The Joy of Flying

The temperature was forty degrees.  The boarding passes we'd printed at our son's read "Terminal A."  We stood at the back of the line on the curb at the Philadelphia Airport the Monday after Christmas.  All our gifts were in two suitcases for $50.

The gray-haired American Airlines employee at the curb had to be sixty.  With care he checked the couple's i.d.'s at the front of the line, punched in their baggage tags, stood waiting for them to print, received their tip with a double "Thank you," and with a groan shoved their bags to the top of the mound on the luggage cart. With the wind picking up, Charley sent me to investigate the line inside the terminal while he stayed with our bags.  The line inside still snaked around eight stanchions.

The American attendant repeated his ritual ten times.  We had moved up to second.  That's when he said, "Be right back."  He began to press his weight against the pyramid on the cart.  The cart inched forward a foot.  The man waiting at the head of the line jumped to help.  The cart began to roll through the automatic doors into the terminal.

After ten minutes the attendant returned to continue his tagging and after another five minutes, our bags sat on the cart, ready for flight.  "I'm sorry, but you're at the wrong terminal," the attendant said, looking at our boarding passes.

"But they say 'Terminal A'," I said, pointing to the boarding passes.

"They do, but since the merger with U.S. Air, the Florida flights are going out of Terminal C.  All three terminals are American now."

"What's the fastest way over there?" Charley said.

"Wait right at that corner there for a bus."

Ten minutes later we got off the bus at Terminal C. My toes tingled from lack of circulation, since I hadn't expected to stand in a line in 40-degree temperatures for forty-five minutes and had packed my boots in the suitcase I'd just checked.

Upstairs in Terminal C we checked the "Departures" board.  At least we were in the right place. "Where's the TSA Pre-check line?" Charley asked an American employee at the end of the security line.

"Back in Terminal B," he said.

About five years ago we paid $100 each and been interviewed for Global Entry on our passports so we could go through a screening machine re-entering the country.  The first time we tried it, Charley's fingerprints didn't read because his fingers had no oil.  We were detained in a side room for almost an hour with drug dealers and illegal immigrants.  We no longer used the Global Entry machines.

We paid $85 each for TSA Pre-check and had more interviews so we wouldn't have to wait in a long security line or remove our shoes or belts or jackets or baggies with 3 ounces of liquid or computers from cases.  The little red check mark with "TSA" was printed on our boarding passes.

By the time we walked back to Terminal B for pre-check, we could have passed through the long security line in Terminal C and been relaxed at our gate with a book and a coffee.  We stayed where we were.

As did our suitcases, which followed us back to Florida twenty-four hours later. I guess the curb attendant hadn't gotten anyone to help him push his cart inside.

The New Technology

This guest post is written by my pharmacist friend Don Weiss.  His murder mystery, Picture Perfect, is about to be released.  Check it out in e-book or paperback form on Amazon or Barnes and Noble!

Hello, fellow sexagenarians. I’m typing this blog post on my brand spanking new computer. It is light, fast, and pretty darned near amazing compared to my old machine. Which brings me to our topic—technology.  First, let’s harken back to those thrilling days of yesteryear.

For my twelfth birthday, I received a compact transistor radio, complete with leather case and earphone.  Raise your hand if you know what a transistor is?  Give up?  It’s a tiny device invented by two guys at Bell Labs that started the whole tech revolution. I had that little radio for years. I wasn’t married to it like kids are today, and I sure didn’t treat it like a disposable commodity. And for years, nothing better came along. Then sometime in the mid-seventies, things began to change. Two guys working out of their garage came up with something called the Apple II personal computer, and another revolution began.

It’s always amazed me how quick we are to embrace technology and how little about it we understand. Televisions used to come in big, heavy, wooden cabinets. We got three channels, and the broadcast day ended with a test pattern. Show of hands again. How many remember the test pattern?  The test pattern stood for two things: the end of the broadcast day or the Russians had just unloaded their entire nuclear arsenal in our direction, and we were to stand-by. We had to constantly adjust the vertical and horizontal hold and fiddle with the “rabbit ears” to clear up a fuzzy black-and-white picture.  But despite the primitive nature of the set, most of the programs were pretty darned good. Now our sets are 55 inch wide, ½ inch thick, ultra-high definition marvels of technology with computer interfaces. I have a satellite dish on my roof instead of a flimsy metal antenna and at least 2500 channels beamed down from a satellite hovering 22,000 miles above the planet in outer space.  Mostly, I watch the Discovery Channel, Netflix, and A&E., which brings me to my brand new laptop computer.

