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!

Vanity, thy name is Chris

I'm checking out my Facebook news feed and I see this picture:

Underneath the picture in the comments section, I read:

            Erik Bard: Did ChrisZimmerman get a dog?

* * *

Intellectually I know that Erik knows that this is NOT a picture of ChrisZimmerman.  I know this because he is a friend of my daughter's and this is a picture of her.  Clearly he has NOT mistaken me for this stunning young woman.  Intellectually, I know this.

Emotionally, however, it's a different story. In my mind, I still look sixteen.  Every time I get a glimpse of myself in a mirror, it shocks me to see the me that others see.  Inside, I look like this picture of my daughter.  (Only I never wore shoes with heels so high that I had to climb a ladder to get into them.  How does she walk in those?) 

For a split second, I tricked myself into the thrill of thinking that someone else saw a glimpse of the "real me."  I'd like to take this opportunity to publicly thank Erik for that.  Thank-you, Erik!  (And no, this is not my dog.)

The next thing I knew, I was having this flashback to the late 1980's.  Jack, who must have been all of forty at the time, was telling us about his morning.  On the way to work, he decided to swing by McDonald's drive-thru for coffee. The worker at the window was twenty-something and she was flirting with him outrageously.  She was a cutie and he was quite flattered.  Then, as she was giving him his change back, she winked at him and said, "I gave you the senior's discount."

Speaking of Clean...

My friend was talking to me about his cousin who washes every load of laundry twice and changes the sheets and blankets of the beds in her house daily.  While he was talking, I was day-dreaming about how wonderful it would be to greet sleep wrapped in fresh-smelling sheets every single night of the week.  Somewhere in the background of my reverie, he said, "She's a raving neurotic."

So. Does this make me a raving neurotic wannabe?

Speaking of clean, I'm going to Michigan next week to stay with my daughter and her family for five full weeks.  During this time, I will be cooking, cleaning, doing laundry and playing with my grandson while we await the arrival of his baby brother.  Then the fun starts!  Sounds kind of perfect, right?

Why is it that I can get so much more done at someone else's house?  I think the reason is that there's less distraction.  The stuff isn't mine so I don't get knocked off-track so easily.  I'm not really sure though.  That's just a theory.

What does a toddler do when his mother is nine-month's pregnant?

Anything he wants to!

 

This time my work's cut out for me.

The Creative Idea

I read this book called How to have Kick-Ass Ideas by Chris Barez-Brown and was so enchanted by the notion of having creative thoughts that I read it again.  Then I waited.  And waited.  And waited...  What would my first kick-ass idea be?  Would it bring me wealth?  Fame?

No....as it turned out I won't be receiving wealth OR fame this time. Today, while I was in that twilight-time between sleeping and waking, I had my first kick-ass idea.

A small idea, yes, but it's a start

Turns out that merely putting a towel under the watermelon before I cut it is a practical solution to an annoying problem - thus qualifying it as a kick-ass idea!  The towel absorbs all the juice that normally would be running off the cutting board, over the counter, down the cabinets and finally pooling on the floor,  generating massive clean-up efforts. I will not miss wiping up that sticky mess.

It's so simple!  I wonder why I didn't think of this before?

Wrinkles

"I do so hate wrinkles" my mother-in-law said to me in the late '70s.  It was during the permanent press craze when all you had to do was shake the leisure suits out and hang them up right out of the dryer.  Her statement amused me because I didn't hate wrinkles.  I didn't even notice them.  I was too busy chasing children and worrying about if my bikini made my butt look fat. 

Times have changed.  I don't have to wonder any more how my butt looks in my swimsuit because I already know.  I'm about the age my mother-in-law was when she uttered the wrinkle statement and now I get it.  These days I actually iron tee shirts and linen pants upset me on several levels.

I refuse to buy myself any clothes that say 'dry clean only' on the labels.  I don't want any garment enough to drive it somewhere, drop it off, wait a couple of days, drive back, pay, then drive back home again.  That's too much effort.

I am, however, the first one to run to the car and rush dress shirts to the laundry.  $1.65 per shirt seems a cheap enough price to pay to stay out of divorce court.  Jerry gets grouchy when he has to iron his own shirts and even grouchier when I iron them.  (Ironing is not one of my gifts.)  It's far from win-win at home but, for a small fee, we can keep this item out of the marital spat arena -- and we have enough issues in there already, ya know?

