Enjoy The Day However You Celebrate

For years we had a family inside joke “save the cheerleader, save the world”. It’s a line from the cancelled sci-fi TV show, Heroes. Since we had a diehard cheerleader in the family it was the perfect smart alec thing to say every time there was a predicament to help her though … I’m not saying she was high maintenance or anything.

Thankfully, we did save her from the many traumas and tragedies of growing up and I now believe we did so for the sole purpose of passing onto her the tradition of cooking Thanksgiving dinner. There is a recessive gene in our family that, fortunately, causes the cooking of Thanksgiving dinner skip every other generation.

My mother, rest her soul, would have probably gotten a kick out of how I fabricated a tale great enough that the cheerleader believed I was genetically unable to prepare Thanksgiving dinner. I stopped just short of her trying to organize a telethon.

For what it’s worth for anyone wondering how it went last year, well, it was all fun and games until we realized we bought a turkey without a popper upper thing in the breast. Since I’m a grazer and not a carnivore, there was no expert on staff to solve that dilemma so we did the next best thing and Googled how to tell when a turkey is done. (See guys, there’s more to the web than just porn.)

I’m sure that both your mother and mine probably cooked a thousand and two turkeys without a popper upper before Butterball revolutionized the basic American turkey. The only thing foreign that came out of the turkeys that I ate growing up was buckshot. Sidebar: It could not have been safe for children to eat that much lead every day.

So the kid decided to tackle the holiday for the second time, invite everyone over via text message and add the declaration, “Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday!” Later that day I stalked onto Facebook to check up on the brood to see what sorts of things they’ve been up to.

Posted on the cheerleader’s Facebook wall by her roommate/cheerleader Taylor is this fascinating quote: “You know your room mate is an amazing chef when you are awakened by the smoke detector and she has to run into your room to learn how to shut them off. Oh and you stunt in the hallway to reach the detector!”

If you’re not up on the whole cheerleading stunt thingy, best case scenario with these two means that someone was standing on someone else’s shoulders to reach the smoke detectors. That’s talent and ingenuity in action, right there.

Ladies and gentlemen, I hope your Thanksgiving is going to be hilarious as ours is probably going to be. If it’s not I hope you find at least one thing to smile about and to be grateful for. I’m grateful for my recessive holiday cooking gene and my “emotional allergy” to beets, lima beans and Swiss chard.

She believed that line, too, and they’re not on the menu just so I don’t have a severe reaction.

Happy Thanksgiving!

###

Real Life in Bonita Springs is a project by Chris Griffith dedicated to writing useful blog posts for consumers about the Bonita Springs, Florida area.  Find out what it is really like to live in Bonita Springs, Florida by reading about our fair city. You’ll get the latest in local real estate information, Bonita Springs real estate market reports and a little bit of humor.  If you have topic ideas, feel free to request a story about the idea, after all, this site is just for you.

You can subscribe to a weekly email newsletter by visiting www.LifeInBonitaSprings.com and entering your email in the subscription area on the center pane of the web page or by adding us to your reader by subscribing to this blog. Oh, and if you’re reading this content anywhere else but www.LifeInBonitaSprings.com or Naples Daily News it is probably stolen.

Found Hiding on Regal Drive in Imperial Shores

So, What’s Your Tenant Up To These Days?

If Charlie Rich was a real estate agent he would have totally written something different about what goes on behind closed doors.

Most home owners run a decent household with some form of predictable lifestyle behind the closed doors but every once in a while there is a surprise. It’s getting harder and harder to surprise some real estate agents just because we’ve seen a lot the last few years. When the proverbial crap hit the fan in the real estate market, human beings removed their filters and just lived the way they wanted to live or turned their emotions loose on their home.

There are four “I don’t need this to happen to me” scenarios in real estate: Guns, security systems, aggressive breed dogs and naked people. I’m at the point where I’m just one naked person away from real estate bingo. I almost bingo’d the other day but realized what I was walking in on, turned on heal and saved my eyes from a thorough scrubbing with Clorox.

Sometimes it’s just an average day, like any other day and you just don’t realize you’ve crossed the threshold to hell. Some home owner has blindly decided to lease their house and they have no clue what is going on inside. In the case of this cute little home in a deed restricted, gated community, it happened to be Animal House going on inside. But it was a screwed up version of Animal House with no running water or air conditioning … as in the unit wasn’t even in the closet anymore.

