I was going to skip the blog because we are heading home today from an awesome vacation with my sister Catherine, her husband Chris, and their family in Florida. But, true to form, I brought the weird with me, and Travis set off the smoke detector at 6:30am making toasting our last morning. It’s that whole house kind of alarm that got almost all of us out of the house while the alarm blared and said FIRE. We knew it was probably nothing because there was no smoke. Travis has been cooking all vacation, but toast at 6:30 is apparently a no no. So I’m up and I need to pack to fly home with the whole Haldeman crew in three hours. 

It appears that Tessa and Anna (Catherine’s daughter) will die if there is ever an actual fire. While we wandered out the front door, bleary eyed from being woken suddenly, I realized that Anna and Tessa were missing. Travis and Chris were checking the house for the source of the fire. To be fair, it wasn’t even smokey in the kitchen, but we determined that Travis’ toast (because he couldn’t sleep) was the source. Here I thought that we hadn’t brought our Haldeman brand of weird to Florida, and maybe we could vacation together again, but we squeaked out a little weird right at the end, like that fart you’ve  been trying to hold in all through a church service. Nothing too extreme, but just enough to let everyone know that karma follows us. 

For a second, I actually thought that the Karen across the street could have managed to set off the alarm because she is eternally pissed off at us or at the house we are renting, which was an empty lot before 2019 and now blocks most of her ocean view. This woman has put a strip of spikes across half her driveway so people like us can’t use it to back into or out of the rental house driveway. Let’s hope you don’t have an emergency Karen, because the ambulance might not expect tire spikes across a driveway. I, on the other hand, am familiar with tire spikes, although yours are a little different from police spikes. Karen is the type of person that asks, “Can I help you?”  But her tone of voice makes it clear that she has no intention of helping you. 

Catherine and I went to investigate the apparent sex trafficking house next door when we were asked that. I think she referred to us as a nuisance, but she was hard to hear.  We were simply looking at the house from the street, openly wondering why someone removes a bunch of windows and sliding glass doors and replaces them with siding. No more windows on half the house. It looked a bit ominous. We didn’t walk on the property. It’s a good thing our sister Teresa wasn’t with us because she would have been walking up to the house poking around. Karen would have had her arrested. 

Karen also asked my nephew Cory if she could help him when he walked up to her driveway to investigate her spikes. He was still on the street. He was just investigating out of concern for his truck tires. The rental company let us know that we could have no part of our vehicle in the street or “ a neighbor” would call to have us towed. It might be reasonable to think that you could let a tire roll into a neighbor’s driveway when backing a truck into the driveway across the street. 

A part of me gets it. Living across the street from a rental could be tough. She could very well be surrounded by rentals. But we aren’t partying or playing loud music. We spend most of the day at the beach. 

Anyway, our time has come to an end here in St. Augustine. Catherine and Chris and their kids get to stay on a few more days, but we jumped in too late and couldn’t work out the complicated work schedules of everyone in the house. We need to leave for our flight in a couple hours, and I am stalling. By the way, surfing behind a boat and actual surfing on a wave are NOT the same. We rented some surf boards and I beat myself up trying, with little success. And I had to concern myself with my repeated swimsuit malfunction. Middle aged breast exposure is not the same as Baywatch.

Have a great week everyone! Remember, no toast at 6:30am on vacation.