CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY THREE: CHANGE IS IN THE SALT AIR

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY THREE: CHANGE IS IN THE SALT AIR

Welcome, March 2016. Super Tuesday has come and gone, with Hillary and Crazy Don raking in most of the delegates for their respective parties. Second Super Tuesday has also come and gone with the same results – Hillary and Crazy Don leading the pack. Hillary finally got a majority in Missouri – unbelievable since that state voted against ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment.

Li’l Marco is gone. Lying Ted has Mitt Romney by his side – with the same results as 2012 (general election), I hope. Not that I’m rooting for Trump, but seriously, have you listened to Lying Ted go on and on about carpet bombing and how Chief Justice Roberts (his former idol) is evil because of his part in the majority decision on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act? What a whacko! Everyone used to hate him, and that’s understandable since he has an unearned superiority complex and he called Mitch McConnell a liar and closed down the Government. Now his fellow Republicans fear Crazy Don more than they hate Lying Ted. What a choice for my sister’s political party. Boring John Kasich is still hanging on, hoping for a brokered convention, where grownups win the day. Good luck with that.

But enough about the sad state of the Republican Party. And more about the happy state of the Admiral and Ann, as we pack up all our belongings and plan to turn over the ownership of Slow Motion to Joe and Cheryl. Yes, you read it here first. We are selling Slow Motion – got the check yesterday and expect it to clear sometime next week. The Admiral is driving our belongings in a U-Haul truck to Vail, Arizona, and I’m flying there, staying with my sister until he arrives later next week. The Admiral has been his usual fastidious self, making a data base to record all the boxes and their contents, as well as their weight. We have about 50 boxes, 5 tool boxes, a grill and other sundry items (3 CPU’s from olden times). We’re loading the truck tomorrow.

We’re both ready to start a new chapter in our lives – with Zorro, our dog. Last Sunday we took Slow Motion out of the Marina del Mar channel into the Atlantic Ocean for a sea trial with the buyers. It was a glorious day and Slow Motion’s two diesel engines purred. I will miss racing with the porpoises, spotting eagles and ospreys and the occasional alligator. I look forward to hot showers at home, rather than getting off the boat and going to the marina shower facility. I really look forward to hiking in the hills with Zorro. At this point, that is a realistic goal. I am walking without a cane some of the time – trying to get rid of the Trendelenburg gait.  And even if I have to take the cane with me up the trail, still, I’ll be walking without the Rollator, which I used last Thanksgiving. This is progress! Thank you, Loi and Jason of Prosthetic Design and Research in Tampa. They switched me from a pin prosthesis to a vacuum pump prosthesis. This transferred most of my weight on my right leg from the end, where the bone is prominent, to the knee and side area. There is considerably less pain, and voila, I can walk again without wincing.  The Admiral even made a video of me walking unaided to the trash bin about 30 feet from the boat, and the video went viral. I promise I will walk to other places than the garbage can for future videos, Alan and Louisa. I’ll try to have a beautiful background. But the walking it what is really beautiful to me. I’m pretty stoked about it.

As you know, I have been volunteering at the State Attorney’s Office in Key Largo. Yesterday was my last day, the 18^th. On the 17^th the staff threw a big going away party for me, and the State Attorney herself, Catherine Vogel, came to the party to give me a plaque recognizing my service to the office. The staff gave me a huge canister of jelly bellies. I had been wolfing down the jelly bellies in the office since Day One, so they clearly knew my weakness. This was a small office of 4 attorneys, one investigator, one victim/witness coordinator and 4 support staff persons. Additionally, the former State Attorney, Mark Kohl, worked in this office in Tavernier in an administrative role. He was the one who investigated my background and offered me the job. It was great to work with all of these folks – the lead attorney, Demetrios or Dee, was grateful for everything I researched and wrote. All of the responses to motions for post-conviction relief had landed on his desk, and he was able to transfer them to me to prepare the responses. Yes, he will miss me. I just hope I impressed upon him the urgency of preparing the extradition request for the fugitive in Nicaragua who killed his estranged girlfriend in the Keys at Mile Marker 73 in 2008. True, the fugitive was supposedly convicted of aggravated rape sometime after he fled Florida and returned to his native Nicaragua, and he is supposedly serving a sixteen year prison term. But this is exactly the time to reach out to the Nicaragua officials, when that crime is still fresh in their prosecutor’s mind, and ask them to prosecute him in Nicaragua for the 2008 Keys murder. You see, he’s a citizen of Nicaragua, and that Government does not extradite citizens, but on a good day, they might agree to prosecute him for us. I’m going to keep following that case and bug Dee about getting the paperwork submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs.

I know this Blog started out as a travel blog. I can’t wait to reread all the chapters of our adventures on the ICW. I hope to turn this whole Blog into a book. Or into several books. I’m not sure the political rants fit into the overall tenor of the Blog. But that’s what a good editor will help me figure out. It’s been great sharing our nomadic lives with you all over the world, especially my many readers in the Ukraine. Until we get our travel trailer and head north to Alaska, I’m saying “adios” from Key Largo. Thanks for being my one follower all these years, Vivian. And thank the rest of you for taking the time to read the chapters of this Blog. I enjoyed every minute of writing it. I hope you enjoyed reading it just as much.

 

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY TWO: GOLF, PROSTHETICS, DEATH AND POLITICS

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY TWO:  GOLF, PROSTHETICS, DEATH AND POLITICS

February 13, 2016: I’m watching the Pebble Beach Pro Am, as the fog rolls over the golf course and the waves crash on the shore. Alan should be there with Abbie and Holden, but so far the camera is fixed on the likes of Mickelson, Kang and Rose, as well as Wahlberg and Timberlake. The greens look really bumpy – that was Tiger Woods’ reason for not entering this tournament most years. Maybe that’s why Mickelson’s putting from relatively short distances looks so bad. Justin Rose just took the lead, rather is tied for the lead, at 13 under on the third day. I don’t know the other golfer in the lead (Hiroshi Iwata?). Tomorrow is the annual Together With Love 10 k run/walk for the Monterey Rape Crisis Center. I started that race with Linda Childs more than twenty five years ago. What a joy to wake up at 5 am in order to schlep over to Lovers’ Point in Pacific Grove to set up for the race. When I return to California, I just might run/walk in that race next year. It’s for a very good cause.

Speaking of running, the Admiral and I went to Tampa this past week and met with Jason and Loi of Prosthetics Design and Research. Jason says he can design and construct a better prosthesis for me. Hallelujah!! His technique involves a vacuum pump that forces out all the air and pushes the leg below the knee out to the sides of the socket. With the leg pushing against the sides of the socket – all the way around – Jason says that my thigh will be doing most of the work of carrying the weight while walking. He said it’s too much to ask my little PRL (partial right leg) to carry nearly three hundred pounds of weight. I thought so too. All these months I have been struggling with pain and intense pressure on the end of my leg, at the bone and on the sides, as I got used to the pin style of prosthesis. I got the pin style in September. It has been an improvement over the suction style, which I wore from the end of May until September. But it still ends up putting most of the weight and pressure on the end of my leg, which is not ideal for walking, let alone running. Jake has challenged me to run a 5k with her in October of this year. I get to pick the race. I’m hoping the new prosthesis will make my participation possible. Jake is already in training, having run 2 miles in 20 minutes. Since my best time for the mile – with both legs – was about 9 minutes in the 10 k races I ran, I would say that Jake is almost ready for the challenge.

