I Love Religious Zealots, Especially Young Ones

So, a couple weeks ago, I was down in Fantasy Land visiting my friend Carri while another friend, Francie, was down on a rare visit from North Carolina. Carri and Francie used to work at the local builders association while I was on the Board there and we all became fast friends. I even moved Francie to North Carolina to be closer to her kids.

For a time, down in Fantasy Land, I used to live on the first floor of a condo building while Francie lived on the top floor of that same building. We are such good friends, she would often pop over and walk in my condo unannounced, as I seldom locked my front door. One Friday evening after Happy Hour, she walked in as a female friend and I were involved in some unnamed intimate activity. Now that female was a mutual friend of all three of ours and there was some real embarrassment going on there for about 5 seconds, then we all burst out laughing. Francie calmly walked to the frig for a glass of wine and told my friend and I to beat it out of the living room to get properly presentable. I fixed us all dinner and we all ended up that evening well fed and quite buzzed!! We all still laugh at that story.

Here are Carri and Francie in the following image after Carri commandeered my laptop.

This is a common occurrence as Carri's computer is tethered to the those land lines in her office, a place I seldom visit. Now you know the reason few of my blog posts actually emanate from down there, I have limited laptop time. And, yes, those are crutches in the background. Francie fell on the ice a few weeks ago and broke her ankle. Did she let that minor setback stop her Florida adventure? Well, as you can see that was not the case.

So when I was down there I had a few errands to run. One was over to the Collier County Courthouse where I got the following image.

Yes, that is a Porsche Boxster convertible parked in the County Tax Collectors parking spot. Only in Fantasy Land would the Tax Collector drive a Porsche.

I did do a driveby of the first home my daughter's Mom and I bought, just after we married.

Those two huge oak trees were mere saplings when we planted them some 18+ years ago.

I was invited, one evening, to dine with some good friends, Terry and Debbie and their friends and family. We dined alfresco in their yard and it was totally relaxing and enjoyable. Those centerpiece flowers came from a bush in the yard of the "little house" next door. I enjoyed leasing that "little house" from them for many years and, as it is now seasonally rented, I usually get to stay there when I spend an evening with them. (I call special attention to the TV in the background to the Messrs. Lee in the Queen City of The Ozarks.)

The reason I get to enjoy an overnite stay in the "little house"? Usually by the end of an evening with Terry and Debbie,

we all look like this!!

Another evening, Carri had a small get together and one of the guests was a mutual friend to all of us. Now we had not seen Tim in several years and it was good to hear about the adventures he has had with his life partner, Marchello.

Unfortunately, Marchello was out of town and we didn't get to see him.

Now Tim is a great story teller and had a bunch of funny ones for us.

Once, in the middle of one of his stories, I had to interrupt with this observation:

"Now I know why so many people think I am gay. We tell a story the exact same way!"

Of course that got a great laugh and Tim invited me aboard any time I was interested.

As Peter Lorenzo, the auto extremist, says "notgonnahappen.com".

It was a fun time and we all laughed our b*tts off all night long.

Now, once again, I am confident you Counters out there are wondering where I am going this and what the h*ll all of this has to do with Young Religious Zealots.

I must interject here, while I sometimes never attend Mass at my local Catholic Church, I do believe in God and, man, is she pissed off these days. However, I believe some being, at some point in time, had to create whatever the first thing was that sparked this whole universe we live in. And that is a deep as I will ever get with you Counters. Accept my apologies for scratching my surface and exposing how really shallow the pool where the oleragtop lives really is!

Where was I?

Oh Yeah, back to Young Religious Zealots.

After thejeepjunkie and The Good Attorney left this evening, I ran up to the local Family Dollar Store to pick up a 2 liter bottle of Diet Coke, $1.22, tax included. These days, a 12 pack of cans of that soda pop is a luxury I can't afford.

Anyway, I returned to the Taj Mahal and commenced to cooking up some viddles and such for supper.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang. I was a bit startled as I have virtually no unexpected visitors to the Taj Mahal. As I mentioned in previous posts, noone, these days, just drops by.

So I meander over to the entry foyer (a distance of nine diagonal feet, 12 if you count me walking around the dining room table) and peer through the windows in the upper portion of that massive door.

Now, like the Bus here, I am, rarely, sans camera. I had left it in the oleragtop and I was bummed about that.

You see, through the window of the Taj Mahal front door, I could see two young men, dressed in white short sleeve shirts and black britches, each carrying The Holy Bible.

Oh Crap. My seven course dinner was on the stove, the garlic toast in the toaster oven and I just poured a cold glass of whole milk to enjoy with that meal.

The last thing I needed was to spend the next hour talking religion with two kids who, I am quite confident, believed differently than I.

So what did the longrooffan do?

Thinking of my gay friend Tim, I opened that entry door and in the most flaming voice I could muster, welcomed those boys with this:

"Well, look at you two fine specimens. I was just getting ready to sit down and enjoy a glass of wine, won't you lovely boys please come in and join me and maybe we can have some fun?"

Needless to say, those boys turned and got the h*ll out of Dodge.

I closed that door just laughing my *ss off and hope the cops don't show at my door. But it has been a few hours so I think I am off the hook. I hope those boys don't show up tomorrow with reenforcements.

And it is pulling off cr*p like this that lets me

Celebrate Life.