Since dry cleaning and dress shirts are off the table, the prima donnas in my laundry world are those garments that say, "Machine wash, gentle, lay flat to dry."  They are the bane of laundry day for me.  Half the time, I throw them in the dryer by accident.  They end up being dried to a crisp and come out looking like misshapen Barbie clothes. 

Vibrant orange, anyone?
Check out the shoes!

Even when I do wade into the laundry stream and rescue fragile clothing between the washer and the dryer, the 'lay flat to dry' part is still left.  Here in Humidity Village, SC, if you leave something out long enough for it to air dry, you've also left it damp long enough for it to smell sour, thus negating the entire washing process.

I bet you I could buy vintage polyester leisure suits on eBay.  Do you think Jerry would look better in baby yellow or powder blue?

Rags

 I was exploring the Flylady's cleaning website when I stumbled upon rags for sale in their e-store.  This seemed counter-intuitive to me so I was forced to look up the word "rags" on dictionary.com.  The first definition was:  a worthless piece of cloth, especially one that is torn or worn.  Exactly! 



Cloth diapers coming?

In fairness to the Flylady folks, their rags are purple, which, if I were going to actually buy a worthless piece of cloth, would be my preferred color.  But, of course, I am not.  There's no reason to buy rags at our house, we generate our own all the time.  (Bonus!  Anything the South Carolina clay soil touches automatically is rag material because it's discolored for all time and eternity, no exceptions.)

Now I know that what these flypeople are actually selling are not rags at all, but cleaning cloths.  I'm not buying them either.  That's what holey underwear and old undershirts are for, although back in the day the gold standard of cleaning cloths used to be cloth diapers. 

Kind of makes ya nostalgic, right?

Linda

Even in the saddest moments in life, there is humor.

Linda lost her seven-year battle with breast cancer and slipped peacefully into the next world while being held by the love of her life and with her daughter lying by her side.  It was a gentle exit to a stormy life. 

This was a fiesty chick with a quick wit and when I think of her I think of laughter.  Linda knew she was dying and she made two requests. "I want a helluva wake,"  she said, "and no bimbos in my bed."  I believe she intends to haunt Doug if he doesn't follow her wishes. 

Words of sympathy fall short so we do what we were taught to do: bring food.  Our neighbor was dropping off a casserole and Linda's four-year-old grandson answered the door.

"We don't need that,"  he said.  "We ordered pizza."

Rest in Peace

Linda Santorum
1951 - 2012

Doug and Linda with Grandson Grayson

Linda, Hope and Doug

Granddaughter Emma

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!

Keys

What to do when you are trying to stick to a budget and the urge for some "retail therapy" strikes?  Well, Kate and I decided to go to Home Depot and buy a couple of fancy house keys.   

We threw ourselves into the project and even attempted to buy Jer a Star Wars key, which I believe would have provided him with hours of amusement as well as an endless source of trivial conversation as well, but the blank didn't fit our door key type so he was out of luck.  I ended up buying three keys.  Katie chose a leopard print, I picked a tie-dyed one and since I happened to have Mary Ann's house key with me*, we bought her a fancy brown key with hot pink polka dots. When Mr. Home Depot guy was finished duplicating, he gave me back both of the dull, original keys and I stuck them in my pocket.  The entire purchase was well under ten dollars, a success by any budgeter's standards. 

(*Clarification:  I don't usually run around with other people's keys, but Mary Ann has been up north on an extended visit and I have been on cat duty.) 

Back at home, I grabbed the key out of my pocket, put it on a huge keyring and hung it by our front door so that when I go for walks, I can just grab it and go - and that's exactly what I did after supper when Katie and Jerry left to do some errands.

After my evening stroll I saw Mary Ann was finally back, so I stopped in to hear about her trip and presented her with her new key - which is adorable in every way and was suitably admired by its new owner.  It was only after I'd hiked back down to our place and tried to get in that I realized the key that I had put on my big-honking keyring wasn't to my front door, but was the original key to Mary Ann's door. 

So there I was, locked out of my house.  Kate's car was parked in the driveway and had the garage door opener in it, but it was locked too.  I was out of luck.   I  sat out on the deck for a while. It  was drizzling out and mosquitoes were buzzing but, on the whole, it wasn't a bad place to be.   Still, I had hoped to use this free time to catch up on some reading and my books were inside.  I decided to break in. 

