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Dear Reader,
I've trashed more tennis shoes by just thinking I'm going to go outside and pull a few weeds. Before I know it, I've been yanking weeds for an hour and when I look down, I see that I've ruined another pair of tennis shoes.
Tennis shoes go through my personal shoe cycle. A brand new pair is treated with a lot of respect, like Sunday church shoes when I was a kid. As soon as they start showing some wear, they advance to every day tennis shoes. When those shoes start to look like they've been through a kid's summer vacation, I move them into my gardening shoe category. When the "tennies" are totally trashed from gardening they become mulch shoes. Mulch shoes are only good for one wear and I mulch once or twice a year. Once you wear tennis shoes in a round of mulching, they are covered with wood chips and they are finished.
I started keeping my gardening tennis shoes outside on the back stoop so I wouldn't track dirt in the house. When I put on my tennis shoes today, and I did my normal routine of shaking them and banging them together, dirt and a lizard fell out. (Little lizards/geckos are common here in Florida. They eat bugs, are cute and are very friendly.)
I put my shoes on, but before heading outdoors, I made a quick stop at my computer. I was responding to an email when I felt something moving in my shoe. My first thought was that the shoes must have gotten wet and the inside support was breaking apart. But when I felt more movement, I immediately retreated to one of the basic rules that you learn when you move to Florida: "If you think you feel something crawling on your body, it probably is!
You've never seen a woman rip off a tennis shoe so fast in your life. I was already feeling a little fragile today--maybe it was just my imagination?
My husband's in charge of bugs, so I handed him my shoe, "Tell me if you can see anything down by the toe." He banged the shoe and another lizard appeared. But no amount of whacking my shoes together would chase that lizard out. Apparently he'd set up housekeeping and was determined to stand his ground. It probably was his wife that I chased out earlier. So those tennis shoes are skipping the mulch cycle. What could I do? The lizard won.
To see a photo of my lizard's new home, go to: http://www.emailbookclub.com/photo/lizard.html
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]
AUTHORBUZZ: With so many new books out every week, we promise these titles deserve your attention:
(Fiction)
BLIND MOON ALLEY by John Florio
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DUNGEON GAMES by Lexi Blake
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UPSIDE DOWN by Fern Michaels
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THE MOUNTAINTOP SCHOOL FOR DOGS AND OTHER SECOND CHANCES by Ellen Cooney
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