50th H.S. Reunion Recap and DON'T Rules

I didn't want it to end! The weekend started Wednesday with six ladies at my home for a "mature" slumber party. Weather perfect for long walks along Buzzard's Bay and sitting on the deck. Didn't count the wine bottles in my recycling! Charley made a smart move - to his sister's for the duration.

The ladies followed each other in a caravan to Greenwich, met up at a private cocktail party (have you gotten the impression that even the tea drinkers were drinking a lot of tea?), followed by the reunion dinner, and brunch on Sunday. Of the 130 attendees (including significant others), I think almost 100 of us were out on the dance floor at one time or another. We grabbed anyone close to the wooden platform and formed big circles. Didn't have to recognize the person we were dancing with - in fact, probably couldn't! The "oldies" kept our hip replacements gyrating and new knees bending. "Primo" and "secondo" platters of Italian food kept coming and coming and I kept taking and taking. Finally I gave up trying to hold my stomach in. Was so wound up, I didn't sleep a wink all night, and neither did my friend who'd driven down with me. Both husbands decided to stay home (wonder why??).

Here's a list of DON'T RULES, if you plan to enjoy yourself at a 50th reunion. I had lots of help putting together. Here goes!

1. Don't assume you can ignore the questionnaires during the year preceding the blessed event. If you don't respond, nobody will care if you come or not by then.

2. Don't refuse invitations to pre-reunion gatherings. You might not recognize people when you get to the actual reunion (you won't!!).

3. Don't lean in to squint at someone's nametag and photo. You will look like the old fart you are, instead of the hipster who sticks out his hand and asserts, "I'm ______________."

4. Don't ask people if they remember you. You might not like the answer!

5. Don't ask someone you've just met, "Are you wife number two or three?"

6. Don't introduce your second wife as "Mary Two" and attempt to explain that she has the same name as your first wife.

7. Don't answer the question, "How are you?" with, "My last surgery was a total failure."

8. Don't answer the question, "How are things?" with a monologue about your bitter divorce, lack of funds for a vacation in the last five years, and necessity to work till hell freezes over!

9. Don't french-kiss your old boyfriend.

10. Don't put your hand on your old girlfriend's butt.

11. Don't assume the best-looking in the class is still the best-looking.

12. Don't assume the nerds are still the nerds. Or that they are poor.

13. Don't eat garlic bread before dancing.

14. In the event you disregard rule number 11, don't leave your TicTacs at home.

15. Don't ask someone to dance if he/she has a walking stick propped against his/her chair.

16. If you suspect someone had several facelifts, don't stand next to his/her ear, searching for surgical scars.

17. If someone is wearing a hearing aid, don't continue to shout in that ear. Move to the other one, dummy!

18. Don't dance for three hours in a pair of heels you just bought.

19. If you ignore rule #18 and must remove your shoes, don't point out how grotesque your bunions have become.

20. Don't assume that you will look like a dance instructor after a few sippies. It is not a life-altering event, and no-one cares if you make a fool of yourself on the dance floor! Everyone else out there is doing the same thing.

LAUGH TILL YOU CRY, DANCE AS THOUGH NO-ONE'S WATCHING, AND LOVE AS THOUGH YOU'VE NEVER BEEN HURT. That's what our reunion was all about! Any other contributions? Write them under "Comments." Thanks for the memories. Will post following our So. African trip.

My New Devices

I know. I'm a little late joining the 21st century! But I'm trying to catch up.

I just ordered an e-reader, which the manufacturer promises will still be visible in direct sunlight (and there will be a lot of direct sunlight in Africa!). Charley and I usually lug five paperbacks each on a trip. I did not get an IPad because it would duplicate what my new phone will do, and we needed an international calling device. Hope that wasn't a mistake!

I had to get rid of my beloved old Sony Ericsson pink cellphone. The back kept falling off and I had to hit each letter three times to find the right one. Typing a text message took forever.

So I got the simplest Iphone available. It is pretty ugly - black and industrial-looking. The cost was $49. Of course, tax is charged on the retail value, which was $424. Then I needed some kind of special ap (short for "application" - I'm learning) for $69, a charger for the car, a service agreement, and most importantly, an indestructible case and film over the glass (I don't want an elephant trampling on the thing, but maybe it would survive?). The only feminine choice for a cover was white, but that would get black, anyway. I walked out of there with a $245.41 bill.

Well, I didn't exactly JUST walk out of there. Lovely Ashley spent two and one-quarter hours with me. First she had to call Charley to get HIS permission to add my cellphone line under my own name, since his was on there as the primary account-holder. That was not pretty, as Charley not only won't touch computers, he won't touch cellphones and doesn't understand why any company needs six security questions answered to change an account. Finally Ashley turned him around.

