Our Breakfast Surprise

THE MAN'S STORY:

I'm thinking about an old buddy - a guy I used to work with in two different companies  - and feeling kind of bad that I haven't kept in touch. This friend lives in South Carolina and hasn't visited Northeast Ohio in years.

I hit the gym early and decide to grab breakfast in Boston Heights to catch up on some paperwork before I start my work day. I sit down at a corner booth and begin writing. The table directly in front of me is vacant.

Soon someone is seated. I look up and there is a couple talking to their waitress. The man looks kind of like the very guy I was just thinking of and I begin to entertain the idea of covertly snapping a pic on my cell and sending it to my friend.


THE COUPLE'S STORY:

We once lived in Hudson, OH, and arrived yesterday to attend the wedding of our friend and former next-door neighbor.  Our schedule is packed.  We are trying to cram seeing as many people as possible into a few day's time. The woman we'd planned on visiting this morning ended up taking a quick trip to California so this is the only block of free time we have in this entire trip. We decide to go to Boston Heights and eat a leisurely breakfast at this fun place we used to enjoy on Saturday mornings.  

I was poking around, taking my old sweet time getting ready when my husband urged me to hurry up.  I thought to myself, "Why? We have all morning," but I finished quickly and we were on our way.

A few minutes later, we enter the restaurant.  Little has changed in the years since we last dined there.  We normally choose a booth and there are plenty available today but for some reason when the hostess asks where we want to sit, we say we don't care so she puts us at the table directly in front of this handsome guy who is looking down, quietly writing.

The waitress greets us. 


OUR HOLLYWOOD ENDING:

The man at the table hears the couple speak to the waitress.  He gets up, walks over and says, “May I join you?”


THE WRAP UP:

That is how we ended up having breakfast with an old friend that we hadn't planned on seeing, during a time we didn't know we'd be available, in a city where we normally wouldn't even have been.  Coincidence?  I prefer to think otherwise.

Jerry and Dave enjoying breakfast

www.StillSwimmingUpstream.com

The Lucky Storm

It's Raining Ice!

We live in South Carolina and yesterday it rained ice for over an hour.  The forecast was for a low of twenty-three.  That's freakishly cold for here.  Freakishly.  And providential for my husband, as it turned out.

Ice on our deck

As it was storming, a box arrived.  For Jerry.  This is only one in a long line of packages that have been delivered lately.  They all contain mountaineering gear - Jerry is planning a summer trip to Mount Rainier so he's acquiring  equipment.  Ice axes, coats and boots have already arrived. This newest box had an ultra-lightweight sleeping bag in it that compresses to the size of a loaf of bread.  (Space and weight are important considerations for mountain climbing gear, or so I'm told.)     

Jerry was jubilant that this sleeping bag arrived on this day.  It's raining ice!  It's going to be cold tonight.  It stands to reason that my husband would want to sleep outside.  This seemed sane to him, I might add.

Warm and toasty outside

I was happy to do my part for the experiment in the form of providing the cushioning between Jerry and the porch decking.  In other words, I let him use my sleeping bag with my yoga mat stuffed inside.  

My sleeping bag keeps me warm(ish) in 50 degree weather if I'm wearing fleecy pajamas.  It weighs more than all the loaves of bread you could fit into a grocery cart. (When I think about it, it might weigh more than the cart itself does.)  The good news is, I did not sleep outside in it and I'm not taking it (or any other gear) to the mountains.  As an added plus, my sleeping bag is a pretty purple.  

As Jerry was getting ready for work this morning, he declared the night a success.  He was quite pleased with himself and the experience, too.  

…and our friends think I'M the crazy one!   

www.StillSwimmingUpstream.com

Welcome, Sweet Summer!

Why is this little guy smiling?

Because it's going to be 108 degrees in South Carolina...



...and he lives in Michigan.

Welcome, Sweet Summer!

The DMV

To say a trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles is challenging is a dramatic understatement.  It's brutal!  There are always huge lines, too little staff and employees that seem to take fiendish delight in thwarting sincere attempts at being card carrying, law abiding citizens.

When we arrived at the DMV, there were only three other customers there.  What's wrong with this picture?  Had we entered the Twilight Zone?  The place is normally crazy-crowded and getting your license, registration and new plates is guaranteed to be stressful, squared.  With only three people here, how long could it take?  

Our branch offers a unique little twist - before you can approach the actual license bureau line, you have to talk to a pre-screener whose job description must be to force you to leave the office empty handed. I think she probably gets a performance bonus if tears are shed during the process. 

Katie had researched what she needed and she arrived at the office well prepared. She took her social security card, her Ohio driver's license, her passport and a copy of our 1040 tax form from 2011, all to prove that she was who she said she was and that she was living in our state. As additional proof of identity, she also took her mother. It was not enough. 

