hard drive (now stop that) for a couple of hours and reinstalling the Carbonite software, I discovered this morning that I'm back to Square One.  Carbonite still isn't backing up my files.

Thus back on the phone again this morning.  One thing I will give the Carbonite people, their help line is just about as good as Apples in time of response, friendliness of the support technician and NO FOREIGN ACCENT.  The Carbonite folks are up in Maine (it was snowing this morning, rain here).  Another hour and a half of examining, probing and exploring my hard drive by "Paul" this time (do I sound like a tramp?) and still no resolution to my problem.  In fact my Carbonite backup is going backwards now!  When I started out I had 122.06 GB (244,432 files) backed up  and 26.12 GB (18.678 files) waiting to be backed up.  Now I have 82.59 GB (196,399 files) backed up and 27.51 (36,163 files) waiting to be backed up.  Confusing?  I'm confused.

So now I'm awaiting for "Tammy" from their Tier Two of support tech help to call me at 2:00 pm (which is my normal nap time) to see what the problem is.  I suspect more probing of my hard drive (am I pushing this joke too far?) is in store.  This is about 23 minutes away from now so I better wrap this little missive up and prepare myself.

Oh lordy, lordy, it's always something isn't it?

Soo Ready for Spring

Ron bundled up for the cold

I just returned from a very abbreviated walk.  The temperature here is now hovering around 23 degrees.  I was all right with my walk until I started to walk against the wind.  I just can't take that painful cold wind on my face.  


The picture above is how I bundle up before I go out for my walk.  Yes, I know.  I'm turning into a big wimp.  When I was younger, the cold didn't bother me near as much as it bothers me now.  


Every year when January and February rolls around, those are my "just get through it" months.  


This is the last day of January.  Now for February, one more "just get through it" month.  


Then, THEN the beginning of glorious spring when everything comes to life after a long winter's hibernation.  


The daffodils will bloom again.  Colorful tulips with burst through the frozen earth.  Scouting Purple Martins will return from South America to check out their summer house in my back yard.  


And most of all, the people will come alive.  They will stream out of their houses into the bright, clear sunshine of springtime.  The garden departments of Home Depot and Loew's will again be crowded with erstwhile gardeners.

Loew's Garden Center, Lewes, DE

Bill with a load of mulch from Lowe's, Lewes, DE

I am soooo ready for Spring

A Day in My Life

Life in southern Delaware took a definite turn for the better today! After a long, hard, cold winter we are all more than ready for sunny skies and warm temperatures. Today was such a day.




After breakfast I got in my freshly washed ’98 red Subaru Forester and headed down to Rt. 1 to the Safeway shopping strip. I was hoping that my barber Dino was working today. Behinds the beauty shop Essentials is a small barber shop. Dino only works two days a week. I always forget which days he works. I walk through Essentials to the barber shop in the back and I see a woman barber. Dino is off today. I don’t get my hair cut by women barbers. They never do it right. Dino will be in tomorrow. I will return tomorrow.



Next stop is the Giant supermarket on the other side of Rt. 1. I could stop in Safeway for my shopping but I don’t like Safeway. The store is dark, their products are overpriced and the store employees aren’t customer friendly. This is the result of a business that employees union members.



I like Giant. The store is brightly lit, they have a wide range of products and most of them are reasonably priced. The store employees are customer friendly.



“Hey Ron!” I turned to see who was calling my name. It was my friend The Cajun. As I passed him earlier with my shopping cart I thought he looked a lot like my friend The Cajun. And lo and behold it was him. He was also in a great mood because of the weather. I haven’t seen him since the back to back blizzards. All of us have been a prisoner in our homes, just getting through this horrible winter.

We both pulled our shopping carts to the side in order to catch up on the news. Of course right away we were in the way of a couple of Golden Oldies. No matter where we moved we were in the way of this pair. They kept creeping up on us like the Night of the Living Dead.



I shouldn’t complain. One of the things I hate when I’m shopping are folks blocking the aisle while they’re catching up on the news. But now the tables were reversed. I’m getting annoyed. My friend reminded me “We are in a grocery store where people are shopping Ron.” Of course he was right.  He usually is.  He is The Cajun.


I took some pictures (I always have my digital camera with me.) My flash kept going off when I didn’t want it to. Finally my friend said “No more pictures.” There I go. Now I’m being annoying.



