Beach? Book!

A vacation, for me, must meet at least one of a few criteria.

• A meaningful experience.

• A visit with one or both of my children and their spouses.

• Relaxation and time "off the grid."

• Warmer weather than my current hometown.

I’ll take any one of the above and optimally, all of the above to call it a success. The one non-negotiable item, however, is a good book. I can’t call it a true vacation unless I’ve devoured a good book.

And when I say book, I mean a printed work of fiction or nonfiction, on sheets of paper bound together within covers. The kind of object that needs a physical bookmark. The kind of object that absorbs your affection for its form while also absorbing sunscreen, splashes from the pool, raindrops, food stains, and spilled wine. The kind of object that is always in airplane mode and does not need to be stowed during takeoff and landing. The kind of object that can be passed along limitlessly and enjoyed until if finally falls to pieces.

It’s called a beach book. A single inquiry of female friends, any good beach book suggestions? usually results in more titles and authors than can possibly be consumed. Generally, a good beach book is a light read, a bit salacious, well written and not too long. You can dig in to read and put it down without too much angst to participate in vacation activities. It should enhance the vacation rather than overtake your agenda.

I happened upon my latest selection by chance. Given a few options by my book club buddies I couldn’t find any of the titles at the locally owned bookstore. Forced to browse (oh, please, twist my arm) I was pulled in by covers (pastels are often a good choice) and titles. I flip each book over for signs that it’s a part of a series; I dislike being dropped into the middle of characters with backstories previously defined. I read reviews and the source of the review. I finally pick up a book with a dark, artistic cover. The reviews positively glow, and oh, there’s one from NPR, nice. Just under 500 pages – enough for a good week of off and on reading.

I spent my vacation in Key West, with periodic detours to 1920’s London. I was a voyeur into the lives of a widow and her spinster daughter, renting out the top floor of their upper class home to “paying guests” (certainly NOT lodgers as that would be low class). I watched a forbidden romance bloom and grow, I agonized over the traumatic events and consequences that followed and brought home 100 unread pages to thoroughly enjoy on my final Sunday of vacation. I also swam, napped, ate great meals and enjoyed evening activities with wonderful friends.

I’m a reader. I love a great book, especially if suggested by a friend. I’m happy to share a book and if I suggest a book, it’s because I think it will speak in some way to the reader. So, no e-Readers for me. Give me a bound book, let me hold it, read it, love it, stain it, watch the progression of the bookmark from beginning to end, and then share it with others. My beach read? The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters. I’d be happy to lend it, just let me know.

The trouble with airports

To my 17 loyal readers, my apologies, it’s been a strange and distracting summer, and I haven’t been able to capture and share my thoughts. This is my best attempt to jump back into the blog-o-sphere.

It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on Earth has ever produced the expression "As pretty as an airport." (Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, by Douglas Adams)

Let’s face it; nothing brings you down faster from the high of a trip than an airport. It’s a bookend fact of life. You’re excited to go somewhere, but you have to start at the airport. If you don’t score the TSA pre-check, you are forced to shed clothing, get a body scan and re-dress in a recombobulation area (a real place at MKE). This causes me quite a bit of stress when I’m traveling with Dan, who is always “two foops from naked”. He’s always ready to foop, foop, naked and “any other questions." I choose another line; I do not know him at TSA. And then, days later, your wonderful trip is over and you return to the airport. Delays, or sprints between gates to catch the connecting flight. If you miss your connection, or the flight home is cancelled, enjoy the $12 dinner voucher and 4 hours of sleep at an airport hotel. Delightful.

Most recently, Dan and I took off in separate directions. He left on a Friday to fly to PHL via ORD; a trip to help the kids determine if a house was worth consideration. He arrived at MKE 90 minutes prior to takeoff. The first flight was uneventful. The second flight from ORD to PHL was delayed eight times. He tells me he led two of the three passenger uprisings, and scored free drinks for the entire plane when it finally took off over 9 hours late. Go Dan. I took a business trip to MCO via IAH, with a return through CLT back to MKE. On both the outbound and return I had to sprint to a new terminal and find the gate at the farthest possible distance from my starting point. Cardio.

