Arrivederci

This time tomorrow, I will be over the Atlantic heading to Italy.

I'm expecting the 10 hour flight to be exhausting and figuring out how to get where we need to go (although we've studied and studied it) to be complicated. While I have been out of the country, it's always been on a cruise or to Cancun where there is rarely any problem speaking in English.

This will be new for me.

When we first determined we were going to Italy I considered buying Rosetta Stone and learning a little Italian, but it's expensive and I just couldn't justify spending that money on top of the trip. So I bought some cheap program from Costco, which I never used.

Our Italian friends and Indian friends who have gone there say there won't be any big issues with the language. My sister bought TWO electronic translators, so I'm sure we'll manage.

I think I worry most about the train trip from Venice to Cinque Terre. I'm still not sure how many transfers we have and I worry since we don't know what we're doing and how the transfers work. We have plenty of travel books and my nephew has studied it more than I have, but that is probably my biggest fear.

I guess I'm ready.

It doesn't seem real, even now. I'm excited and stressed. Hope I can get some sleep tonight.

Helen and Brian are heading to our house now and should be here within the next hour.

I wonder what we will find. From the research, I cannot imagine that we will not love it.

None of us are taking a laptop, so we will likely not be updating our family web, blogs, whatever unless we find some downtime and get some kind of access to a pc.

Here we GO!!!!! See you in May!

It's Not About the Bunny

Happy Easter Birthday

To my sister and my nephew. Here's hoping you get a bunny cake for your birthday!!!

I Hope I Never Understand

Last fall a former co-worker of mine was killed in a traffic accident. He and I were not particularly friends, I found him to be quite odd and brash, but after my father's death, I believe no one should be alone in grief and every bit of comfort adds just a tiny speck of peace.

I attended the funeral along with a ton of people I had known through work. As friends and family got up to speak at the funeral, I found that I really had never known this man who I worked with for years. Many of my friends found him warm and funny, so maybe it was just a personality conflict I had.

I was told just before the service that his wife was a very devout atheist. I have a good friend who is an atheist and while I will never understand it, we can discuss and joke about our differences.

Tonight I happened upon a blog my former co-worker's widow is updating every few days since his death. Her grief is palpable and breaks my heart, especially when it's apparent that she can find no comfort from any faith whatsoever. Death is death, period, end of story.

The service, while pleasant because of the funny stories, was, at least to me, so adamantly not Christian. The last speaker was his nephew. He was eloquent. He stated that he was a Christian as was the surviving parents and that the widow was not. You could "feel" that the death was doubly hard on my co-worker's family as they were obviously devout Christians and I cannot imagine parents burying their son and not being able to have a simple prayer said at his funeral. The nephew respected the newly grieved widow's wishes, but did manage to say that the grieving father had stated that he had baptized his son in the River Jordan. I was so impressed with the nephew's ability to give some comfort to the grief stricken parents while not upsetting the non-believer family.

After reading the blog, I hurt for her loss. It's obvious they had dearly loved each other and were best friends. I cannot imagine (nor do I want to) her horrible horrible grief.

So although she most likely will not appreciate it, I will say a prayer that she finds a little bit of peace each day.

I simply don't know how you do that when you have no faith to hold on to. I pray she finds that in her journey.

I also pray for my atheist friend and all those who cannot or will not even open their hearts to a possibility that there is a God. I just feel so sad for them.

Italy - Our thoughts and prayers are with you.

Nearly a year ago I was getting ready for work and walking through our bathroom. As I passed by the shower doors, I heard them rattling as if someone was pushing their hand on them. I know our house is not that flimsy that me simply walking past the shower causes the doors to rattle.

I'm looking at the doors as I pass and then I heard the large mirror over the double sinks begin to rattle loudly. I felt a little like I was in a Twilight Zone show. My head is swiveling between the doors and the mirror with an extremely puzzled look on my face. What in the world?

Bob had not gotten up yet and I had a fleeting idea that maybe this could be an earthquake. Now I realize that Indiana does lie on the New Madrid fault, but we so rarely ever have one that most of us simply do not recognize them when they happen. Just as the thought is forming in my head I hear Bob say, "What the hell is that?" He didn't hear the rattling but felt the shake HARD. I didn't feel the shaking, maybe because I was standing or maybe because I was so confused by the noise.

They said it was a 5.2 magnitude 40 miles north of Evansville. We lived well over 150 miles away. I quickly turned on the morning news and saw the crew from Channel 13 come back from a commercial wide-eyed and was talking about the studio shaking.

We had a few aftershocks later in the day while I was at work. I could feel those, not just hear them. The whole office was abuzz with earthquake stories.

I got a call from my "California" daughter who now lives in Texas. She wanted to make sure we were all okay. When I explained about the mirror rattling she had a slight panic in her voice, "Did you get under a doorway?" Uhhh, well no. I just stood there gaping at the mirror and shower doors. Having lived most of her life in California, she does not have the same reaction to earthquakes that we do.

