"A house is not a home...and a door is still a door..."

Remember that song? Dionne Warwick and Luther Vandross both sang it...written by Burt Bacharach. I'm using a little poetic license as the line was actually, "a chair is still a chair...even when there's no one sitting there." But, this short blog is about us getting a new front door.

I am sentimental (I cry over Hallmark commercials)...I think that's been evident in past blogs, but I have been experiencing a melancholy moment or two over replacing our front doors. Don't get me wrong...they really needed replacing. We moved into this house when our daughters were in preschool and first grade. The poor old doors showed their age. After 30+ years of hanging Christmas wreaths and taping an occasional note to delivery people, the scars were many and deep. They had been revarnished, but they definitely didn't add to our "curb appeal".

So Joe and I started looking at other people's doors. You don't realize how many styles of front doors there are until you start looking. Then, when we found a style we liked, we couldn't believe how expensive doors are (did I say it was 30+ years since we'd bought doors?). So we went to a small hardware store on Coast Highway in Encinitas and started looking through books. We settled on a pair we liked and then contacted people to give us bids on staining and installing.

That began an odyssey of "ooops"...the first contractor pointed out that Joe had ordered two 3' doors and our opening is only 5'....that was 12 inches too much door!! Luckily, the order hadn't been placed, but it required another trip to Encinitas to find a different design. It was a happy mistake since the 30" doors are even nicer than the original 36" ones. We made arrangements for the installation with one contractor and staining by another after they were hung.

That's when the melancholy set in. Joe put the old doors out at the curb to be picked up by the trash. Too late, I realized I hadn't taken a "last picture" of them. Then I thought about all of the guests we greeted at that portal; the back to school photographs taken there; the prom night photos; greeting the girls and their husbands when they came to visit (one particular visit when Jackie and Neal walked in the door stating they had to check some video Neal had shot and then put in a video of their first ultrasound....Joe thought there was something wrong with the picture...I just cried!). More recently, I pictured three bundles of energy running through the front doors, through the house and into the backyard to check out the frogs in our pond.

Anyway, it seemed very unceremonial to just toss those doors at the curb. They protected us from the elements and kept us safe from harm for three decades and I am grateful to them. So this blog is my way of acknowledging their participation in the story of "us" and of welcoming the new guardians of our gate. It is likely that someday these doors will protect another family...I'll print this out and put it with the title so they will know how important they are. 

5 Days Later...I get to retire my broom...

Just a quick update. Doctor said the prednisone would make me grouchy, jumpy, and irritable for about 5 days. Well, the five days is up and I can't discern a difference yet, but it's early. Guess I can park my broom and go back to regular forms of transportation.

I forgot one important aspect of the rule I posted in the earlier blog this week: if you're going to give husband a hint about upcoming storms on the horizon in the text of your blog, be sure you insist he reads it first before you make reference to it hoping for a smile in response.

Yup, when I snapped about something, I said, "I warned you about this. I'm going to be more than usually cranky for a few days. Didn't you read my blog?"

Husband's reply: "So now we have to communicate through your blog?" Ooops! Guess I need to go back to the drawing board.

End of saga: seeing my feelings had been hurt, penitent husband read the blog and came in and gave me a hug. He complimented the blog and all is forgiven.

May take a break from the norm for the next post and give my opinion on the new "Survivor". I am a reality tv junkie and particularly like "Survivor". With the "geezers" against the "gorgeous" it has the possibility of creating a polarized fan base...age discrimination anyone? Comments on the main blog are leaning that way for sure. (I've unsubscribed.)

"A License to Complain"

It's been almost two weeks since I posted and I have a good excuse. I have been coughing nonstop. It started as a slight cold with a runny nose. Then came the cough and it wasn't pretty (will spare the details) so I called my doctor. There has been whooping cough going around in San Diego so I was concerned. He prescribed a Z-pac of antibiotics. Finished the 5 days of that and still kept coughing. Everywhere I went people would look at me as though I was Typhoid Mary. I didn't feel particularly bad so didn't stay locked up in the house. I instinctively knew I wasn't "contagious" since there was no fever and I didn't experience any pain. Just a wracking cough. I've gone through copious numbers of cough drops...they didn't really help and the aftertaste is there all the time.

Finally went back to doctor today and I have "bronchial asthma"...non-contagious. (Thank goodness since I have been around a lot of people...more on that later.) Prescription to get rid of the cough is prednisone...and the side effects: irritability, insomnia, jumpiness (his word), and increased appetite!!

GREAT! I am going to eat myself to match the size of my refrigerator and be a bitch! Lucky me...and poor Joe!

But, wait a minute: is it so bad? Hmmmm...does this mean if I snap at some real or imagined "slight" precipitated by something Joe says or does, it's not my fault....it's the drug??

