Don't Call Me

I HAD to bring my phone. (You may roll your eyes now.) I mean, I knew it wouldn't work during our lay-over in Panama or in Ecuador where we're vacationing for two weeks, but I just had to have it. I mean, I might need to call someone urgently as we took off. Or landed I might need to TALK.

Oh, you say, the phone wasn't the mistake. The mistake was the ballet. Our tickets for Hemingway: The Sun Also Rises were for May 6, right smack dab in the middle of vacation. Not much makes us skip an evening at the ballet, but sitting on the deck of a pontoon boat in the middle of the Galapagos will do it. I happily found someone who'd enjoy our tickets, and I was rewarded because the postcard came in the mail saying that we could attend a working rehearsal for Hemingway. Dilemma: the rehearsal was the night before vacation. Well, what the heck, we went anyway.

Here's the thing, though. I try to be very organized, but being out until 11:00 PM the night before you go on vacation can cramp your style. Already tired, we landed in the 9,000 foot altitude of Quito tired and disoriented. We couldn't find the camera. Really? We're headed to the Amazon and the Galapagos and somehow forgot to pack the camera?!! Then I saw that my phone had turned itself on. Perhaps it had been on the entire flight, and I was lucky the sky marshals hadn't packed me off to jail.

Anyway, I turned my phone off and stashed it in my suitcase. The next time we had a minute to call (heh, heh, I made a pun) our own, I couldn't remember where I'd put it. Where, oh, where? It didn't matter anyway, right?? I mean, I couldn't use the thing. It was in the room – somewhere – and would doubtless turn up in its own good tie

Off the group went to an indigenous culture museum and dinner. Back to the hotel, and at 9:00, Steve was out cold ,and I was happily reading myself to sleep. If you've read my previous post about the smoke alarm, this story will strike a rather familiar note (heh, heh, another one). Deedle-deep!

What? What? What was that?

Silence. I settle back into the depths of my Kindle.

9:10: Deedle-deep! Damn, damn, damn! Steve's left his i-pad on, and it's making those silly noises. I get up and pad around the room. Where is it? I don't see it anywhere. It's not in his small bag packed for our stay in the Amazon. It's not on the desk. It's not on the table, It's not in bed with him. *sigh* Maybe I won't hear it again. Maybe I imagined it (yeah, right). Maybe it won't wake me up when I go to sleep. Back to my book.

9:15: I'm really sleepy. Deedle deep! Why always in the middle of the night? Why me? Why, for heavens sakes, me? I wake up Steve. He stumbles to his i-pod, says the sound is already off and turns goes back to sleep. Deelde-deep!

No! No, no, no!

It comes to me in a flash. It's my phone! Sure, it does seem to have a secret life of its own and will sometimes make calls without my knowledge, but never before has it turned itself on. If I don't turn it off, it will continue to nag me with its useless presence ALL NIGHT LONG!

I drag my suitcase to the bed and open it up. DEEDLE DEEP! The louder sound tells me I'm warm. I've already taken everyone out of the suitcase twice looking for that dratted phone. I remove everything again. A third I put on the bed, a third on the desk, and a third stays in the suitcase which I put outside the bathroom door. I sit down miserably and wait. DEEDLE DEEP It's still coming from the suitcase. I lug the thing up onto the bed and remove the remaining clothes. No phone. I am somewhere between a foot-stomping tantrum and tears.

By this time, Steve is awake and says, “Do you want me to find it?”

“Yes!”

He lifts out the remaining few things: the hiking shoes, the snorkel and the walking stick (sure, my phone's going to hide underneath a collapsed walking stick). There's nothing left but the lining and another DEEDLE-DEEP!

“Check the pockets”

“I've checked the pockets five times!” I pull everything out of the pockets including the money pouch for, you know, valuables. I look at it. “I bet I put it in here!”

“I think you told me that.”

I un-zip the pouch, and there's my phone, lying there innocently with it's little face shining and it's battery bank empty.

I plug it in and charge it all night long because, you know, I can't call anybody, and in the morning, I pack it safely where anybody would: in my shoe.

I found it, but it won't work anyway, so don't call me, and I won't call you.

In Search of the Blue Footed Booby

Tuesday morning, bright and early, we’re off.  The airport issue has been solved, the sequestion having inconvenienced those in power, so that’s we don't have to count on delays.  We fly through Panama -- sadly just another airport I’ll have been in without seeing the country -- into Quito, Ecuador on our way to the Amazon.

