96 degree golf

Crazy, I know, but I played golf on Thursday in my regular 9 hole golf league. Given that most of the women complain about just about everything (It's too hot, too cold, too buggy, too slow, too windy),  I was surprised to see that seven of the sixteen members had shown up.

Most of the week I had spent cocooned in my air conditioned house with occasional forays to the garage to get into my air conditioned car. I might as well be living in Arizona.  When I walked down the driveway Thursday afternoon to pick up the mail, it didn't seem that bad--there was a breeze blowing the hot, humid air around and I was determined to get outside and enjoy the summer. The Paramus course had to look better than the British Open's burned out fairways with tall, yellow fescue, waving invitingly from the deep rough.

Even with benefit of a golf cart, layers of sunscreen and several bottles of water, I had to admit I was waivering by hole 5. I tried to stay in the shade, but the sun was intense, beating down on us, as we chased our putts down. I felt a shortness of breath, climbing back into the cart. Not even the fact that I parred the hole seemed to help and I thought about tossing in the (wet) golf towel and retreating to the clubhouse, which was an easy ride from the 6th hole.

Then we saw it. The 6th hole. A desert traveler's seductive mirage.  Four sprinklers gently undulated, creating double rainbows all the way down the fairway. It was beautiful, as though we had finally arrived in the colorized land of Oz, leaving behind dusty, dry, black and white Kansas.

"We're saved!" I yelled to my similarly fading teammates. After the tee shot, I drove straight towards the sprinklers, careening the cart in figure eights around the cool jets of water. I got out and walked slowly through the arching sprays, feeling like a kid again. My cautious and reluctant fellow players laughed at me "You're all wet."  "Come on," I urged them, "we'll be dry by the next hole."

From that moment on, the round changed. We were exuberant at cooling off and recapturing, if only for an instant, the simple thrill and careless abandon of youth, running through a sprinkler on a sultry afternoon with no worries or decisions beyond what ice cream we'd get from the Good Humor man, the summer stretching out before us with long, lazy days and endless possibility.

Ahh...isn't that what summer's all about?

A loov-ley holiday

No driving in London!

We had a "loov-ley" holiday in England. The only downside now is having to listen to Gary pepper his speech with "cheers" and "brilliant" and talk of his "mates."

Most exciting was driving the roads of England and Wales, particularly the narrow lanes of the countryside, lined with gray stone walls. How we returned the car without a huge gash on the passenger side is a miracle.

The BIG car and me in Dover

While Gary was quite happy to be upgraded to a midsize Volvo station wagon with all the latest whistles and bells, I kept thinking a nice mini Fiat might have been a better choice. But  automatic transmission, offered only in the midsize class, was a non-negotiable requirement. Bad enough that I had to scream our new mantra "left, left, left"  while Gary negotiated the numerous roundabouts than to even imagine him downshifting midcircle. The Volvo did have many features--so many that we didn't realize we had GPS until the second day. (Yes, next trip we may indeed be ready for a guided tour)

On the first very long day of driving we became well acquainted with three features of the Volvo: BLIS, DAC and  LDW. The BLIS button (which we both misread as BUS) caused a red light to appear on the side view mirror. Did it know when we passed a bus? Kind of spooky. And why would we care? No, it simply lit up every time there was any kind of vehicle in the Blind Spot. Our Blind Spot Information System was actually quite handy.

Yup--a 2 lane road!

But DAC and LDW with their blinking waning lights and musical DIT A DIT A DIT, sounding like an early game of Frogger, became our friends. DAC was the Driver Alert Control and LDW the Lane Departure Warning. No straying over white lines allowed.  At first it was as though Gary were playing his own video game, while I kept leaning to the right, willing the car away from curbs, bushes, stone fences, bollards, and parked cars who flaunted their side view mirrors. I started to keep score. Day one: curbs 4 , mirror whacks 3, bollards 1.

And what is a bollard you may well ask? Steel and concrete poles or barriers to block off a street. In Liverpool when Gary went to park the car, while I registered at the hotel, he took a long time finally showing up at the registration desk. Understandable, I thought, with all the narrow cobblestoned streets in this gentrified hipster warehouse district. Our loovley GPS lady had faltered for the first time, misguiding us to turn into a one way street, so I had hopped out to find the hotel. Gary had continued straight and progressed halfway down the plaza past the bollards, when it became obvious it was a pedestrian mall.

Gary did get better. Slowing down helped. "The right lane is the passing lane" I kept yelling.