My timing couldn't be worse. Joe went to the annual Tailhook Convention in Sparks, Nevada. He and 15 former Navy buddies all played golf for three days and, I'm sure, imbibed a few bottles of "Fighter Pilot Red" produced by another Navy buddy at his Bella Luna Winery. If I'd gone to the doctor on Wednesday of last week, the four or five days of irritability would be ending today instead of beginning.

This is the first time in over a year that Joe has gone on one of his "guys only" getaways. He hasn't been fishing since the wonderful trip to Canada for salmon...plank cooked on the barbeque was the BEST I've ever eaten! But, I digress...one of the things I miss from pre-retirement days was the occasional business trip that would take him away just long enough for me to miss him and be glad to see him when he returned. Tailhook was going to provide that and with no dinners to plan or schedules to keep, I had a couple of getaways planned for myself. I had an overnight at Harrah's Rincon and was going to have a spa treatment, but by the time I got there and got checked in, I was too tired and just had a good dinner and went to sleep. I played bingo on Saturday and Sunday but got lots of glares from fellow players as my hacking interrupted their concentration.

So.....Joe just called from a town just north of Victorville...about four hours away. My "rule" for this blog is: if you have to take a medication that is going to alter your personality (or aggravate tendencies that are already there....such as in my case), try to plan it around your significant other's vacation...and if that isn't possible, keep your sense of humor and warn him/her in advance to put on the emotional armor and smile a lot (that's what I just did when he called).
Next blog: I'll let you know if the rule works!

CAPture and TRADE

A little late this week…I’ve got a cold. (That’s my “in-advance” excuse if this blog isn’t my best.

I “retired” again yesterday. That’s what it’s like after three months of working part- and full-time in Admissions & Records at the college I retired from. It’s wonderful to see everyone, but it’s really, really nice to return to my “retired life”.

I’ve given lots of thought to my subject today and I risk getting into “rant” territory, but I’m compelled to write it anyway. Do you understand what “Cap and Trade” will mean to all of us retirees? I thought I did, but on closer scrutiny, it will negatively impact not only us as retirees, but certainly our children when they “inherit”.

First, because I needed to educate myself on this TAX, I went to the following websites:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/cap-and-trade-a-license-required-for-your-home.html

HR2454 American Clean Energy & Security Act: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-2454

Cap and trade is a license to cheat and steal: http://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/columns/oped_contributors/Cap-and-trade-is-a-license-to-cheat-and-steal-45371937.html

I will sum them up for you: What would you say if I told you that the majority of the “green” jobs our President is promising as a result of “Cap and Trade” will be a kind of “energy compliance Gestapo” to inspect your home and tell you what you have to do to meet the government’s standards (based on “fuzzy science” at best)? And what if I said, you wouldn’t be able to sell your house without getting it retrofitted to meet their standards? And what if I said, you will be taxed every year with a license “fee” for the privilege of letting the government examine your home and tell you what you have to change? These “inspectors” will allow you to place a sticker on your window telling the world you have met their standards. These “home license fees” could come to more than your present locally-controlled property taxes.

Are they kidding? Here’s where the “rant” would start, but I am going to restrain myself and just let you go to the links above and decide for yourself. I have just one closing statement on the subject. It’s not surprising it is called “Cap” and “Trade”. The government is going to CAPture your hard-earned money and TRADE it to someone who doesn’t have what you have. It is not even well-disguised…it is redistribution of wealth (read: socialism), which is what our current Democratic Congress relies on to be re-elected. That’s what’s being traded: your money for the vote of someone the government will give it to.

I don’t think it’s necessary, but I will put a rule at the end of this blog: If that doesn’t sound like democracy to you, perhaps you’ll consider sending a message to the “CAPtors” in November?

Chilean Miners experience a REAL 7/24...

http://www.freetranslation.com/

7/24/120…but they're not married! They may not even all like each other and they've already had almost three weeks of each other's "unbathed" company.

While watching the news about the Chilean miners who are trapped thousands of feet below the surface in a copper/gold mine, I pondered their predicament with my “take” on retirement. Yes, we are together 7/24/365…but….we are not trapped. We leave when we want to; we breathe freely and, most importantly, we shower daily!

I heard on the news that local officials were consulting NASA and submariners on how to handle the emotional trauma of being in such close quarters with 32 other human beings. While I’m sure they are friends, nothing has prepared them for the possibility of seeing only each other for an extended period of time. They are not rocket scientists like the NASA astronauts or military men with a higher mission; they are ordinary working men. I came up with my own ideas of how to encourage them to “hang in there”. I borrowed some of the ideas from my years of teaching 1st and 2nd graders about religion. I had to keep the attention of the six- and seven-year-olds for 90 minutes once a week after they’d already spent 6 hours in a classroom...the similarity is that they often felt "trapped"...by me!

