Great Company, Great Smilees, Great Vacation

We’re back from a fabulous two-week bus tour of Italy. Kudos to our fantastic guide, Alfredo. Hubby and I saw and did things we no long thought physically possible, (keep your thoughts pure), and we ate every morsel put in front of us. My pants still zip—which proves daily walking the length of 10 football fields or more will keep weight off. A requirement for this trip was to have the ability to walk a football field without difficulty, but by the end of the first day, I realized the tour salesperson meant one field an hour, not a day.

My laundry is done and put away. Our pictures are developed—all 372 of them. Now the challenges are to mach the rocks in each photo to the correct ruin and tourist attraction, and what I should do with some of the stuff I brought home. (Next week’s blog will be about this.)

Every vacation we’ve gone on has had something that’s made it unique from all the others. This trip had two, and nothing to do with the amazing tourist attractions. One was the fantastic group of folks with whom we traveled. Within one day, our tour guide molded a group of strangers into a caring family, and he was the role model for all of us to follow. Not a dysfunctional “relative” was on our tour—and Hubby and I have been on some tours with passengers that made us yearn for the days of “walking the plank.” Our group picture is on my refrigerator along with my grandkids’ photos. Everyone knows that spot is reserved for “in” people— those you really care about and who care about you. It’s hard to believe 33 strangers rapidly morphed into a caring family and there was not one “nose out of joint” the entire trip. If everyone’s large, extended family holiday dinners go as smoothly as our peer relations did on this trip, our holidays will be beautiful.

The other unique memory for Hubby and me was Alberto’s name for the toilet. He didn’t refer to it by any of its common names such as “water closet” or “bathroom.” “When people, especially those who had great need, come out of the bathrooms, they smile,” he explained. “So I call them smilees.”

The new name caught on, and not just with our group. Evidently, the places he frequents with his tour groups use the name because when we walked into one establishment, the woman behind the counter took one look at my face and before I said a word, said, “The smilees are upstairs.”

There’s been a big change in European public smilees since our last trip to the continent. Our bus didn’t stop once at a glorified out house or unisex, minimum privacy, bathroom. The EU highway facilities in Italy accommodate the urgent biological bathroom needs and habits of pampered folks like me—plenty of free toilets and plenty of soft paper. Obviously, since almost everyone we told before we left that we were traveling abroad cautioned, “Bring your own toilet paper and make sure you have coins to pay to use the facilities,” I wasn’t the only one who has had a problem with European public toilet customs.

Only once was a relic from yesteryear sitting waiting for a tip, and I think the “donation” was given more out of pity for a person whose job no longer exists than out of a requirement to enter the smilee.

If anyone is planning a trip to Italy, remove toilet tissue from your packing list and forget getting the proper coins as soon as your plane lands. Finding smilees in tourist areas in Italy, be it highways, restaurants, or stores, is no longer a challenge. Take the roll of super soft American toilet tissue from your suitcase. However, make sure you pack the plug adapter for the camera battery charger. The concept of free smilees with plenty of soft paper maybe catching on in many European countries, but different electrical currents are still the cause of frownees for Americans who forget that plugs made for AC outlets don’t fit into those made for DC outlets. (You have one guess as to what I didn't put in the suitcase.)

Head to Toe and Away I Go

I think I am falling apart. Last week I was diagnosed with the Shingles for the third time. That’s right. Three times. Perhaps it will be like baseball and the Shingles virus will have been struck out—way out of my body. As usual, my symptoms were atypical, so atypical it took visits to two dentists (who thankfully refused to pull out all my upper teeth to relieve the pain), and two doctors until the verdict was pronounced. The medicine is working—a sure sign the fourth professional made the correct diagnose, which was hard because the rash was not in plain sight. It was hiding in my mouth, out of plain sight even to me.

With the pain in my head decreasing daily, today I went back to the foot doctor to find out why my toes still felt numb.

“Your shoe is too confining,” the doctor told me. “That’s why the toes aren’t healing.”

“But you told me I had to keep my sneakers on all day in order for my heal to heal,” I responded in a most confused voice.

I have a heal spur on one foot and some sort of cyst between the toes of the other foot that needs plenty of space—no squishing of toes like sneakers do—to go away.

Could someone—anyone—please tell me how I’m to go on my upcoming, long-awaited vacation by wearing a sneaker on one foot and sandal on the other? Am I to tell the gawkers that it’s a new style created in South Florida?

On the up side, even though my shoe-style is laughable, my illnesses are curable.

I’ll be away from my computer for a week or two for all good things. I’ll keep you posted as soon as I can. Be well, and remember, my book Retired, Not Expired will be read sooner than I think!

The Punctuation Ogre and the Letter Lapper

Remember Thermostat Jeannie, the one who moves my home thermostat up to Hubby’s comfort level? Well, her two best friends, Punctuation Ogre and Letter Lapper, live inside the grammar and spell check feature in my Word program.

