The Interview Cheat Sheet

The manager of the bed and breakfast that is my home-away-from-home is interviewing applicants for an innkeeper position.  I have a few questions for the prospective employee myself.  Here they are, along with the appropriate responses:

Q.  If your favorite guest (from the Greater Charlotte area) is going to arrive after hours, what do you do?

A.  Leave a plate of fudge in her room.



Q.  If your favorite guest (from the Greater Charlotte area) arrives to breakfast five minutes too late to be served, what do you do?

A.  Let her take a plate of fudge to her room.



Q. If your favorite guest (from the Greater Charlotte area) is sightseeing and it appears she is going to miss happy hour, what do you do?


A. Leave a plate of fudge in her room.



Q.  If the inn is full and you notice that your favorite guest (from the Greater Charlotte area) has pigged down all the fudge before the other guests have even made lipstick marks on the rims of their wine glasses, what do you do?

A.  Put out crab dip and crackers for the wine snobs and take a plate of fudge (from your secret stash) to her room. 



Trick question: (to separate the shrewd innkeeper from the ordinary)

Q.  Your favorite guest (from the Greater Charlotte area) has left her purse at the inn.  What do you do?

A.  Mail her a box of fudge.  Slip in a note that you are holding the purse in your office and she can retrieve it, along with a plate of fresh fudge, next time she's in town. 


If and only if the prospective innkeeper can cheerfully answer these simple questions correctly does he/she get the coveted "favorite guest (from the Greater Charlotte area) seal of approval."

Good luck to all the applicants! 

Husband of the favorite guest (from the Greater Charlotte area)

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!

The Missing Checkbook

I was getting frantic.  I hadn't seen the checkbook for over a week and was beginning to think that it was lost and not just misplaced.  I spent the last two days tearing up the house searching.  As a result, my laundry room has never looked better.  Good news!  The checkbook was not under the washing machine.

It wasn't in the spare bedroom closet either.  Or in the freezer.  Not in the dresser drawer or under the bathroom sink.  Nix on the bookshelves (although I emptied them twice just to be sure.)  Not in the boxes of Christmas ornaments.  Jerry helped me search for several hours the other night.  I figure I have about twenty-five man hours invested in this project all together.  Still no checkbook.

The last time I could remember seeing it we were in Charleston.  I began wondering, would we drive back to Charleston just to get our checkbook?  How far would you backtrack to pick up a lost item?

                                                 *  *  *

When we were traveling back from Orlando a couple of weeks ago, we hit a storm system that was spawning tornadoes.  We'd planned to drive straight through, but considered the weather and stopped just at the edge of Savannah.  There was a cluster of chain motels there and we just picked one and slept there.  Nothing special, just an emergency place to stay.

In the morning we got up early and left.  We had breakfast in Savannah and it was during this meal that Jerry asked, "Did you grab the pillows?" I hadn't and so then we had a little dilemma.  Do we go back and get them or not? 

I really like my pillow.  It's goose down and broken in.  I feel about it like a four-year-old feels about her blankie.  I am attached to it, but I don't necessarily want people to know.  I hated to leave it behind, but Jerry's determination to get from "Point A" to "Point B" as rapidly as possible is legendary.  I harbored little hope that he would drive ten minutes in the wrong direction to retrieve it. 

Calling the motel was a good idea, but neither of us could remember what the name of it was and we hadn't gotten a receipt. I reasoned that it was still early and maybe the maids hadn't even cleaned our room yet but Jer didn't want to bother driving that far if they'd already thrown our pillows away. 

Jerry was calling random motel chains, asking them "Are you the motel by the Cracker Barrel?" when I realized I had stuffed my pillow into my suitcase.  The urgency of the trip back magically dissolved for me now that I knew my own pillow wasn't at risk.  Funny how that works, right?  I hadn't mentioned my news yet to Jer, but he sensed that something was different in my attitude. "Whatever you want to do, honey."  I said sweetly.

When I finally told him only his pillow was left in the room, he surprised me by deciding to go back anyway.  Apparently he likes his pillow as much as I like mine.  It was worth the extra twenty minutes' drive just to know that we would have our own pillows to sleep on when we got home.

A week or so later I was trying to make my friend who works at a B&B laugh by telling her the pillow story.  She did smile but then she told me an even funnier  one.  A snarky couple stayed with them for a couple of nights and when they left, the maid found a pair of men's underwear and a pair of socks in the bureau drawer.  "What should I do with these?" she asked.  It had been about forty-five minutes since these guests had departed so my friend said, "Throw them in the dumpster."