HIM: "I hate to have a line of cars behind me."
ME: "Let them wait--Keep Calm and Mind the Speed Limits"
No one else did and Gary developed  a particular dislike for Audis, who always seemed to be the ones tailgating and aching to pass.

Those stone walls

We thought Kent had the narrowest roads until we drove through beautiful Snowdonia Park in Wales with roads carved out of the mountain sides, two lanes of traffic often unexpectedly funneling into one.

3 Million sheep go wherever they want

We googled the traffic fatalities for Wales and only 93 people were killed in 2012. Is that a lot for a country of 3 million people (and 3 million sheep)? There were 5,971 accidents with 8,565 casualties, and that's good news because the numbers have been declining. It seems hard to believe when you watch cars hurtling around blind curves and accelerating up wet, slick roads. Glad we weren't driving them in the 90's when the stats were much worse!

Be careful exiting the hotel's front door

We saw no troopers or highway patrols in England or Wales, but signs warned of surveillance cameras in use. By the second day we were running with the pack and I've been checking the mailbox for our list of tickets. Wonder how many pounds that will come to?

Who cares?  Relaxing at pub with mussels and a pint.

What happens in Vegas....

The year of Chuck is coming to an end. We concluded the celebration of his jubilee in Vegas last week with  Elton John's Million Dollar Piano concert, the Kenny Chesney No Shoes Nation show, a stay at the Bellagio, some great dinners and a visit to the Mob Museum. I wish I could say there was a really big gambling winner, but I avoided the casinos and didn't hear too much bragging from those who tried their luck (skills?)

Here's the photographic evidence of what happened in Vegas...

 

3 floppy hats at the pool- Note the No Shoes Nation tee shirt from the Kenney Chesney concert

The whole gang at Bellagio Pool

My favorite: the dancing fountains at Bellagio

Not as good as my Texas La Quinta Inn waffle, but pretty, pretty good!

Dinner at Trevi Restaurant at Casear's

Our view of the elaborate Elton John show

 

The Jubilarian at The Mob Museum

The lineup: wanted for card counting and various other casino tricks

The U of M represented at the Mob Museum for the 50's basketball point shaving scheme

Al and Chuck

At the Neon Museum at 3 pm on a blisteringly hot day

Our tour guide at the Neon Museum

That's all folks!

Well, not quite.

I'll end with a little quiz:
1. Who got upgraded at the Elton John concert to a 6th row orchestra seat?
2. Who traveled on every monorail and visited every major casino?
3. Who played golf at 7 am two days in a row?
4. Whose room faced the parking garage?
5. Whose room had a spectacular view of the strip and the Bellagio fountains?
6. Who rated the guide at The Neon Museum as a C performance? Who gave him a B-?  Who grades tour guides and why?!
7. Who had lunch at Toby Keith's I Love This Bar and Grill aka The Red Solo Cup Place?
8. Who spent the most time at the pool?
9. Who continued on to Scottsdale after this trip to Sibling Adventure Part Two--golfing with the K's?
10. Who paid for all this? :)

Adventurous Weekend

Two weekends ago I visited the shore to see how the restoration of the beach and boardwalk were coming along. At Point Pleasant Beach, the commercial section of the boardwalk is almost all open and the residential sections are under active reconstruction. Good news! Of course, things may look like they are returning to normal on the outside, but inside many homes there is still much work to be done.

boardwalk above Haven's Beach

view from the ocean toward the boardwalk

Houses along the inlet are still in bad shape

I enjoyed the sunny but crisp day and then went to the brick house to stay overnight. Everything there looked fine--I walked around the house and no leaks or problems.  We had survived the winter intact.

As often happens to me when I'm on my own, I got sucked into the computer and ended up working until almost midnight. I collapsed into bed in a restless sleep. Was it too much spice in my dinner from Spike's takeout? Was it the feeling of being in a strange house with unfamiliar noises of the heat turning on and off? I wrestled with my pillow for a while and then sat up, startled by some noise. I peeked out the blinds because it first sounded like birds chirping. It's 1 AM, my rational self scolded me. Were these jet lagged birds just back from a European vacation?

I sat perfectly still. I strained to hear the chirping again, but this time it sounded like heavy breathing. I poked my head cautiously out into the short hallway which connected the smaller bedroom to the master. The hallway seemed eerily long and threatening. It's a small house, I said to myself, yet it seemed like Jack Nicholson might suddenly pop out from the bathroom, wielding a butcher knife. Get hold of yourself, I reasoned. I heard thumping now and peeked out the windows to see if there was anyone outside. Slowly, I crept down the hallway to the master bedroom and jumped into bed. All quiet. I breathed a sigh of relief. Wow. The imagination is a powerful tool.

