A Bedroom Scene

     Frank is ninety-five.
     Rita is eighty-eight.

     Frank and Rita and their spouses were best friends.  They all immigrated from various regions of Italy and ended up within five miles of each other in Florida.  Every Sunday after mass they went to breakfast together. They alternated Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter holidays at each other's homes, and visited each other's relatives.
     Frank still drove.  After his wife, Maria, and Rita's husband, Tony, passed away, Frank stopped by every day to visit.  He changed light bulbs, tightened screws, and took Rita for groceries or appointments. Every Saturday he delivered her to the hairdresser and picked her up afterward for a matinee and early dinner.  On Sunday after mass and breakfast, they visited Perpetual Gardens Mortuary, where Maria lay on a slab directly above Tony.
     Five years after Maria had passed and nine months after Tony had passed, Frank put his house on the market and moved into the guest room at Rita's.

     Frank (his first night in the guest room):  Rita, I can't find my glasses.
     Rita (in her bedroom):  Look on the kitchen table.
     Frank:  Where?  I can't hear.  I took my hearing aides out.
     Rita (louder):  In the kitchen.  Put your ears in.
     Fran (with loud squeal from his hearing aides):  OK.  Where the hell is the light switch?
     Rita:  Next to the phone.
     Frank (fumbling):   There they are!  When should I shower?
     Rita:  When you want.
     Frank:  There's no shower in my bathroom.  Now or in the morning?
     Rita:  In the morning.
     Frank:  Do you eat, then shower, or shower first?
     Rita:  Do what you want.  I have coffee, juice, Italian bread toasted.
     Frank:  I always have oatmeal with bananas.
     Rita:  Too bad.
     Frank:  What?
     Rita:  Never mind.
     Frank:  What can I put my dentures in?
     Rita:  A glass from the kitchen.
     Frank:  I'll get it.  I forgot my Polident.  You got any left from Tony?
     Rita:  It's in my bathroom under the sink.
     Frank:  OK.  What time you get up?
     Rita:  Seven o'clock.
     Frank:  Seven o'clock?  Why so early?
     Rita:  I say the rosary.  Sleep, if you want.
     Frank:  Yeah, I don't say the rosary.
     Rita:  Do what you want.
     Frank:  Can I come in for the Polident?
     Rita:  There's no-thing exciting here.
     Frank (going through Rita's bedroom to her bathroom):  I heard on TV Dentu-
               cream poisons people.  You might find me dead on the floor.
     Rita:  You no wear them enough to get poison.    If I find you dead, I scream for
              Dolores (next door).
     Frank:  Call 9-1-1 after you scream.
     Rita:  You check the stove?
     Frank:  Why should I?
     Rita:  I check at night to make sure no gas.
     Frank:  We had cold sandwiches tonight.
     Rita:  Oh, yeah.  You check the front door?
     Frank:  I locked it myself.
     Rita:  Then go to bed.
     Frank:  I'm trying.  Night, Rita.
     Rita:  Good night, Tony.  I mean Franco.


   

   

From the Grandkids

Our daughter-in-law parked the new white SUV in her driveway to surprise the girls when they got off the school bus.  Here are their reactions.
Emma:  "Is that the only color they had?"
Hannah:  "Does dad know about this?"

We had the pleasure of a granddaughter's visit for four nights.  We went to the beach, attacked each other in bumper boats, played tennis, visited a church fair, shopped for school clothes, went to the movies, and got a pedicure.  Hannah called her parents to report in.
Her mom:  "What have you been doing?"
Hannah:  "Oh, nothing much."

Charley (aka 'Papa') on the phone to Olivia:
"How are the twins (her brothers) doing with potty training?"
Olivia:  "Not too well.  Will runs and makes it, but Ryan still poops in his pants."

Papa to Will on the phone:  "What did you like best about your first day at (pre)school?"
Will:  "Lunch."

Emma after her birthday:
"Thank you for the check.  I can't buy anything because Dad's putting it in the bank.  That's OK, grandma.  The school clothes you got were nice."

What's Real?

What do you believe on an internet dating site?

First, the woman's photo is probably ten years old (at least), unless it's a photo of her youngest sister.  Of course there'll be no wrinkles, midriff fat, or gray streaks on a twenty-something.  Ditto for a man's photo.

Did she lie about her age?  H-E-L-L-O?  What woman in her right mind would post her real age on an internet site for the world?  Let's assume she cheats by five to ten years.  Ditto for a man.

If the woman lives in south Florida, chances are her face has been tweaked at least once.  Girls receive gift certificates for surgical face lifts when they turn sixteen down there - no lie.  Injections of Juvaderm plump out the hollows and Botox smoothes out the wrinkles.  Possible ditto for the man.