Wouldn't you know about fifteen minutes later the man called and said he was coming back for them?  The women were both flabbergasted!  How much can a pair of underwear and socks cost?  The gas they were going to spend to drive back to the inn probably would have covered the price tags of replacements and then some. 

The women quickly did a dumpster dive and recovered the articles, slightly worse for the wear.  Breakfast scraps had been thrown in on top of the underwear, so they now had Hollandaise sauce decorating the front panel.  The innkeeper scrubbed them the best she could, stuck them in a plastic bag and just handed the whole mess to the man when he arrived.  "Don't even ask," she told him.  

He'd added a hundred and twenty minutes to his drive in order to retrieve his pair socks and a wet pair of underpants.  It's a crazy world.

                                                   *  *  *

Sam "driving" the van.

So, would we drive four hours one-way to retrieve our checkbook?   We won't need to find out this time because I found it outside in the recycling bin.  Like I said, it's a crazy world.

Little Men

My darling grandson Brody (a.k.a. the cutest toddler ever) welcomed his very own cousin Logan to the world today. The little guy has a shock of black hair that most men can only envy.  A new life.  What a reason for celebration! 

Little Men

How can you not remember the births of your own children when you gaze upon a brand-new baby?

Our firstborn was conceived during that phase of our lives when we were kids masquerading as adults.  In the fall of 1976, at the ripe old age of twenty-three, we anticipated our baby's arrival together.  Jerry and I moved from Louisiana to Ohio and had just bought a 1920's bungalow that we were fixing up. 

We spent the day wallpapering the nursery.  Wallpapering is tedious and all that running up and down the ladder tired us both out.  We watched Johnny Carson then fell into bed, exhausted.  As Jerry was drifting off to sleep and I was relaxing, I felt an odd sensation, a pang of pain. 

"This is it!" I cried. 

"Roll over and go to sleep." replied Mr. Compassion.

Instead of taking his advice, I leapt up and my water broke all over everywhere.  Suddenly Jerry was wide awake.  This was no fire drill, it was the real deal!  I called our parents while he got the car.  It was an hour's drive to the hospital and that was the longest ride of my life.  Every time we hit a pothole, I flinched.  I made sure Jerry was aware of my pain too.  Turns out I'm not at my best during labor.  Who knew?

For a while Jer was driving carefully, avoiding potholes.  I was thinking that maybe I didn't really want to be pregnant after all, wondering if it were too late to back out.  Suddenly I noticed that the car had stopped.  Although somewhat distracted, somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that we were not in the hospital parking lot.  No.  We were at the gas station.  My husband chose this moment to buy gas, something that I felt was totally inappropriate.  I told him that, too.   

"I have to drive home and the gas stations might be closed by then," he reasoned.  He was not endearing himself to me.  I was certain that I was about to give birth in the back of his orange Toyota Corolla.

Turns out that I didn't have to worry because I had one of those long, drawn-out affairs where the nurses tell you to "push" and when you do they say, "I can see the head.  Push harder!" And when you push harder and nothing happens, they say the same thing over again. "Push!"  "Push!"  May I point out that I had taken birthing classes and, in my mind at least, was the valedictorian of the group, overachiever that I am?

This is not how the experience was supposed to be unfolding.  We had seen the film in which the mom pushed roughly three times and the baby was born.  No baby was emerging here and no drugs had been administered either.  I pointed out this omission.  "You don't want to drug your baby," they said.  No, I didn't want to drug my baby.  I wanted to drug myself, a small but crucial difference that somehow I was unable to make them comprehend. 

Somewhere after hour twelve, the doctor came in and there was whispering about "the poor girl."  Silly me, I thought they were talking about the woman in the next bed.  I even felt sorry for her.  My mistake.  Shortly thereafter, the doctor ... I still can't believe this ... shoved the baby back up -- that's right, you read that correctly -- and said, "Don't push, you'll injure the baby."  Now, this is after twelve hours TWELVE HOURS of being told to push.  Nice.  Real nice.

Ever the drama queen, as they are wheeling me into surgery, I am yelling, "Save the baby!  Save the baby!  Organ donor!  I want to be an organ donor!  Take everything!  Just save the baby!"  I don't remember anyone actually slapping me, but I bet a couple of people wanted to.  