...And then all hell broke loose. Thumping, banging into walls, running in circles--there was definitely something in the attic. When the sounds momentarily lulled, the chirping, chattering returned and then, as if a whistle had been blown, the running recommenced. Squirrel olympics? rabid raccoons? These sounds registered decibels above the mere skittering of field mice. I wasted no time and threw on my clothes, started up the car, (remembered to open the garage door), and wheels screeching, shattered the quiet of the streets. It was 1:30 AM.

Surprisingly, the parkway was crowded, but I stuck to the right lane all the way home and let the DWI's streak by me. It was 3 AM when I finally exhaled and arrived home sweet home. I fixed myself a snack and heard familiar snoring from upstairs. The next morning I woke at 8 and found my husband sitting at the breakfast table, just finishing up the Sunday sports section before heading off to work. He was surprised. What are you doing home? I pointed to the note I'd left for him on the counter and my coat and bag on the chair.

Oh--I missed them. 

You probably would have missed it, too, if a van pulled up last night at 3 AM and emptied out the entire first floor. 

I married a man who would have slept through the minor annoyance of a squirrel olympics with no problem.

My trapper arrived on Tuesday. You're not allowed to kill wildlife, so Balance of Nature promised to trap and remove whatever animals you were harboring. I was drawn to the ad for Nuke 'em Pest Control, but I figured, despite the oddly comforting image on their trucks of a mushroom cloud surrounded by dead pestilence, that even they would have to follow state regulations.

My main concern was that the trapper might not be able to find the small holes through which the animals had entered. Was I wrong! Stevie Wonder could have found the three big holes in the roof near the gutters. Walking around the house I had missed them because basically I was looking below the gutters. Step back 10 feet and look up again and you can't believe it. They found fresh evidence of squirrels, older signs of raccoons and a bird's nest to boot- a veritable menagerie. Previously I would have loved this picture which a wisecracking friend sent me. Now it just looks sinister.

How can you not love me?

Easter

Had to force the forsythia to bloom this year because of an early Easter

I always loved Easter. When I was growing up, we would drive down from Upstate New York to my grandmother's house in North Bergen and later in Jersey City. The forsythia were already blooming in New Jersey--showy yellow bushes, even along busy Route 17, which was a shopping mecca even then. We passed signs for towns with exotic names--Ho-ho-kus, Moonachie--on our way across the Meadowlands on Paterson Plank Road, originally a toll road in colonial times with broad wooden planks over the marshy stretches. It was one of my father's favorite routes and allowed him to tell the story of how Secaucus was once dotted with pig farms.

We always arrived on Good Friday evening in time for a dinner of canned Franco American Spaghetti and fish sticks or tuna salad on hard rolls. Saturday we ventured into New York City--my father and brothers and me--while my mother stayed with Grandma and my aunt and went visiting. My father loved the city and had his favorite haunts--the old Barnes and Noble and Scribner's bookstores on lower Fifth avenue, the odd lot stores on Vesey Street, years before the area became the World Trade Center. He always had a must-see exhibit on banking, stamps, coins or equally boring subjects to a young girl.

I was fortunate when my brother reached the age when he could shepherd me around the city on his own. He was probably 16 and I was 10. We went to the Museum of Natural History and I weighed myself on the different scales representing each planet. We didn't have a pen or pencil on us, so my brother had an elaborate system of bent pages in a sightseeing booklet to keep track. When we got back to Jersey City it was a little confusing. Was I 13 pounds on the moon and 189 on Jupiter or vice versa?  We always met my father afterwards and ate at a "nice" restaurant -- one even had fingerbowls which I managed to use correctly without embarrassing my siblings. I was dressed in my Easter finery, a yellow spring coat with cape sleeves and looked lovely until you noticed my black sneakers peering from below. My mother's motto had always been "be comfortable."

Easter Sunday we attended Sacred Heart Church in Jersey City, a beautiful, dark, mystical church with huge columns and small overhanging chandeliers. My uncle sat by himself (why?), while my aunt and grandmother and the rest of us squeezed into 'their' pew.  Dinner was the traditional canned ham with creamed corn and other staples of the 50's and early 60's. I had eaten candy all day long, so the menu was unimportant to me.