Oooh, the Amazon!  You may feel as some of my friends do (or, indeed, you may not)  that it's dangerous to be wandering around the jungle, swarmed by insects and wild animals.   Ah, no; we'll be under the watchful eye of a certified naturalist and staying in a comfortable lodge.  We were in the Peruvian Amazon in 2000, and the duplex cabins there were perfectly comfortable.  Granted, we had to walk down a boardwalk to the (extremely clean) pit toilets, but there were regular toilet seats, so my daughter and I were perfectly happy.  The Yarina lodge will assign us to private cabins with running water bathrooms.  There will be no hardship. 

I understand that the Yarina Lodge, like the previous one, keeps a baby Capybara for guests who miss their pussycats to pet.  You can keep your cooking lessons in Italy and in France; we’ll have one here on local cuisine.

After four days, we transfer back through Quito to the exotic Galapagos.  Even if my sausage toe is bothering me, how bad can life be aboard the pontoon ship cruising around the Galapagos Archipelago?  We’ll be on the lookout for giant turtles and giant albatross.  Sea lions may choose to swim with us.

We are ready.  We’ve had our yellow fever inoculations and updated tetanus shots.  We’ve packed our malarial pills, and Steve has his altitude meds. (I’m allergic to them, so I’m stuck with to drinking water and coca tea and using my inhaler.)   We’ve got our walking shoes and our water shoes, our kindles and our camera, our sunscreen and our bug repellent.  We’ve got our emergency antibiotics and pain killers.  We’ve got walking sticks and moleskin and binoculars.   Is there any room for clothes?  Who knows?  Who cares?

Tuesday morning bright and early, I’m off, off in search of the blue footed booby.

Thanks, Mom!

Spring has a splendid progression, as orderly as a military march.  The crocus and daffodils come first, blooming even when winter lingers around the edges.  Then the bluebells, whose buds have grown bulbous with promise, sprinkle the ground in periwinkle blue.  The forsythia are not to be outdone and join in with a gush of yellow.  Now the dogwood’s hazy blossoms turn white or pink, and the trees in their new princess dresses dance in the breeze, a ballet outside my window.  Not to be outdone, the azaleas open, one bush after another, in ardent pinks and reds.  We’ll have rhododendron and peonies and roses all in the order of time.  Who cares about allergies when such a visual feast is laid out before your eyes.  Holy cow, Mother Nature, way to go!

And if Mother Nature doesn’t impress you with that, well, how about this?  About a year ago, I saw two eagles flying over the Dullas Overpass.  No one believed me; they told me it must be two of our area’s turkey vultures, but I’ve seen turkey vultures, and I’ve seen eagles.  I'm telling you, the eagle is a damn big bird, and those were eagles. 

I have been validated!  The convocation of eagles (yup, not a flock) along the Potomac River has grown so big that the birds are expanding across the area.  A few weeks ago a birder friend invited us around the corner to look through his telescope at a bald eagle nest.  There sat the female on her nest, with straight and regal posture, very high up in a very tall tree incubating a full clutch.   

A very big nest, very high up

 



I thought of her the Countess of Oakton, but then I thought, oops, we gave up royalty over 200 years ago, and  the bald eagle is the symbol of our democracy, and a noble title isn’t very apt.  Too late.  In my head they are the Earl and Countess.  Sadly we did not see the Ear.  I suppose he was out having a drink at his club. 

I haven’t been out to see them again.  In a moment of rare grace (yes, yes, after four years of ballet lessons), I ran smack into the heavy bench at the foot of our bed and whacked my pinkie toe.  I learned, for the first time in my life, the meaning if exquisite pain, pinpointed and sharp.  I thought maybe I’d broken it, but a good google and a conversation with a nurse friend convinced me it was “merely” sprained.  My forefoot  swelled and turned a mesmerizing shade of purple.  The toe itself ballooned into a fat, sausage.  I took Aleve and applied ice packs.  I soaked in Epsom Salts.  I could all but see my blood traveling through the veins, each cell toting off excess saturation. 

My foot is back to normal size and color, and the sausage toe looks almost like a regular toe.  I think, “Wow,  the bluebells, the eagles this, too.  Well done, Mother Nature, very well done!"

By a Quirk

We go to a Mexican restaurant that is a favorite eatery of ours.  You never enter without seeing a cross-section of the American public:  families, a couple of guys watching a game, a group enjoying a girls’ night out and a nice-looking retired couple.  Oh, that would be us. 

We’re always greeted warmly by a staff that invariably seems happy and friendly.  The first thing we order are margaritas, and they are brought with salsa and a basket of home-made corn chips that are so crisp and warm, you’re not sure if you want to kiss them or eat them.  Okay, I’ve never kissed them.  I don’t think we’ve ever eaten there without getting at least one refill (of the chips not the drinks). 