The nurse gave Jerry my wedding rings and glasses to hold because he was not able to go into the operating room with me.  And so the Daddy-to-be sat and waited.  He'd been up for over twenty-four hours by now and was getting sleepier and sleepier as the minutes ticked by.  The surgery went fast and before he knew it, we were in recovery.  Jerry assured himself that we were both okay and then went home to bed. Who could blame him?  (Me, as it turns out.) 

He drove home with my glasses still in his pocket and, in his sleep deprived fog, he also neglected to call my mother to tell her that we'd had a son.  Heck, he even forgot to call his own mother.  Not his smoothest moves, right?

Now Jerry's home sleeping and I am bitter that I don't have my glasses.  I am telling this story to the medics as they are wheeling me down the hallway to my hospital room.  I must have been louder than I thought ...

...because in that very room was a lady who was praying to God - earnestly begging him not to bring this loud woman (me) into her room.  God, of course, has a wildly wicked sense of humor and that's how I met my friend Margaret. 

When the mothers finally got to the hospital to see the baby, they totally forgot about being annoyed with Jerry, so strong was their love for their sweet grandson.  Babies are like that, so adorable and full of promise that they make everyone around them want to be better people.

As they say, all's well that ends well.  Congratulations, Brigit and Jeff.

Another Charleston Story

Just livin' the dream...

We are back in Charleston again this week and we took the opportunity to do a little kayaking in Shem Creek last evening.  It was a bit choppy but still so relaxing and peaceful.  After Jer had loaded the kayaks back on our car-top carrier, we headed back to the city to meet friends for supper.

As I've said before, Charleston is:    a) a fabulous place to be 

                                                    b) a horrible place to find parking

 

We were running a bit late because of our kayaking and traffic was stressing Jerry out.  Finally he found a parking lot, turning in only to find that it had "employee parking only" signs in every single spot.  Tension was mounting.  Meanwhile I (ever helpful) tried to tell him about a place to park I knew of, but by now he was too annoyed to really hear me. 

There was a parking garage almost directly across the street from the lot that we were currently sitting in so a grumpy Jerry maneuvered the car out into traffic, got in the left-hand lane, positioned himself to turn and waited for an opening in traffic.  While we waited, the traffic situation became unbearable.  The man in the vehicle behind us was laying on his horn over and over and every time he honked, Jer got angrier and angrier.

"I'm not a fighting man, but the traffic in Charleston just gets to me," he said.  "I'd like to just get out and punch that guy behind me right in the nose!" he continued. (He doesn't usually talk like this but the cars and the noise were crazy bad.)

Right then there was a break in traffic and as we turned to pull into the parking garage the man behind us moved on and the honking stopped.  We sighed with relief and at that exact moment heard a loud crunching noise.  It was then that we realized that we'd tried to enter a parking garage with two kayaks strapped to the roof of our car.

Jerry burst out laughing because he realized that the jerk behind him honking was really just a nice guy trying to warn him about what was going to happen.  "I wish I could find that man and apologize for what I was thinking about him" he said.

Our faith in humanity restored, we backed into traffic once again, drove around the corner, parked in a metered spot on the street and walked to our destination, laughing all the way.

Life is an adventure.

                                                   *    *    *          

(To read about the first time we tried the tricky drive-into-the-parking-garage-with-kayaks-on-the-roof maneuver, go to the right side bar, click 2011, click July, click the the post entitled "A Story of Skill, Not Stupidity.")

This is me floating in my pretty blue kayak (which is
now a little scratched up but otherwise unharmed.)

Shortcuts

Ever taken a short-cut home?  Once in grade school I took one with my friend Marcia McVey.  Marcia's dad was a minister and they lived in the parsonage next to the church in the center of our tiny town. 

We walked through the school parking lot, into an alleyway then squirmed through a little hole in the fence and ended up in her backyard.  It was a cool adventure and a true shortcut -- if you were Marcia.  I, however, was not.  (She had poker-straight blonde hair that fell to the middle of her back in kindergarten.  We were only five.  How did she grow hair that long in just five years?  Even then, I remember asking myself that question.  Kind of a funny thing for a kindergartner to think about, but I was that kind of kid.

Sweet, wispy haired kid

This story is not about Marcia's hair -- although it could be, the hair was that pretty.  I mean, it's been fifty-four years since I was in kindergarten.  I'm even not sure of the spelling of her first name any more, yet I still vividly remember the hair that the girl had.  When she hung upside down on the trapeze* on the playground, her hair touched the ground.  That was a big, big thing with the kindergarten set, especially those of us with wispy hair that barely grazed our shoulders.)