Ashley should have sized me up when she saw me walk in the door with my pretty pink phone. Nevertheless, she persevered and answered my every question. Even downloaded all my photos and address book from the old phone and then gave me a demonstration by calling me. I was put to the test and passed (answered my own phone)! And then she wrote Pam's "To Do List." No kidding!

I felt like a kid in kindergarten, but at home I was eternally grateful. I had to download ITunes to set up an account. I had to create a password and username and then plug my white cord into the new device and download the info onto my computer (so I never lose any information). Then I had to mark in my calendar the date to remove the International Traveller plan in November, when we return from our trip. Oh yes, and I have to remember not to answer emails on my new phone overseas. That would cost me around $200 more. I'll find WiFi (I know what that means, too!) at the hotels.

Lastly, Ashley printed out the charges on my first and second phone bills that will be coming in, and showed me that the third bill would be the constant one.

Little did Ashley know I wasn't finished! When I got home, I emailed her with two more questions, since I couldn't view the tutorial that AT&T sent me about using the thing. She told me to email her anytime. And guess what - she answered my questions that day.

And the next day, when I had to email her again with another question.

So I guess I got my money's worth. I've already deleted all the worthless emails on my IPhone, but have to go out on my deck to do it. We don't get decent reception on the coast of Massachusetts!

Forty-six Years and a Few Compromises Later

One of my husband's favorite stories about his ability to compromise actually took place way back in 1975. On a Friday evening when he wasn't travelling, I had arranged for a vacuum-cleaner salesman to come to the house after dinner to give a demonstration. We needed a new vacuum desperately!

The last thing a tired husband wants to do is to sit through the demonstration of an appliance at the end of a long week of work! Especially if he played baseball in college, is a devoted Red Sox fan, and there is a game on tv...

Like GAME SIX OF THE WORLD SERIES!!! Little did I know I had arranged the salesman's visit the same time that the Red Sox played the Cincinnati Reds.

As the salesman threw dirt all over the family room floor, Charley dodged and bounced around him, trying to follow the plays. He couldn't hear a thing. After the salesman left, I lit into my weary husband.

"How could you be so rude to that man?" I demanded.

"You were lucky he got in the door!" was the response.

Thank goodness Carlton Fisk hit his game-winning home run in the twelfth inning at 12:33 a.m., not while the salesman was there. I can't imagine if Charley had missed seeing Fisk's arms willing the ball fair, or the ricochet off the pole. I have no idea whether we bought the machine!







Another compromise situation is still in progress. Our Kenmore refrigerator in Massachusetts is 27 years old. It is still functioning perfectly, which I regret every day. However, I have learned to pick my battles!

We have had Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Eve, July 4th, and Labor Day parties at the house, not to mention graduation and birthday parties. We added another small set of three refrigerated drawers to accommodate the larder and the preparations.

The refrigerator is under a service agreement, since parts are no longer available. That means that if Sears can't replace the part, I get a new refrigerator.

It just isn't going to happen. The thing keeps going and going....

The repairman who checks it out every year keeps telling me the same thing. I am sick of hearing it. "They don't make them like this any more! Don't ever get rid of this machine!"

Sounds like Charley's philosophy: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." To put it another way, "A new kitchen? Not in my lifetime!"

"Most Versatile Blog" Award

I have been nominated by Ruth Berge, Palm Beach County columnist and fellow writer, for the "Most Versatile Blog" Award. Thank you, Ruth, for becoming a "Follower" and nominating my writing! I graciously accept!! I hope everyone will click on "Follower" at my blog and yours (http://www.ruth.the.writer.blogspot.com/). And thank you, Ms. Saba, for establishing the award on her blog, http://www.worddiaries.blogspot.com/.

In order to follow the rules, I am going to divulge seven little-known things about me.

First, I morphed into a screaming hockey mom during the years our two sons played ice hockey (yes, both sons went on to play pro baseball). My husband would go to the opposite side of the arena and pace, while I just kept yelling, "Get that guy! Take him out!" To quote Sarah Palin, "The only difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull is lipstick."

Second, I have done the following on foreign travels: cartwheeled down an Austrian Alp after falling off a T-bar; remained confined in my room in Buenos Aires during a coup, while machine gun fire richocheted off the hotel; watched helplessly while a gang of youths surrounded, then lifted, our Volkswagen in Naples, Italy; suffered swollen eyelids from a severe allergy attack on a 12-inch trail over 200-foot gorges in Madeira, Portugal (do these count as four separate items?)

Third, I often can't remember why I enter a room.

Fourth, parts of my body are no longer where they should be!

Fifth, there was some glitch in the evolutionary process that landed me on the same planet with snakes.

Sixth, I work out at a fitness center but hate every minute.

Seventh, Ditto for playing golf twice a week! I'd rather be on the tennis court.