I spent several hours today mourning the death of Jonathan and Renee’s 9 year old daughter, Saige, who died suddenly this past Tuesday morning. She had been sick with the flu, just like everyone else in the family, including her 4 year old brother and both parents. There was an autopsy, but I don’t know the results. She had not been ill before she got the flu, and she had no chronic disease that weakened her. She was a healthy, talented artist and poet at her tender age. The Catholic Church where the funeral service was held was packed. Everyone who lives in the Keys must have been there. The priest noted that the crowd was much larger than what he normally gets for Sunday mass. There were a lot of young girls and boys who were Saige’s age. One young girl sat in front of me. She and her family had just returned from a New Hampshire ski vacation with Saige and her family. This young girl had been hospitalized for two days this week, having also been hit by the flu. She survived. Saige died. No one tried to make sense of this death, but the priest and the fellow who did the eulogy assured us that Saige was now an angel in heaven looking over all of us, especially her family. She sounded like such an amazing person, a “bridge” between family members and friends, wise beyond her years. The eulogist said that God wanted her with Him because she was so special. Well, hold on there, God. Wait your turn! Don’t you think her parents and her brother want her and need her a little bit more than you do? I guess not. And for those who believe in eternal life, Saige is now enjoying eternal life. I hope her parents have a very strong faith. I would be very angry; in fact, I am very angry that Saige was arbitrarily taken from them. And I’m still angry that my sister, Jean, died at the age of 55 in 1996 and my nephew, Doug, died at the age of 37 about ten years later. I’m angry for my mother, who wanted to celebrate her 100^th birthday, but died in August, 2009 at the age of 99 and ½. Yes, she had a good life, but why couldn’t she be a centenarian? Was the gift of eternal life so pressing? How about another couple of years on earth, so she could continue to serve as a role model for how one “grows old” while keeping one’s intelligence, judgment, wit and humor?

I almost envy people who have a firm belief in everlasting life, the rapture, the tribulation, the millennium – the whole nine yards of Christian belief, as spelled out in Revelations and by various prophets throughout the Bible. Of course, I would love to see my sister again, and my nephew, mother and father (who died at 46). But my sister was cremated, as were my nephew and mother, so what body will they return in? This is where belief in reincarnation may come in handy. I don’t mean to be glib, but I do have a lot of questions. Would my mother return in her 99 and ½ year old body, or in a newer model? Would my sister still have lymphoma? Would Doug have medulloblastoma? Their bodies were ravaged by their cancers. Are they entitled to get healthy, new bodies before they return to earth with Jesus Christ? We are supposed to be very close to the rapture, because we have so many wars going on in the Middle East. As soon as all the nations join into the Middle East wars, the rapture occurs. I kid you not. Read Target: Israel. It’s dense reading, but it spells out all the prophecies and how many things have already come to pass, just as predicted in the Bible. This is not my usual reading fare, but a fellow boater lent it to me, and I always finish a book I’m reading. It was an eye opener regarding the critical role that the nation of Israel plays in the return of Christ to earth. I had no idea.

If you’re wondering, I believe I’m agnostic, but there is a part of me, based on all my years of Sunday school teaching and based on observing my mother’s faith deepen through the years, that really wants to believe in God, Yahweh, Allah, Buddha – an all-powerful being with a grand design for humans.  But then one of my close family members dies, and my quest for faith gets a huge setback again. Each death seems so cruel. And the cancer before the death is devastating. So I get angry at the unjust treatment of my loved ones. They are/were extremely good people – they deserved to live longer. They deserved to be healthy. My sister had a strong faith in God. My nephew was a brilliant electronic engineer who never hurt anyone. Let me say that again: my nephew. Never. Hurt. Anyone. He helped a lot of people, who talked about his great support for them at work and his ability to explain difficult problems so that they could solve them with him. When I had shoulder surgery, he came from his home to mine – a drive of 4 hours – to help me curl my hair in the mornings. Really. It was unbelievable. He didn’t even know what a curling iron was before I showed him mine. He had already undergone a ton of chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant. But he wanted to help me. So I don’t get why he died at 37 years of age. I just don’t get it.

It’s Saturday night on President’s weekend at the marina, and one very drunken man is screaming obscenities at the top of his lungs. What a way to celebrate a holiday! Washington and Lincoln would be so proud. I wonder who he supports for President. Don’t get me started. On the other hand, start me up. I think I wrote a rant about the adjective “untrustworthy” and how it is wrongly applied to women. You may remember the history of criminal laws, where women are the victim. No man could be convicted of the crime of rape, for example, unless there was evidence to corroborate the “untrustworthy” woman. Women were not allowed to be witnesses or jurors for a very long time – they were too “untrustworthy”. Everyone should take at least one class in the oppression of women down through the ages – in high school. Then perhaps we would not have female college students telling national political reporters that they do not support Hillary Clinton because she is “untrustworthy”. I place the “untrustworthy” label at the door of the men and women who still believe that most women are “untrustworthy.” Now most of these female college students have no clue about the history of this word and how they have been gulled into regurgitating the old sexist view that women, in general, and Hillary, in particular, are untrustworthy. They would feel a bit foolish, I hope, if they knew how they had been duped. Or not. It’s extremely hard to prove that a woman is trustworthy, after the “untrustworthy” label has been affixed to her. It’s so sad that they do not even realize how sexist this term is, as applied to women over the centuries.  Give Bernie Sanders his due: he knows how to go after a female adversary without appearing overtly sexist. Or he just picked up where the Republicans left off with their impugning of Hillary’s reputation.  Hey, no one wants an untrustworthy person for President of the U.S. So I guess we’ll never have a woman President, so long as every new generation buys into what the older generations have been selling for years. This is what Gloria Steinem and Madeleine Albright need to be talking about.

Hillary Clinton is the best candidate for President, hands down. She happens to be a woman. And just like every other woman, she has been subjected to discriminatory treatment all her life. Why should the Presidential campaign be any different? I knew that women would be her toughest critics, especially young women with no history of the women’s movement – how can they call themselves feminists? Women have always been tougher on women than their male counterparts. Try to pick a jury in a domestic abuse case or rape case – women jurors frequently feel superior to the female victims and vote “not guilty” because THEY would not have gotten beaten or raped, so why believe the women victims who are supposedly pouring their hearts out on the witness stand – everyone knows that women are UNTRUSTWORTHY. There it is again.

