Mr. Mustachio

We live in a third floor condo. It is in a nice complex with a charming lily pad lake and a very nice pool. Most of the people we've seen here seem to be pleasant. There are a fair amount of children and quite a few dogs.

Our building contains an assortment of people. On the ground floor lives a cheerful, trim, middle-aged woman with short silver hair and a ready smile. She likes to smoke on her patio next to her red-blossomed hibiscus tree and chat with passing neighbors. She works full time, lives alone, and backs her silver hatchback Toyota into her parking spot...easier to get out in the mornings, I suppose. She always has a smile and a kind word to say. I like her a lot.

There is a quirky young couple living on the second floor who have an interesting menagerie of friends. The look-dirty-and-need-a-shampoo style is popular with them. They are quiet and keep to themselves. The young lady is the only person I have ever seen wearing a turban (the kind that Lucille Ball wore with her house dress) at the swimming pool. With the pool turban our young lady wore Audrey Hepburn sunglasses, an odd combination with her blue streaked hair and her boyfriend's dreads. Each to their own. Their comings and goings provide entertainment.

As far as I know, only three of the condos on our floor are inhabited. A dark-haired man in his thirties lives across from us and the condo adjoining his seems to be empty. Pretty quiet on that front. Our side is not so fortunate. Late at night, shortly after moving in, I noticed an incessant bass thudding through our bedroom wall. I assumed it was just a couple of dudes playing video games or blaring their sub woofers. They would have to go to sleep eventually. At 2 AM it was still thudding. Night after sleepless night it started to irritate me. Some nights it was so bad I had to go sleep on the couch. The constant pounding made my head throb. I even contemplated pounding back on the wall to make it stop. I didn't. It didn't either.

I never saw anyone come or go from the apartment. There was a constant supply of trash in the wooden bin outside the door. Pizza boxes and beer, I figured. I knew from the nocturnal thump, thump, thudding that someone lived there and they loved the night life. One day, in the middle of the day, I saw a short, brown-haired man wearing slacks and a collared shirt going into the condo. He was on the upper end of middle-age and wore heavy glasses. He had a thick mustache and wore his belt rather tight, giving him a cinched appearance. Respectable enough, though rather heavy-spirited and serious. Must be the party animals' father, I thought. I didn't see anyone come or go for quite awhile. The late night sub woofing continued.

My teeth were on edge. Keep in mind I was 5 or 6 weeks pregnant when we arrived and the first month I battled 24 hour nausea. That incessant pounding was almost more than I could bear and made me want to pound something. I started manufacturing stories of what was going on in that apartment. None of them were very good. I kept seeing Mr. Mustachio come and go and finally realized that he was the ONLY one who lived there. There were no rabble-rousing dudes, no pizza scarfing gang to go along with the noise. Imagine the stories my sleep-deprived brain concocted then. I liked Mustachio less and less.

Though I didn't care for his nighttime habits and how they impacted mine, I began to observe Mr. M more. I noticed that the old white Mercedes sitting in covered parking was his. Occasionally, he would be cleaning it out in the middle of the day, while his Toto dog sat leashed to the door handle. Next to the Mercedes sat a white Corvette under a car cover...in covered parking. I thought it was some young guy's who thought he was something special. Wrong again. It belonged to Mustachio. Weird. What does a middle-aged man who doesn't appear to go to work or go anywhere do with two expensive cars? I had no idea and didn't want to find out. I began to avoid him and always kept McKenzie close to me when we passed.

Then one evening the social barrier was completely shattered. Josh and McKenzie and I were going to Bible study. Mr. Mustachio was once again cleaning out the Mercedes with a red duffel that he always had with him. Josh was putting McKenzie in her seat and I was getting in mine. Mustachio started coming around towards the passenger side of the car. I had no desire to talk to him. I closed my door, got in my seat and buckled up, firmly believing that he would take the hint and talk to Josh, who was standing there with the door open buckling McKenzie. Did Mustachio get the hint...?

No. He started talking to ME through the closed window telling me that he thought my little boy dropped something, holding up a Mitchelin Tire Man bobble head in plastic. No thank you, I mouthed, shaking my head. It's not ours. Then he turned to Josh and before I knew it, Josh was taking it and smiling and thanking him.

Josh got in the car and said that the man was trying to say that he had something for our little boy, not that we dropped something. Either way, McKenzie is NOT a little boy, and I really didn't care what he said and didn't want the Michelin bobble head. Josh said I needed to be more polite to the neighbors, that he was just trying to be friendly. Maybe so, but I had never even spoken to the man before and what made him think that we wanted the junk he cleaned out of his car. Guess who has the larger dose of Christian charity: me or Josh?