*No kidding, this tiny town in Michigan had a trapeze bar on the playground.  Why?  Who knows?  But cool though, right?

Back to the shortcut story:

Not only was I not Marcia (I feel I've firmly established that by this point in my narrative) I also did not live on that side of town and so I had to walk myself all the way back around the block, pass the school, then take my normal route home.  It wasn't such a shortcut for me.  No, it was actually the opposite of a shortcut, really.  It took much, much longer to get home that day than normal and when I did get home I was in hot water.  (Duh.)

I've been feeling like I've been taking a lot of those kind of shortcuts lately,  whenever I use Jerry's old GPS, to be exact.  I swear, that GPS tries to get me to drive to Marcia's house before it takes me home every time I use it.

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!

Me

If it really is all about me -- and the jury is still out on this -- then why do I use the word "I" so much?

Little kid with a great big laugh!

In the Garden

Acres and Acres of

Bright Blooming Azalea Blossoms

(These are from the Santorums' Backyard)

+

Gorgeous Hanging Wisteria

+

Two Cormorants

+

Two Peacocks

+

Two Peahens

-

Two Baby Alligators

-

One Snake

=

My Trip to Middleton Place Garden

One word description:  Wow!

Sweet Savannah?

Savannah may be a city that oozes southern charm, but one thing in short supply is available bathrooms.  Hospitality doesn't seem so hospitable when you have to go and all you see in every direction are signs that say, "No Public Restrooms."

St. Paddy's Day in Savannah is legendary and the population swells to three times its normal size.  I arrived one week later and the city was clearly recovering from its collective hangover.  I have zero idea where the beer swilling Irishmen or their Irish-wanna-be friends relieved themselves during their big fun (want me to guess?) but I found myself walking square after square in search of the golden fleece -- in this case, a toilet. 

While I searched, I cursed that sneaky waiter at the outdoor cafe who kept surreptitiously filling my water glass until I had probably unwittingly consumed several gallons of liquid, far in excess of what my tiny bladder would normally accommodate.   Come to think of it, he had an Irish lilt to his voice.  My suspicion is that he had a personal St. Paddy's Day ax to grind. 

Soon I found myself standing in line inside a gourmet market/petrol station waiting for the opportunity to humiliate myself by asking the guy cashiering for the restroom key.  Just as my turn finally arrived --and not a moment too soon--a young girl breezed in and said, "Excuse me.  Could I please have your restroom key?"  And he gave it to her!

I peeled out of line and followed the girl with the restroom key into the store's underbelly.  This market was one of those snobbish, upscale places where they sell chocolate candy bars for six bucks a piece.  Even the help was able to size me up and with one arch of an eyebrow make me feel I didn't belong there.  Well, the joke's on them because their store isn't all that attractive back there in the loo line and the restroom, even though you had to use a key to access it, wasn't any cleaner than the average gas station's.

Beggars can't be choosers though and I was truly grateful that they allowed me to use their facilities, albeit grudgingly.  I bought a candy bar on the way out.  It was surprisingly tasty. 

Maybe you really do get what you pay for.

BUNCO

How much fun did the twenty of us have at our St. Paddy's Day BUNCO party?

I'm guessing a lot because during the games a big tree fell in the backyard and nobody heard it.

That's how much fun BUNCO is.

Astronauts

We went to the Kennedy Space Center in Orlando yesterday.  Whereas this might not be a dream destination for the ladies in the group, the guys were pretty excited about it.

First we watched an IMAX film on repairing the Hubble telescope.  It was in 3D.  I always thought 3D was kind of cheesy, but this was really cool.  Maybe it was where I was seated, the geometric center of the theatre, or maybe technology has just advanced since last time I saw anything 3D (The Disney production "Bees.")  Anyway, things just kept hurling at me throughout the 45 minute presentation and it was fun.

When I see shows about space, it creeps me out - so vast and amazing is the subject.  Earth is beautiful! Pictures of our blue planet fill me with wonder but when I see worlds so far away that I can't even grasp the distance, well, I just am awed.

I must have "spaced out" because next I found myself getting my "astronaut i.d. picture" taken to ride on the launch simulator.  This is so not me.  I hate loud noise, I do not like being mechanically shaken and sometimes I find being inside small spaces a wee bit confining.  Still, there were a lot of elderly grannies and small children in line with me so I didn't want to be the one to freak out. 