The menu is fairly large, and we’ve made a variety of selections over the years.  Not once have we been disappointed.  The food is fresh, it is tasty, and if you ask for mild, you get mild, not spicy nor tasteless; request medium-hot, and that is what you get.  The service is timely but not hurried, and the bill is eminently reasonable.

There is only one negative. It feels like a local place to us, but it is a day's drive away.  You see, every two or three months, we got to our daughter’s in Muncie, IN.  It is a ten hour drive.  Let’s face it, we’re not as peppy as we once were, and ten hours is about two hours more than we like to drive in a day.  Eight hours takes us, serendipitously, to exit 112 off route 70, just this side of Columbus.  Take the exit, turn left and cross under the highway.  Off to your right, you’ll see a Hampton Inn, a very comfortable Hampton Inn with free wi fi and a nice breakfast. 

Get your overnight stuff out of the car, check in and walk your tired self across the access drive and into La Fogata Grill.  We found it by luck, by a quirk of fate  We enter tired an bleary, but whatever table they give us, we sit down at home.

Oh, Honey!

My husband is sick. It began five days ago with a cough and on the second day snowballed into a full force fever. On the third day, he was able to sit up after a couple of hours, but like a story book convalescent, he faded back into the covers.

The fourth day was a millimeter better. He got dressed – always a plus – and ate a little, but he mostly sat in his club chair stretched flat, moaning at the ceiling. We belong to Costco, so we have, in bulk, a variety of cold remedies of which he is partaking. I’ve made a point of sleeping in The Boy's bed (The Boy now being 32 and sleeping in his own apartment across the country) far away from the contagion.

But Friday evening, well, Friday evening I felt just the beginning of a tickle in the back of my throat. That coupled with two diet cokes at lunch saw me bolt upright, mind a-scampering at, argh!, 1:30 in the morning.

Disheartening in a way, but, ah, here's an opportunity. The time was ripe to try a home remedy I’ve long wondered about.  Lore tells us that a tot of rum with a teaspoon of warm honey is therapy for a cough.  Why, yes, I do happen to have some dark Barbados rum. It's been sitting in the cabinet since we went to the Caribbean in 2002 waiting for a moment such as this. I pour a jigger -- may as well use a pretty glass -- and mix in heated, raw honey. Oh, ho, ho! The honey is sweetness itself, and supposedly coats the throat and soothes the cough. The rum coats the throat, too, and the gullet and the innards and, frankly, the brain with a nice blanket of deadened response. 

The taste is a blend of syrupy sunlight and earthy darkness. I feel certain Hades plied Persephone with this combination in his underground lair; heck, I'm sure it's why she was willing to stay there six months of the year. I've finished the one, and I'm happy to hang around here for a long time. Oh, wait, I live here.

I am not coughing. I am not coughing!  It works! Look, Ma, no hands!  It works!

Finding that a folk method is effective always flabbergasts me. It is remarkable that our forbearers, even without labs and computers and fancy medical equipment, were still such smarty pants.  

Now will this concoction really help me get better? Let us just say that I have my doubts. Does it really help me feel better? Oh, honey, yes it does!

Is Bar Hop a Noun?

One goes barhopping, but then is bar hop a noun?  You know, I mean a compound noun, only where one of the two words is a verb.  This is becoming complicated, just don't dis me because bar hop is two words.  It's like "bell hop," right?  Or it would be if it is a noun.  Anyway, I ask because we have recently taken to barhopping -- an unusual new hobby for us, I concede, but more on that later.  Does going barhopping make me a bar hop?  Such a term in my mind conjures up images of twitching on one foot, perhaps more indicative of a neurological problem than of enjoying an evening out.  

But if not bar hop, then what?  Bar fly?  I think not.  I have clean hands and feet, thank you, and I do not carry a plethora of germs on me.  I have normal eyes, too.  I don’t have to process seeing in all directions at once, even after a drink or two.

One goes on a pub crawl, but I do not crawl.  I am neither a toddler nor a drunkard -- no really, I’m not.   The most I’ll admit to is a tendency to wobble a bit, and I don’t do that all that often. 

But why this fixation on what to call myself?  I’m glad you asked.  It began the evening Steve and I decided to treat ourselves to a fancy meal at Ruth’s Chris.  We wanted meat, and we wanted it right away, so we put on clean clothes and drove up the street to Fairfax Corner.  We were disappointed, though, because, even though it was only 5:30, there was already a long wait for a table.  We were looking sadly at each other when the hostess suggested we take a seat in the bar and order from there.  It was then we discovered their wonderful happy hour menu!  We didn’t take advantage of it that evening having, as I said, decided we wanted big, fat steaks, but few months later I found myself home alone on my birthday having just returned from Steve in Washington State.  (N.B. read last year’s entries if you’re really that interested as to how that came about.)    