Sadly, we who have not lived in a frequent quake zone area do not understand the seriousness of an earthquake. It's just something we hear about in California, or Bali or China. In Indiana, we ignorantly spend a "quake" day saying, "Did you FEEL that one?" We simply do not take them seriously, which one day, I fear will be a big mistake given the size of the fault we live on.

On Monday, 70 northeast of Rome there was a 6.3 quake, yesterday a 5.5 aftershock and only 9 hours ago a 5.3 aftershock. We pray for L'Aquila and all those affected in Italy and throughout the world. It is unfathomable for us Midwesterners to fully grasp what this must be like, but we do grieve along with you for your loss.

Two Old Ladies and an International Traveler

Well, that's been the plan for several months now anyway.

Actually one of the old ladies could actually also be called (at least once) an International Traveler. Her first, and to date only trip out of the country 5 years ago or so was with her son (the now International Traveler) to her "adopted" son, Saumil's wedding in India. I soooo wanted to go with them. I had so many reasons not too. First I wasn't invited, but I'm sure Saumil would have welcomed me anyway, then it was an expensive flight and finally I didn't have vacation left, although I bet I could have negotiated that too. By the time of the trip, I was just kicking myself for not just saying, "To hell with it, I'm going too." I was nervous for them, Brian had also not traveled outside of the country. I figured it was the safest travel, since Saumil had arranged everything and arranged for a cousin to meet them in Mumbai, before their final flight to Ahmedabad, India. From what I've been told there was considerable culture shock.

Since then Brian has met Saumil and his bride and a whole group of international travelers in Thailand, Cambodia and Argentina. I'm sure I'm missing something there and Brian will correct me. He's been wanting me to travel with them for some time now.

On April 16th, my sister, my nephew and I will be leaving for a trip to Italy. Well, at least (borrowing a well worn saying of my mother's) "God Willing and the Crick Don't Rise"

It started out as a family discussion of celebrating my 50th birthday almost a year ago. My ELDER siblings have all been surprised by a massive fun birthday party when they turned 50. For various reasons I did not want that to happen and we began discussing a trip. One thing led to another and it morphed into a 2 1/2 week to Italy.

So I worried some whether Helen and I would be dragging Brian down from visiting everywhere he wanted to go, but I knew that we could each do as much or as little as we liked.

I'm not sure when it started, but Brian began to have back problems. He's a 6'3" 34 year old who has climbed up cliffs, so the back issue was a surprise, at least to me. Recently the pain had become unbearable and he first started with a chiropractor. Several weeks ago, they did an MRI and suggested therapy after reading the MRI report. When therapy wasn't helping, the therapist looked at the actual MRI. Two bulging disks pressing against a nerve. The therapist called a surgeon immediately and got Brian an appointment that day. It was Friday, 4 weeks before our trip.

Interestingly enough, the surgeon had a picture in his office of he and his family in from of the Roman Coliseum. Brian pointed to the picture and told him he was going to be there in 4 weeks, The surgeon told him he would need back surgery and he would be in alot less pain with the surgery than without and he could do it the next Friday.

So, with just shy of three weeks from our trip, Brian had surgery. I saw him two days after the surgery and was worried. He looked "broken" and was "bent". He said he was ahead of schedule according to the doc, but it worried me. Sitting is the worst part and we have a 10 hour flight from New York to Venice.

But he was determined, been on a treadmill walking up to 3 miles. Today he told me that he was feeling so much better that if our trip was tomorrow, he could do it. The therapist told him he is way way ahead of schedule and tomorrow he's going to wear a backpack with weights during his session.

So he'll be in shape enough for the trip, but I doubt he'll be outrunning us by the time we go. I want to make sure us "old ladies" get his bags for him. We just can't take the chance that he messes up something on the trip over. Now, how will that look, some seemingly healthy man making a couple old ladies lifting his bag into the overhead and yanking it off the conveyer belt? I think Helen and I will deliberately make it look like he's just some spoiled kid who makes old ladies do the heavy lifting. ;)

But a few days ago I began to get a little sore. Today I felt like I did a couple weeks after my hysterectomy, which was NOT pleasant. By mid-day I was fearful I might be getting that dreaded kidney infection that left me with septic shock two years ago or something even worse. I rushed to my doc, who rushed through all kinds of tests. Doesn't look like it's anything to worry about and I'm hoping a couple of days from now I'll be "in the pink".

So, apart from some recent concerns that we may have to cancel our trip, for now it looks like a "go".

We'll fly into Venice and stay three nights in a "flat" where the gondolas float past the window. The owner will meet us at the Rialto bridge and walk us to the place. This is a pic from their website. We found this place when someone Brian works with said he had recently stayed there, so we know it's legit. It's between the Rialto Bridge and St. Mark's.

Then a few train hops and several hours later we'll head to Manarola. One of the "Cinque"s of Cinque Terre. This is where hiking and steps will come into play. We believe our hotel is one of the yellow buildings at the edge of the cliff. I learned about Cinque Terre from someone I met at the Indianapolis airport when I was looking over the Rosetta Stone stand. He and his wife had been to Italy and told me this was their favorite place. From Tripadvisor to Flickr research, we feel great about the place we picked. Arpaiu.