When we got to the front of the line, the attendant said we'd be the next group to go in.  This meant ten minutes more for me to focus on fear, not a good thing.  A rather large man behind us nervously asked if he'd be able to catch the 6:15 bus if he waited and he was assured that was not problem.  At this point, a guy appeared with a kid of about five or six in his arms.  The child was crying and shaking, clearly frightened by whatever it was we were about to do.  The attendant gently talked to him until he calmed down but she couldn't convince him to go back in.  His violent reaction fueled my fears.

As we waited, the attendant told us that last week there was a malfuntion.  They had to close down twice and it took half the day to fix the problem.  My overactive imagination placed me inside the simulator, trapped for hours.  This probably was not the place to allow my mind to wander at this particular juncture either. 

Finally we saw a movie about what we would experience.  They stressed FODs (foreign object debris) and how things could come out of your pockets and pose a threat to others.  They asked that you place things into lockers provided. Problem was, I never saw any lockers so I began worrying about my hat and sunglasses.  As I'm obsessing about that, we passed lots of large signs warning us about the dangers of FODs.  Then we stood on yellow lines in front of a bank of doors.  There was another short video the gist of which was 'there's no shame in leaving now if you don't feel this experience is for you.' 

At this point I seriously thought about bailing - and so did my son-in-law - but peer pressure kept us both glued to the spot.  They opened up the doors and in we went, strapping ourselves in tightly.  Jerry suggested that I sit on my floppy hat which I did and then, necessity being the mother of invention, I tied my sunglasses to my pants using the drawstring on the waist.  I was good to go - nervous, but good.  Then the lights went down.

As I'm taking a deep breath to calm myself, that big, nervous man from earlier jumped up and started screaming, "I can't do this!  Let me out!"  My husband (Mr. Type A) tells the guy he'd better sit down and strap himself back in or he's gonna become a human FOD.  Mr. Panicky doesn't listen though and begins banging on the door of the simulator screaming.  This further agitates Mr. Type A who has visions of Mr. Panicky landing on us sometime during the next six minutes.

Fortunately this wasn't the Space Center's first rodeo.  The ride was stopped, the doors were opened, the fearful fellow bolted out of the simulator.  The attendant came in and asked the guy's companion if he didn't want to get out to check on Mr. Panicky?  Apparently the answer was "no" because  he didn't get out.  She also sweetly asked us if anyone else wanted to exit.  Both Brent and I wanted to, but peer pressure is a powerful thing and it kept us glued to our seats.

The simulation was loud and our capsule did move but never did we actually go upside down.  It was really quite tame when compared to my imagination.  As we exited our craft, we had to walk around Mr. Panicky who was dramatically splayed on the floor just outside the simulator.

I decided to buy our space i.d. pictures as a great souvenir of overcoming fears.  While I was standing in line, I heard an attendant asking a man behind me if he didn't want to look at his prints.  It was Mr. Panicky himself.  "I bailed," he said. "I don't deserve my picture."

My son-in-law, the brave astronaut

Twisted Sisters

I met this gal at a ladies' party and I hit it off with her right away.  She's young, about the same age as one of my kids, vivacious and delightful...and she's a yoga instructor.  Before she left, she gave me a card for a free lesson.  That was so sweet, but no way was I going to go to her class.  Thank God it was far away so I had an excuse!  I realize that every other woman in America loves yoga but not me.  I took a class once and I was still sore from it three months later.  No siree Bob, not doin' it.

Then came the emails.  Finally, the kicker -- she's starting a class in T.C. and that's where I live.  She officially invited me to her premier class.  What can I do?  I have been trapped!  I am horrified at the thought of yoga.  I know that I haven't been flexible enough to touch my own toes since I achieved double digits, yet I feel it would be rude not to attend and be supportive of her new venture. 

I argued with myself a lot about attending this class but somehow this morning I find myself wearing a pair of Lycra leggings and a shirt that's far too tight to be comfortable.  (I'm still not sure it will stay put if I do anything more exotic than sit down.)  There are whole industries that are devoted to yoga garb but I don't feel inclined to purchase an actual "yoga outfit" for something I'm sure will be a one-time-shot.  At best I'll be comic relief for the other students.  At worst... well, let's just not focus on that.

See ya on the other side.