My daughter, Amanda, who is now 25 years old, sat with dear old dad to help set up my new machine. Mans (as I call her) was born in 1990.  She grew up with computers, cell phones, iPods, iPod minis,

PlayStations I, II, and III, Wiis, laptops, tablets, e-readers, and all of the other 21^st century marvels. She instantaneously adapts to every new gizmo that comes out of Silicone Valley. When she was a student at Florida Atlantic University, some of her courses were on-line. Why did it cost so much if my daughter didn’t have to leave her room to attend class?  When I attended university, I had to be there rain, shine, sleet, snow, or hail. Slide Rules ruled the day and the few computers we used had punch-cards. Anyone see a job for a key-punch operator lately?  I do take comfort in one thing. If all of our technology suddenly disappears, as a writer I can still sharpen up a few number two pencils and grab a piece of paper.

The Difference between Boys and Girls (under age eight)

            BOYS                                                              GIRLS

  1. During a snowball fight, my round               1. During a snowball fight,

      plastic sled is a good Captain                          my round plastic sled is a

     America shield.                                               good place to pile up snowballs.

                                                                            

  2. A spatula or ruler is a good                         2.  A spatula is for lifting food, a
     sword. A dead branch                                      ruler is for measuring, and a

     is a good gun.                                                 dead stick goes in the fireplace.

                                                                          

  3. A peanut-butter-and-jelly                            3. A peanut-butter-and-jelly

    sandwich is a good snack before                     sandwich is too yucky to touch.

    lunch or dinner.

  4. A coffee table is a good place                     4. I’m not allowed to put my feet

     to jump onto the sofa.                                     or my drink or my paints on the

                                                                          coffee table

  5. A coffee table also makes a                         5. We’re not allowed to play near

    good wall for a fort.                                           the coffee table!

  6. If there’s no blood, I’m OK.                         6. If there’s blood, call 9-1-1.

  7. If I climb onto a chair and the                       7. No climbing in the house!

    dining room table, the chandelier

    makes a good trapeze.

  8. My backpack can hold bread                       8. My backpack holds my 

     and cheese for a week in my                            pencils and papers and lunch 

     fort.                                                                for school.

  9. Clothes are optional in the house.                  9. I love my polka-dotted tights 

                                                                             and tutu so much I want to 

                                                                             wear them to bed!

10. “Poop” and “fart” are the most                     10. “Poop” and “fart” are the most

      fun words my Dad says.                                   fun words my Dad says.

11. Dirt and sticks and a ball are                        11. Mom’s phone is my favorite toy.

      my favorite toys.

12. Bathrooms are supposed to smell.                12. I don’t go in the bathroom after

                                                                              my brother uses it.

13. If there's a towel, I don't need                       13. I sing “Happy Birthday” three 

      soap to wash my hands.                                     times while I wash my hands.

14. Pillow fights are the best!                              14. Don’t anyone touch my pillow!

15. Sheets make good ghost costumes                15. My brother won’t touch my 

      if you cut eye holes.                                            sheets because they have

                                                                               flowers on them.

16. My sister is scared of snakes.                        16. I hate my brother!

17. I don’t know how to clean up.                         17. I love to help Mama clean!

18. My sister is a tattle-tale!                                 18. My brother is always starting

                                                                                 trouble.

19. No, I don’t have to pee again.                        19. Grandma, I have to go to the

      I just went before we got to this place.                 bathroom again.

20. Grandma, here are two                                   20. Grandma, would you please 

      Spidey books to read.                                          read this Fancy Nancy book 

                                                                                to me? I love you

                                                                                very much, Grandma!

Bad Timing

Why is it that when you're leaving for a long trip the car won't start?  Or you're waiting for house guests to arrive and a pipe bursts?  Or you're expecting ten for a holiday dinner and the oven konks out?