I know why blue hairs drive Lincolns (we are a Ford family). They can sit on a rolling couch for a few hours a day; barely driving with the cruise control on and listen to talk radio. They are retired, they can take weeks to arrive calmly at a destination, with 20 stops along the way at a Waffle House, or Cracker Barrel, or iHOP, or some other nasty chain restaurant. The can check into any number of hotels off the interstate, with their AAA and AARP discount cards. They can avoid the painful waits in ugly airports with overpriced drinks, mediocre food and plastic ware. Their blood pressure stays normal as a delay in their trip is by choice, and they don’t have to put their heart meds to the test on a sprint between gates.

I’ve always said that the only requirement for us to relocate is that we are within reasonable distance from an airport, able to reach our children quickly. But, the more time we spend in airports, I wonder, perhaps we just need to be close to a Lincoln dealer.

Music that resonates:

Hot Rod Lincoln - Commander Cody

The 22 hour rule

It’s no secret that Dan loves to drive. Anywhere and everywhere, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Los Angeles and even Texarkana Texas, for a Saturday lunch at Bryce’s cafeteria! (Lamb stew and pecan pie--I kid you not). I’m not so enamored of long-distance drives. My legs get jumpy, I get irritable and I’m not a big fan of Dan’s books on tape (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and the Harry Potter series being notable exceptions). Bottom line, it’s the 21^st century, give me a plane ticket and I'm good to go.

Dan’s quite vocal that he always prefers to drive anywhere he can get in less than 22 hours. Our latest adventure to Cozumel requires an airplane because it (happily) crosses over Dan’s 22-hour rule and also includes a ferry, because--island! I manage the booking, through Funjet vacations, because they'll let us depart from Milwaukee. Our outbound trip was uneventful and reinforced my superior view that air travel is the best travel. Of course, superior travel views must be crushed by reality and our return trip was anything but uneventful.

I need to back up a few days into the vacation. I had some kind of something brewing. Dan and I had four dives over two days, and took a surface day on Tuesday. Wednesday I woke up with sinus congestion and a sore throat. Never dive with congestion as it’s extremely difficult to equalize and if you are able to reach max depth you can really hurt yourself on the ascent. No worries though, in a dive community strong decongestants are not hard to find – it’s a diver’s heroin. We missed three dives on Wednesday, including our night dive. But after 24+ hours of self-medicating we were back on the dive boat Thursday afternoon for two more great underwater adventures.

On decompression day Friday the congestion returned to my chest, along with a nasty cough. We had planned a trip to Tulum, followed by a stop over in Playa del Carmen to visit an old friend. In Playa, we stopped at a pharmacy, and were surrounded by shelves full of medical miracles. I’m sure I could have purchased all sorts of narcotics or sedatives or (the mind reels) stuff that would have had some street value in the US. Geez, at the very least cough syrup with codeine. I spoke with the pharmacist, some 16-year-old, and described my symptoms. I was given a magic elixir and money changed hands. Dan was also perusing the shelves and noticed those magic blue pills that require a prescription in the States. He’s tried them, on rare occasions in the past, and I will admit it does take things to 11 (Spinal Tap reference—look it up.) Those went in the bag as well.

I stepped outside and was encouraged by Dan to take a big swallow – blessed relief on the way – only to discover I had been sold what tasted suspiciously like what every mom knows is Dimetapp. I've never felt so ripped off. By Saturday, I was done in with an uncontrollable cough, anxious to head home and first world medicine.

The first flight from Cozumel back to the states went as expected and we landed in Charlotte early. Our connecting flight was marked as delayed, so we stopped for dinner. When we returned to the gate we found that the flight was cancelled. Over at customer service we got a hotel voucher and were scheduled on the 5:30am flight to O’Hare, so now we had two flights instead of one. I coughed maniacally all night long, logged about 45 minutes of sleep, keeping Dan awake as well. We left for the airport at 4am and made the first flight.

Landing at O’Hare we were directed to the connecting gate for Milwaukee. “Everyone going to Milwaukee on this flight goes to G3!” we were told three times as we landed. We sat at G3 for about 90-minutes waiting to board. When I handed my pass over to the gate agent, it was rejected. The agent then said we were “not on a US Airways flight, we were on United.” What? How would we know that? “Look at the code,” she said. “What?” I burst into tears and she happily pointed to the exit and the United terminal. She said to Dan “This happens all the time.” Feel the love.