There wasn’t a car in the driveway. The front door was unlocked; we rang the bell and walked in. There was not a stick of furniture in sight. We turned the corner into the kitchen, complete with brand new cherry cabinets, granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances, and were greeted by hundreds of beer cans lining the counters. It was hoarders, the beer can edition.

Second to a house I once showed on Fort Myers Beach that had three items of personal property in it, a mattress, a freshly baked quiche on the counter and a hookah on the back porch, this home was a memory in the making. It wasn’t until we were looked in a bathroom upstairs, complete with emergency water cans so they could shower (assuming they showered) or flush the toilet that we realized that there wasn’t running water.

Naturally, every door was closed so that whole pit bull, guns, “it puts the lotion on its skin” theory was running around in my thoughts. The last door I opened actually had a window air conditioning unit running in it and that’s where the near-bingo incident occurred. I informed the buyers that they were welcome to continue on but I had already seen an uncomfortable amount of sleeping and/or passed out, unclothed flesh and it just wasn’t my day to make agent of the year.

Where’s Monty Hall when you need him? Behind those doors should be prizes like cash or cars, not a visual imprint which will be stuck as the last memory on my loop when I’m a little old lady or one of the last things I see when my life flashes before my eyes at the end.

Sometimes it’s a tour of treats out there. Second to the eight foot tall grandfather clock built totally out of Heineken cans I saw a few years ago, this collection was a masterpiece aluminum collection and goes directly onto my photo hard drive filed under “diaries of a mad man”, subcategorized “life within 5 miles of a college campus” and tagged “code enforcement” and “clueless landlord”.

###

Real Life in Bonita Springs is a project by Chris Griffith dedicated to writing useful blog posts for consumers about the Bonita Springs, Florida area.  Find out what it is really like to live in Bonita Springs, Florida by reading about our fair city. You’ll get the latest in local real estate information, Bonita Springs real estate market reports and a little bit of humor.  If you have topic ideas, feel free to request a story about the idea, after all, this site is just for you.

You can subscribe to a weekly email newsletter by visiting www.LifeInBonitaSprings.com and entering your email in the subscription area on the center pane of the web page or by adding us to your reader by subscribing to this blog. Oh, and if you’re reading this content anywhere else but www.LifeInBonitaSprings.com or Naples Daily News it is probably stolen.

Friday Night Lights | Estero HS Game Time

9/02/11 7:30 PM vs. Ida Baker (Cape Coral, FL) (Estero High School)

9/09/11 7:30 PM vs. Island Coast (Cape Coral, FL) (Estero H.S.)

9/16/11 7:30 PM @ North Fort Myers (North Fort Myers, FL) (North Ft. Myers H.S.)

9/23/11 TBA vs. East Lee County (Lehigh Acres, FL) *

9/23/11 7:30 PM vs. East Lee County (Lehigh Acres, FL) * (Estero H.S.)

9/30/11 TBA vs. Palmetto Ridge (Naples, FL)

9/30/11 7:30 PM vs. Palmetto Ridge (Naples, FL) (Estero H.S.)

10/06/11 TBA @ Cape Coral (Cape Coral, FL) *

10/06/11 7:30 PM @ Cape Coral (Cape Coral, FL) * (Cape Coral H.S.)

10/21/11 TBA @ Cypress Lake (Fort Myers, FL) *

10/28/11 7:30 PM vs. Mariner (Cape Coral, FL) * (Estero H.S.)

11/04/11 7:30 PM @ Lehigh (Lehigh Acres, FL) * (Lehigh Sr. H.S.)

11/11/11 7:30 PM @ Bishop Verot (Fort Myers, FL) (Bishop Verot H.S.)

TBA = To Be Announced    * Conference Game

Imperial Shores Flamingos on Esplanade Drive

Just a Pretty Picture From Bonita Bay

Some days are errand days and I had a few to run in Bonita Bay. There was a small break in the clouds so I had the chance to take a picture of trees with almost all blue sky.  It looks like I’m going to have to get an earlier start if I want to take pictures of my Sunday flowers without getting rained on.  Enjoy your Sunday!

Daisy the Bonitian Bovine is Outstanding in Her Field

Every Tree at Naples Heritage Golf & Country Club

Pollenous Poseys