We agreed that maybe Giant wasn’t the best place to have a mini-reunion and we agreed to get together later. There is a new restaurant in Rehoboth called “Go Fish” that I’m anxious to try. Maybe we can arrange to have lunch together there before the horde of tourists descend on Rehoboth.

I’ve already went over my allotment for words for this blog posting so I will have to wrap this up.

I got home, trimmed back my Pampas Grass, had lunch, took a nap, was awoken from my nap by my neighbor Barbara banging on my garage door, invited Barbara in for a visit, Barbara leaves, my brother John from South Carolina calls, we discuss our Mother who he is taking care of, we finish our conversation, I clean out the eight bird baths I have in my back yard, I take my walk in the development behind where I live, I return and tell Bill (my partner) about Barbara’s visit, Bill goes downstairs to watch “Cops”, and go into my office and turn on my computer and here I am…….updating my blog. There it is; a quick synopsis of this day in my life.

I love my life.

From Darkness to Light

Two days ago the snows came through the little edge of Delaware where I live. Usually we miss the big snows. I call my Mother and feel pretty smug when she tells me of the latest snowfall of 3, 4, 5 and more inches of snow, usually topped with a sleeting rain which brings down the power cords and takes out their electricity. That doesn’t happen down here where my house is located, two miles from the Delaware Bay. The coastal air evaporates the half inch of snow that does cover the ground around her from time to time. Tuesday was different. This time we had the sleeting rain to form a icy crust on the snow. No feeling smug this time when talking to Mom. I looked outside and knew I wouldn’t be going anywhere in my car. I hunkered down inside my castle.

Yesterday I awoke to a misty rain. I looked out the window and fog was rising from the ground. The warm temperatures and the rain were causing the half inch of snow to that had covered the ground the day before to melt into smoky fog. Now was the time to make a run for it to the store to get my bananas and my lottery tickets. Driving down Route 1 to Milton was like driving through a cloud, the fog was that heavy. By the time I finished shopping and got into my Subaru Forester, most of the fog had dissipated.

I retuned home to my quiet and sad house. Bill was still holed up in his bedroom. He will come out when he’s ready. I’ve found from past experience I can’t rush him. The rains picked up. All the snow was gone now. The rain heavy clouds interfered with my satellite signal in receiving MSNBC. What would I do without my daily dose of Keith and Rachel?

This was a good time to watch my Netflix rental movie. Usually I watch my movies on the weekend but I needed a respite from the heaviness in this house caused by Bill’s problem. The movie was “Big Eden.” It was a gay love story of unrequited love. Now there’s a new subject. Well, it was a pleasant surprise. At first I was baffled by the actor who played the main character. He wasn’t your typical Hollywood, shaved chest, hunk and a half. No, he was Ayre Gross, a nerdy, physically unattractive New York artist. Oh yes, just my dreamboat without a doubt. He leaves his privileged cocoon in New York for the big sky of Montana to help his grandfather who had a stroke. Returning home he finds that his high school crush now has two children! Oh yes, this looks interesting. But the plot takes an unconventional turn. I won’t give away the story to ruin it for any of the readers of this blog who want to see the movie but I will say I was pleasantly surprised by the ending.

One just never knows where love will turn up. The important message to me is that we are all entitled to love and we all are worthwhile. There may be bumps and detours on our Life’s Journey, but in the end for those of us fortunate enough to love and be loved, it’s worth it. Love is more than a mutual sexual attraction of one person to another, whatever their sex may be. True love is the love of one’s neighbors, friends and family. Many times that love is there for the taking but we don’t see it because of the barriers we have erected around ourselves to protect us from pain.

Gray skies, snow and rain have prevailed the past two days in my little corner of the world. The sun has reappeared today. I’m going out for a ride. I am thankful that I have another day on this earth. Each day is a gift.

Another Gray Day

Here we are at Monday and another gray day in January. Oh how I long for the sunny days of spring and summer. Last year we had many good sunny days. Actually there were too many sunny days. We had a drought which wasn’t good for the local farmers growing corn and soybeans.

Looking out the window now I see snowflakes! The snowflakes fall gently to the ground. They are beautiful. However, I hope we miss the big snow storm again like we have so far this winter. Pennsylvania needs this snow a lot more than we do here in Slower Lower with our wind swept coastal plains that don’t hold snow more than a day. Please!

This morning I opened an e-mail from a friend of mine showing his two beautiful Shetland collies romping in his Cranberry Township (near Pittsburgh) back yard. Well, they like it! I’m happy for them. I would rather look at pictures of people and animals in the snow that experience it myself. As they say, “Been there, done that!” His dogs are lovely though.