When I write anything, be it a blog or article, as soon as I hit “Save,” the two of them get to work. Punctuation Ogre moves commas, or even worse, inserts them in places they don’t belong. I know the proper use of commas—I taught that skill for 35 years. Then she turns quotation marks, especially the end quotes, in the wrong direction. Her other tricks are switching commas and periods, sprinkling quotation marks around words, and misuse of the parenthesis.

Letter Lapper devours letters from words, leaving them grossly misspelled. Sometimes she only nibbles part of a letter, thus changing an “e” to a “c” or an “m” to and “n.” The other day, I typed the word FUNdraiser on a flyer, a word one of the charity organizations in my Seniorville uses. The next day, I received an email saying I omitted the “d.” I know the letter was there when I hit “Save,” but alas, it wasn’t when my friend received the flyer to proof read.

Errors in print mortify me. One reader asked if I ever heard of the grammar and spell check feature. He didn’t believe me when I told him about Punctuation Ogre and Letter Lapper.

I recently received the layout of the manuscript for my book via email. I opened it up to see and voila—each page contained proof Punctuation Ogre and Letter Lapper performed their destruction once again. Since I know the errors were not there when I hit “Send,” the damage had to be done in cyberspace while the book made its way to the publisher. With tears in my eyes, I realized I could no longer fight this war by myself. I sent out a call for the Punctuation and Spelling Warriors.

The Four Star General of Punctuation and Sensible Sounds responded—perhaps because his wife loves my blog and knows how the Ogre and Lapper have frustrated me since I’ve started to write. He carefully fixed the wounds in my manuscript, making him eligible for the Proof Reader’s Medal of Honor. Now if only he would develop a foolproof grammar and spell check program to be installed in all computers, he could be richer than Mark Zuckerberg, My number one fan deserves such a reward!

Hometown? Hmmm

“Where are you from?” a new friend asked my visiting cousin.

“How far back do you want me to go?” was my cousin’s response. He was born in one city, went to college in another, and lived in two other cities where he did graduate work before settling in the Midwest 40-odd years ago. So where is he from? His multiple moves are par for many, including me. I have two states and several areas within those states that I refer to as, "hometown," depending on the questioner.

After my brother’s and my families moved to the same area on Long Island in the 60’s, a mutual new friend said to me, “I thought you and George were brother and sister?”

Since we are, his question made no sense, and I said so. He replied that my brother said he was from Brooklyn, whereas I claimed Queens as my home. We moved out of Brooklyn when Big Bro was ready for college, but I still had Junior High and High School to attend. Hence, I consider Brooklyn as my place of birth, but Queens, where I spent my teens and college years as the place where I'm from.

I’ve been in South Florida for over half my life. My sons grew up here. Florida is one of the states like California where many people my age were born somewhere else. Occasionally I meet folks who were actually born here—occasionally. Yes, they are true natives. But what should I answer when asked where I’m from? The place I lived for 30 years before I moved South, or South Florida, the place I lived for over half my life? A comic who entertained in my development a few weeks ago settled the issue for me.

“You’re a native Floridian,” the comic told his audience of retirees,” if you were here before I-95.

Those in the audience like Hubby and me who qualified as Floridians according to his definition howled. The others had a blank look on their faces. They were clueless that all the interstates weren’t in South Florida until around the turn of the century—just a bit more than ten years ago, right around the time many in the audience relocated south.

When we moved here in ’73, from Long Island I was amazed that Florida was not crisscrossed with highways and parkways as the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut was. The last “rail” of I-95 that connected the northern part of the country to South Florida was completed about ten years after we arrived. I-75, wasn’t complete until around 15 years ago. Florida’s turnpike extensions to bring it to the tip of our peninsula shaped state also weren’t complete until long after our arrival.

I have friends that won’t drive on an expressway—and some hail from Manhattan and never owned a car until they retired! To me, driving for 45 minutes on a highway is as easy as walking across a room. Learning to enter and exit highways was part of my driver’s ed. Did all the years of accepting bumper to bumper traffic for hours until I reached my destination—usually work or visiting “nearby” relatives, zooming onto an expressway at 50 mph to merge with traffic prepare me to view an hours drive as “nothing?” Yes. And I definitely didn’t pick up those skills in Florida. There were no highways here when we arrived. I brought them with me, along with the attitude that a 30-minute trip doesn’t require an overnight stay.

So, when asked where I’m from, I may answer South Florida, but my driving ability and outlook as to what constitutes a “long drive” definitely demand I give the city of my early years proper recognition.

Wait, I Have a Great Excuse

I sat in an extremely noisy restaurant with three of my friends waiting for one more to arrive. I love the latecomer dearly, but after being friends for over 25 years, I know the only way to get her somewhere on time is to lie to her about the meeting time. I accept her flaw because other than her dysfunctional internal time clock, she’s a terrific person. When we formed this Mah Jongg group years ago, we should have told her we would meet at 11:30 for lunch before heading to one of our homes to play Mah Jongg. If we fibbed, maybe—just maybe—she would arrive at the real time, 11:45 most of the time. As soon as one of the gals told Ms. Perpetually Late the real gathering time, I knew she’d rarely, if ever, show before noon.