I felt slightly remorseful until the nighttime pounding started again, then I didn't feel remorseful at all. Mustachio was not the kind of individual I wanted Michelin Tire bobble heads from. I avoided him more. That wasn't at all difficult as he rarely emerged from his house. He had to sleep sometime I guess. Plus, I figured I had been sufficiently rude the first time around for him to get the hint.

Think again. One morning after running with McKenzie in her jogging stroller to the grocery store, we encountered Mustachio once more. I had two bags of groceries in one hand, was carrying my jogging stroller in the other and trying to herd McKenzie up the three flights of stairs. Guess what he was doing...exactly...cleaning the Mercedes.

"I have something your little boy might want," he said from 10 or so feet away.

"Oh, no thank you," I said, trying my best to be coldly polite and impervious to his glaring lack of social skills.

"Why don't you just take a look at it?" Was this man serious?

"What is it?" I said standing stock still.

He rummaged under the seat for a minute and pulled out a toy semi-truck in it's original box, bits of wrapping paper still stuck to it. "This was a Christmas gift from a few years ago I never had a chance to give and I thought your little boy would like to play with it." Good grief!

"Oh...how thoughtful. Thanks for thinking of us, but SHE likes playing with dolls a little bit more than trucks."

"Oh...is that a girl? I thought it was a boy."

"No problem," I said, turning to go up the stairs. "Thanks though."

It's amazing how fast a pregnant woman carrying groceries and a jogging stroller with a three year old in tow can get up three flights of stairs when she wants to. Our door was locked and padlocked as soon as we stepped across the threshold.

I have seen Mr. Mustachio a few times since, but I just rummage around in my car until he leaves or is far enough away that I don't have to talk to him. He was chatting with our cheerful patio neighbor the other day, so maybe he's not too bad. We exchanged hellos, but Josh was with me then. My six-foot-three, muscular husband is a huge confidence boost for me. Mustachio didn't dare offer any cast-off Christmas presents for our little boy.

We will only be in our apartment for one more week, so I doubt we will have to worry about it too much longer. After that, the hotel will be home. That will be another story.

Something to Laugh About

Yesterday, McKenzie and Josh were talking about making cookies. Out of the blue, McKenzie says,

"Does butter make you happy? It makes me happy?"

So that is the question of the day...does it make you happy??

People

Things are rather slow around here. Josh rehabs in the morning. McKenzie and I go running- scratch that- I go running and McK rides in her stroller. After lunch, we try to take naps and then fill the rest of the day without going insane. There is a reason for the phrase "bored to tears."

Since our life isn't providing much story fodder at the moment, I decided to take a few posts and tell you about some of the people I've met here in Florida. One day I'll use them as characters in a novel. Until then, enjoy meeting some new folks.

The most amusing pair I came in contact with were Jim and Bob- the ushers in the handy-cap section at Ed Smith Stadium. It was the only place I could take McKenzie in her stroller. Jim was a Democrat and Bob a Republican. One was tall and rather skinny with a hawk-like nose. The other resembled Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. His nose was round and bulbous like the rest of him.

They passed the time by betting how many runs and how many hits there would be during the game. Nothing pleased Jim more than beating Bob, as he thought it was high comedy to take money from a Republican. Jim was a deporable flirt. The first time I met him, he came up to me and said, "Are you a player's wife?"

"Yes I am. Is it that obvious?"

"I knew a girl as pretty as you had to be a player's wife."

(Uh-huh...and you are old enough to be my grandfather.)

"Well thank you. And what is your name?"

He turned around and saw his wife standing a few feet away. Stumbling and bumbling he says, "Oh...I am HER husband. I just met you five minutes ago and you are already trying to hit on me," and off he ran.

I just smiled and laughed. What is it with old men?

Bob was not as outwardly flirtatious, but he loved to lean over the rail and yack. He told me all about how he traveled around the world with the State Department. The only reason he and his wife had been married so long, he said, was that for the first 20 years of their marriage they never had to see each other very often. Interesting recipe for marital bliss. He hated long games and whenever they'd go over 2.5 hours he'd start talking about his bubble bath and his glass of wine that was waiting for him at home.

"I just sit there and relax," he said. "My cat comes and sits on the edge of the tub and just stares at me like I'm nuts."

Not quite the mental image I wanted, but laughter is the universal cover-up.

Whenever Jim thought Bob was spending too much time talking to me, he'd come up and say to Bob..."What are you doing?? Are you trying to steal my girlfriend? This is my section."

Bob would just fire off some quip and keep on talking.

I liked Jim and Bob. They were funny old men who laughed a lot and loved to annoy each other. I'm glad I met them. They made me smile.