How many times in the past 5 decades have I heard: “I support women, just not THIS woman. There is always something wrong with the woman in front of you, who deserves to be believed. But since birth, you have been ingrained with the notion that women should not be believed. Maybe one day a woman will come along in whom you can believe, but that’s unlikely. At any rate, you know for sure that you cannot trust THIS woman. In politics, I hear some women say they would support Elizabeth Warren – we’ll see. If a Bernie Sanders type opposes her, and she is perceived as “untrustworthy”, the women will flock to the more “trustworthy” man – again and again. Those women who now support Bernie most likely supported Barack Obama against Hillary too. He was for “hope and change.” And Hillary wasn’t? Look, I’m not saying we should rally around any woman who runs for office – Sarah Palin is a very good example of a woman-hating woman who should not garner our votes. Hillary is the opposite. She is not a queen bee. She has fought for women’s equality and racial equality all her life. She is a very good person. She is also super intelligent. And she came from a rock-ribbed Republican family. But once she saw how the world treated women and minorities, she started to work to improve our positions in society. She is the real deal. There will never be a better woman candidate, ever. There may be women candidates who are equally good, but they will not be better than Hillary. My first image of her is in Founders parking lot at Wellesley speaking out forcefully against the Viet Nam War – 1966. It wasn’t easy to do that, but she had the courage of her convictions – and she still has the courage of her convictions. I know we want women candidates to be perfect – she should have voted against the Iraq War. But we certainly don’t hold male candidates to a standard of perfection. Remember Bernie’s writings about raping women? Oh, it was just a fantasy, that’s right. And it was so long ago. Certainly, he has changed his attitudes toward women. Maybe he has. But that’s not the point.

It is time to stand up for Hillary. She has earned our respect and she has earned our vote. Please don’t reject her with the sexist term “untrustworthy”. This just shows your lack of historical perspective on how that word has been used to keep women down and to keep them out of public service. If you are going to call yourself a feminist, know the history of feminism and learn about the battles we have been fighting for all women for the past 50 years. Is it time for a woman President? Of course, it is. It’s way past time –we should have women Presidents going back to the era of Gold Meir (originally from Wisconsin) or the times of Margaret Thatcher. Not just any woman president – not former Governor Palin – but dammit, when the most qualified person in the race is a woman, and that woman is Hillary Clinton, VOTE FOR HER! You need to be able to tell your daughters and sons that you did the right thing in 2016 – for yourself and for them.

 

 

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY ONE: MURDER AND SPORTS

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY ONE: MURDER AND SPORTS

We didn’t win. By now, you probably know that, although the Florida winners (Melbourne Beach) have not yet come forward. And we made it through a rare tornado warning this morning, Sunday, January 17, 2016. There was no tornado, but the winds were fearsome for a short while and the rain pounded Slow Motion. Now it’s bright sunshine and 81 degrees. It’s a particularly good day for a few Americans flying out of Iran’s air space back to the U.S.A. On a much more personal note, it’s a good day for walking without the rollator and the cane. Sure, I’m still lurching along, but I’m walking! Some day, Carnegie Hall! (You know, “practice, practice, practice…”).

“Making a Murderer” – Avery and Dassey murdered Ms. Halbach. The documentarians embedded themselves with the defendants and their family for 10 years. They had more than enough time to prepare their one-sided documentary featuring only some of the incriminating evidence and leaving out important items such as the DNA (from sweat) of Avery on the latch under the hood of Ms. Halbach’s vehicle. One of the documentarians said that this DNA was “merely circumstantial”, which indicated to me that she has no knowledge of criminal law, particularly the jury instruction which says that direct and circumstantial evidence should be given equal weight. It also shows that she has not covered very many murder investigations, since 99 percent of them involve primarily circumstantial evidence. Come on, you don’t expect the murdered person to ID the murderer in court, and how many times does a murderer commit murder in front of a neutral witness? I’ll answer that – almost never. And so, DNA is usually the critical “circumstantial” evidence that proves a murderer’s guilt. In this case, it was not only Avery’s sweat DNA, but also the victim’s blood DNA found on a bullet fragment in Avery’s garage, which forensic experts said was shot from Avery’s rifle. I would have prosecuted that case in a hot minute. That’s one that even the cherry pickers in my office would have taken to trial. I’m not a fan of Nancy Grace, but she has nailed this case correctly. Read her summary of the overwhelming evidence against Avery and Dassey. And before you shed any tears for Dassey, watch and listen to the 3 and ½ hours of his videotaped confession, with his defense investigator present. If he’s as dull normal as the documentarians say, he could not ever have made up the details of the murder of Ms. Halbach, which just happen to corroborate the “circumstantial” evidence showing his and Avery’s guilt.

It’s amazing to realize how many people in this country can be duped by a film. On the one hand, it’s good to know that the presumption of innocence is alive and well among our citizens. But it is certainly disheartening to learn, once again, that many people hold police in such low esteem that they easily buy into a cockamamie police conspiracy theory in the Avery case. Who had the motive to kill Ms. Halbach? She had been to the defendant’s property about 5 times before the last time, when she was murdered. She had told the Auto Trader folks that she did not want to return because Avery “creeped” her out. He had greeted her on one occasion wearing just a towel. Avery called Ms. Halbach several times right before she was murdered, disguising his identity on the phone, luring her out to his property. Avery told fellow inmates that he planned to build a torture chamber when he got out to use to rape and murder women. He showed them the design. Avery told Nancy Grace, when the police were still looking for Ms. Halbach as a missing person, that he had seen her the day of her murder. He recanted later, saying that he had not seen her that day. He “planted” a phone call to her phone after he murdered her, to set up his lie that he had not seen her. All of the victim’s burnt bones and some of her clothing and personal possessions were found in Avery’s fire pit, entwined with some of his junk. It was some of Avery’s relatives who saw him tending a fire at the fire pit on the day of the murder. Had enough yet? If not, please have the integrity to tell a prosecutor during voir dire that you do not trust police, so that you do not serve on a jury and refuse to convict, no matter how strong the incriminating evidence, because of your strong bias against police.

How did the Detroit Pistons blow out my Golden State Warriors last night? Now that’s a real mystery, especially with a healthy Curry scoring 38 points. Still, a record of 37 wins and 4 losses at mid-season is very impressive. The next two games, against Cleveland and Chicago, may show whether or not the Warriors are currently running on fumes, or whether the Detroit debacle was an aberration. I have such vivid memories of attending Warriors games with Big Al when I was a season ticket holder in the 80’s. “Dominique is Weak”, Big Al would shout, or “Jay Bee!!!!!” for the mediocre Warrior center, J.B. Carroll. Good times. Big Al has gone on to fame and fortune as a Senior Writer for Sports Illustrated, mostly golf, but his first cover story, as a college student, was about his week spent with Ken Griffey, Jr. They were about the same age at the time, and they both had a blast. Now Junior is going into the Baseball Hall of Fame, and Big Al some day will go into the Golf Writers Hall of Fame. If you want to read it, look for the SI with Frank Thomas on the cover – Frank and Junior were both featured in that issue, the two best players in baseball at the time. Big Al writes under the name of Alan Shipnuck. I recommend all four of his books to you, starting with Blood, Sweat and Tees, moving on to the story of discrimination against women by Augusta, then to the Christina Kim book giving us an insider’s look at the LPGA, and most recently the co-authored novel (with Michael Bamberger), Swinger. Reading Big Al as he writes about a mythical pro golfer’s sexcapades in Swinger is disconcerting, because I always think of him as a prepubescent 9 year old, so I attribute the graphic sex stuff to Bamberger.