After several years of playing with her, we’re used to her tardiness and listening to all the upheavals that justifiably delay her—excuses that make us forget she is late. She, in turn, has learned if she’s late and wants to eat, she has two choices. If she’ll only be around 15-minutes late, she can call one of us on our cell and tell us what to order for her. More than that, she needs to order take-out and eat on the run. None of the players in our game wants to spend a half-hour waiting for her to order and finish eating if we’re about to pay the check when she arrives.

She’s far from the only person who is always late. My manicurist tells a story about a client of hers who was always a half hour late, and like my friend, always rushes in with legitimate excuses. She said the client thinks she has a 2 o’clock appointment, but it’s really 2:30. She told me that the one time the client was “on time,” she was livid she had to wait!

Back to my story—this week, by the time the waiter came to take the order, my friend still hadn’t called, which I must admit is unusual for her. Our meals were being served when she rushed through the front door laden down by her up-to-date, over-sized, and over-stuffed bag.

“None of your phones are answering,” she exclaimed. “I’ve be calling all of you for an hour.”

One by one, we reached into our bags. One phone said no service, the others said “Missed Call, listen to the message.”

“See,” she said. “I did try to call.”

Since it was obvious the noise in the restaurant muffled our phones, I placed my phone in my pocket so I could hear it. I didn’t bother to dial my voice mail. Instead, I listened to a first hand account of all the calamities that occurred that morning causing my friend to be 45-minutes late.

When the afternoon was over, I called my husband to tell him I was on the way home.

“It’s about time you returned my call,” he almost growled.

Whoops. I guessed I had more than one message in my voice mail.

Now what creative excuse could I come up with for not checking my voice mail? I couldn’t. Instead, I told him if it was that important, he should have called back. Nothing works better, than turning the tables if you can’t come up with a valid excuse.

Synchronization Needed

“That didn’t happen last year,” Hubby said to me while we were walking this morning. “It was only four months ago.”

I sighed. The concept of exactly when the year begins and ends has always given me a problem. I may have stopped teaching in 2001, but my mind still considers the first day of school as the beginning of the year and the last day of school signifies the end of the year. July and August are in the twilight zone.

To reinforce my confusion as to when the new year begins, the Jewish New Year is in September. So, after spending two-thirds of my life thinking of the new year as September because of my career and religion, the concept that “last year,” ends before summer is engraved incorrectly in my brain. To me, January 1st signifies the end of the Christmas/Chanukah holiday festivities and the beginning of crash dieting.

I did a report on the Gregorian calendar, the official calendar for the Western World, while in college. I remember coming across information that the New Year wasn’t always January first. Through most of the last millennium, many parts of the world did begin the year in September and other parts began it in March.

Perhaps in my previous lives I was a member of the culture whose year began in September, thus I was born with a genetic tendency to resist the January first date. Or perhaps its time for the people in charge of calendars to realize that since folks spend the first 20 or so years of their lives viewing September as the new (school) year, that its time to make September the official beginning of new year. Either that or have graduation in December and begin the next grade in January. That way all the teachers and students in the world will stop confusing others and/or being momentarily confused when they say or hear, “last year.”

Sins

It’s not easy to simplify the meaning of the holiest Jewish High Holy Day, the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, but I shall try. G-d can’t forgive you for sins you commit against fellow man. You must clean that mess up yourself and ask those whom you hurt in any fashion for forgiveness. However, he can forgive you for sins you committed for not living according to the good book. To me, Yom Kippur is a day for fasting and praying and reflecting on how I can be a better person. Hubby and I attend services and there are two aspects of the day that “reach into my very being.” One is an inner belief that when the day is over, my fate is sealed for the future.

The other is a prayer which enumerates the vast amount of sins one may have committed and should atone for. Many of the sins are written in almost Biblical language. While it is recited, some Rabbis “bring the sin alive” or restate it in every day language. Usually this causes a stir of discomfort to some worshippers who up until then were simply reciting words without digesting their meaning. Each time I hear a Rabbi do this, I wonder if maybe the prayer should have an addendum, and I even thought that if even a similar prayer exists in other religions, they also might be interested in my updated addendum that might give potency to things like the sin of “baring false witness.”

I do not mean to be disrespectful, but Hubby and I just completed a ten-hour drive home from Atlanta and while looking at some drivers weave around the road this idea came to me.

We could ask for forgiveness for the following:

The sin of texting during the religious leader’s sermon.
The sin of texting while driving.
The sin of talking on the cell phone while driving.

The following ones popped into my head after listening to various politicians on the talk shows last night.

The sin of lying to the voters while you are running for political office.
The sin of lying to your constituents if you are an elected official.
The sin of lying about your opponent while you’re running for office.
The sin of distorting facts.

Anyone else have any other sins that everyone should be atoning for, regardless of what House of Worship you attend?