 "We have to have an original of the tax document; a copy won't do" said the pre-screener.  I could hear triumph in her voice.

Kate, who had devoted a significant portion of the morning on her hair-do for the photographic portion of the process, was undaunted.  We went back home, got the entire packet of tax forms and came back to the DMV again. Of course now the place was jam packed - and people were not oozing friendliness, either.  I toyed with the idea of bursting into song, but as I was mentally going through my repertoire searching for something suitable for my debut, suddenly it was our turn.

This time as the pre-screener green-lighted Kate for the license bureau line, she also told me - with nothing short of sheer joy in her voice - that in addition to filling out an intimidating and ridiculous form for new license plates, I had to go to another city to pay personal property tax on the vehicle before I could purchase the the plates and tags.  And, of course, it was too late to make that round trip today.

The picture on Kate's new South Carolina license is very flattering, which is lucky because she will be carrying that very same license for the next TEN YEARS!  It doesn't expire until 2022, making the $25.00 license fee the bargain of the decade, I'm pretty sure.

I couldn't resist humming a happy tune as we left the building.

* * *

Success!

Love and Sunshine

My youngest daughter bathes in sunshine.  She basks in it.  A sunny day is to her as a glorious, crisp, fall day is to me.  Her mood is elevated.  Things just seem to go better on a bright, sunny day.

For the last nine years, Katie has lived in the second cloudiest city in the United States.  All through that time, she's dreamt of the day when she would move into the sunshine.  That day came last Thursday when she packed her car up with all her worldly possessions and headed south.  She arrived at her destination after dark.

During the night, it began to rain and Friday dawned, gray and drizzly.  Saturday crept in wearing gray tones and didn't change her clothes all day.  Sunday, rain.  Monday, torrents.  Isn't that just the way things go?  You're expecting one thing and get the opposite.  

Katie rummaged through her stuff and pulled out a sweatshirt to wear while wondering out loud if donating her fleece jacket had been such a good idea.  We both started carrying an umbrella with us when we stepped outside.  Today started out to be another gloomy day too, but then finally, mid-afternoon, out popped the sun and blue skies returned.  

Patience pays off and finally Kate was smiling.  Then we got the weather alert.  Severe thunderstorm and flash flood watch until 10:00 p.m. 

April showers bring May flowers everywhere but in South Carolina.  Here it's May showers bring, well, rain.

Welcome home, Katie.  

Beautiful April flowers

What I Learned from my Cat

In the late '70s we got a cat.  Josh, then almost two, named her "Blue."  This seemed like the perfect cat name and since the cat appeared to be good with it, that's what we called her.

Now Blue was a sweet cat but a horrible, horrible hunter.  Every fall a mouse or two would get into the house and every fall it was a mousetrap, not our cat, that dispatched it.  I felt kind of sorry for her because I could see her practicing stalking when she thought I wasn't looking.  I knew she had the heart of a huntress; she just never seemed to get it right.

One autumn day, I walked into our backyard and there, right by the concrete steps, some insolent mother mouse had constructed a nest and birthed a bunch of babies.  Blue was mainly a house cat but she did come outside with me from time to time and I just couldn't resist bringing her out to show her these mice.  Bless her heart, she couldn't even catch them.  I decided there was no hope for her and we went back inside together.

What happened next was a major life lesson for me.  Our cat hopped up onto the windowsill to track the mother mouse.  I knew that's what she was doing because every time Blue moved her head, the bell on her collar jingled. 

The bell jingled!  It took me three years to realize that the cat couldn't catch mice not because she had some feline disability but because I had tied a bell around her neck.  Imagine her frustration!

I took that bell off immediately.  The next time I let Blue in from exercising outdoors I noticed a little (dead) present by our back door.



The years roll by.....

Now I live in the woods of South Carolina, home of the copper-colored pit vipers.  People tell me that the snakes will leave me alone if I don't creep up on them and catch them unawares.  Why would I do that?  I want them to hear me coming a mile away.  So, remembering the lesson that our cat Blue taught me, I have custom made myself an ankle bracelet with five bells on it.  Nobody - not snake, not cat, not human - is going to be surprised when they see me coming.

J i n g l e  all the way!

Oops!

Cute little sunscreens

About this time last year, we had friends visit from Ohio.  They brought with them a lot of stuff, including a couple of one-ounce tubes of sunscreen.  I loved how they smelled so our friends left them for us to finish up.

Unlike up north, it remains sunny in South Carolina pretty much year round.  The only time it gets gray and cloudy is when it's going to rain and after it does, it gets sunny again.  What's not to love?  Anyway, all last summer we used that sunscreen.  We continued to use it in the fall and even into winter too. 