My mother was the biggest sports fan I have ever met. I would call her on a Friday or Saturday when I was in college and invariably she had a football game on the radio and one on TV. She listened to the Liberty High School games and watched the Penn State games. As for the pros, she was a Steelers fan, because so many Penn State stars like Franco Harris, played for the Steelers. She herself was a gifted tennis player in high school. I remember her taking up a racquet in the 1970’s at the Wagoner Compound in Huron City, Michigan – she was in her 60’s, and she was still very good. Mother imparted her love of sports to all of us. Sue played girls’ little league – hardball – the first in the nation – growing up in Bethlehem. Talk about inequality – her team played on a dirt field with lots of deep ruts in it which gave her a lot of fat lips as she tried to grab balls coming around 2^nd base. My brother’s team, by contrast, had a beautifully groomed grass field, which my father himself mowed to give the boys a soft cushion to land on when chasing balls. My brother’s team had full uniforms. The girls were lucky to get shirts with number on them. This was well before Title IX. Even with the gross inequities, some women stars shone bright – Joan Joyce, for example, was the premier softball pitcher in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, playing for the Raybestos (Bridgeport, Connecticut) Brakettes and Orange Lionettes. You could look her up, but here’s a partial list of her records and accomplishments:

38 shutouts in a season (1974)

Most innings pitched in a game (29 in 1968 against Perkasie)

Two no-hit, no-run games in National Tournament (4 times)

Most victories in a season (42 in 1974)

Most consecutive all-star team selections (18)

Eight time MVP in National Tournament (1961, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1973, 1974, 1975)

Career doubles (153)

Brakettes team batting champion (1960, 1962, 1967-69, 1973)

Highest batting average (.467 in 1971)

50 perfect games

150 no-hitters

Lifetime ERA of 0.09

Led Brakettes to world championship in 1974

Struck out Ted Williams at Municipal Stadium in Waterbury, Connecticut, 1961 and struck out Hank Aaron in 1978 – exhibition games

Threw over 70 miles per hour

Suffice it to say, Joan Joyce was/is amazing by any standards. I watched her pitch in the 1970’s for Raybestos at their home field in Connecticut. Her catcher was about 16 years old. The sound of the ball hitting the catcher’s mitt was a loud explosion. No one got on base against her in that game. She was hitting the cover off the ball, going 2 for 2, then she didn’t get a hit the third at bat, and another pitcher entered the game the next inning. A fan shouted: “See what happens when you don’t get on base?” We all laughed. To this day Joan Joyce is involved in softball, successfully coaching the Florida Atlantic University team. You could look it up. Oh, and by the way she has been inducted into nine Halls of Fame, including the National Softball Hall of Fame, the International Softball Federation Hall of Fame, and the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame as one of only three Americans.

Meeting Joan Joyce and watching her pitch was a highlight of my life in New Haven, Connecticut in the 1970’s. I was Executive Director of the Connecticut Women’s Educational and Legal Fund (CWEALF) and spent almost all my time educating and litigating for women’s equality in all fields. Carol Johnson worked with me, and her partner, Judy Dixon, was the coach of the women’s tennis team at Yale. Judy also had the distinction of working with Bud Collins on PBS covering professional tennis matches. That’s right, PBS. Judy and Bud were nominated for an Emmy for their outstanding work. Judy had been a very good doubles player on the Women’s Tour, having played with the likes of Billie Jean King and Rosie Casals. There was one lowlight in her announcing career. Bill Cosby (yes, that one) was a big tennis fan and, with his celebrity, he wormed his way on to one of her broadcasts with Bud. Here’s what he did to Judy. While they were on camera, he put his hand on her thigh and was rubbing it. This was not in sight of the camera, as they were at a table and he put his hand under the table to fondle her thigh. Ever the professional, she continued to cover the match that was going on. Cosby was too big to topple at that point – or at least not worth losing her job. I helped her fight for equal treatment at Yale, getting two of the four indoor tennis courts for the women’s team and filing a claim of discrimination based on the salary difference between her and the much less experienced male coach of the men’s tennis team. So Yale gave him the title of “captain” of the tennis teams to try to justify the higher salary. It was a load of crock. Oh, the stories I could tell about Judy’s titanic battles with the odious male coach. But that’s Judy’s story – I’ll let you know when her book comes out.

In case you were wondering, I walk with a cane now, and sometimes walk without a cane. Yes, I’m walking, trying not to imitate “Lurch”, and getting better each day. It’s still odd to put on my right leg in the morning. I mean, it’s been just 10 months since I had my own matched set and was running around with reckless abandon. I have not tried to run, but my physical therapist says that I try to walk too fast. That’s a good thing. I am excited, no doubt about it. Jake wants to run a half marathon with me this year. That would be incredible. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Baby steps – that’s where I am now, baby steps. And I’m quite happy about that for the moment. Being free of the walker and cane is very liberating, if only for short walks. Next time I hope to report more progress. Stay tuned.

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY: LIVING LARGE IN LARGO

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY: LIVING LARGE IN LARGO

Breaking news! El Chapo has been captured! Again! Philadelphia police officer was shot at point blank by assassin with stolen police gun, who pledged allegiance to ISIS! U.S. missile sent to Spain for military exercises was sent back to Cuba last year – by mistake! 292,000 jobs were created in December, 2015! The stock market plummeted the first week of 2016 – worst start ever! It’s the eighth day of January 2016 -- Twenty three days left until the Iowa caucuses!

Here in Key Largo, on Slow Motion, the Admiral has put up a cloth sun screen on the sundeck and I got my prosthesis adjusted to help me walk better. I’m transitioning from the rollator (walker) to a sturdy cane that stands by itself. The Admiral made chicken stir fry, jambalaya and SOS this week. Oh, he also gave me breakfast in bed one morning and the next morning he served up a delicious omelet. We turned off the air conditioning and actually slept under a sheet and a quilt a few nights when it dropped into the mid-sixties. We have watched the news (breaking news!) every night this week, and I watched the CNN special with President Obama and Anderson Cooper and a “town hall” on guns and violence.

Now which of these two paragraphs was more interesting to you? If the point of reading this blog is to catch up with me and the Admiral and our life on Slow Motion, it’s got to be the second paragraph. If, sadly, you come to this blog to get the latest headline news – really? – then the first paragraph is the winner. It is no question that we are pummeled by the news stations, twitter, iPhone news breaks, and other social media twenty four hours a day with the latest killings, gun fights and Trumpisms. So when you come to this blog, I try to make it an island of sanity, calm, and ordinariness – except for the occasional political rant. It’s a chance for you to relax and take a few minutes away from your hectic schedules to read about our laid back, slow-moving, food-focused lives. Not that your lives are better than ours, or vice versa, but they are just very different. And you have a standing invitation to visit us to experience for yourselves this difference, particularly if you are willing to work as crew on Slow Motion and help us travel to various ports.

Tonight, Saturday January 9, we are learning about Madagascar and the fact that 90% of its woodland has been destroyed by “slash and burn” agriculture. But there is a national park of some 40,000 acres which has been preserved where the golden lemur (500 left in the wild) jumps from tree to tree. Anthony Bourdain, who took us to Madagascar, suggested to his hosts that ecotourism is not a great option for the island’s economy. So one of his hosts asked: “What is a better option?” No answer. Oops, the Admiral switched to the Pittsburgh/Cincinnati wild card playoff game. Talk about culture shock. This is an unusual evening for us, watching television programs. Usually the Admiral and I read or play Sudoku or a wicked card game on our IPads. The Admiral just walked to the corner gas station to buy tickets for our billion dollar retirement fund. We’ll know in a few hours if we won – of course we will win. This is 2016 – the year of good luck. And good luck starts with winning the lottery. Just write down the three things you want the most and mail it to us, and we’’ ll take care of it. The Admiral says if we win the lottery, we’ll send out for pizza. Always the big spender.