Yesterday my cousin called to tell me that her mother (and my aunt) is in the hospital with pneumonia. I was hoping to get up to Pennsylvania and take my Mother to visit her older sister before something like this happened. My aunt turned 90 years old March 18th of last year. I will always remember the one summer I spent at her home with my Uncle George and my cousins Elaine and George, Jr. They lived near the Capital Bakery. My fondest memory of that summer was the smell of baking bread and my Aunt Jeanette’s invasion of Japanese beetles on her rose bushes. I have a special fondness for my Aunt Jeanette as well as her older sister Grace. Both of them looked like my Mother and had similar personalities. It was like I had three Mothers. Their brother and my Uncle George, was also special to me. My grandfather did something right in raising such wonderful, exceptional people. I would like to think that the best part of me I inherited from my Hadfield relatives.

It’s back to work today after a sad weekend here. Bill is still holed up in his room, refusing to come out. No matter how many times this never gets easier.

Last night I thought I would watch one of my movies that I rented from Netflix. The movie was “A Love To Hide.” This was perhaps the worst movie to watch during these sad times. I got as far as the stone quarry scene and I couldn’t take anymore. Not that the movie wasn’t well done (it was, despite some uneven spots) and had an important message. It was and did. The problem I have is watching violence. Sure, this was “just a movie” and the violence wasn’t really happening but I knew that it DID HAPPEN. I can’t take it. I literally cannot watch it. I will faint. I guess I’m a certified pussy. The movie goes back today. I’ll have to check my Netflix que. I need a Will Ferrell comedy. I need to rent a movie so incredibly stupid that it will take my mind off of these gray days and all the other woes in this country and world. I know, “Dumb and Dumber.” That will do the trick.

Stay warm.

The Cold Days of Winter

January and February are my least favorite months of the year. One of my goals in retirement was to have enough money that I could move to warmer climes during this time of year. I also wanted to have an in ground pool. The pool I can do without. However, I haven’t given up on my goal of leaving the cold northern winters.

Two good friends of mine depart today for a cruise in the Caribbean. While that sounds romantic and luxurious, I don’t want to go through the hassle of taking a plane to the ship departure point in Florida. It would take me at least a week to recover from the stress of modern day travel. I haven’t taken a plane since 9/11 and I don’t intend to while taking off one’s shoes is a requirement to fly as a passenger in a plane.

Other friends and relatives have winter snug boxes in Florida. My cousin Jack and his wife are already ensconced in their North Port Myers Florida abode. Friends Sandy and Bob, Evie and Barb, and Jack and Judy are all enjoying the warm tropical nights of the Sunshine State. A very good friend of mine, Stuart, didn't take any chances of catching a winter chill. He lives in Ft. Lauderdale year round. But there is a price to pay. Stuart misses the change in seasons. He laments that he doesn’t see those colorful harbingers of Spring, the tulips

My winter stays in the north aren’t as bad as they were when I lived in Pennsylvania. In Pennsylvania, the first snow usually hit the ground around Thanksgiving. Throughout December and early January more snow would fall. Some year (like this year), one would also get the freezing rain. Freezing rain looks pretty on the trees and bushes but isn’t so good for the electric power. Nor is black ice good for traveling the winding roads of hilly Pennsylvania. The good thing about living on the coastal plain of southern Delaware is that when we do get snow it doesn’t last for more than a day. What we do get in abundance down here are the strong winds. At the end of the year we had wind gusts up to 50 mph. Those winds will cut right through you and make you wish you were sipping a pina colada on a sandy beach in Florida.

My solution is to stay in my house as much as I can. My house has a lot of windows which takes advantage of the passive solar heat. My bedroom is ideally located to capture the warmth of the daytime sun. Like my brother John who lives in Greenville, South Carolina who manages the heat and humidity of the southern summers by darting between his air-conditioned house, car and church (where he works.) I manage the cold by darting between my house, car and hotel (where I work.)

One good thing about living in southern Delaware that I take comfort in is that the winters don’t last as long as they did when I lived in Pennsylvania. Where I live now, spring arrives when it is supposed to arrive. In just a little over a month the first daffodils will push their way through the cold earth to be greeted with appreciative smiles from all of us who stuck it out this winter in Delaware. That day can't come soon enough. It's cold out there!