                                 *   *   *          *   *   *        *   *   *

When I arrived at class, it looked like it might be a private lesson.  Oh, no!  That would not be good.  Not. Good.  At the eleventh hour though, another woman arrived - thank you GOD - and even better than that, it was my friend Mary.  Now Mary is one of the nicest women on the planet (I'm sure she doesn't even kill mosquitoes) and I was relieved because I knew she'd see the best in everything which would rein me in a little if I started whining and complaining.  If?

A graceful and smiling lady

The instructor is just too cute!  She looks like a young Deborah Messing and has all the energy and high spirits of youth.  Unfortunately for me, my youth has long since vanished and has left me with a little less to work with.  We posed.  We did the downward dragging dog, the sphinx, pigeon, half moon, dancer, little cobra and quite a few other pretzel moves.  Whenever we'd settle into a new pose our leader would ask us, "Where do you feel that?"  For me an easier question would have been "Where don't you feel that?"  I felt it everywhere and not in the happy way that she seemed to be feeling her stretches, either.

 

And it was then that we had a differing of opinions.  She thought my body was telling me that it would like to stretch more and I was hearing, "Stop this immediately or you'll be sorry!"  

About the time my elbows started to sweat, we changed gears and did some balancing exercises.  Then came my favorite of all yoga poses known to mankind called, "The Corpse."  You just lie on your back and pretend you're a possum trying to fool predators.  I was pretty good at that one, I must say.  That the ended of one of the longest hours of my life.  We were finally done.

That's when I found out the class wasn't an hour, it was an hour and a half  -- and -- it meets twice a week.

We Danced

Saturday night there was a reunion dance at the clubhouse.  It featured music from the '70s, '80s and '90s and you were supposed to dress in what you wore back then.  The Goth girls of the '90s were the scariest in their short, black leather getups with black bustiers, fishnet stockings and black lipstick.  Their hair stuck up like the a rooster's combs.  Some wore white makeup, which added to the creepy factor.

(Flashback to my days as Mom the Chauffeur:  One Halloween after school I picked Katie and a neighbor boy up from high school.  Danny asked if I'd give his friend a ride home, too.  The guy had on classic Goth -- total black all the way down to his black fingernail polish and spiked leather choker.  It was truly frightening and I raved about his outfit the entire time until I dropped him off.  Then Danny said, "Mrs. Z., he wasn't wearing a costume.")

Back to the present:

Groovy!

Jerry wore what Jerry has worn every day for the entire time I have known him, blue jeans and a tee shirt.  It was probably the most authentic costume at the event. On the other hand, I wore a flower in my hair, my wire rims, beige lipstick and a maternity outfit. 

In our group,Rita was the clear winner - she had on a jean jacket, beads, a head band and John Lennon round shades, tinted bright blue. Classic biker Mama.

We danced.  I twisted, ponied, monkeyed, swam, bumped and even did the jerk.  Jerry and I busted out some of our swing moves and also fox trotted.  Finally those three years of dance classes obviously paid off!  One..two...three... One...two...three... 

The last time we did so much dancing was in the '80s.  We'd round up our neighbors and head over to the Dillsboro Civic Center on Saturday nights and have ourselves some big fun.  The rooms were smokier back then, but the band didn't seem as loud. 

When the party was over we came home, set our clocks ahead and went right to sleep.  It was easy to wake up in the morning, but it wasn't easy to get up.  Funny, I don't remember being this sore forty years ago. 

Tempting Fate

You know when you're a kid how you think the whole world revolves around you?  You use your mind to dissolve the clouds.  You change the color of the stoplight with a single glance.  You wish that your friend would call and then she does  - right then, at that very moment.  You think that the powers of your mind are vast and infinite. 

Zoomer Junior

Then you grow up.  You realize that maybe some things are beyond your control.  Maybe Uncle Ned had that heart attack, not because you forgot to remember him in your prayers, but because his arteries were full of gunk from eating donuts, BLTs and swilling beer his entire life.  Maybe his addiction to biggie fries was more of a factor in his illness than you were.

Well, my last post was about my husband the NASCAR driver then last night, for the first time in years, he was stopped by the police and presented with a speeding ticket.  He blames me for this.  According to him, I wrote this article and caused this to happen.  Tempting fate, I think is the technical term.


So then, once and for all, does the world revolve around me or not?




P.S.  Jerry's new nickname is "Zoomer."

NASCAR Mama

It's late spring in Charleston.  Azaleas are blooming.  Colorful window boxes filled with geraniums, lobelias and petunias are everywhere.  What a beautiful time to visit.  We are here  again!    