I have gone to a new physical therapist since December 24, and she is very good. She is a native Key Largan, with licenses in Florida and in North Carolina to ply her trade. She put a cane in my hand the first time I visited, and I was very skeptical about keeping my balance. But, miracle of miracles, I am now walking around with a cane, feeling older than my years. Canes are symbolic of old age, except when they’re in the hands of an expert tap dancer. I am not tap dancing yet, so I fit the old age stereotype. Still, the cane makes me feel like walking on my own is just around the corner. I need to put a few more miles on the cane before I fly solo, however. And when I’m not channeling an “older American” with my cane, I go to the fitness center of the Courtyard Marriott to work out for 45 minutes. My favorite piece of equipment is the stationary bicycle. When I’m riding the bike, I feel “normal.” It’s an odd term to use, I know, but “normal” for me is still defined as having two working legs with feet attached. I have come very late to this amputation condition, and I can’t ignore all those years of walking, jogging, hiking, and biking – fast – with reckless abandon. That was my “normal.” The “new normal” is a lot slower and a lot less reckless. It requires patience to learn to walk again, to endure the pain and the pressure – patience has never been my strong suit.

It’s Sunday afternoon, and already we’ve had an eventful day – not by world news standards, but in the world of Slow Motion. I got my weekly deep tissue massage and when I returned to the boat, we moved Slow Motion to another dockside location in the canal, with the help of our fellow boaters. It was great to hear Slow Motion’s engines, and at one point, all I wanted to do was cruise out to the ocean. Alas, we were headed to another tie up less than 100 yards away, closer to the dreadful Skipper’s Restaurant live Muzak, but with a better Wi-Fi connection. Trade offs.  I also have the challenge of steps when I go to the shower and restroom. But so far, when I start lifting the rollator up the steps an angel appears out of the blue to help me. It’s a different angel every time. I can do this myself, but I must look like I’m struggling. At our new location, Slow Motion does not hug the dock as closely, so the Admiral has a new worry – Can Ann avoid falling in the drink when getting on and off the boat? I tell him that I will be super super careful, but of course he still worries. We have entered the Inner Sanctum of the Pelican Brotherhood, another concern, given their penchant to poop nuclear waste on boat decks. We have rubber snakes to scare them off, and the Admiral constructs a complex spider web of string across the deck on the bow. It seems to work. Time will tell whether they invade us or we evade them.

Just so you know, there was no winner of the lottery. We have to buy more tickets to win our $1.3 billion. The numbers will be announced on  Wednesday. Your checks will be in the mail by Friday. You can take that to the bank. We expect that you will use some of your winnings to visit us and travel to Key West with us on Slow Motion. Then you too can experience firsthand what it’s like to live large in Largo. See you soon!

 

 

 

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY NINE: PAIN AND GROWING UP REPUBLICAN

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY NINE: PAIN AND GROWING UP REPUBLICAN

Still 2015. Still Florida. Still hot. Still me. Houston is beating up on Florida State, as I put my fingers to the keyboard this humid afternoon on  December 31. Four crackerjack books came from Sondra today – way to start the New Year. Now I have Brooklyn, Spotlight, a Maeve Binchy novel (Echo?) and a series of stories from Theroux. Oh, she sent a box of See’s Candy too. Everyone knows about my sweet tooth – I have truffles from Barbara and Louisa, See’s from Sondra, and I myself have filled the larder with more M and M’s and mini KitKats. Sonja also brought a container of white chocolate covered nuts and pralines. Enough! Dentist appointment on Monday – not kidding. 2105 will be remembered as the year of the dentist for me, Dr. Bennett, the “gentle dentist” of Key Largo, and the innovative endodontists Ken Grossman (Key Largo), Dr. K (Kansas City) and Jeannette Kern (Monterey). That’s what I get for two years of tooth neglect. Damn you, Dr. Stein, for suddenly retiring in 2013. I pick doctors younger than I, for the most part, so I won’t lose them to retirement. I had not anticipated his desire to retire early. Guess I’ll have to go with the 30 and 40 year olds and hope they don’t decide to change professions, as Dr. Cunningham did (dentist to watercolorist).

Still Alice. Did you see this film starring Julianne Moore as a brilliant woman who learns she has early onset Alzheimer’s or dementia? She was a highly successful professor at a top academic institution, and the smartest person her husband knew. And as the dementia progressed, she remained “still Alice”, while unable to deliver her scintillating lectures or sometimes not remembering how to get home after a run. I remember Abbie Lou Williams, my 78 year old artist neighbor in Carmel Highlands in the 1970’s, who would be telling me a great story, then halting, as she was losing her train of thought and forgetting the rest of the story. At this point, she would always say: “It’s hell getting old.” I heard the utter frustration in her voice and empathized to the extent that I, in my 30’s at the time, could imagine forgetting a great story in the middle of it. Now I can imagine it, and I hope that I can have the mental acuity of my mother at 99 years of age, remembering everyone and everything – well almost everyone and everything. Some things should be forgotten, or at the very least neglected, kicked to the curb, boxed up and closeted – you get the point. They say we humans don’t remember pain. That was true for my March hospital stay this year, primarily because I was supersaturated with opiates. However, I clearly remember the three weeks of withdrawal in April – worst three weeks of my life. Who was that cadaver staring at me from the mirror? Would I ever want to eat anything ever again in my life? Good times.

Today my new physical therapist, Lisa, stated “You never complain, do you?” That comment would surprise the Admiral, who believes I complain too often – not about pain, but silly things (to him). When I have pain, I sometimes let out an “Owee!”, which I have no control over. It’s pain to brain to mouth: “Owww!” Then I move on, usually doing something to ease the pain. Right now I was feeling  pain in the remaining part of my tibia of my right leg, so I removed the prosthesis to continue writing. According to the PT, if you feel pain in your prosthesis, it’s time to take it off to avoid blistering or rupturing the skin. Because if you do that, you can’t wear your prosthesis. And trust me, it’s not easy to spend your life hopping around on one leg. It’s hard to get up stairs that way, hard to get on and off the boat, and generally hard to get anywhere without falling or at least worrying about falling. So for all you new amputees starting out, remember, if there’s pain, take off the prosthesis. I was reading one of the amputee websites to find out what a good fitting prosthesis is supposed to look like, and I didn’t find very much useful information on that subject, just that you have to keep working with your prosthetist to “get it right”. “Getting it right” is elusive, especially when the bone at the end of your shortened leg is prominent and tends to start hurting after a relatively short amount of walking. Gee, it sounds like I’m complaining. Well, I’m not, I’m explaining. I’m trying to share my experience, so that amputees and prosthetists who read this (and their families and friends) know the importance of a good fit and keep working on their limbs until they have one. I did learn from the website that a prosthesis usually lasts three years. This is somewhat alarming, since Terri told me that certain scrooges in Congress have written and introduced a bill that would limit a Medicare recipient to one prosthesis per life. I guess their mothers and fathers do not have artificial limbs. Or they are just plain idiots – penny wise and pound foolish. I’ll go with the second choice.