Dan took off in a sprint and I did my best to keep up, stopping along to way to hack out pieces of lung. As I rounded the corner of the United terminal I realized I had lost Dan in the crowd, which only exacerbated my overall sick-feeling. Ready to just sit down and give up, I heard my name from a gate and saw Dan waving me down. He was already negotiating with a gate agent to get us on a new flight, any flight, which would get me home. He had deployed the “sick and weeping wife” defense in hopes of avoiding another trip to customer service.

(This is from Dan: I push past a bunch of people to get to the front of the line, asking what gate our flight is at—it’s not on the boarding pass. “That flight left 10 minutes ago.” Where does this boarding pass with the full color American Airlines logo indicate it’s a United flight? “It’s the “U” in this line of code right here—you will need to go down to Customer Service to get this straightened out.” I look up to see my coughing, sobbing zombie wife shuffling down the aisle. I yell her name at full volume twice before she sees me. She starts shuffling in my direction. I turn back to the clerk. “In a moment you will have a very sick, sobbing woman standing here. How do we get on a plane to Milwaukee now? “Sir, as I said you will need to do downstairs to Customer Service.” In my former Customer Service days I hated when people did shit like this to me, but in my lowest, quietest my-wife-is-sick-and-I'm-done-dicking-with-airplane-people I hissed, “and where the fuck is customer service?” We stared at each other and she started typing. We had two boarding passes for a flight leaving for Milwaukee in 30 minutes in my hand before Paula reached the counter. End of Dan comment.) It worked; we were on a new flight within 30-minutes and home within 90. I love my knight in shining armor.

We figured our luggage would be waiting for us, having already arrived on an earlier flight. We were half right as one of two bags had been set-aside by the United baggage service. The United luggage attendant was super. Sizing up the situation she apologized for all of American’s failings and hustled us over to the US Airways baggage area. Looking it up in their system, our bag was safely sitting in Chicago in a US Airways terminal.

“And what was in the bag?” she asked as she typed up a claim form. About $1000 in dive gear, my tripod, most of our underwear, the souvenirs we bought and the keys we need to get into the house if we ever get home. “There’s a two year supply of happy pills in there,” Dan whispered in my ear. I think it was the first time I smiled in 24 hours.

The bag arrived home two days later—safe and sound. I know this is just a collection of first world problems, but when you're tired and sick, all you want to do is get home.

In summary, departure time from our hotel in Cozumel – 2PM CT on May 30. Arrival time at our home in Wauwatosa? 10:30AM CT on May 31 = 20 ½ hours, still beats the 22-hour rule, so what am I complaining about? And while we were on vacation, we investigated a new spot for retirement—Playa del Carmel on the mainland across from Cozumel. Affordable, colorful, and lots of fun. 85 and sunny almost every day. Close to a beach and close to diving. And you don’t need a prescription for any of that…either.

Music that resonates:

Driving all Night - The Tubes

Sometimes you're in the boat and sometimes you're on the roof

For a variety of reasons, this old joke has been on my mind:

So there's this huge flood one day, and an entire town looks like it's going to be swallowed up by the waters. And the Police and Rescue Agencies are all over the place trying to get people to safety.

So they send the rescue boat over to this house where a guy is sitting on the roof with the water lapping around his ankles, and they say "Come on, quickly, there isn't much time!"

To which he replies, "Nah, I'm good, God will provide."

So about an hour later they're zooming past in the boat and notice the guy is still there, only the water is up to his waist, almost at the top of the roof. "Quick," they say, “get in the boat; it's going to get worse before it gets better.”

"Nah, don't worry - God will provide"

An hour after that a rescue helicopter flies over the area and notices the guy, who is standing on the peak of the roof, with only his head and shoulders out of the water. "GRAB THE ROPE!" they cry "IT'S YOUR ONLY HOPE!"

"Don't worry" he replies calmly. "God will provide."