We are staying at our favorite bed and breakfast.  One of the reasons I love visiting here is because they have a double decker porch and the guest rooms all have doors to access it.  Often while Jerry is at work I will sit on the deck and type, enjoying the breeze. 

I also like to chat with whoever else shows up.  I am quite gregarious, as most of you know first-hand, and I never met a stranger.  Yesterday I was in my own little world, typing away and when I looked up, a couple was sitting at the end of the porch.  I wandered over and struck up a conversation.

We exchanged pleasantries and they told me they are from up north.  I mentioned that we used to live near Cleveland but moved to Charlotte two years ago.  At this point I saw that they were drinking beer which is, no doubt, delightful if you are a beer drinker which I am not.  The woman mentioned that they had a few left in the cooler from the trip and wanted to finish them up before switching to the wine that the inn serves for happy hour. 

Now I personally don't carry a cooler of beer in my car when I go on road trips (or ever, for that matter) but I won't pass judgement on people who do because I don't know the circumstances.  Maybe they only pop open a couple of cold ones after they reach their destination for the night, I just don't know.  What I do know is that these folks seemed pretty happy and my guess is that these were not their first brewskies of the evening. 

About this time, the guy asked me how long it takes to drive from Cleveland to Charlotte, to which I replied, "Eight hours door to door but my husband is like a race car driver."  The lady, however, being in a bit of an altered state mentally from her aforementioned activities, got all excited and started jumping up and down. 

"Race car driver!  I can't wait to tell our son that I met the wife of a race car driver!" 

She clearly had not absorbed the little words (like a) and was so excited that she didn't hear when I tried to straighten her out.  Her enthusiasm at the idea was so impressive that finally I decided to allow her to continue believing this fantasy.  After all, Charlotte is the home of NASCAR, and Jerry could be a race car driver.  He certainly drives fast enough to be a qualifier if he chose to. Is it so wrong to let her think she had had a brush with the wife of someone famous? 

If you see us walking down the street in Charleston this week, just pretend my husband "drives the 18 car" and call him Kyle Bush.

Lucky

Lucky me!

Yesterday I was out walking with my best bud Mary Ann when I found a four-leafed clover.  I was so excited!  Then Mary Ann said, "It doesn't count.  It's not a shamrock." 

What?  Not a shamrock?  What could she be thinking?   Is the song "I'm looking over a four-leaf shamrock?"  I think not.

I'm pretty sure it DOES count.  In fact, I'm certain of it.  Oh yes.  A four-leafed clover counts.  It so counts.  It absolutely counts.

Snubbed Again

I went to an elegant Academy Awards event on Sunday night.  Flower petals were strewn across the entrance; there was a lush red carpet; paparazzi flashed pictures as women in floor-length furs swept by.  Shrimp, salmon and champagne were served.  There was even a delicious Italian torte from Jason's Deli, the Spagos of the South. 

Men never look better than when they don their tuxedos and the women were smashing in silk, satin, and sequins.  Diamonds (or rhinestones, in my case) glittered brilliantly on ears, necks and wrists.  Even Charlie the cat was wearing a bowtie.  (Since he's black, he chose a white one for effect.)

I cannot overemphasize the elegance of the evening.  It was so formal that women were wearing both pantihose and updos.  In every way, this was an affair to remember, just a cut above the norm.  We don't get much classier than this here in The Cay.  There was only the slightest of shadows cast over the evening, practically too small to mention, really.

Okay, here it is.  George snubbed us again.  There!  Now everybody knows.  For the second year in a row, he has ignored our formal invitation to attend the soiree of the season then brazenly turned up at a televised event in Hollywood, taunting us with his cheekiness.

I have only one thing to say to you, George Clooney, and this is not sour grapes.  We only invited you for the eye candy factor anyway.

Amen

"Cleanliness is next to Godliness"

I'd always heard that cleanliness is next to Godliness but I never realized how serious God was about this until my Sunday School teacher told our class the shortest sentence in the Bible, "Jesus swept."

Hats, hats and more hats...and with pictures!

Several people had questions about last week's post, so here's the clarification you requested.  The headgear that Jerry's wearing (no, it's not a shower cap) is a feathered headband and was worn during a New Year's Eve that we celebrated with our friends and former neighbors, the Grayelettis.  The beautiful - but unhappy- baby is our own sweet Brody on the occasion of his first birthday.  He obviously doesn't like hats as well as his grandpa.