Speaking of just plain idiots, I feel a political rant coming on. I grew up in a Republican household, and I remember when the honest Republicans threw out the corrupt Democrats in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Gordon Payrow, the Republican candidate for mayor, always wore a white suit, in case you had any doubt who the good guy in the race was. And he won – the voters threw out the corrupt bums so that our mayor in shiny white suits could clean up the mess at City Hall. I guess he did. It was an unusual victory, given the number of Democrats in blue collar Bethlehem, the company town of Bethlehem Steel. This experience was formative for my early political leanings, in that I thought that Republicans were progressive do-gooders with pure hearts and Democrats were out to steal the public’s money and feather their own nests. What happened to those Republicans? Is John McCain one of the few remaining good guys? Or did he feather his own nest with so many houses that he can’t even remember how many he now owns? I know, I know, he married a very wealthy woman, but that’s certainly a form of nest-feathering. And where does he stand on women’s rights?

 It’s not easy to remain in the Republican Party and support an Equal Rights Amendment or women’s rights to reproductive freedom. I bet H. Gordon Payrow, Jr. would have supported women’s rights, although I don’t ever remember him talking about that in the 60’s and 70’s. And you know what? Now that I read back on the mayor before Payrow, one Earl E. Schaffer, a Democrat, I read about his  positive vision for Bethlehem, with more parks and a government complex – and not about any corruption during his 12 years. Hmmm. Was I being sold a bill of goods by Republicans back then? Oh dear, how impressionable we are in our teens. And how strong is our parents’ influence on our politics. I remember that whenever Wellesley polled students in presidential election years, it was significant that the freshmen usually voted the family party line (mostly Republican),  but the majority of seniors voted much more independently from their families’ political affiliations. Sure, not all Republican Wellesley women became Democrats during their four years in college, but a large number did – and  Independents, of course – that middle ground between leaving the family and striking out on one’s own. My parting from Republicans came in the summer of 1966, after I had worked for Ed Brooke for the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts. I was with the Wellesley-Vassar Washington D.C. Internship Program and I had the misfortune of choosing to work for the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee. A more paranoid group of politicos I had never met. I wore a pin “Mob Rule” to work, and the people I worked with thought I was a spy for the Democrats. I wish I had been. I could have told the Democrats they had nothing to fear, at least based on the ineptitude and drinking penchants of the folks I worked with. Still, they had their secret weapon, Richard Nixon, who was making a comeback even then, after the Goldwater debacle. Richard Nixon, there’s a moderate Republican – but steeped in paranoia. After that summer in the Republican frat house called the RCCC, I decided to opt for a party that did not appear to have such paranoid delusions. And for the most part, I have been happy ever since as a Democrat, although my economics are socialist. Before there was Bernie Sanders, I was decrying income inequity, particularly in our sex-segregated labor market. You can call me a one-issue voter, if  you really think that supporting equal rights for more than half the population, and more than half the registered voters, is a narrow single issue. End of political rant.

The fan just died. I have to go out on to the deck to get some fresh air. Please have a safe and sane New Year’s Eve. Root for the underdogs and everything will be okay.

 

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY EIGHT: HOLIDAY RAMBLINGS

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY EIGHT: HOLIDAY RAMBLINGS

It’s the day after Christmas – Boxing Day in the UK – and we’re having the hottest holiday season I have ever experienced. Mid-eighties with very high humidity during the day and high to mid-seventies at night. No relief. I’m sweating as I sit at the computer in the boat’s salon. Add to this unseemly weather my frequent hot flashes and – BAM – it’s clothes changing time four or five times a day. Or clothing optional. I see the merit of nudist colonies. Yesterday I was vacuuming the salon area rug and huge drops of sweat were falling from my face and arms on to the vacuum and the rug and the floor. I needed to wipe up the floor after vacuuming. There is one place that gives me a break from this intolerable humidity – the fitness room in the Courtyard Marriott. It’s air conditioned within an ounce of its life. I can work out – hard – for 40 minutes and get my heart rate up and breathe heavily – but no sweat! I love that place. But enough about the weather and my sweat glands.

We returned from our most recent road trip – to Pocono Pines, Pennsylvania and to Solomons, Maryland – on December 22. We had a great weekend visit with my brother, Rusty, and his wife, Lois, and their puppy, Hopi. Naturally a cold front had come into their area the day we arrived, and we were dealing with days in the 20’s and nights in the teens. It was glorious. I walked to Lake Naomi with Hopi and my brother and could see my breath. There were snow flurries, or else the snow the ski resort was making had wafted down the mountain side to us. There was no natural snow, and the lake was still watery. Rusty said it’s usually covered with ice by this time of year. After we left, the temps went back to their abnormal highs in the 60’s and 70’s. But so far we have had three days of winter. By the time we reached Solomons, Maryland on the 20^th and had dinner with Janie and Mike at the Texas Longhorn Roadhouse, it was warming up again.

At my brother’s home we did some indoor activities, in addition to eating pizza and fried chicken, which included watching the Democratic debate Saturday night and screening the movie “The Book Thief”. This movie was based on a prize-winning novel, which I read along with my Book Club a few years ago. The young girl was portrayed by Sophie Nelisse, who is an amazing actor at the age of thirteen. (Thirteen!) Her adoptive parents, played by Emily Watson and Geoffrey Rush, were both at their best – which is saying a lot for these two accomplished actors. This movie came out in 2013, so if you have not seen it, you can get it on any movie streaming app, or better yet, buy it for a song. The story revolves around Hitler’s Germany during the early war years, but somehow it is not nearly as depressing as “All the Light We Cannot See”. I loved the sign painter’s idea of teaching his daughter the alphabet and building her vocabulary by drawing each letter, capital and small, on the cellar wall, one right after the other at the top of the wall. That way, she could write down all the new words she had learned during the course of their reading the books she stole. The first book she stole was “The Grave Digger’s Manual”, which the grave digger who had dug her young brother’s grave had dropped from a pocket. Now that’s a diehard reader, to start out reading about how to make a grave! Then she stole a book from a huge bonfire of books which Hitler had ordered all the towns and villages to do, in order to get rid of any anti-Reichian influences. Then she hit the jackpot with the huge library of forbidden books in the house of the town’s mayor. That’s enough – you have to read the book or watch the movie to learn any more.

About the debate – I always learn something about foreign or domestic policy from Hillary Clinton, when she answers a question. She is loaded with information and she puts the information to good use by suggesting sane policies and programs. No carpet bombing travesty for her (or from Sanders or O’Malley, for that matter). No ban on Muslim travelers to the US. No wall to keep Mexicans out. (Hey Donald, they build great tunnels, have you heard?). No absolute ban on abortion – no ban at all. No homophobia. No restrictive voting laws. No obscene increase in military spending. But yes to climate change controls, yes to women’s equality, yes to raising wages, yes to taxing the top 1% appropriately (as we used to do under Eisenhower and Reagan). Let’s make some history this year at the polls – if I can’t be elected the first woman president of the USA (and apparently I cannot, at least not in 2016), then I strongly urge you to vote for my surrogate, Secretary Clinton. It’s John Adams and John Quincy Adams all over again, sort of, but with a former First Lady (it should have been Abigail Adams) moving into the Oval Office. Did you know that John Quincy Adams is considered the smartest president we have ever had (based on IQ)? His father is in the top 10. No word yet on where Secretary Clinton would rank, but President Clinton is also in the top ten along with Lincoln and Jefferson and Madison, among others. Yes, you guessed it, Reagan and George W. did not make the top thirty. They were both in the bottom fifteen. Still, their IQs were well above the national average of 100. What they lacked in book smarts, they made up for in their grandiose catch phrases like the “Shining City on the Hill” and “Mission Accomplished”.

