Tallahassee Area Mensa
Welcome to the home page of Tallahassee Area Mensa!
Tallahassee Area Mensa a local chapter of the High IQ Society, American Mensa. The Tallahassee
area serves Florida from the Apalachicola River east through Taylor County including part of
Madison County and even a bit of Dixie County. Our area is also the only area in all of Florida,
Region 10 of American Mensa, to include a portion of Georgia. For a full view of the area we
cover, visit our map.
Interested in joining Mensa? The only qualification for membership is a score at or above the
98th percentile on an approved IQ test. There are two different ways you can join. One is by
submitting evidence of scores from any of a number of approved intelligence tests that you have
already taken, or you can take the Mensa Admission Test. For more information about qualifying
to join, visit the Join Mensa page.
Robin's Roost - rest your feathers!
Welcome June!! School lets out, vacations are planned, my birthday arrives, and the beautiful cool mornings
that allow for open windows and fresh breezes give way to icky sticky humidity and staying in the air conditioning
as we keep a weather-eye out for hurricanes. Here's hoping we are spared any hurricane drama this year!
Long years ago, there was a HUGE oak tree right off my patio, it died and had to be taken down. For years I had a
HUGE stump which slowly rotted away until I finally had a stump grinder man come and finish it off. Over the years as
the stump decayed and the roots rotted away, the ground sank lower and lower and lower. I had put paving stones off the
patio to form a landing space when one stepped off the patio and as the years went by and the ground sank, the pavers
got lower and lower along with the ground. But like the frog in the boiling water, I didn't notice the pavers had sunk
to the point they were actually below the bottom of the patio's cement slab. I finally noticed it because that was the
cause of the fall I wrote about last month. My right foot smashed into the front of the patio slab, and I went down HARD
on my right knee. I was able to get into TOC for my toe on Monday since it had been confirmed as broken at urgent care.
But since my knee was NOT confirmed as broken, that doctor couldn't see me for another couple of weeks. By the time I saw
him nearly 3 weeks after the event, and I was still bruised and swollen and in pain, he thought there might be fracture
behind the patella which would not have been seen on the original x-ray, so he ordered an MRI. But since TOC will only use
TOC's MRI, and since they are seriously backlogged, I can't get the MRI done until June 12 - which will be six weeks post
the fall itself. At the very least it is evident I have damaged the meniscus and possibly the tendon on the right side. So
arthroscopic surgery is likely in my future, but goodness knows when. In the meantime, I hobble around and endure the
still-surprising level of pain in my knee. My toe, happily, is considerably better and I anticipate I'll be out of the surgery
shoe this week.
Having thus become aware of the issue with the pavers and the sinking ground, I needed to make that transition from ground
to patio safer. Some wonderful people (thank you Ike and Stephanie!!!) brought over several bags of fill dirt and helped raise
the ground level where the tree had been, which helped tremendously. Then I set about working on adjusting the pavers.
After I pulled all the pavers out and smoothed the area, it took 4 bags of fill dirt to bring the ground level up enough to
start pouring in the paver sand to support the pavers. 6 bags of fill dirt and 7 bags of paver sand later, the pavers are back
in place and the ascent up to the patio is considerably safer. I also built a handrail out of PVC pipe which helps with walking
up the steps in the surgery shoe. Doing all this work in the surgery shoe was interesting, being open at the front, it was pretty
filthy by the time the job was completed.
I also had to have 4 more trees dealt with. Two of the water oaks in the front that were starting to hollow out and were leaning
towards the house, and a water oak and a pine in the back that were dying and leaning towards the power lines. I had not used this
company before. My well's pump house was almost taken out along with the pine tree when the pine broke and fell in a way they did
not expect missing my pump house by about 10 inches. The tree came to rest right up against the corner of the pump house and lying
on the hose I have coiled up there on the corner. That was more excitement than I needed!
I hope everyone had a marvelous Memorial Day Weekend and you are able to join us for our happy return to in-person dining on
the 3rd Wednesday of June.
Take care of yourselves and those you love,
Robin
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