Brody's Uncle Josh loves a good hat, too.

Josh has quite a collection of hats and in that, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.  I have enough pictures of my husband in goofy hats that I could wallpaper the dining room with them....but I don't and perhaps that's why we're still married after all these years.  However, I am not above including one in this blog occasionally, especially if I think I can get a laugh out of it. I thought the feather hat would do it, but didn't count on people not being able to recognize what it was. 

Enchanting!

Precious

Now that I think about it, it's not just the guys in our family that love wearing hats for all occasions, it's just that they look the funniest in them.  We gals look cute in velvet witches hats or adorable in homemade birthday hats but people don't usually laugh out loud at us. 

The men, for some reason, are funnier than we are when they put on hats.  I don't know why but I do know on a gut level that this picture of Jerry from the 1970s will make some people laugh out loud. 

"Chris, look what I found in the basement!"

And, finally, here are a few pictures from the Zimmerman tiara collection. If this isn't enough to land me in divorce court, I think this marriage will probably last a lifetime.

Tiara and wig - jackpot!

Mine has an understated elegance

Little Kate

"Oh!  What kind of family have I
gotten myself into?"

Deep Thoughts

This evening, Jerry had a thought that he felt was profound, so he repeated it to me two or three times.  He said he thinks I need to hear something at least twice and sometimes the third time's the charm.  I feel that this need to repeat himself is borne of the fact that he himself doesn't listen to anything I say until at least the third go-round.

Would you buy a used car from
this man?

Quote from Jerry Zimmerman:


"All sorts of people have all sorts of opinions about all sorts of things."


Thank-you very much dear Jerry for this insight.  Perhaps I ought to wage a write-in campaign for you for President this fall.  You're sounding more and more like a politician every day.

"How can people take
me seriously when I'm
wearing a clown hat?"

Meanwhile, I'm having trouble focusing on the magazine article I'm reading entitled, "Focus."

****H.t.N.N.E. *****

Northern Girl

I'm a Northerner born and bred and spent most of my life kicking around the Midwest.  I have lived for significant chunks of time in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio.  What these three states have in common is long, snowy, cold winters.  Now I'm not saying my favorite season is winter because it's not.  My seasonal preferences are: spring, fall, winter, summer.  Although I love the blazing color of sugar maples on a crisp autumn day, spring wins by a nose because the days are getting longer and light cheers people up.

Last year was my first winter in South Carolina.  There was a week of winter weather with about an inch or two of snow on the ground.  People made snowmen, angels in the snow and sledded down golf course greens on blow-up mattresses.  Fun!

Normal life came to a screeching halt.  Nobody in our neighborhood was foolish enough to try to go to work except Jerry.  (When he got there, he found the place was closed.)  There was no bread or milk to be found in any area grocery stores; UPS delivery and the Post Office both took three-day vacations.  People frolicked in the winter wonderland, just like all the kids and kids-at-heart do on the first snowfall of each and every year up north.  People in the know told me that this was "an unusually cold winter."  It seemed perfect to me. 

This winter it's been unseasonably warm throughout lots of the country, including here.  Last weekend was our first cold snap.  It was 42 degrees out when my friend texted me, "Is it cold enough for you now?"  How do I respond to that?  "Yes" if you mean "Is it cold enough to wear a jacket."  If you want to see me dig out my winter coat though, it is going to have to get considerably colder -- say zero and windy.  Even then I probably won't keep it buttoned.  If it gets to ten below, I will skip my morning walk, unless it's sunny out.  Sunshine always makes the day seem warmer.

The northern girl key to comfort in the cold is layering.  Leggings under jeans, undershirts under shirts under sweaters.  Cotton socks under wool ones in  lined boots.  Scarf under coat with mittens and hat.  (If it's frigid -- or you're going ice skating, snowmobiling or ice fishing -- you can add insulated underwear, a fleece vest, gloves under your mittens and a ski mask.)  Now I've revealed my cold coping strategies, could some southern woman kindly return the favor and explain to me how you seem so comfortable in the high heat and humidity of summer?

Formal, but he likes to party

The difference between the north and the south is easy. Their high is our low all winter long. In the summer, our low is their high.  In between these seasons in either direction (both geographically and time-wise) is when it's going to be the most fun living anywhere.



**Jerry wears shorts and tee shirts year round, so the opinions in this blog post are not necessarily those espoused by this entire household.**