I walked around the lower level to see if any windows were unlocked.  BINGO!  One was and (BONUS!) it didn't even have a screen on it.  I pushed and shoved and tried, without success, to open it.  Now I'm the first to admit that my mechanical aptitude is nil, but burglars make it look so easy. It's not though - at least not for me. (I have no doubt that Jerry could have opened that window in under sixty seconds.  This knowledge only made me feel more incompetent.)

Having totally and completely failed at Plan A, I defaulted to Plan B - go get my spare key from Mary Ann.  I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner!  Soon I was letting myself in, just in time to see Jer and Kate turning into our driveway. 

That evening when I was getting ready for bed I found Kate's old front door key in my pocket.

From the Sky

Katie was feeling pretty good about her choice to move here because we'd just finished picking a gallon and a half of plump, delicious blueberries.  We came home and she decided to grill herself some chicken while I made a salad. 

About two minutes later, I heard a blood-curdling scream.  I went tearing down the stairs in Mother-mode and calculated how long she'd been on the deck, thinking up worst-case scenarios - like the propane tank exploding for example.

As I rounded the corner and stepped onto the deck, I fully expected to see part of the house engulfed in flames, or something equally as dramatic.  What I saw instead was a very animated Kate dancing around and waving her arms.  The look on her face was sheer horror. 

"A giant slug fell from the sky right onto the grill." she explained.  "Now I am teetering on the edge of whether or not I can live here."

I've decided to add a fresh fruit salad for supper too - blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, cantaloupe, and throw in a little bit of watermelon from Florida, too.  Maybe that will tilt the teeter totter back in our direction.  If not, maybe a shopping trip would do the trick...

First-of-season blueberries

What I'm not going to tell her about are the skinks, Palmetto bugs, chameleons, black widow spiders, brown recluses or even about the various assorted flavors of poisonous snakes we have here. 

It's taken me a lifetime to arrive at this conclusion: some things are better left unsaid.

Airplane Rides

I don't like creepy airplane noises.  When the bell dings twice and the cabin stewards run up the aisle to the cockpit, intellectually I know that the captain probably only wants a cup of coffee, but I still get nervous.

My first airplane trip took place when I was eighteen years old. I was flying from Michigan to Texas and my parents were so worried about the transfer in Chicago that my father flew with me to O'Hare Airport then flew back home after he'd escorted me onto the proper flight.

From the start I have been a skittish passenger, but some years ago I found myself on a cross-country flight that was the scariest, most turbulent trip of my life. The plane was pitching and roiling and my stomach was churning. Every time we lurched, I got more frightened.  And then things deteriorated.  It was at that time I promised God that if he could only see his way clear to get me safely home to my babies, I would never fly again.  Never!  And I meant it, too. 

Time passed.  The kids grew up, our son moved out west, our daughter had our first grandchild up north and we moved down south.  Suddenly, not only am I flying, but I'm flying on tickets paid for by frequent flier miles.  Don't get me wrong, I still don't like creepy airplane noises and turbulence still makes me crazy scared, but when I get to choose between thirteen hours riding in the car and an hour and a half gliding through the sky, well, I'll pick the airplane every time.

I can almost hear God laughing.

My Monday Morning List

The FLYLADY (Marla Cilley) has a website dedicated to assisting people like me gain control of their housework monsters.  I love, love, love her system because when I use it, it works.  It's a strict routine using a timer, based upon a book called Sidetracked Home Executives.  I can strongly identify with the "sidetracked" part of the title, with the "executive" part, not so much.

Every Monday morning I get up and make a "to do" list of things I want to get done by noon.  Then I get distracted and end up doing something totally different.  Every Monday.  This is my routine.  I don't need to make a list on Tuesday or on any other day either, because I haven't finished my Monday morning list.  I could just call it my "Things to do this Week" list, but pride prevents me from admitting that it will take me five days to do what ought to be accomplished in four hours and I love the optimism of thinking that someday - someday - I might finish my Monday morning list on the same Monday morning.

Today, Katie noticed my Monday list on the counter, which is a minor miracle in itself because usually by Thursday the scrap piece of paper that I wrote the list on has either mysteriously vanished or gotten wet and is stuck to the counter, an illegible mess. 