This is from the inn's website of the view from our room.

Three nights later, we make the obligatory stop in Pisa for a quick stop for a "holding up the leaning tower" pic and rent a car to drive to Volterra (Tuscany). We picked Volterra after Brian watched a Rick Steve's program from there. We've found an agriturismo, which is a working farm that by law has to make more money from the farm than the inn. Flickr'ing it we found someone who stayed there and loved it. They will even teach you how to make homemade pasta.

Three nights and back to Pisa to catch a train to Rome. A B&B at the top of the Spanish Steps was recommended by one of our Fort Myer's "neighbors".

Six nights in Rome with most likely a day trip to Pompeii. We're hoping to even take a hot air balloon ride while we're in Pompeii.

Hopefully this itinerary allows up enough time to take in the "feel" of Italy, not just rush from site to site.

One week from now, I'll be bidding, "Ciao" I'm excited, nervous, wishing Bob would have gone and hopeful we all stay healthy before and during our trip.

(p.s. Thanks GB for the blog subject suggestion.)

To Honor All our Soldiers - Past and Present

No matter what you might hear. We in American KNOW you bought our freedoms with your time, blood and lives.

Thank you one and all.

Half A Century

No more middle age. That is, unless I live to be a hundred.


I suppose that's a possibility, since my Granny lived to be 93. But I don't know if I have enough energy to make it another 50 years. Weird to be half a century old.

When I was little, we had only one 13 inch black and white TV with three channels. The remote control was when mom or dad would tell one of us kids to get up and change the channel.


We had party-line telephones, I'm sure most of the people I work with today would not know what that means. Whoever had the other line with us was not a very nice lady if I remember right.

We had no air conditioning. My parents finally had a window air they had in their room. When it was stiffling hot, we played outside in the creek or the hose or under the shade tree. At night, we tossed and turned trying to find a cool spot on our beds.


At school, tests were copied on memeograph machines that all the kids sniffed when they got the paper. It was a good smell, who knows why. We got milk at school in those funny little triangle cartons. On my birthday, I got to go pick up the milk with the best looking boy in school because his birthday was April 1st. I saw him at our 10 year reunion. He didn't age well in only 10 years.


There were no computers, at least none smaller than a 747, so kids invented games. We played Kick The Can, Crack the Whip and Spotlight at night. We played in the creek (we called it a crick) next to our house, we never worried about all the possible toxic substances floating in the water.

We ate the mulberries, even though we kept being told they were full of worms.



We caught lightning bugs and played mumbledy peg. I once threw a jart that landed squarely on my brother's head. I'm sure there would be a lawsuit over that nowdays. Hey, maybe that's what's wrong with him today.



We roamed through the neighborhood without a care only later did we find out there was a child molester on the corner and who knows what else.



My dad planted corn, which we picked the 5 acres following behind the truck late at night in October, freezing our toes.


We buried our cat, Fru Fru in the field, placed a Virgin Mary over the top, which dad ended up plowing up the next year.


We had chickens, which my dad popped their heads off between two boards and we kids would pluck the feathers before mom would fry it for supper.


Our house had a coal furnace when we moved in. I still remember my brothers shoveling the coal from the basement coal bin into the stove in the morning.


The basement flooded regularly and my mother had a wringer-washer down there and hung the clothes up to dry outside in the summer and in the basement in the winter. She ironed them by first wetting them down with a coke bottle plugged with a cork sprinkler.


We had bikes, mini-bikes, sleds, ducks, rabbits,go carts. Snoopy, our dog, got sick and couldn't be found. Afraid he might have had rabies, we and the neighbors scouted the area for a couple days hunting the sick dog. We narrowly escaped the dreaded rabies vaccine when our neighbor Hardin turned around from going to work to help us search to found the sick dog.





We had Silly Putty, Etch-a-Sketch, Slinkys, Transistor Radios (that always had such a good smell on Christmas morning). We listened to WIFE, the good good guys on the AM dial and watched Sammy Terry on Friday nights.





We knew and respected our teachers and bus drivers. Harry, our beloved driver, lived on the hill up from us and I still remember the day when I waited and waited for him to pick me up before elementary school. That day, Harry had taken the middle school kids to school and died while driving in the school parking lot. Those things imprint forever on your mind as a kid. You were a good man Harry Featherston.


The school playground was very dangerous but fun. I wish I could remember what that round thing was in the corner that you sat on and had to keep your hands and feet out from under it or you would end up with a tangled mess. Something like a maypole, except it had seats and I don't know how many injuries I saw on the thing, but we all loved it anyway.


It was back in the day, when I was walking backwards in first grade and fell against a desk and tore my ear. The school nurse bandaged the badly bleeding ear and sent me back to class. There was no emergency call to the parents back then.


I only wish I could go back now and tell that constantly worried little girl that life didn't need to be so hard.


I guess I'll just have to settle for reminding myself everyday from now on.