lost in jane austen

Friday, April 11, 2014

We're not crazy...or are we? - Bio to Bs


 Do-do, do-do...do-do, do-do...think TWILIGHT ZONE MUSIC.

Once upon a time, Barry and I went to Panama City, Florida. It was in early October, the temperature was great, the water was perfect and we had the beaches and hotel mostly to ourselves. One night we were driving back to our hotel which was out on a peninsula and we spotted a tiny red dash in the sky. It blinked off and then there were 2 dashes in a line. Those blinked off and then there were 3.


Barry pulled off the road so we could get a better look. A forth dash appeared and then all of the lights disappeared. These were not tracers. They were too exact and the lines were too straight. We both stared at each other wondering if we had just seen what we thought we saw.
A few seconds later it started all over again, but they were now in the southern part of the sky. Barry decided that he should turn the car lights off since we were beginning to get a little afraid and were feeling very alone and exposed. We sat in the dark for about 15 minutes watching the red dashes appear and disappear and then it was over. We talked about the lights for hours finally deciding it must be some military experiment.

The next morning we grabbed a newspaper on our way into a pancake restaurant. After ordering, we scoured the paper...no suspicious light stories. We chatted with the waitress trying to get info out of her without sounding like "those people that believe in little green men," but she shed no light on the matter.

Years have passed and now, from time to time, we bring up the incident. It seems like if it were a military experiment, we would have heard about it by now. We're still not "those people that believe in little green men," or are we?

TWILIGHT ZONE MUSIC fades...

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Zen to Disaster...Bio to Bs


A hundred years ago, when Barry and I were first married, we went to the Japanese Botanical Garden in Fort Worth. It's really beautiful and there is a type of calm that comes over you. Of course I was with Barry so the calm was soon shattered. We were walking across a pond on the little round stones when
Barry pretended to "fall" into the pond, but the joke was on him. I will never forget the shocked look on his face when he hit the water and realized it was about 4 feet deep. I decided not to get angry since we were trying to have a fun stress free afternoon.



As we toured the garden, everyone that we saw seemed happy and peaceful. It was about the time we entered the Zen Garden that we heard the announcement, that the park would be closing in 15 minutes and we needed to make our way to the exit.
We left the Zen Garden and realized that we had no idea how to get out. At first we were casually walking in the direction we thought would lead us to the exit. After we passed a building for what we thought was the third time, we started to pick up our pace. And we started to argue since I was beginning to get hot and he couldn't understand why since his clothes were still wet from his "fall".
Then we had the brilliant idea to follow all of the other visitors to the exit. But we soon realized that the only people left had that same look of panic that we had. Where were all of the "you are here" signs? What had happened to that feeling of calm...why did my blood pressure feel as though it had shot up 4o points? We started thinking about where we were going to sleep if we were trapped for the night and I was thinking that our "till death us do part" might be coming a little sooner than planned.

Then all of the sudden Barry spotted the way out. My hero...and I think the Koi were pretty happy too, since we had been thinking we might have to eat sushi for dinner.