A Taste of Honey

          I’ve often thought how lucky we are in Hawaii that we don’t have so many of the animals and bugs that can create havoc for mainland dwellers.  Bears immediately come to mind as do snakes.  What we do share with our mainland friends though is, bees.  Great swarms of the little suckers can find a way to get into our homes and there set up camp.

          My neighbor is having just such a group of visitors rearranging their belongings inside her wall.  I had the same problem a couple of years ago and the drama that ensued was amazing to watch.

          First, The Bee Man appeared on my doorstep ready for battle.  He was delighted to tell me that he could hear the bees inside my wall and, if I touched it, I would be able to feel the warmth of their presence.  Well, wasn’t that just peachy?

          He also told me that according to what he could hear and feel, the size of the honeycomb was quite large.  I really didn’t care…I’ve disliked honey all my life, and a bunch of buzzy things creating the drippy stuff inside my house wasn’t going to change my opinion. 

          With a sad sigh, The Bee Man proceeded to puncture the wall with pinpricks into which he syringed some sort of poisonous gas. 

          ‘You won’t be able to eat the honey now…so sorry...it would have been delicious.

          Perhaps, for The Bee Man, but not for me. 

          The next step in the bee removal saga produced two gentlemen with enough equipment strapped around their waists to build a complete house.  Which to a smaller degree they would need to do.  A huge chunk of wall was cut out and removed and there lying at the bottom of the cut-out section were at least a gzillion dead bees with an enormous honeycomb, about 3ft square rising above them.

          By the end of the day, I had honey smeared on my carpet, a gaping hole in my bedroom wall, a bagful of dead bees and a sad looking Bee Man who I was convinced blamed me for the murder of his little friends.

          But then the construction guys set to with their hammers and nails.  A new piece of drywall was attached and painted; the carpet was cleaned and the bag of bees removed to wherever dead bees find their final rest. 

          I sincerely hope my neighbor’s bee experience will be as easy to handle as mine was and that the little creatures don’t bother either of us again.

          On the other hand, I have noted with some alarm that several big, black carpenter bees are circling around my lanai.  And, last week I watched as a couple, complete with hand luggage, squeezed themselves behind the facia at the side of my house.  It seems that a visit from the pest control gentleman is in my immediate future….again!

         

 

                   

         

Mrs. Wilkes Eating Establishment - Savannah, Georgia

         

          Mrs. Wilkes Eating Establishment doesn’t take reservations, ever.  We’d been told to get there early if we wanted any chance at all of getting inside this quite famous eatery for lunch.  Since the restaurant opened at 11:30, we thought a leisurely stroll about half an hour beforehand would suffice.  We were so wrong!

          From nearly a full block away we could see the line snaking its way down the street.  Would-be diners were standing sometimes two and three abreast…some reading newspapers, others chatting or listening to music.  All were lined up before us to get a taste of Mrs. Wilkes’ cooking. 

          The restaurant is situated on the ground floor in one of Savannah’s beautiful old buildings.  Spanish moss dripped from the trees along the street and their wide canopies gave us shade as the temperature crept upwards and we stood and stood and waited and waited.  Every time someone was allowed entrance into the establishment there was a distinct sigh of relief as the line moved forward a foot or two.

We waited outside for 30 minutes - popular place!

          I don’t know what we expected once inside, but certainly not the two spacious rooms, each with three tables for 12 sitting side by side.  In our room, two of the tables were already occupied with happy diners passing bowls of steaming food to each other.  We were ushered to the middle table already filling with smiling strangers. 

          It is nigh on impossible to sit at a table and not greet the person sitting next to you or across from you.  So it was that we discovered a couple who had just arrived from England, another who was heading off to Canada the next day, others who were on their second or third visit to Mrs. Wilkes Eating Establishment.  Such was the atmosphere…complete nostalgia…a return to the Boarding House dining rooms of years gone by. 

          Unlike a haughty restaurant, where you want to start eating the menus unless someone soon takes your order, there are no menus and no snotty waitstaff at Mrs. Wilkes.   Within minutes of us being seated, food started appearing on our table.  Bowls of steaming mashed potatoes, jugs of gravy; lightly grilled yams and green beans; black-eyed peas, carrots, corn on the cob and freshly baked, hot out of the oven biscuits…all presented in lovely white dishes with serving utensils at the ready.  Then in came the southern fried chicken…huge platter after huge platter.  We were, quite literally in foodie heaven.

Tables for 12 and enough food for 100!

          As we munched and chatted, even as some surreptitiously reached down to undo top buttons on jeans and shorts, everyone agreed that this was a culinary experience that surpassed any other. 

          Minutes before we all started to push back from the table, one of our servers appeared at the door:

          ‘Thank you for visiting Mrs. Wilkes’ this morning.  We enjoyed your patronage…now, in the best tradition of boarding house dining rooms, please take your own plate, glass and utensils out to the busboy waiting at the kitchen door….we’re much obliged,’ she said with a big smile.

          Did it seem odd to be carrying our dirty crockery out to the kitchen?  Not at all.  At Mrs. Wilkes’ Eating Establishment it’s all part of the fun.