"Holy Hannah!" she said.  "How many hours do you have in your day, girl?"  This was right before we both spent forty-five minutes searching for my purse, which we finally found hanging on the knobs of our bookshelf doors, camouflaged in plain sight.

I wonder if FLYLADY has a section on her website for slow learners.

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

Flea-market Find

A couple of years ago when we were at a low ebb financially, we had an urgent need for a mattress.  Being the shrewd shopper that I am, I hunted down a cheap one at a perpetual flea market near us.  It was only $219 (including tax) and came with a five year warranty.  What was I thinking?  We actually bought a mattress set at a flea market.  Seriously.  Although the thought did occur to me that the warranty was virtually useless, the price certainly was right so Jerry strapped those suckers to the roof of our car and off we rode.

Ever wake up feeling like you've spent the night sleeping in a cardboard box?  The next morning I wanted to be shaken out, uncrumpled and given a good ironing.  And things got worse.  Over the next few months whenever we sat down on the mattress, we would hear sprongy noises and sometimes in the night we'd hear sounds suspiciously like wood splintering.  Turns out buying the flea market mattress set was not our finest hour.  Go figure!

As time progressed, fortune again smiled upon us and we decided to purchase a new mattress and relegate the flea market find to the guest room.  This time we purchased a memory foam knock-off from an internet site.  It came vacuum packed and when we opened the plastic, it exploded into the mattress that we know and love to this very day.

Now that I was once more enjoying blissful slumber, I began to feel guilty about our guests' visits.  We shop at all the high class places (I guess that's obvious by now) and at one of them we found a piece of one-and-a-half inch memory foam padding, which we bought for the handsome fee of $29.99.  Nothing's too good for our friends and family.  Imagine my surprise when our visitors started telling us how well they slept!

Kids can sleep anywhere!

The story ought to end there but it doesn't.  When we moved south, we realized that our beautiful bed with its antique headboard would not fit into the master bedroom of a house built in the 2000's.  We were forced to put it - with its wonderful internet memory foam - in our guest room in the basement. 

So now guess what we're sleeping on again?  I'm pretty sure that some night Jerry is going to roll over and the box springs will implode underneath us, but until then I'm sure happy to have that inch and a half of foam between me and the flea market mattress.

I'm Never Alone

Jerry has been away on business this week which means that I am all alone, or I would be if I didn't live at "The Zimmermans' Animal Spa and Wildlife Refuge."

We find bird-watching entertaining and have three feeders and a block of suet hanging off the roof of our front porch.  Right now both a bluebird and a red-headed woodpecker are snacking out there.  A cardinal is watching and waiting for his turn to swoop in.  A whole lot of whistling is going on and birds - lots of birds - are pooping on our deck and stairs, of this there is little doubt.

Earlier, one of (God only knows how) many squirrels was visiting the feeders.  Chasing squirrels from bird feeders is an exercise in futility so I don't. The birds don't seem to mind sharing, so why should I?  Plus, squirrels are fun to watch.  They are the trapeze artists in the cirque du soliel of the animal kingdom.

In the evening an old raccoon with a gray muzzle lumbers up the stairs and checks to see if the birds left any seeds uneaten.  Often he will stand up on his hind legs, put his front paws on the windows and stare inside.  He doesn't seem disturbed at all that we are sitting less than a yard away.

Just moments ago I looked out the window to my side yard and saw a young deer standing in my terraced flower bed eating a newly planted bush.  Out of the entire woods, this is where he chooses to munch.  When he saw me he gave me the "what?" look.  He knew he was being naughty and he knew I knew it too.  I used to see that exact look on our children's faces when I caught them involved in questionable activities, too.

Last night as I was drifting off to sleep I heard a blood-curdling cry like some  poor creature was being stabbed to death right underneath my window.  I didn't bother to get up and look out.  We live in the woods; it's dark here at night.   (This is not my first rodeo.)  When we heard these noises before, Jerry researched them on the internet.  The cries are either from an owl or a fox.  Surprisingly they sound a lot alike.   

Now there are two deer in my flowerbed...

...and people wonder why I don't watch t.v.

Another Day on the Road

Something funny happened to my husband today and I decided to allow him to be my first guest writer and post his story on this blog.  Enjoy!