Here are some blogs or websites with blogs that I follow. Some are about writing; others are about life. I have been a follower of Nathan Bransford's for many years, when he was a literary agent and before he became an author. In fact, I queried him with my first manuscript, which became MINOR LEAGUE MOM: A MOTHER'S JOURNEY THROUGH THE RED SOX FARM TEAMS, published in 2009 by Barking Cat Books (he rejected me, unfortunately, but I still follow him).

http://www.blog.nathanbransford.com/

http://www.ruth.the.writer.blogspot.com/

http://www.jmleduc.blogspot.com/

http://www.worddiaries.blogspot.com/

http://www.rachaelharrie.blogspot.com/

http://www.amloki.blogspot.com/

http://www.italianamericanwriter.com/

www.Ally_Peltier_Ambitious_Enterpri@mail.vresp.com

http://www.momsteam.com/

http://www.elliegreat.blogspot.com/

http://www.awriterhemuttered.blogspot.com/

http://www.theauthorsshow.com/

http://www.grubstreet,inc.com/

Thanks again, Ruth! Now back to practicing humor for the manuscript I'm working on (A HANDBOOK FOR GROWN CHILDREN WITH ELDERLY PARENTS). Pam

The Cat and the.....Horse

I'd like to share a couple of stories that had the whole family laughing over Labor Day Weekend.





Don, my brother-in-law, got a call from his sister's husband before the couple was leaving on a cruise. "Would you mind taking care of our cat?" Don heard.

"No, I guess not. What do I have to do?"

"Just feed it and give it some medicine."

"Well, judging from the size of your cat, I guess it eats a lot, but what kind of medicine?"

"Just some pills."

"OK."

A week later, Don received another call from his brother-in-law. This time, the couple was aboard ship, as it pulled up anchor.

"I forgot to tell you, Don, the cat might need an enema."

"Say what?" Don screeched in his West Virginian drawl. "Are you sh___ing me?"

"Just insert the enema up his kazoo, if things get blocked up. Otherwise, he might have something burst."

"The h___ I will! I'll let the vet do it! I don't have a rubber suit."

"You can't take him to the vet! He charged us $900."

"Good thing that cat didn't have a problem while they were away," Don told us. "My sister would have found a dead cat on her hands!"






Our son had a financial client whose wife was a vet. The vet and her husband received a call on Christmas Eve Day from the frantic owner of a horse.

"Please come right over, Dr! Our horse is so old, its breath is labored, and we know the end will be soon. Can you ease his passing?"

"I'll be there shortly," the vet responded.

She and her husband arrived at the owner's house and and inquired as to the whereabouts of the horse.

"Well, it's so freezing cold out that we didn't want him to pass out there. So we put him down in the basement!"

"How did you get him down there?"

"We made a ramp."

Following the owner down the ramp, the vet and her husband found the horse in a tiny compartment in the basement. The horse was, indeed, about to expire.

"We have to get him out of here," the vet said. "I need to inject him and there's no place for him to lie down."

"What shall we do?" asked the owner. "We can't turn him around."

"Get a rope and we'll pull him backwards up the ramp."

The owner stood at his head, encouraging him, while the vet and her husband pulled from the rear. The horse was not only wobbly, but extremely reluctant to be pulled backwards up the ramp.

After several hours, darkness fell, marking Christmas Eve. The temperature plummeted. The horse finally made it to the top of the ramp outside, where the vet could inject him. She and her husband waited with the owner till the horse expired, then rushed home to pick up their family for church services. "May Christmas bring a day without ropes," they prayed.

AFTERMATH OF HURRICANE IRENE: REALITY CHECK

So there was this little thing called Irene, barrelling up the coast. Only a Category 1 - no big deal, right? Charley and I live on the coast of Florida most of the year and lived through a Category 2, evacuated for a Category 3.

In Massachusetts for the summer, we prepared there. Our house sits a half-mile from Buzzard's Bay, just south of Cape Cod. It had survived Hurricane Bob. We took everything off the deck that could possibly fly around, stuffed the freezers with anything that might survive without electricity, checked the sump pump, notified a neighbor we'd be gone, and gave him our cell phone number. We got cash from the ATM and made sure we had gas in the car and prescriptions for a month.

Oh, yes! We were scheduled to babysit our thirteen-month twin grandsons that weekend in N.J., while the rest of their family were in a wedding in Chicago. Into the car we piled lanterns, boots, a battery-operated radio, non-perishables, and a few bottles of wine. We knew the drill.

Arrived in N.J. and helped our son prepare his house for the storm. Deja vu! We not only stuffed the freezer, we stuffed the garage. All playthings for the older sister came in - plastic playhouse, swings, bike - as well as the toddlers' wagon, water table, and double stroller. Diapers, paper products, and water gallons were piled high. Somehow we got the outdoor furniture, grill, and two cars in there.