         

         

           

Bandaids, Boobs and Barbies

         

         

          Back before gravity took hold of my body and my metabolism died a slow death; even before my eyes decided that anything smaller than billboard sized type could not be read by them, I was a skinny bean pole of a teenager.  Since at the time I made my living modeling equally skinny garments, this was a good thing.  Except in summer.

          In summer, when all my girlfriends were donning skimpy swimsuits and parading their tanned and toned bodies around the local beaches, I was wondering just how many tissues I could stuff into my bikini bra top so I didn’t look like a boy. 

          But, after age forty, with every passing year, a pound of blubber attached itself to my body completely without my permission or actual knowledge.  It was just the case that I slowly grew from a size ‘tiny’ to a size ‘really’?  This did not make me dance with joy but it did make me realize that with the slightly larger hips, I had also managed to acquire boobs that required more than a bandaid to cover them.  Now I could wear dresses confident that the top would be properly filled out and match the bottom half in perfect symmetry.

          All this was before the advent of what has become a multi-million dollar industry for cosmetic surgeons…the implanting of lumps of jello encased in some form of soft plastic material, into an otherwise perfectly fine female body.  These packets of yesterday’s uneaten dessert come in a myriad of sizes.  The small busted woman can choose which pair she desires from a collection in a glass enclosed case.  Something like picking out a chunk of meat from the butcher’s window for tonight’s dinner.

          Trust me I have no problem with women wanting to make themselves look and feel better.  I have a bathroom cabinet full of expensive makeup that proves the point as well as two closets full of clothes that have rarely seen the light of day.  My problem is the lack of common sense illustrated by the young things who want to improve their appearance by enhancing their natural bits and pieces.

          For instance, at the gym the other day, as I passed a line of elliptical machines, I counted seven twenty-somethings all jiggling away on the equipment who looked as though they’d been birthed by a cookie cutter or perhaps the same plastic surgeon.  Every one of them was proudly sporting a size 44D bust, a tiny waist and normal sized hips.  The fact they all had very similar hairstyles, made me wonder if they’d been cloned by the Barbie doll people.

          Even the guys, who are usually good for a drool or two when they see a good looking young lass in her skimpy exercise gear, seem to have become impervious to the boobs bounty around them these days.  Apparently, with so much to ogle, the game has become old hat and not worthy of their attention.

           Still, I shudder to think what these Barbie girls will tell their female offspring when the time comes.  Find the best plastic surgeon you can and make sure you look like every other woman on the planet?  What an awful prospect!

Click Go The Shears

          Back in the day when hairstylists were called hairdressers; when a blob of mousse was the only ‘product’ available to enhance our droopy locks, a visit to a hair salon was a fairly simple outing for either a cut or a perm.  Color was usually reserved for ladies of a certain age and consisted of a blue rinse on a neat white head.  Anything more than that was done at home because no one admitted to having a few grey hairs or actually changing their mud colored hair into a shining, crowning glory.

          Well, those days are long gone sweet cheeks…at least in any of the salons I’ve recently visited.   Now it’s nigh on impossible to spend less than a half day at one while at the same time being told how much certain products would improve the lank mess on your head.

          Recently I felt a quick haircut was in order.  Not that my hair was too bad…just a simple cleanup around the edges was the only thing required.  Or so I thought.  Ha!

          Captive in a chair with my feet dangling off the floor, I was surrounded by three stylists each one with a grim to grimmer look.  Heavy sighs emanated from them as they looked, picked up a strand or two of my hair, let it flop back and shook their collective heads.  Obviously my head was considered not a shade better than Medusas and what on earth could be done about that?

          The three pondered this sad state of affairs while all the time talking around and above me as though I were a dead body stuffed into their lovely leather chair.  It seems the main problem appeared to be that my hair was not clean enough…this despite the fact I’d shampooed it just that morning. 

          ‘You’re not using our specialty shampoo are you?’ 

          ‘Um…no.  I didn’t know there was a special shampoo for my head,’ I nearly whimpered.

          ‘Ah…’  The three nodded sagely and I think rolled their eyes but I can’t be certain because by then I wasn’t brave enough to look any of them in the face.

          ‘I just came in for a quick trim.’  I mumbled timidly.

          ‘Mmmmm…right.’

          And with that, two of my judges disappeared while the one left to confront the hideousness of the stuff on my head, produced a pair of shears and started to create a ‘style.’  For minutes hair flew in all directions as he cut and pulled, pushed and cut some more. 

          But this was not to be the end of it all.  Before I could heave myself out of the chair, the stylist produced a collection of goods that apparently was deemed necessary for me to be able to look after my hair in the proper manner.

          There was gel and mud and something called root lifter which was going to make my hair stand on end whether I wanted it to or not; there was cream to thicken my hair, another to make it shine and, of course, there was the good old standby but so old hat now, the mousse.   I could have any or all of these products for the cost of a small luxury car and would I like them wrapped?

          I declined purchase of the goodies, paid the ransom for the hair cut and am now looking for a new hair salon.  Or maybe I’ll just start hacking at my hair myself.  Surely it couldn’t look any worse?

                 

Mesmerizing isn't it?  Aaarrrrghghgh!!