Tune in next time to hear about our strange neighbor with a white Mercedes and a white Corvette who never goes anywhere and was convinced McKenzie was a little boy.

Matins

One of my favorite parts of the day is the 15-30 minutes I have with my Bible, my Puritan prayer book, and my coffee before my two loves awake. I titled this post "matins" not because I get up at midnight to chant my prayers, but because the word comes from the Latin "matutinae" or morning prayers and that essentially is what this time is. It doesn't happen every morning, but my day sure seems more ordered when it does.

I am reading through the book of Acts. It is exciting to experience again the passion and the power of the early church. After a chapter or two of that, I read one or two prayers from the Valley of Vision- a compilation of prayers written by Puritan Christians. They are amazing and never fail to leave me with a thought for the day. I wanted to share a few quotes with you...

Yesterday I read...

Help me to see how good they will is in all
and even when it crosses mine teach me to be pleased with it.
Grant me to feel thee in fire, and food and every providence,
and to see that thy many gifts and creatures
are but they hands and fingers taking hold of me.

Today I read...

Help me to pray in faith and so find they will,
by leaning hard on they rich free mercy,
by believing thou wilt give what thou has promised;
Strengthen me to pray with the conviction
that whatever I receive is thy gift,
so that I may pray until prayer be granted.

I wonder what the Lord is trying to tell me?

The Best-laid Plans of Mice and Men...

The last four days have been absolutely insane. Friday we found out that instead of starting the season with a team we would be staying here in Florida to have Josh's elbow treated. At that point, we didn't know the extent or even the nature of the injury. The team orthopedist examined the elbow Saturday and sent him for an MRI immediately. That was a huge answer to prayer: only the truth can set our minds free from worry and concern. The orthopedist examined the films later that afternoon and thought it was only a strain of the ligament due to shoulder weakness that was putting torque on the elbow.

Josh had Easter weekend off- what a blessing! For the second time in four years of married life, we were able to celebrate Christ's resurrection together at church. Up from the grave He arose...

Yesterday, the same orthopedist met with Josh and gave him the official diagnoses. It was pretty much the same. Today, Josh started rehab. The trainers and doctors think it should only take a few weeks to get everything back to normal. Please pray for full recovery and a return of the confidence, form, and mechanics that Josh has when healthy and strong.

In between all of this, we were on a housing roller coaster. At first we thought we might be here several months, so I started looking for longer term housing. The contract on our apartment ended April 6th. We thought our landlord had the place rented for the month of April, so we packed everything up and prepared to move out yesterday. A walk-through was scheduled for Monday.

I had been making calls about other housing available immediately and had found a place just down the road. We found out at the last minute that the owner was almost certain that he had a renter interested for 6-8 months. We would have to be month to month with only the first month for sure. So...there we were Monday afternoon thinking that we had no place to move the next day. Not a happy thought. Guess what happened...

God saved the day! We went out on a limb and asked our landlord if she had renters moving in right away. She didn't! She was actually planning on moving back in herself, but said she could use another month's rent and if we needed to leave sooner, that was fine too. Oh my word...what a relief!! Thank you Lord!! I still have everything packed up and am not quite sure to what extent I'll unpack it, but at least we don't have to move and then move again in 3 weeks.

So...we are still here in FL and the weather is the best it's been all spring. The beach was packed yesterday and there are always people at the pool. If anyone wants to come get some sun and go to the beach in the next few weeks, we have an extra couch.

Thank you all for your prayers!! We know that the Lord is guiding us along a good path and are thankful that Josh's elbow has no major problems. Please continue to pray for us as Josh rehabs.

We so appreciate all your support and love and know we couldn't do it without you!!

An Old Hymn

O ye sons of men be wise,
trust no longer dreams and lies,
Out of Christ, almighty pow’r
can do nothing but devour.

God you say is good. ‘Tis true.
But he’s pure and holy too;
just and jealous is his ire,
burning with vindictive fire.

This of old himself declared:
Israel trembled when they heard.
But the proof of proofs indeed
is he sent his Son to bleed.

When the blessed Jesus died
God was clearly justified:
Sin to pardon without blood
never in his nature stood.

Worship God, then, in his Son,
there he’s love and there alone.
Think not that he will, or may,
pardon any other way.

See the suff’ring Son of God,
panting, groaning, sweating blood!
Brethren, this had never been
had not God detested sin.

Be his mercy therefore sought
in the way himself has taught:
There his clemency is such,
we can never trust too much.

He that better knows than we,
bids us all to Jesus flee.
Humbly take him at his Word
and your souls will bless the Lord!

~Joseph Hart