The neighbor next door came running over. "We don't get hurricanes in New Jersey!" she insisted. "I didn't know what to do, so I went to Home Depot at 7 a.m. looking for kerosene lanterns. The guy working said, 'What hurricane? We don't get hurricanes in New Jersey.' I just finished pulling six mattresses into the basement for tornadoes. My daughter, Sarah, woke up at midnight and asked me if I'd brought the hammock in. She is really nervous!" I can't imagine why?!

The storm raged for two days, delivering pounding rain, but no severe wind. We never lost electricity. It was a good thing - one twin developed a raging fever that mocked the storm outside. "There's no way in hell we can take him anywhere! What did we do back in the old days?" Charley and I asked each other. Turns out there are some things that never change - stripping a child to lower his fever, using cool compresses, making sure he drinks cool water. We took turns rocking him under an a.c. vent, and called his parents at 2 a.m. for permission to give children's Ibuprofen.

On the fifth day, Charley and I climbed into our car for the six-hour drive back to Massachusetts. We stayed awake by drinking Diet Cokes all the way. Thankfully, the twin's fever had subsided. His parents and sister had returned on a rescheduled flight. Our home in Massachusetts remained intact, along with electrical and phone lines.

I married an Irishman, my only explanation for our good fortune! Loss of electricity or damage to a house? There are some things that can be replaced, and others that can't.

TERMS OF ENDEARMENT: RULES FOR GROWN CHILDREN WITH ELDERLY PARENTS (Excerpt from new manuscript)

MY PARENTS AND HURRICANE WILMA

RULE FIFTEEN: EXPECT FALLOUT IF YOU RELOCATE PARENTS DURING

A NATURAL DISASTER (BUT DO IT ANYWAY!)

In October, 2005, Hurricane Wilma hit south Florida. It was only thirteen months after Frances and Jeanne had hit. Wilma went across the Gulf of Mexico and hit Cozumel as a Category 5 storm, then turned around and took aim at Florida's west coast. Its eastward path would carry it across the Everglades toward Ft. Lauderdale, just below us.

Ten years before, I had relocated my parents from Connecticut to Boynton Beach, just five miles from Charley and me in Florida. In 2005 Mom was 89; Dad was 93. I had left them alone in their cinderblock house for Hurricane Frances, a Category 2. During Jeanne, almost a Category 4 storm, my mother and I had mopped up all night in their house. When Wilma bore down, I made reservations for the four of us at the Hampton Inn in Brunswick, Georgia.

My parents protested that all their neighbors were staying in their homes. After age eighty, the herd mentality took over, reminding me of a bunch of teenagers. Evacuation to a shelter was unthinkable, because of the prevalence of germs. "God knows what we'd catch! Besides, we don't want to listen to screaming children all night," Dad insisted. "We'd be on cots and wouldn't sleep at all. We need a bathroom close by and the toilets would be overflowing."

We each packed one suitcase. In addition, I'd put water, snack items, rain gear, books, lanterns, blankets, and some canned food in the car. I'd recharged my cell phone and gone through a check list for our residences. Mom brought her knitting.

On the drive up Route 95, there was dead silence from the back seat. My parents were punishing Charley and me for uprooting them from their home without just cause! At a rest stop we heard, "Bob (next-door) says this will only be a tropical storm. Why do we have to leave our house? Bob has a generator and Ann is the new block captain, with a satellite phone."

"You certainly have a lot of faith in Bob's weather predictions!" I replied. There was no point arguing.

Wilma got stuck over the Yucatan. Mom lectured, "You are a worrier, Pam, and we should never have left Leisureville. Besides, we're missing Doc Schenecke's 90th birthday party, and he came to my party last fall!" My mother the social butterfly??? She hated even going to block parties right in front of her house, especially if she had to bring a dish.

The inhabitants of the Hampton Inn that weekend were all Florida residents, driven out by caution over the storm warnings. Saturday and Sunday Charley and I listened to a litany of complaints about my parents' accommodations. The beds were too soft; there were only three T.V. stations; the toilet seats were too low (after all, they had replaced all theirs in their Leisureville house with high-rises); there was no Florida newspaper at breakfast. "Let's go shopping at the mall," I suggested.

"No thanks, I think we'll stay right here." Charley and I left them in front of the T.V.'s giant screen in the lobby.

The next day: "Why don't you both come to a matinee with us?"

"No thanks, I think we'll just stay here."

By Monday morning, Wilma was gathering strength and heading east across Florida. It finally hit our area, nearly a Category 3. We, however, ate a leisurely breakfast in Georgia, read, napped, and went out for an early dinner.

"You know, Charley, I think it was a very wise decision we made not to stay in our house," Dad informed us. "My God, what am I eating? Catfish??"