Now it's early April and it's about time to replenish my stock.   Today is when I realized that those two one-ounce tubes of lotion are meant to be a single application of sunscreen each.

Oops!

Vacation on the cheap

If adults ever sat around a campfire, here's the kind of (true) story we could tell:

You are a newly single dad with two kids. It's your daughter's sixth birthday and you want to do something special to "wow" her, but on a tight budget. You decide to take her and her little brother camping on the beach, the perfect vacation on the cheap.

Can't you just smell the disaster brewing? I swear I can hear ominous background music!

First, he tells the kids. Mistake Number One. (If you tell the kids, you can't back out when you realize the error of your ways.)

Next, he searches for the tent he used to camp in before he got married. When he finds it, he decides to erect it in his living room. He does this and then discovers that it is a pup tent. Of course he knew this, but had forgotten just how small a pup tent is. There is no way he can cram all the junk he's going to need for a long weekend camping into this tiny square footage. And, he's already told his kids.

So he goes to WalMart and buys an eight-man tent. Mistake Number Two. (Ask around, fella. Somebody you know has a tent you can borrow.) It costs just shy of a hundred bucks, but it sure will be cheaper than a motel. (This remains to be seen, but I don't want to spoil the surprise.)

Now Mr. Dad lives in Cleveland and is going to take his kids to a beach on the coast of South Carolina. I can't remember the exact name and it is irrelevant to the story anyway except that Ohio is a long way from South Carolina. That is relevant (and obvious to anyone with access to a map). His plan is to pick up his kids from his daughter's birthday party, toss them in the car and hit the open road. He figures they will go six hours or so and crash in some cheap motel along the interstate. It's a double-header! Mistakes Number Three and Four. (He can't drive that far - he has two little kids who are going to need to stop every fifteen seconds and there is never a cheap motel around when you need one.)

Prior to the departure, our hero goes to the grocery store and spends an obscene amount on food. (Mistake Number Five.) He buys staples for the actual camping trip, as well as lots of juice boxes and snacks for the car riding portion of the trip. It costs more than it should have, but he will make it up by not having to stop and eat at restaurants, right? Mistake Number Six. (Everybody always thinks that they will make every meal when they go camping, it's part of the charm of "roughing it." They all end up eating out more meals than they had imagined they would. He will prove no exception.)

The ex doesn't know of the plan and this is on purpose, so she can't throw in a monkey wrench. Or can she? In fact, she is able to pull off a minor coup, in the form of allowing the birthday party to stretch out for about an hour longer than it is supposed to. A small, but crucial point because, as we know, timing is everything.

Finally the happy group is on their way, beachward bound! It's evening, but it's a pleasant night and the kids are groovin' to the kid music in the car. They listen to the same CD over and over the entire trip. (You probably thought I would count this as a mistake, didn't you? Well, it's not. Kids love repetition and Dads are used to tuning it out. He gets a "bye" on the music. It's a freebie.)

When they get to Beckley, West Virginia, they are all pooped and a bit crabby from the drive. (No surprises there. It's hours past everyone's bedtime.) They decide they'll pack it in for the night. It's not quite as far as he thought they'd get but, allowing for the late start, it will do just fine. Mistake Number Seven. (Unbeknownst to Mr. Happy Camper, Beckley, West Virginia, is roughly half way between Cleveland, OH and Charlotte, NC. He does not know this, but the owners of the motels certainly do. Location! Location! Location! There is not a cheap room to be found.) Everything is over a hundred dollars and a hundred dollars is a little rich for his blood. He gets his second wind. They hit the road again and drive a couple more hours where the rates are more hospitable and the names of the motels all start with "econo."

Next morning, bright and early, up they get. Motels with "econo" in the title, don't offer free breakfasts. They decide to eat out because Dad doesn't want to unpack the car for just this one meal and, besides, they can economize at lunch and supper because they have all the camping food. (See what I mean? Everybody does this.) After breakfast, the road warriors ride the highway and the rest of the trip to the campsite is uneventful. Of course, they stop a couple of times for the kids to run around and they enjoy putting quarters into the vending machines at the rest stops. Everyone is in good spirits and looking forward to some serious water fun. It's vacation!!

They arrive at the campsite, choose a prime spot and set up camp. Then they go off to the beach. Finally! Looking forward to some water fun, they barely notice Mistake Number Eight. They've chosen to go to the beach in August. Not just any old August! No, this is a record breaking summer - the hottest ever.

Like all little kids, our four-year-old exuberantly engages in a bit of "sand throwing." He only gets a couple of handfuls into the air before he is told to stop and, being basically a very good child, he does, indeed, desist. However the damage has been done. Everyone was within range so all three got rained on - they had a little sand shower. There's grit in their hair! They feel dirty because, well, they are. They pick up shells on the beach, lots of shells and put them in the trunk. Mistake Number Nine. (All of us have done this and all of us know how those things are going to smell after a fifteen hour drive home in the heat.) They go back to the campsite for supper.