While I still want the next president to be committed to equal rights for women, I would also very much like her to protect Social Security benefits and Medicare benefits, and if it’s not too much trouble, to increase Social Security benefits on a yearly basis. The cost of living goes up each year; so should the benefits. I am grateful for the work of AARP in advancing these positions for me. All politics is local, except when you’re dealing with the bureaucracy of the federal government. Then it’s good to have a strong lobbyist (the hated word) in D.C. advancing your agenda. I may be able to organize my neighbors to lobby for “no parking” signs in Harper Canyon. But I don’t have the juice to mount a movement to protect Social Security and Medicare. I felt pretty all powerful in the sixties and seventies as a law student and then as executive director of the Connecticut Women’s Education and Legal Fund (CWEALF). I wrote a law providing for equal credit opportunity. I worked for passage of Connecticut’s Equal Rights Amendment to its Constitution. I rewrote Connecticut’s sexual assault laws, eliminating the element of “earnest resistance” on the part of the rape victim as part of the definition of rape. Yes, that was a really good change.  I wrote briefs for the U.S. Supreme Court on the woman’s right to reproductive freedom. All of our victories in that arena came crashing to a halt in the mid-seventies when Justice Rehnquist gave us Roe v. Maher, denying poor women the right to reproductive freedom.

Anyway, I was writing about our road trip, not a trip down memory lane.  We stayed at so many Hilton hotels along the way that when we returned the Admiral learned that he had achieved “Diamond” status. We had been “Gold” before the trip. This means automatic upgrades, where available, and complimentary breakfasts, and more points. The Admiral is ecstatic. Now if Hilton could just design a sensible room for a disabled person, we’d be in business. Their designers come up with the dumbest things – like a bathroom that you can’t enter with a wheelchair or walker, because the hallway is too narrow and the door to the bathroom is hung on the wrong side, blocking access to the bedroom. Or how about putting elevated slabs of wood or marble across the entrance to the bathroom, so a wheelchair cannot enter or leave easily? Or how about putting grab bars in the shower stall, but not installing a seat for the amputee to sit and take a shower? Or installing a regular bathtub with high sides, with no seat or stool in the tub to allow the amputee to sit to shower or bathe? I would gladly offer my services as a consultant to Hilton so that they can avoid these embarrassing mistakes in their hotels across the country. At this point, however, they lead me to believe that they just don’t know what they’re doing, and perhaps that is because they also just don’t care enough to design and build functional rooms for disabled guests. Compare and contrast: the Hilton Garden Inn has automatic doors at its entrance, while the Hampton Inn has heavy manual doors. Same owner, what’s the deal? Are disabled guests who go to the Hampton Inn supposed to be stronger than Hilton Garden Inn guests? Just asking.

On Christmas Day Sonja arrived. The Admiral picked her up at the Ft. Lauderdale airport, and when they arrived in Key Largo, she took us to dinner at Skipper’s, the restaurant on the canal. Generally our only experience with Skipper’s is the music that travels across the water to Slow Motion, much of which is execrable. But last night the music was festive island “steel band” music – no wailing vocalist – and quite tolerable. The food was better than that. The Admiral had squid cooked in an exquisite combination of seasonings, Sonja had blackened fish in tacos (after they returned the fried fish to the kitchen and got her what she ordered), and I had a well-cooked hamburger and fries. Okay, my food selections are not imaginative, and I rarely eat fish in this ocean/bay paradise. But sometimes a hamburger hits the spot, and last night it did. Besides, the food took a back seat to the reunion of the Admiral with his oldest daughter, a brilliant tax attorney from Chicago. She came in her winter clothing, so the Admiral took her shopping for some summer stuff today. And now he’s baking a sweet potato, which he will top with curried vegetables. The Admiral knows how to please Sonja’s taste buds. They’re sharing the fish dip which they both love. It’s great to observe them together again. Sure, the Admiral can be a curmudgeon with Sonja too, but she knows it’s an act to try to hide the fact that he is a pushover who would do anything for her – within reason – to make her happy.

I’d like to give a shout out to all of you who sent us greeting cards and to Marlea, who sent pears and cheese from Harry and David. You made our Christmas special. The Admiral doesn’t exchange gifts, but he helps me send out the Sierra Club calendars, so he’s not really a Grinch. I’m glad you all enjoy the wilderness photos and that you have room to fill in your doctor appointments and other engagements. I say this with trepidation, knowing the kind of hell on wheels year that 2015 was for me, but here’s hoping that 2016 can erase all the bad memories of 2015 and that I’ll be hiking again in Toro Park with Zorro – pain free. Is that too much to ask for? I hope not. Happy New Year to you all.

 

 

 

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY SEVEN: ON THE ROAD AGAIN, EATING OUR WAY THROUGH TWO STATES

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY SEVEN: ON THE ROAD AGAIN, EATING OUR WAY THROUGH TWO STATES

Let’s start with Mount Lemmon, north of Tucson, Arizona. The Admiral and I had never gone to the top of it. Sue said the very top is blocked off to the public; you have to make reservations to see the fantastic telescope positioned on top of Mount Lemmon. She and Butch did that a year ago, and they had incredible views of faraway galaxies and heavenly bodies. The astronomer who hosted them had taken stunning photos of some of the stars they viewed, and he autographed prints of his photos for them. They decorate the wall in the hallway as you enter their desert home in Vail. Even without the lure of the telescope, the Admiral and I wanted to drive the 30 mile road that goes nearly to the top of Mount Lemmon. It was a gorgeous sunny day, in the 70’s, a little windy, but perfect for the drive. We began our windy journey in a “forest” of saguaro cacti. When we left the saguaros, the landscape became very rocky with hoodoos everywhere and layer upon layer of interesting geological eras exposed to us. The Admiral said that my brother the geologist would have enjoyed himself immensely in this environment. As we made each hairpin turn, new majestic monuments greeted us. I could not take enough photos to do this scenery justice. Each hoodoo deserved its own frame. Then as quickly as they appeared, the red and beige and gray rocks gave way to conifers, a jungle of fir trees with soft needles on the ground beneath them. The temps went down, but it was still sunny with a robin’s egg blue sky overhead. Clouds? Are you kidding? Not on this day. We passed elevation markers 5000, 6000, 7000, and 8000. Finally we reached the barrier across the road to the tippy top. To the left were the ski slopes (closed, no snow) and to the right was the highly touted restaurant (closed on Tuesday). Still, it was the journey to this point that was well worth the hour of driving. There are countless places to drive off the road and take a photo. And for people like us who keep drinking to stay hydrated, there are clean, well-managed restrooms right off the roadway at each climate level. This trip is spectacular. If you are ever in the Tucson area, Rusty and Lois, and all the rest of you easterners, please do yourselves a huge favor and drive up the Mount Lemmon Road of Beauty.