As time passed, the Jersey City neighborhood deteriorated and the park around the corner where we had played became off limits. A trip to the local store to get milk became less carefree, as we plotted our course to avoid the people hanging on the street corners, particularly near the corner bar.

Easter Monday was a glorious day. We would pile in the car to go to the shore to visit two sets of cousins--but never together. The early day was spent at one house, after an agonizing wait in the car, while my aunt did the shopping for the party--hotdogs, sauerkraut, cheetos, ice cream. As the sky darkened, we headed to our second cousin's house, a few miles away. As a kid, you don't really question things, but it was odd. My two aunts had a long standing feud which went back to some rivalry over their first borns. Eddie's new shoes or Patty's new dress had not been sufficiently praised. Years passed and life went on around the dispute.

We returned back to Grandma's late Monday night, exhausted and happy. The next day it was back up the Thruway and home, feeling happy and a little lighter knowing that our next trip would be to go "down the shore" for a long, leisurely summer.

Match Puppy: FB seeking companionship and love

During my wonderful week with Kona, my daughter and son-in-law's FB (French Bulldog) , I found my texts to the nervous, vacationing parents had begun to sound like a personal ad on a dog dating site. Yes, believe it or not, there are a number of sites, including MatchPuppy, DateMyPet and PetsDating.

Here's Kona's description:
Svelte, fun loving French Bull Dog may look sad, but she's happy go lucky.

Princess Kona on her sheet covered couch

Enjoys long walks around the neighborhood, especially if there are lots of cars and kids;

eating twigs but not earthworms;

snuggling on the couch;

watching TV especially Golf channel and ESPN (or maybe that's just on a lot in our house);

playing incessantly with a green squeaky ball;

eating peanut butter and treats (venison/sweetpotato);

is afraid of stereo speakers, white safety gates and her reflection in the sliding glass door (that other bad FB);

dislikes going in her crate (I'm in jail!), and mornings when she realizes her parents have abandoned her.

Where is that ball?

Sleeping in the sun

Seeks another FB or similar small dog for chasing down leaves, barking at strange sounds in the night and romping through the neighborhood.

Are we having fun yet?

Kona and Gary

Urinetown

Urinetown was a popular send up of musicals a few years ago. Not really that good, as I recall. But I experienced my own personal Urinetown last week.

A 24 hour urine test is not a big deal at all, compared to the multitude of tests, scans, biopsies and procedures you can have. You simply collect all your urine from a 24 hour period, excluding the first one of the day. Why then did I have so much trouble?

The medical technician presented me with a one gallon orange receptacle, similar to a bottle of Tide. "Maybe I need a bigger one," I joked.  "I can give you two," he quickly responded. Yikes, how much urine can one person produce in a day? It's not a question most people often contemplate, unless you've recently been on a Carnival cruise.

"You can store it outside or on the porch--that way you don't need to refrigerate it," my helpful tech continued. "That's a relief," I said. Not that you'd mix up the orange jug with your orange juice, but it's preferable not to have close proximity.

Deferring to the female anatomy, my tech included a hard plastic urine cup. I put that in the upstairs bath and set aside a softer plastic cup in the downstairs bath. The orange container rested in my mud room. All set for the next morning.

I soon learned the advantage of the official hard plastic urine cup, when I squeezed the softer one and was sprayed with ...yes. Enough said.  I got better during the day with a well organized system of transferring urine to gallon jug from various bathrooms.

When Gary got home from work, I said, "Hold on. I just have to go to the bathroom." I quickly stripped down to my underwear and disappeared into the powder room.
"What??"
I explained the splash problem and noted that I had already generated some extra laundry, so this was my new system.
"Not familiar with that as a problem," Gary replied.

Far from filling the bottle, I registered a mere two inches at the bottom of the jug. Poor production, I thought. How weak. I momentarily considered watering it down. I didn't want to make an embarrassing showing--not that it was a contest. I did have to make up for the spillage factor. Finally decided to stay the course, as Gary raised the spector of kidney biopsies or further tests to explain strange results.

'Should I just dump this then and start a new 24 hour period?" There was some discussion involving the words--obsessive behavior, and latent potty training trauma--so i wisely concluded to drop off the jug and move on.  My cute, young med tech was not there when I delivered my specimen, so I didn't share any experiences with the stone faced woman who replaced him. Perhaps best all around.

Got my results and here's the best part. I get to do it again next month!