Several years ago we'd packed our SUV to begin the drive from Massachusetts to Florida.  STUFF for eight months was wedged in like a puzzle.  Golf clubs and tennis rackets slid behind the front seats.  Boxes of paperwork, books, and computer equipment lay on the flattened trunk where the back seats had been. Suitcases spread toward the rear door.  Coats and jackets topped the mound, while shoe bags and boots plugged the holes.  We set the alarm on the house and adjusted our front seats.  Charley turned the key in the ignition.

NOTHING!  Over and over - not even a whine.  Battery dead overnight.

We called the dealer, who promised a tow truck, which arrived an hour later, which had no luck charging the battery, which then needed a tow.  Only one problem:  the BMW couldn't be towed in "Park," and without the ignition on, the gears wouldn't shift to "Neutral."  Oh yes, one other problem:  the over-ride access to the gear shift was under the cup console between the front seats and needed a wrench.  Guess where the BMW geniuses had stored the wrench?  In the trunk.  Guess what else was in the trunk?

We unloaded the car, piled everything in the garage, and watched as our BMW inched its way up the tow truck in "Neutral."  When the car arrived two days later, we made sure it started before we packed it up again, and we never turned it off till we hit the first rest stop 200 miles away.

*************

One son and daughter-in-law were hosting fourteen of us for Christmas Eve several years ago. On the way home from the airport after picking us up on Dec. 23rd, our son received a call from home.

"What's up?" he said.

"We have a flood."

"What?  Where?"

"A pipe was leaking under the kitchen sink and water began pouring into the basement.  I called Serve-Pro and they'll be here soon."

"Unbelievable!  Did you shut off the main water line?"

"Yes. I've got buckets in the basement but there's a big hole in the ceiling down there."

"We're about forty-five minutes away.  Call me when they get there."

Serve-Pro came and cleaned up.  They left behind a blower/dryer in the middle of the kitchen, a wet vac in the basement, and a new kitchen pipe for the holiday.

"You really shouldn't use this sink after Christmas," the man said before he left. "There's mold under the cabinets and it's unhealthy.  All the cabinets will have to be torn out."

"That means a new kitchen, I guess," my daughter-in-law said.  "We weren't planning on it this soon."

"Well, don't worry about Christmas Eve," I said, giving her a big hug.  "We don't care what we eat, as long as we're together.  We can always order pizza! Why not sit down and dad and I will put the children to bed?"

The next day I set the dining room table while our daughter-in-law emptied the lower cabinets.  That evening fourteen of us enjoyed a beef tenderloin roast with Lyonnaise potatoes, fresh green beans, spaghetti squash, and Tiramisu that had been stashed in the refrigerator.  We danced around the blower that continued to rattle in the middle of the kitchen, grateful we didn't have to wash dishes in the bathtub upstairs.

************

A friend of ours was an avid tennis player and agreed to substitute for another team. During the third set in a three-hour match, she injured her Achilles Tendon.  The surgeon ordered a "boot."

"You'd better take it easy for a while, till we can confirm whether it's torn," he said.

"What about Christmas dinner?" her husband said.  "We can always go out."

"No, eight other people are planning to come, and I've already prepared some things ahead.  We'll carry on."

Deidre stood like a stork on one leg making the canapes and setting the table the day before. She hopped from sink to refrigerator preparing two beef Wellingtons and four vegetables on Christmas morning, then went to get dressed.

At 3:30 p.m. she turned on the oven. The oven refused to oblige. "Honey, we have no oven!"

"Try resetting it.  Maybe you didn't hit the proper sequence.  I'll check the breaker."

Deidre tried again, following instructions in the manual. Still nothing.

"OK, now what??  They'll be here at 5:00."

"Call Kim.  Maybe we can use her oven, since she's coming anyway and lives around the corner."

At 5:00 the other eight guests arrived.  Mark served them a drink and Deidre's famous canapes, heated in the microwave.  At 6:00 Deidre announced, "I'm so sorry, but I'm afraid we have no oven!  If you'll excuse us, Kim and I are going to drive to her house to cook your dinner.  Her ovens have been pre-heating."

Fifty minutes later, the ladies removed the four vegetables and two beef Wellingtons from Kim's ovens and nestled them in towels and blankets in the trunk so they wouldn't wobble.  Kim slammed the trunk and got behind the wheel.