My indoor experiences while visiting my sister were also very gratifying. Sue and I went to two great movies, Bridge of Spies and Steve Jobs. No matter what role he takes on, Tom Hanks becomes the character he plays and you forget he is Tom Hanks of Bosom Buddies or Forrest Gump or Captain Phillips. He was an insurance defense attorney in Bridge of Spies, but he became so much more, as his character grew in strength and courage, rising to every impossible challenge created by the Russians and East Germans to make his efforts to swap prisoners (Abel for Powers and that Princeton grad student) a failure. I lived in West Berlin for a year, the year of the Student Revolution (1967-68). The events in this movie preceded me by five years. We watched the Russians and East Germans actually building the Berlin Wall in the movie. The actor who played Rudolf Abel, the convicted Russian spy, was spot on – Mark Rylance, who is one of the most celebrated Shakespeare actors in the world. “Would it make a difference?” See the movie. It will make a difference.

Another stupendous acting performance was turned in by Michael Fassbender in the movie, Steve Jobs. His assistant, Joanna, was wonderful. I kept wondering which American actress was playing her, and at the end, as the credits rolled, I learned to my amazement that Kate Winslet, speaking perfect “American” had aced this character. Steve Jobs was not likable at all, as compared with Steve Wozniak, who was almost too much of a schlemiel to be likable. But Woz, as played by Seth Rogen, was light years ahead of Jobs in the compassion and decency departments. Fassbender was indeed charismatic in the lead role, but what an asshole Steve Jobs was in both his personal and professional lives.  

When we weren’t supporting the movie theater economy in Tucson, Sue and I and Butch watched movies at home, including Gravity in 3-D. I can’t remember when I last wore special 3 D glasses, but they really made all the objects floating in space float right by my head. Some of the objects did more than “float” – they flew ferociously by and at the space stations destroying them and killing everyone but the Sandra Bullock character, who somehow (with the spiritual help of the ghost of George Clooney) made it back to earth safely. The visual effects in this movie were deserving of an Oscar. Bullock for her acting? Not so much. But she was good in the role, just not riveting. Give me Jessica Chastain for that character,

When not watching movies, Sue kept making one culinary masterpiece after another. We arrived to a counter full of Thanksgiving pies – apple, pumpkin and pecan. The apple and pumpkin were homemade and clearly superior to the pecan. Sue had also made homemade bread and her famous sticky buns with nuts. Yummy! They made for delicious breakfast fare, but Sue also added eggs with ham and peppers on a few mornings. And don’t forget the waffles and maple syrup and really crispy bacon strips. This meant that we didn’t need lunch, and thank God we generally waited until dinner for our next food intake (except for the afternoon movie popcorn). Sue made meatloaf for one dinner, spaghetti and meatballs for another, a roast chicken with all the fixings for yet a third, and did I mention the perfectly grilled hamburgers she provided one of our first nights? I know I’m leaving out something, but there was so much good food coming out of her kitchen, One night we went out to dinner – at Hacienda del Sol. I had a New York steak – okay – and the onion soup was very good. But I couldn’t wait until the next night when Sue would serve up her spaghetti sauce and perfectly heated garlic bread. I don’t even like garlic normally, but that garlic bread was sweet and mellow.

We visited Sue and Butch during our second week of travel. During our first week we drove from Phoenix to Salinas and stayed with our neighbors, Brenda and Royal. Speaking of great meals, the Admiral cooked two doozies right off the bat. The first night he grilled ribs and chicken and barbecued them both. They were both just so tender and tasty. I could have eaten all the chicken he barbecued by myself. Fortunately there were a few leftover pieces that I enjoyed the next day. Then the Admiral went into overdrive and spent several hours making his now world famous onion soup. Yes, the onion soup at the restaurant in Tucson was good, but you haven’t had the best onion soup until you’ve dipped your spoon into a bowl of the Admiral’s sweet onions and gooey cheese. Better yet, dip a slice of French bread into the bowl to sop up all the broth. That’s all you really need in life to be happy – a bowl of the Admiral’s onion soup. After the onion soup we had grilled pork chops cooked to perfection, with salad and apple sauce. Once the Admiral finished preparing and we finished eating those two stellar meals, he turned his attention to the 15 and ½ pound free range Diestel turkey we had bought at Star Market in Salinas. He and Brenda agreed upon a brine recipe, and they brined that turkey into savory, moist meat, both dark and white. Add the side dishes of Brenda’s sweet potato casserole, the Admiral’s stuffing and my humongous green salad (with feta cheese, roasted pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries – you get the picture) – and we had a very memorable dining experience at the Calkin Moore’s on Harper Canyon Road on Thanksgiving. By the way, I baked two apple pies the night before and indulged myself in eating a slice hot from the oven at about 9 at night. Shelby and Alice brought pumpkin pies and a super-rich chocolate pecan pie for Thanksgiving – add to this Brenda’s deep chocolate birthday cake from November 23 and yes, you can make a strong case for overeating while at Brenda and Royal’s.

Fortunately, I walked a lot with my dog Zorro, either down the road or into the park. I’m not jogging yet, and not walking several miles at a time. But we stay out 30 minutes or so, and it’s just great spending time with him again. He is so good on the leash, as I struggle with my walker over the uneven pavement of the roadway or on to the grassy areas next to the road that he loves to explore. Zorro is a mensch, and he shows all of his thoughts and emotions in his eyes. He does not miss anything – of course, the obvious when we are packing the suitcase to leave. But he does not miss any human interaction and he picks up on all of our insecurities and hesitations. It must be hard being Zorro and absorbing all the feelings of everyone he encounters and trying to adjust his expectations to accommodate our needs. He is very wise. I should have named him Yoda.

These last two weeks were definitely a time to be thankful – for our Harper Canyon friends who care for our house and our dog so well; for my Carmel friend, Sondra, who serves 15 at Thanksgiving with unnatural ease; for my work friend, Chris, who cares for puppies as much as I do and loves to walk them; for the Admiral, who never stops caring for and about me; for Zorro and his soulful eyes; for my sister and her husband, who always go overboard with their hospitality and love (just stay away from politics); for Barbara and Louisa, who always remember me and lift my spirits during the holidays and through the year; for Cathy, who is indomitable and inspirational; for the Admiral, once again, who makes these travels possible and makes my life livable.

We are back on the boat now – hunkering down in the salon and stateroom during a torrential rain. We went from nearly complete dryness and humidity of 7% to 100% humidity with two plane rides. The Admiral is back in shorts and all is well with the world in Key Largo. In the few days we have been back, he has already made jambalaya and SOS and just got the fixings to make beef stroganoff. I cannot eat better. Thank you, dear Admiral, for your love of cooking. Now all we need to do is shake this jet lag, get to sleep before midnight, and clean up Slow Motion for our Christmas guests – the Admiral’s daughters are coming. Yay! They bring so much life to the boat and there is a special sparkle in the Admiral’s eyes when they are here. Mine too. Can’t wait. In the meantime, y’all have yourselves a non–hectic week or two before Christmas. And come visit us in January. We’re planning a boat trip to Key West. You would not want to miss that (especially you, Cathy – see you soon, I hope).