He drowns. After he goes to heaven, he is a little ticked off with God. "I had FAITH, I BELIEVED in you - and still you didn't help me"

"HELP YOU?!" God replies "What MORE did you want - I sent you two boats and a helicopter.”

I've wished for help, asked for help, rejected help and prayed for help at many points in my life. It’s only when I was open to the possibility that help might appear in an unexpected form, that it transformed my life. And throughout my life I’ve tried to listen and understand when I was being asked for help. I know I got it wrong, more than once, and imposed my version of “help” when it wasn't really helpful. I'm truly sorry for that. No one ever thinks they're doing “it” wrong. If we had that level of constant self-awareness, then history would never repeat itself and our children would all be “perfect”.

As a result, asking for help, giving help and receiving help are often full of angst. I’m not talking about “help carrying in the groceries”; I’m talking about the kind of help that potentially moves you from the mess of Point A to the improvement in Point B.

I remember the time I fell apart, in a big way, and found myself on mood altering, anti-anxiety meds. I needed to pull myself together for a formal event. I sat at the kitchen table, struggling to take deep breaths, praying for help. The doorbell rang. There stood one of our very best friends with a bouquet of flowers, telling me I was thought of, cared for and loved. In that moment the cloud lifted and I successfully managed the rest of the day, and the event.

Sometimes the call for help, while inconvenient, is obvious. Dan and I were enjoying a “date night” when he got a call from his sister. Her husband wasn’t home and the elderly neighbor had called about a strange noise in her kitchen. Dan reluctantly got in the car for the 20-minute drive, introduced himself to the neighbor and went in to investigate. The refrigerator was banging away, and when he opened the door the brine in the pickle jar was boiling. Had he not answered that call for help she might have been seriously injured or died in a house fire.

Then there are those moments when we really need help, but we are so defensive and so embedded in the righteousness of our personal beliefs, or our past decisions, that we are not open to the possibility that the current situation could be altered for the better. On Sunday morning, after a gym workout, Dan and I drove past a car with a flat tire. Dan immediately said, “Do they need help”? He circled back and pulled up behind them. Dan asked the young man driving the car if he had a spare and got an angry negative response. He asked again, “Are you sure?” The driver then got out and took a look. Underneath a mountain of groceries he found a spare that had never been used. Dan pulled it out and found the jack. Dan proceeded to change the tire. I stood out in the road a bit, acting as a traffic cone in my bright pink workout shirt. Fifteen minutes later, all fixed. As we drove away we could only assume that this young man had never changed a tire and just wanted to save face. That fact that he also had two passengers, one of them a baby, may have contributed to his willingness to accept help from two older folks in sweaty gym wear.

I’m neck deep in a family situation where “help” is totally at issue. The conversation has devolved from “Every day is Ground Hog day for me”; to “I don’t know where to get help”; to “that won’t help” and now “I don’t need your help.” The event that precipitated this felt like a crisis to those of us trying to help. On the recipient end it would appear that years of poor prior life decisions have created a Mount Everest of reasons to reject help and, as a result, has redefined the crisis as a non-event. There is angst on every side. It spills over on to everyone involved, to the point that, this morning, waking up tense and angry, I rejected a sincere offer of help to get my gym, computer and other bags out to my car.

It’s true that the only person, who can change you, is you. The closer our relationship to someone, the more we want the power to say those magic words that will allow him or her to say “Yes! That’s the solution I’ve been looking for! Thank you for helping me! I’ll admit—I didn’t know I had a spare!”  

But when the solution to someone else’s problem appears to be so clear—to you—and then to be blasted for trying to help can feel like a knife to the heart. For me, I know that help can come from unexpected places and take unexpected forms. And I also know that calls for help can come from unexpected sources and have unexpected solutions. And when love and relationships are involved, the angst is unavoidable.

If you’re looking for a nice neat wrap-up here, you’re reading the wrong blog. We all deal with situations on an hourly and daily basis where we are the person in the boat, or wondering what the thumping noise is in the kitchen. Or we’re the pissed off young man, angrily responding to that nosey old white guy who thinks there is a spare in the trunk. All we can do is try to be open to the help that we may not even know we need, and keep our helicopters gassed up and ready to go.

Music that resonates:
Help - The Beatles