She turned the key in the ignition...NOTHING.

"Call Mark!  He can come get the dinner."

The ladies went around to the trunk to open it for Mark's arrival.  STUCK!

"Call Mark back and have him bring my husband with his keys," Kim said.

Together the foursome jimmied the trunk open and transferred everything to Mark's car. Dinner was served at 7:00.

Three nights later Deidre hosted a birthday party for Mark.  Sixty people enjoyed her hot canapes, heated in another neighbor's oven.

A Condo Decorates for the Holidays

After Thanksgiving, I asked our new condo manager if there would be any Christmas decorations hung along the street in front of our buildings.

To the north, our neighbors had strung colored lights that transformed the bushes between their two entrances into carousel horses that pranced with the breezes. White and red poinsettias filled urns beneath the columns at their gates.  We remained in darkness.

Along the street on the south side of our complex, strings of white lights wound upward around eight palm trees three stories high.  Under the fronds, the lights were strung tightly together, resembling a circular box encrusted in jewels.  The fronds burst from their box laden with lights. We remained in darkness.

"I don't know.  I'll have to check with the Buildings and Grounds Committee.  What's been done in the past?" the new manager said.

It wasn't his fault.  He was our second manager in eighteen months and didn't want to piss anyone off.  The manager who'd run the place since it had been built had retired after thirty-two years.  Under his watch the Christmas decorations - always the same - had gone up like clockwork:  white lights at the street, around the lamp posts, and on top of the guard house; wreaths on the doors of the buildings and on the columns at the entrance; garlands along the railings; and a decorated tree in the garage.  The green garlands had begun to turn brown and the tree had grown tired, but no-one complained.

"Mr. Thomas bought a lot of new decorations last year," I said, "but I don't know where they are."  Mr. Thomas had been hired next and fired after eighteen months. His decorations from Home Depot - purchased with funds from the annual budget - included three-foot nutcrackers, manger scenes, menorahs, and new garlands.

"I think they were disposed of," the new manager said.  In other words, the staff probably took them home.

"May I put something on the landing of my floor and in the garage and first floor lobbies? I've done that for twenty years."

"I'll go out on a limb and say I wouldn't want to disrupt a twenty-year tradition.  Go ahead."

I put out my bowls of glass balls and wrapped the front staircase in a garland of berries.  The outside remained in darkness.

A week later, the Building and Grounds Committee put up wreaths on the doors of the buildings and on the cement columns at the street entrance.  The outside remained in darkness.

One of the Board of Directors took matters into his own hands.  He purchased $500 worth of white lights, which the staff strung around the lamp posts and guard house.

A week later a menorah appeared on a table outside the manager's office.  A couple of days after that a decorated tree stood on the table.

It looked like the same disheveled tree we'd seen during the thirty-two years our first manager had reigned. Apparently it passed the Building and Grounds Committee's requirements.



Wishing all of my readers happy holidays with those you love and a healthy 2016!

Girlfriends' Night Out

My sister sent me this on the internet several years ago, and it's worth another chuckle.  Unfortunately, I don't know the original author.  I'm re-posting to celebrate the wonderful holiday lunch I had with girlfriends this week.

A group of 15-year-old girlfriends discussed where to meet for dinner. Finally, they agreed to meet at the Dairy Queen next to the Ocean View Restaurant because they had only $6.00 among them and Jimmy Johnson, the cute boy in Social Studies, worked at the Dairy Queen.

Ten years later, the group of 25-year-old girlfriends discussed where to meet for dinner.  Finally, they agreed to meet at the Ocean View Restaurant because the beer was cheap, the restaurant offered free appetizers, the band was good, there was no cover charge, and there were lots of cute guys.

Ten years later, the group of 35-year-old girlfriends discussed where to meet for dinner.  Finally, they agreed to meet at the Ocean View Restaurant because the cosmos were good, it was right near the gym, and if they went late enough, there wouldn't be too many whiny little kids.

Ten years later, the group of 45-year-old girlfriends discussed where to meet for dinner.  Finally, they agreed to meet at the Ocean View Restaurant because the martinis were big and the waiters had tight pants and nice buns.

