"Always walk through life as if you have something new to learn and you always will."
-- Vernon Howard
They say you learn something new
every day. Well, on Sunday my something new was learning how to shoot a
handgun. It was an interesting experience. Wayne, one of the USFWS guys who
works over at Headquarters took us interns (Patrick, Meghan and myself) to the
shooting range, where he is a range officer, to fire off some rounds.
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| Patrick, one of my fellow interns, showing off and shooting one-handed. He's had some experience. |
Prior
to Sunday afternoon, my only experience with guns was of the squirt and glue variety,
and that blow gun in Ecuador. Not that I would know, but it seemed to me that
none of those are quite like a Beretta, though at least the blow gun had the
potential to be lethal (if your dart was tipped in poison, which ours weren’t.
Or so they told us…).
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| Meghan taking her turn. She, like me, had never fired a gun before. |
Needless to say, I was slightly
apprehensive about holding a real-life actual gun, let alone pulling the trigger.
Burning yourself and gluing your fingers together with hot melted glue is one
thing, shooting a hole in your foot quite another. However, once I figured out
how to aim the thing properly, I wasn’t such a bad shot. We were shooting at
metal plates, and in my final rounds I managed to hit about six in a row before
my eyes would get too out-of-focus and I’d miss. And I’ll admit it, my arms got
tired. It’s hard to hold your arms straight out in front of you like that for
extended periods of time.
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| Picture proof I actually did it! |
Though
I’m probably not going to be rushing out and purchasing a gun for myself, I did
enjoy the experience more than I thought I would. And, I think knowing how to
handle a gun safely is an important thing to know. Knowing how to fire one
safely could potentially come in handy someday, if I ever have the chance to
use a tranquilizer gun perhaps. I’m sure they’re exactly like either handguns or
glue guns.
~~~
On Monday
(my weekends are Sunday and Mondays) I went kayaking with some of the
volunteers from the refuge: Trish, Betty, Roz, and Trish’s friend, Mary. We
launched from the boat ramp near Trish’s house in Cocoa Beach and spent a
morning paddling around in the mangroves and canals. It was fantastic.
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| Trish heading into the mangroves |
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| Mary and Betty |
Betty
loves the mangroves, and she loves to tell people about them, so the morning
was not only fun but educational. She had us all lick black mangrove leaves, to
taste the salt secreted on them. Surprisingly, I managed to teach her a few
things too, about preen glands and how not every species of bird has them (during
my research on parrot coloration I learned that some parrots and a few other
birds, ostrich being one, don’t have them). We also discussed feather lice,
ticks on birds (and people) and feather-degrading bacteria and fungi. You know,
normal things to talk about with friends while kayaking. And, I will have you
know, I did not bring up any of those subjects, I just added to the
conversation. It started when we saw an anhinga preening and went from there.
Hanging out with the volunteers is always a hoot, they’re
all so interesting and such characters. I’ve long ago realized that being old
is a state of mind; you’re never too old to do what you love and what gives you
joy.
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| Someone had anchored this plastic chair in the middle of the mangroves, probably to sit in while they fished. The water is only a few feet deep, and the chair is sunk into the muck. |
And, in other non-related exciting news (but since when does
anything exciting ever have to be related?) my little brother Eric was named
Employee of the Month at the Enclave!!!
I heard the news yesterday, when I
called home and was told he had some news he needed to share with me. We had
the usual game of 10,000 questions:
Me: "What’s your news Eric?"
Eric: [silence]
Me: "It’s
something at work?"
Eric: "Yes." [silence]
Me: "Do you get to clean the toilets now?"
Eric: "No."
Me: "Well that’s good,
you don’t want to do that anyway."
Eric: [silence]
Me: "Come on Eric, just tell
me, I want to know your news!"
Eric: [silence]
Mom: "Just tell her what it is."
Dad: "Finish what’s in your mouth and then tell her." (They
were eating dinner when I called, and put me on speaker phone). "Stop cramming
more in there and finish chewing."
After a few more minutes in this vein I was given the clues “I
got a certificate,” “They spelled employee wrong, they forgot an l” and “But
they spelled the month right.” We eventually put everything together to
determine the good news. YAY Eric! I’m so proud of you!!
AND, I found his picture on the website! Here he is hard at
work landscaping (I think it must have been staged, because he looks way too
clean to be actually working. I’ve seen his clothes when he gets home from
work). Eric is the one in the brown Brown’s hoodie, in the picture under the
words “Supportive Employment.”
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