So….here are my ideas:

1) The 33 miners should all write their names on a piece of paper and each morning someone (perhaps the oldest member) would draw out one name. For that day, the miner whose name was drawn would be “#1” for the day. They could tell their family story to everyone there; they could perhaps sleep in the most comfortable area of their capsule (they should designate a “#1 area for that purpose); they should be the recipient of notes from each of the other men telling them one thing that they like about that person. On that day, if there are chores to be done, the #1 person would get a “day off”.

2) A fund should be established on the outside (by contributions from around the world)…the miners should be told that there would be a competition for the duration of their entrapment to see which one of them exhibited the most sympathy, compassion, and helpfulness while trapped...the winner would receive the cash. (They shouldn’t be told that the fund would be divided equally when they get free…the idea is to keep them helping each other for however long it takes to get them out...I'm sure the competitive nature of men isn't an "American" thing.)

3) Kazoos should be lowered down the supply tube and they should practice their national anthem to be played on the day they are released. (There's already a video of them singing their national anthem.)

4) At the end of each day, each man should express one wish and then they should have a prayer service where each of them would pray for the wish of the man next to them rather than their own.

5) And this one is borrowed from Marriage Encounter and Cursillo retreats sponsored by the Catholic church: the world should be encouraged to "adopt a miner". Make an email address available where messages from the world can be printed; choose a name and make the message specific to that miner. Before emailing, go to my favorite free translation website (got me through my French classes in college).

I've emailed a Santiago newspaper website and requested a contact email; will add it to this post and put it on facebook if he/she replies.
Add them to your prayer list. The best thing ever would be if Apple stepped up to the plate and helped the rescuers send a cable line down...along with it 33 iphones!!

Stewardess or Flight Attendant...rude is the same...

In view of the “hero of the week” Steven Slater, I thought I’d reminisce about life as a flight attendant…it seems that one thing is constant from “my day” when we were still called stewardesses, to today…rude people are universal. (You’ll notice I didn’t excuse the occasional rude flight attendant…the jury will decide whether Mr. Slater is a hero or a villain.) I am referring to the absence of courtesy. It has no gender bias; or race bias; or age bias; or nationality bias…you’ll find rudeness in the grocery store; in the line at your bank; at the DMV (definitely at the DMV…at both sides of the counter)…needless-to-say, rude is not discriminated against.

In the late 60’s when I was a stewardess with Delta, the book “Coffee, Tea, or Me” was published. The “hero” of the story was a bachelor (played by Tony Curtis in the movie) whose apartment had a revolving door through which numerous stewardesses entered and exited. It painted all stewardesses as lacking morals and just slightly better than prostitutes (they didn’t get paid). On one of my flights a little old lady was reading the book and as I walked past her, she looked up at me, shook her grey curls and said, “Tsk, tsk, tsk…shame on you!” (I didn’t give her the satisfaction of a reply.) In the clip art shown here, they refer to "the Girdled Stewardess"...among the indignities of the job was a "girdle check"...your supervisor could board a flight unannounced and ask to check and see if you were wearing a girdle...God-forbid you should "jiggle" down the aisle! (I'm serious!)

Remembering the past...investing in the future.

Recently we had dinner with three other couples we’ve known for 43 years. It is amazing that we live within 30 minutes’ drive of these couples who knew us even before we were married. All four men were the “junior officers” in Navy squadrons on the USS Kitty Hawk in 1967 and 1968. All four women were the “dates” they brought to squadron parties when the ship was in port between cruises. All of us got married in 1969. One of the husbands was among the 40 men who attended our wedding in Sasebo, Japan when the ship pulled into port in May.

Our lives took different paths when the men left the Navy. Two of the four men went into large real estate development companies. After a brief time dabbling in that market, Joe opted for government service and the fourth husband became an airline pilot.

Among the four couples there are 11 children and 12 grandchildren. We have shared milestones along the way that remain among our favorite memories: baby showers; 30th, 40th, 50th, and 60th birthday parties; weddings of our children; and, more recently, my college graduation celebration and retirement parties. We only see each other a couple of times a year, but whenever we get together we have an unmistakable bond.

While reminiscing at dinner, we were doing a lot of “Do you remember….” talk. Topics included childhood games and TV shows and the products we “had to have”. They are a litany of the things that the baby boomer generation made profitable. How I wish I had invested in the parent companies of this list through the decades:

1. Schwinn bicycles…remember playing cards and Popsicle sticks in the spokes?

2. Chatty Cathy doll (a personal favorite) and Barbie soon after.

3. 45 rpm records and the record players to play them...I had a black and white vinyl carrying case for going to slumber parties.