Ten years later, the group of 55-year-old girlfriends discussed where to meet for dinner.  Finally, they agreed to meet at the Ocean View Restaurant because the prices were reasonable, the wine list was good, the restaurant had windows that opened (in cases of hot flashes), and fish is good for cholesterol.

Ten years later, the group of 65-year-old girlfriends discussed where to meet for dinner.  Finally, they agreed to meet at the Ocean View Restaurant because the lighting was good and the restaurant had an early bird special.

Ten years later, the group of 75-year-old girlfriends discussed where to meet for dinner.  Finally, they agreed to meet at the Ocean View Restaurant because the food was not too spicy and the restaurant was handicapped-accessible.

Ten years later, the group of 85-year-old girlfriends discussed where to meet for dinner.  Finally, they agreed to meet at the Ocean View Restaurant because they had never been there before.

Menopause: Two Points of View

Menopause from a man's point of view:

Today I wanted to talk to you all about a problem that has plagued both men and women since the dawn of well, men and women—menopause. Now lest the ladies out there take umbrage at including men in this discussion, allow me to explain.

My darling wife, who is not yet sixty, but close, has been undergoing the change for several years now. In the beginning it wasn’t so noticeable until one day we were watching a documentary about oil drilling in the arctic wildlife refuge.  Of course, no documentary on drilling for oil in the arctic would be complete without showing archival footage of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The documentary was interrupted for a commercial and I turned to my wife to ask her if she wanted anything from the kitchen.  That’s when I noticed that she was crying. No one wants to see birds and otters covered in oil, and by nature my wife is a compassionate person, but tears? “What’s wrong dear?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she answered between sniffles.

“Can I get you a Kleenex?”

“OK.”  That was my first experience with how menopause wreaks havoc on a women’s emotions—and it wasn’t going to be my last.  Fortunately, the mood swings didn’t last all that long and I was able to weather even the worst of the onslaughts. 

What hasn’t changed is the problem of hot flashes. Now, I haven’t experienced a “hot flash,” but my wife has compared it to being inside a microwave oven and being cooked from the inside out.  Many is the night that I have awakened to find my wife’s side of the bed empty, only to discover that she has been up for hours, unable to sleep because her internal body temperature has reached the same temperature as a medium rare steak. She turns down the A/C and lies there uncovered while on my side of the bed, I’m lying with the blankets up to my chin, shivering like a puppy at the vet.

So dear ladies, have sympathy for your husbands - we’re suffering right along with you!  It’s called MEN-o-pause for a reason.

Menopause from a woman's point of view:

I sat down at the computer in a gray sweater to write this blog.  Two sentences into the draft, I pulled the sweater off.  I was overheating.

I don’t mean overheating as in, “Come here, honey, let’s have some fun!”  I mean overheating as in, “Turn the a.c.down to sixty degrees so I can get some relief!”  We live in Florida, don’t forget.

This bodily reaction has been going on for twenty-plus years.  It started around the time my hormones left me and took up residence I don’t know where.  I refuse to take Hormone Replacement Therapy and instead pop nightly soy supplements and drink soy milk for breakfast and dinner.  The milk tastes better than niacin tablets, which turn my face and neck into a prickly red minefield of zits resembling the rash I get when Charley’s chin scrapes me with a two-day growth. 

Time out…now getting cold and must put my sweater back on.

On any random night Charley knows that our blanket will be thrown off sometime before midnight and then yanked back up at an ungodly hour.  He tucks his side of the sheet and blanket under his body so it won’t move.  He has grown used to my saying that I’m burning up and would he please roll to the other side of the bed because his body is like a coal furnace and I feel like the burning coal.  He knows if I’m out of bed and he doesn’t hear the toilet flush it’s because I can’t sleep and have my head in the freezer to cool down.  He also knows things won’t change anytime soon – my mother passed away at ninety and was still having flashes.  Sometimes he knows during breakfast that I want to pick a fight over why he didn’t secure the cap on the orange juice, which spilled all over the table when I shook the container, so he’d better vacate to get the newspaper.

Excuse me…must take the sweater off again. 

At a dinner party Charley actually counted four times I took a jacket off and put it back on.  I reminded him that testosterone doesn’t last forever, either.

Thanks for the male version on menopause to Don Weiss, guest blogger and author of the mystery novel PICTURE PERFECT, available as an e-book through major distributors soon.