If the potential date passes a background check without a criminal record, things might progress to the meet-and-greet at a neutral place.  Here are some first impressions:

Him:

Holy crap!  Are those boobs real?  Who cares -  I've hit the jackpot.  Not a wrinkle on her.  A lot of cash for those boobs and dimples.  She must be loaded.  But those eyelashes? They're long enough to damage my eyeball.  The hair - I know she's not a natural redhead, but didn't she read the instructions?  She's hot, though.  I'd like to get her out in the wilderness.  But those fingernails might puncture the air mattress.

Her:

Holy crap!  He's old enough to be my father.  His interests were camping and hiking, but what if we're on a mountain and a bear came along?  He'd have a heart attack and I'd be a goner.  I bet he doesn't even have an Iphone to make dinner reservations. He'd be asleep halfway through the meal, anyway.  I wonder if he drools.  And he looks cheap.  His barber shouldn't have a license.  I'd have to do all the cooking and cleaning.

"I'm sorry, John, what did you say?  You'd like to fly us to Sun Valley next weekend in your jet?"

Grandma's Plan

     Our eight-year-old granddaughter recently spent four non-stop days with Charley and me. Here are her

interests:  reading, crafts, cooking, games, softball, surfing, tennis, dancing, music, shopping, movies, fashion, and lots of things I've left out. Since we only had four days, we tried to cram in as much as possible.

     We picked blueberries and baked muffins, shopped for school clothes, had a pedicure, saw a Smurfs movie.  She dived under four-foot waves and rode her boogie board (left her surf board at home), had a shoot-out with me in bumper boats, played tennis, went to a church fair where a magician transformed a white handkerchief into a bunny and she spent $1.10 on gifts for her sister and herself.

     Our "quiet" time was spent on the computer searching for instructions to make patterned duck tape into a purse.  The instructions were too complicated, and she'd already made the easier projects.  Family photo albums provided some amusement and time for me to wash my hair.

     My plan for grandchildren's future visits is:  I WON'T HAVE ONE!  We can sit on the deck and our amusement will pass by:  butterflies, squirrels, chipmunks, hummingbirds, robins, mockingbirds, sparrows, seagulls, hawks, possums, and maybe even a fox or a deer.  Books can provide our adventure, shared chapter by chapter, before eyelids droop at 9:00.  We can walk to the beach and along its length. We can arrange flowers we've picked from the garden, feed the birds, and cut herbs. We can make up our own recipes while the car stays in the garage.  Or we can sleep in the shade.

     This is sounding too much like a plan again!

   



   

Morning Walks on the Island of Ischia

     Sidewalks on roads hugging hillsides on Ischia, Italy, exist as a brief nod to the tourist, then disappear. Charley and I include a mandatory three-to-four-hour walk each day we travel, but it can be death-defying.
     One of our routes includes the main thoroughfare into the town of Forio.  We climb wooded paths over  the hillside behind our hotel and follow a road along the cliffs.  Our work is rewarded at the scenic

overlook.  Below us lie wide, sandy beaches, vineyards rising up the mountainside, and the bulls-eye fort in town across the Bay. From our perch, we wind down one-lane cobble-stoned streets that lead through a tunnel.  Since I can hear the traffic coming in either direction on the stones, I wait for silence before starting through.  Charley has charged ahead and waits in the shade of a cafe at one of the beaches.
     When I catch up with him, we proceed to the most difficult part of the walk.  We arrive at the main cog and cross to face traffic.
     In Italy, crosswalks are mere suggestions.  Mopeds, scooters, and motorcycles weave around pedestrians trying to get to the other side. Waddling widows in black take their time and receive deference. Charley decides that since crosswalks are meaningless, he'll cross where he pleases, including blind curves. He grabs my hand and holds his free hand up like a traffic cop, defying two lanes of traffic to stop or hit us. Our luck has held so far.

      The rest of the thoroughfare has no sidewalk until we reach the harbor.  Trucks loaded with cement or tour buses with faces frozen in glass whiz past at 45 mph.  We flatten ourselves against stone houses. The space between my feet and the traffic lane is six inches.
     Charley walks ahead, using a sideways pushing motion away from us.  He is certain that motorists coming out of the curves will see him swishing and make NASCAR moves in the fifty feet before we become decorations on the side of local buildings.
     In front of one market, a car is heading to claim a parking space.  It is the same space where Charley is walking.  "Hey, stop!" he yells to the female driver, who slows to within three feet of his upright palms.
     Out jumps Nana, with her grocery bag.  "Quoi?  Quoi?" Nana says.
     In other words, "What's your problem?  Don't you know my daughter owned a moped when she was six?"
   
