What to do when your blueberries explode

Somedays it just seems like you've got a target painted on your back.  At least it does in my life these days.  I like to think the cosmic energy is just weird...I mean look at all the things happening lately in the world.  It feels very active to me.  I don't always watch the news these days - just don't want to hear about all the troubles in the world.  I've got troubles of my own.

Today looked like it would be an easy day. We had no prospective buyers scheduled to come to the house.  All I had to do was to take Dad to lunch and then to the grocery store

It's supposed to be near 100 today with HIGH humidity.  My ac has been running nearly non-stop since about 11:00 this morning.  So I dressed appropriately - bermuda shorts and a cotton shirt.  No, I don't wear shorter shorts ever - even in the privacy of my own home.  I don't want to look at my thighs much less inflict them on others.  But I figure if I wear bermuda shorts, my legs (formerly the color of raw bacon fat) will get a little color. It's working.  Now they resemble bacon fat steeped in weak tea...what a lovely image!!

I took Dad to the local diner/deli.  We go there often enough that they all know our names.  One of the cooks was in the 82nd Airborne in Iraq.  He likes to talk to Dad and swap war stories about Iraq and the Pacific in WWII.  It's always a pleasant interlude going there for both of us.  We often see people that Dad knows so he enjoys it, too.

Then we went to Publix for groceries.  By that time, I was wringing wet in the heat, just anxious to get the car loaded and get out of there.  We managed to get everything loaded in the back and put the carts up and out of the way.

We got in the car, strapped on our seatbelts, and prepared to back out of the parking place.  Nobody was coming.  Nobody was backing out of the parking places behind us.  So I started backing out.  Then Dad started screaming and I saw, to my horror, that the delivery truck for the liquor store behind us was barreling backward out of the parking place.  He was clearly going to hit us broadside.  But Dad, bless him, was screaming NO NO NO out of his open window and beating on the car door.  Miraculously the guy stopped about three inches from us and pulled back into the place.  He apologized profusely and we went on...shaken but not stirred...(quick a pop culture reference!)

Then when we got to Dad's neighborhood and I turned off before the house to go to the mailbox.  Dad looked at me and said, "don't I live here anymore?"  I assured him that he did, we were just going to get the mail.  He said it in the plaintive tone I've come to know.  It breaks my heart when he does that.

We got the mail and I drove to his house.  He loves to buy canned Cokes in big packages which are hard for both of us to carry, but he buys them anyway.  Today he also had a half gallon of cranberry juice.  So I pulled into the front and told him to go through the house and open the garage door.  It's easier to bring heavy items in through the garage to the kitchen.  So he did that.  I lugged the Cokes to him and took a couple of his bags as well.

I made it back to my place and proceeded to lug my own groceries in two trips into my place.  See, I started this new eating program a while back.  I make a "green" shake each night.  The health benefits have been amazing.  I buy big bunches of fruit and baby spinach.  Today was no exception.  I had strawberries, blueberries, bananas, peaches, and a big container of baby spinach.  I also bought Almond Milk and other assorted items.  I was walking the path to my apt when one of the cartons of blueberries flew open...the kid who bagged my stuff was obviously new.  He put two pints of blueberries in a package with two big boxes of heavy non edible items.  He looked so young and eager to please that I didn't say anything.

The blueberries must have been jostled just enough for the pint to "explode" which it did in spectacular fashion all over my front entry...Sighing in resolution, I took in the other bags and then proceeded to gather up the blueberry casualties from my front entry which faces full west...yes, there's a lake there, but there's also the full power of the afternoon summer sun...

What do you do with exploded blueberries? It's hard to decide...

I didn't want my dogs to get the blueberries.  I didn't want to leave them out there to attract bugs.  This is Florida, Jack, you don't have to attract bugs...you have to dissuade them from invading your home, as well as snakes and lizards...I don't mind the lizards so much, but snakes are definitely on the "unwelcome" list.

My place sits above the lake with a steep bank sloping to the water.  I have a new friend who has visited me a couple of evenings recently.  We have an otter who comes and goes in the lake.  I've seen him climb that steep bank and cross the grounds to the next lake.  So naturally, I thought of him.

I flung the blueberries down the bank in the hope that the otter or the birds who are always around will like them...

Now as I sit, finally cooled off at my computer (even the back of my neck is finally dry), I have to wonder if I did the right thing. 

What if I just poisoned that cute little otter?  Or some of the geese in the water or the turtles? In the desperation of a hot, frustrating, wonky energy day, I flung them before I weighed the consequences. 

Surely not...one of my earliest memories was of our house in Decatur, Ga.  We had these huge wild cherry trees in the backyard.  We had an old-fashioned detached garage in the back.  The cherries from the trees would end up in the gutters on the garage.  When it rained and then got hot, they would ferment.

By the ripe old age of six, I was accustomed to watching inebriated birds fall out of the trees or off the gutters and sleep it off beside the garage...Obviously warped me for life.

I hope the otter doesn't fall prey to the power of strong exploded blueberries.  In this heat it shouldn't take long for fermentation to occur.

What a world! What a world!  (and if you don't recognize that quote, think Wicked Witch of the West..)  I'm melting, melting!!

Uh huh...I need some dark chocolate and lots of ice...