Time for bed!! Oops...we need to shower first because there is sand everywhere. It was about this time that it dawned upon our hero that he had made Mistake Number Ten. That's right, his tent site was across the entire campground from the bathhouse, something that grownups wouldn't necessarily notice (or care about) but when the group includes little kids, well, there are gonna be more than a couple of hikes to the latrines in the night. You can't leave a four-year-old (or a six-year-old for that matter) alone in a tent. When one of them goes, they all go. And, of course, they don't go at the same time. That would be too easy. As soon as they'd return from one bathroom excursion and get settled, there would be this sweet voice saying, "Daddy, don't get mad but...."

The next morning it's overcast. The group goes to a reptile type place, one with live snakes and alligators. I have an aversion for these sorts of creatures so I'm not going to dwell upon this portion of the vacation. Suffice it to say that it cost thirty bucks to get in.

After some more fun on the beach, it starts to cloud up. By late afternoon, there are ominous black storm clouds on the horizon. Hurry, hurry! Back to the tent! As the storm approaches, it becomes clear that it is a doozy and it is electrical. Our father here is no dummy and he's not about to be stuck in a tent with his kids in a nasty storm. He zips up the flap, throws the kids in the car and leaves. Sadly, he did not have time to put on the rain flap. [Mistake number....I can't remember any more. We are well into double digits now anyway. With this many errors, somebody better hit a home run fast!]

He drives for a while down the inter coastal waterway, stops at a pizza place to feed the kids supper and then he drives some more until he finds a place to stay. He doesn't care how much it costs, he just wants to be dry and safe in a nice room somewhere. It is from here that he calls us and says he's coming to visit us a day early. We can expect the group to roll in around noon the next day because we're four hours inland.

The next morning he calls us at about nine o'clock. He hadn't realized that they had driven about an hour and a half before finding a room, so it took them longer than they thought to get back to the site to collect their tent. Oh, and a raccoon had gotten into that tent during the night, enjoyed their camping food, generally messed up the interior of the tent and all its contents, then left - maybe. It was unclear at this point if there was a raccoon in the tent or not and they couldn't check right now because they were in the middle of another ferocious storm and were sitting in their car at the gas station near the campground. Oh, and since the rain flap wasn't on the tent, everything in the tent that the raccoon didn't destroy was drenched. Nice touch. (Truth really is stranger than fiction. I couldn't make this stuff up!  My imagination simply isn't this fertile.)

Locals say there is a time to go to the beach and there is a time to leave the beach. If you deviate from this window of time at all, you will get stuck in the tourist traffic. It turns out that you are not the only family from Ohio who thought an August vacation at a Carolina beach sounded like fun. That is why our soggy campers rolled into our neighborhood at four o-clock. Clearly they aren't local.

We had them immediately erect their tent in our driveway so it would dry out, which it did. We took the kids over to the playground to run off some steam, then brought them back and fed everyone supper. The kids needed baths to wash off the left-over beach party and then - around 8:00 - their Dad laid down with them until they fell asleep. He fell asleep, too. (No surprises there. He was exhausted. Being a single parent isn't for sissies.) They didn't wake up until morning. Nobody even heard the booming thunderstorm in the night.

Bright and early the next morning, the group tried to sneak out, but we are old and used to arising at the proverbial crack of dawn. We caught them writing us a note and persuaded them to stay for breakfast. After eggs and toast, my husband wound up the children by tossing them in the air, running after them, pretending to be a dinosaur, all the usual. They were pretty hyper as we strapped them into their car seats and waved good bye.

Was this a memorable vacation? Definitely. Was it "on the cheap"? Probably not. Either way, it's a good story.

Africa Hot

I'm trying to figure out how to describe the weather in my new state without sounding whiny. When I first arrived here in mid-May, it was already blazing outside and I told pretty much everyone I knew on the planet (and even a few strangers) how I felt about it. "If it's this hot in May, what will August be like?" I said one too many times. Turns out that this line of thought was irritating my husband more than a sore tooth. I had to stop.

I decided upon the phrase "Africa hot." It's descriptive and yet not offensive. I liked how it sounded when I said it, kind of perky and cute, a cheerleader of description. It also had the added plus of not annoying hubby. That in itself is reason enough to adopt it, so I did.

Yesterday, I was standing in my kitchen and a tear rolled down my cheek. Only I wasn't crying - it was sweat. And, I did mention that I was inside, didn't I?

Perhaps Africa hot is not accurate enough. From now on, maybe I'll just say I live east of Hell.