                                                     *  *  *

Another Day on the Road

by

Edward J. Zimmerman

Those of you who know me also know that I drive a lot, always have.  As such, it's not surprising that things happen ...to me ...because of me - while I'm on the road. 

Friends and relatives alike also understand that

     1) my fuse can be frustratingly short

     2) I don't always exhibit the greatest level of:

          a) compassion
          b) empathy
          c) sympathy
          d) pick any other noun associated with kindness

I'm working on both numbers 1 and 2 but my attempts at improving these attributes are more than likely going to spill over into my next life.

Swimming Upstream blog readers might want to print posts entitled "Another Charleston Story" and "Tempting Fate" for handy reference during this story.

This evening I was heading home from a day in Greenville driving north on I-85 and participating on a conference call with co-workers. Yes, it was on hands-free. (Thank you for asking, Chris.)  I had been engaged in the conversation for a while and it was lively.  As the call was winding down I realized that I was gaining quickly on the vehicle in front of me and I glanced at my speedometer (see "Tempting Fate.") 

Fearing I had inadvertantly been mashing (yes, mashing, I live in South Carolina now) the accelerator, I quickly backed off but realized I was only going 45 mph to begin with. I wrapped up the phone call, mumbled bad words about the guy in the car ahead, sped up, moved into the left lane to pass, and the guy moved over in front of me.  More bad words.  Now going 50 mph, I carefully moved back to the right lane again. Again he moved in front of me. Now I'm thinking, hey, maybe during the phone call I inadvertantly cut this dude off or something; maybe it's not him, maybe it's me? 

I started to feel a little guilty, just a little, not that much really, hardly noticable. Another quarter mile passes and we're still going 45 but I notice his right turn signal is on. Hey, perhaps he's trying to signal me (see "Another Charleston Story.")  I take the next exit, pull into a Denny's and check the kayaks (yes, they'e always up there) but they're fine.  Bad words are spilling out again - I can't stop them, it's how I am.  I think about that car, a blue Impala, Michigan license plate.  Go back home, Yankee dog!


Now I'm heading back north again on I-85.  I turn on the radio and my phone rings. It's a South Carolina number but I don't recognize it.  I answer and it's my neighbor Dave.

"Whatcha doin?" he asks.

"Just driving around Greenville," I reply.

Before he speaks again my Cray supercomputer-like brain starts cranking. He works for a manufacturer out of Michigan, drives a company car, a blue Impala. More bad words and I ask if that was him in front of me.

"Why would I be driving 45 mph on an expressway?" he laughs.  Even more bad words.  He said he was heading through Greenville, looked up the road a mile and noticed a goofball with one blue and one orange kayak on top of his car. "Hey, it's Jerry Zimmerman up there."

I'm guessing he was bored.

BTW Dave: Congratulations on the big order, jackass.

Snakes

In the inky evening when the world is darkening rapidly, the last thing you should be doing is strolling down a street with no sidewalks, right?  I find myself in that very situation more than I'd like to admit and always regret my wardrobe choice - usually some version of khaki capris and a gray tee-shirt,  rendering me virtually invisible, especially to the five out of every seven drivers who are  talking on their cell phones.  (That number is 100% accurate.  I watched seven cars speed by and five drivers were on the phone, no joke.)  More likely than not, I am forced to jump into the English ivy to save myself even though I have  often been told that it's the Motel Six of the snake kingdom. 

Are snakes lurking in the ivy?

Just last week I was out walking with Mary Ann as twilight fell.  We were power-walking past a yard full of ivy when something (we couldn't see what) suddenly hissed loudly and jumped out at us.  Terror froze me to the spot!  In the heat of the moment I panicked and belted out a scream worthy of a horror movie.  In the same split second, I grabbed Mary Ann with both hands.  (I thought I heard a little sympathy yowl from her direction but I can't swear it wasn't because I was squeezing her too tightly.) 

In a flash, the man who owned the house came tearing outside to see what the

commotion was all about, no doubt envisioning carnage.  Instead, what he found was two screaming ladies standing in the puddle of water that his automatic sprinklers had made on the first squirt of their cycle.

Was my face red?  Was Mary Ann's arm bruised?  It would have been hard to tell because by now it was too dark to see.

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!