   
   
   

"We Do Not Have Crime Here"

     "Oh My God," yelled Dee, stumbling into the suitcase she'd left on the floor.  She'd flown
overnight from Miami to Venice, transferred to Naples, and taken a seventy-five-minute ferry ride to the island where she'd taken up residence.  "Where's my TV?"
     She darted like a chicken without a head around the living room/dinette/cooking space.  "It was right on this table when I left for the States.  And where's the cable box?"
     She dived under the tablecloth that hung from the TV table.  "Damn!  He got the computer, too!"
     Dee ventured upstairs to her bedroom.  Everything was still in place, but her clothes hung at odd angles in the closet.  They'd been slashed.
     Of Italian heritage and fluent in the language, Dee refused to be a pushover.  She dialed 1-1-2 for the Carabiniere (state police) on the island.
     "Carabiniere," someone answered.
     "I'd like to report a robbery in my home," Dee said in Italian.
     "Not possible.  There are no robberies on Ischia.  Everyone's door stays open."  The phone went dead.
     Dee came out of her apartment like a boxer out of her corner.  She went down the whitewashed steps to the street beneath her apartment and wound down to the marina.

     "Taxi," she yelled.
     The driver deposited her at the Carabiniere Station.  Dee explained what had happened and filed a report.  "We'll come in the morning," the officer said.  "This is a very serious charge - we do not have crime here."
     "And you've never heard of Mafia in Napoli, either," Dee said under her breath.
     Two twenty-year-olds appeared in uniform the next day.  They stood open-mouthed, staring at the closet where Dee's clothes hung in shreds.
     "There is no crime on Ischia," one said.
     "I know who did it," Dee said.  "I filed a report last winter.  He rents above me and put his cable dish on my terrace while I was in Florida.  I pulled it down when I came back and he told me I'd find my apartment gone this spring.  Check your files, you'll find my report. There was a witness."
     "I'm sorry, Senora, we have no proof."
     After they left, Dee spun on the heels of her Birkenstocks.  This time she told the taxi driver to drop her at the island's newspaper office.  She supplied the reporter with her police report and photos from her closet and TV table.  "I will not be intimidated," she said in her final statement that ran on page one.
     The following week, Dee had the creepy feeling someone was stalking her. She whipped around and snapped a photo with her phone.  The tenant who rented above her was in the photo.  She continued to the fruit stand to test melons.  When the alleged robber began yelling at her across the cherries, she snapped
another photo.  This time he was in snarling position.
     She called a Neapolitan lawyer who worked for the American Embassy.  "What happened next?" I said.
     "Nothing.  Italians talk and talk but they don't do anything.  The landlord's a strong-arm lawyer on the island.  Even the state police are afraid of retaliation.  It's standard practice to cable-poach, but that tenant never offered to pay me a dime and he put the dish up without my permission."
     At our hotel, one of the waiters called Charley a "Neapolitan at heart."  We'd taken it as a compliment till we found out the Neapolitan heart is made of straw.
   
     

A Dispute in Italy

     We left Barcelona overdosed on Spanish history, bizarre structures, tapas, crowds, Gaudi, and Miro. Next stop:  Naples.

     Over the years we have fallen in love with southern Italy.  Life is exuberant and loud.  Neapolitans are brash, grabbing life as it comes and squeezing tight, as evidenced by the antics of twosomes on scooters or in passionate embraces whenever the mood strikes.  Neapolitans have ruled and been ruled, many times. They know in the course of human events, cultures are fleeting.  The sea lies in front of them, with Vesuvius behind.

     Men gather to discuss world events, local problems, and familial disputes.  Their voices rise, as their hands move up and down in prayer position.  Sometimes they squeeze their fingers together, pointing inward, as if they'd burned themselves.  For hours they stand there talking and yelling, yet nothing seems to get resolved.

   
     The three-quarter-mile road to our hotel on the island of Ischia was under construction for eighteen months.  The hotel owner was in a dispute with his neighbor, who shares the driveway, as to who should pay to fix the road.  Meanwhile, guests could either walk up the hairpin turns high over the Bay of Naples or wait at a staging area for the hotel to retrieve them.

     Last year, we noticed stones from the wall along the driveway tumbling down the hillside. Walkers could become ghosts, swallowed by gaping voids that delineated the sides of the promontory. "This is a prestigious hotel and I don't understand why the owners can't negotiate a settlement," I said to Charley.  "They're a member of a chain that must demand inspections."

     "You'd think they'd have paid off the neighbor," Charley, the pragmatist, said.

     "There has been a dispute as to who owns the part that needs fixing," the hotel manager told us.  "They won't accept our offer."

     This year, a new rock wall appeared where the driveway had been disintegrating.  The neighbor constructed a ninety-degree angle where the property divided.  The walls create such a narrow turn that taxis can't make it through.  Unless they're in Lilliputian cars, hotel guests must wait for shuttles to bring them to the hotel.  I could hear the neighbor saying, "Gotcha!"