I decided to take myself and my Kindle to Ruth’s Chris, and, in their comfortable, busy bar, treat myself to a fantastic steak sandwich and martini for a total bill of $15.  It was so tasty and so cheap, I left an enormous tip for the staff that was so nice to me.  Happy Birthday, me!  Steve and I have been back twice for their happy hour menu, and each time has been as excellent as the time before.  We decided it was time to branch out. 

We had evening tickets to the ballet and headed into DC early, at 2:00.  We walked around The American Art Museum for a couple of hours, then scoped out the happy hour at McCormack and Schmidt (mediocre food, slow, very slow service).  The next ballet included the Spy Museum and Legal Seafood  (better food, slightly better service).  [A quick aside:  a young friend posted on FB that she was bringing cookies to her department’s happy hour.  I posit that any hour with cookies is a happy hour.] 

Great or not so much, happy hour is exactly the way I like to eat.  Because your order is inexpensive and small, you can try all sorts of new things, and if you don’t care for them, just order again!  Of course, I’m in the lucky position that Steve likes almost everything, so if I don’t care for a dish, he’ll happily switch.  This is one of the main advantages of being married. 

Last Friday, we wanted to go to Bonefish Grill because Steve loved their happy hour in Hanford.  Alas, the local one has happy hour only Monday through Thursday.  Bummer!  We settled for a small family restaurant, but that was regular food from a regular menu, nothing to write home about.  A quick google search has now assured us of Friday night happy hours along with our big city ballet happy hours for a good long time to come.

This solves the dinner problem, but not the problem of nomenclature.  Not a bar hop, not a bar fly, not a pub crawler.  Now the delight I take in happy hour is more like my delight in the movement of ballet.  The rotation of the small plates is akin to the divertissement in the Nutcracker.  Cocktail specialties are more like dizzying solos.  Plus our little ritual is, to my mind, bound inextricably with our ballet tickets, so just hand over that tutu:  here’s one dance I can do.  Call me the bar ballerina.

The Activist Cat

There was an Earth Rally on the Mall last Sunday, specifically to voice opposition to the Alaskan oil pipeline and to fracking.  Steve, who’s worked in ecology-related fields his entire career, wanted to open our house up for couch-surfing (offer out-of-town protesters a couch to sleep on, or in our case, a bed because I’m way over waking up to people littering the couches and floor). 

Protesters tend to be open, spontaneous people, and I was happy to fill our bedrooms.  Wumpus, though, Wumpus was, apparently, in his element.  Never have you seen an animal so amenable to political activism. 

Laura was the first to arrive and said she was delighted to have her cat fix.  Wumpus was all over her, scooching next to her on the couch and rubbing his cheeks against her purse.  When I went past her door on my way to change into pajamas, he was flopped out full length on her bed.  

 

“Really?   Really?!” I demanded.  In response, he smiled smugly and rolled over to show his belly.  

Saturday night I slept alone (well, except for Steve).  Usually Wumpus sleeps on the footsie blanket.  The footsie blanket is a crocheted afghan.  It's light and warm, and is perfect for an extra layer over the feet during cold nights.  Wumpus had pledged his undying -- let’s face it, almost obscene -- love to the footsie blanket.  He hops up on it every night, kneading and purring, purring and kneading.

 

As far as Saturday night, though, the footsie blanket and I may as well have been chopped liver.  Well, not chopped liver ,because cats love chopped liver and think it’s irresistible.  Wumpus ignored me, ME, the one who rescued him from the shelter; ME, who lets  him in and out a hundred times a day; ME, the hand that scoops his cat food!  I mean, I'm all for supporting political activism, but this led to outright betrayal. 

Saturday night opened with his shameless purring on Laura’s bed.  I thought he’d come to apologize at 11:30 when he visited  the footsie blanket ,but after 10 minutes, he thudded to the ground.  

 

Dan reported he curled up with him from 12:00 to 1:00.  Eileen was insulted he didn’t sashay through her door until early morning. 

Please note that these people left their doors ajar, if not blatantly luring a kitty in, at least showing a willingness to engage in a secret, dark-of-night snuggle.   However, I realize the choices and main culpability lie with Wumpus who broke my heart with his promiscuity.   It’s one thing for an animal to be gregarious and gentle.  No one really wants a cat who will scratch one’s visitors for looking at them (i.e., a cat like the dear, departed Elaine).  You want a cat who is affectionate and gregarious. 

 

But my cat Wumpus?  Wumpus is a slut.