Camping with Emma

Camping with Emma

My grand daughter, Emma, was six years old when her mommy, on a whim, bought a tent at Target.

I told Emma that we could “camp out” some night if she wanted to.

“OK,” she said.

A few days later I pitched the tent in the yard, eight steps off the back porch. Emma said she wanted to bring some of her puzzles, and some of her books, which we did.

Inside the tent, as darkness fell, I read the book, "Dora the Explorer", propping up a flashlight and shining it on the pages, which were fabric, not paper. Cute, I thought, as Emma crawled into the sleeping bag while I read.


Lying on her back, head peeping out of covers, she looked over at me. “I can’t go camping with you tomorrow,” she said, apologetically.

I said, “OK.”

“Cause I have to sleep over at Grammy’s for forty days,” she explained.

"That's OK sweetheart," I said. I made a note not to plan on tomorrow, or anytime soon thereafter, which likely was Emma's point.

I continued reading.

“If we are camping, we need some marshmallows, and wood,” Emma interrupted.

I explained that the stores were closed. Emma responded with tiny whine - soft and sweet.

“The next time, we camp we’ll get some,” I said. She whined again, a little louder, but just as sweet.

Emma fiddled with her other books, as I read on.

She asked me to take the berets out of her hair. I did this and she seemed to be getting sleepy. This is it I thought as I gently unfastened the berets. After all, we were "sleeping in the tent," so was that not the ultimate goal?

Then she said, “You know, papa, camping is not so much fun if you miss your mommy.”

I looked at her, she at me. “Do you want to go in and see mommy?” I said.

"I don't want anyone seeing me talking to mommy."

“Why is that?” I said.

“Because they’ll laugh at me,” she said.

"Don't worry," I said as we crawled out of the tent.

Inside, I told her mommy that Emma wanted to speak with her alone.

After talking to her mommy, I took Emma up to her room. I sat on the bed as she got under the covers. I sang some songs like I used to do with my daughters, Brett and Ashley. “Golden Slumbers” and “Summertime” were my favorite bedtime songs to my children. The songs seemed to make Emma sleepy.

“Papa?” Emma said.

“What?”

“When are you going to go downstairs?”

“Are you sleepy,” I said.

“Uh huh.”

I kissed her goodnight.

The camping trip was officially completed. But that small experience is one of the most beautiful and memorable things I have ever done.

Why Does the Sun Keep On Shining?

Why Does the Sun Keep On Shining?

Monday March 19, 2018

 6:40 AM

Just out of bed. Knelling on floor, I do four back exercises, thinking of lifelong friend, Bill Rezak (Zak), who is now in heaven and who showed me the exercises forty years ago. 

Downstairs I make coffee, spooning grinds into re-usable Keurig cup. Proud of that. Re-usable. 

 

With brew in hand, I take up usual position on couch to read NY Times online.

An article from Books section catches my eye: 15 Remarkable Books by Women of the 21st Century. I jot two author names, Rachel Cusk and Jenny Offill,

7:00

Must get going, start the day. 

 

I leave for daughter Ashley's house to pick up two grand kids, Eddie (14) and Johnny (12), to bring them to middle school, along with car-pooling neighbor, Sara. 

Ride to school is quiet. Kids (boys) mostly on phone. Sara, without phone, has her eyes glued out the side window, 

When we pull up to the school and kids step out, I offer a, "Good bye, I love you." 

"Love you too," both say back.

I wait and watch them walk in. 

My heart warms.


7:40

Back home, I start reading the paper again. Soon it's almost 9 O’clock and again feel I should get moving. "Get off the couch," I tell myself - do something.

I go to Starbucks, with the intention of doing some writing. Inside I order, “A Dark please.” I hand over my Starbucks card.
  

I find a table, set up the laptop. Laptop screen says “Working on updates 30 % complete.”  

Hmmmm. Hate those updates. This could be a while, I think. I sip my coffee, look around the room. It's close to a full house, I tell myself, this is not unlike a busy office with everyone on laptops. How the world has changed.

Finally update finishes. In a little less than an hour I write 187 words. Not bad, for me - attention challenged, wanna-be writer.

I take a breath, start writing again. Suddenly my thoughts are interrupted by the Starbucks sound system playing a melody that touches me.

I can’t make out all the words. I catch only “Why does the sun keep on shining ...” I stop my writing and begin a search for those lyrics in Google. The song is “The End of the World.” I click on Amazon and find a rendition by Julie London. I download the song. 

 

Needless to say, I'm easily distracted.

I get up for a free coffee re-fill, say hello to Carol, “my barrister,” behind the counter.  Carol asks, “Still driving grand kids all around?”

“My favorite thing to do,“ I say.

“You’re wonderful,” she says handing me the re-fill. "Thanks," I say, smiling at her words. 

10:04

I drive to library, find Cusk and Offill books. I check both out, then read four pages of Cusk when my phone buzzes. I whisper, “Hello,” as I walk out to the lobby. 

It’s daughter Brett calling from CA. She tells me Mike (age 16, home for spring break from prep school) wore his “Andover Hockey” jacket to local (CA) HS Lacrosse game last night. “So cute,” she says.

I get to tell my team jacket story, of being excited to wear my Lehigh University Varsity Football jacket with tan leather sleeves to Middletown-Port Jervis Thanksgiving football game in November 1962. 

Brett tells me she heard the story before.

Really!!?.

I leave library with two books.

10:52

Home again. I try to put the End of the World song on the phone. It's not easy. I give up. Finally I do a Google search for “what is the phone location of transferred songs.” Answer is: This PC / Samsung-SM-J320A / Phone / ATT Mobile Transfer.  

 

ATT Mobile Transfer? Huh?  Who knew?

I decide to move the song later.

11:30

I make breakfast: Trader Joe’s Oven Toasted Old Fashioned Organic Oats, Strawberries (not organic), Trader Joe’s Raw California Walnuts Halves & Pieces, plus 1% Low Fat Milk  

 

I eat the cereal, then finally transfer the Julie London song to phone.

12:20

I drive to daughter Ashley’s home to let dogs out. I grab Offill’s book to read at stop lights. I get through half of first page at the light at the end of my road.
 

A quote from Offill:

… all our stories ….
So why do they come back to me now? Now when I’m so weary of it all. 

The words seems meant for me, I think. No? Not sure why.

At daughter's home, the dogs trot down the back steps. I talk to the dogs like so, “OK, let’s go,” I say as they meander toward the grass and start sniffing. “Go.” I repeat, following Ashley’s advice that "Go" is the magic word, unless you want them sniffing for an hour, and never going.

Tired of standing, I decide to watch dogs while sitting inside my car and let them sniff forever. Warm sun through the car window sends comfort feelings through me. With one eye on the dogs, I try to cycle through songs on the car’s “Bluetooth” thing-a-ma-gig, displayed on the dashboard. I'm looking for the new - “The End of the World” – song that I just copied to my phone.

Can’t find the song on car "Bluetooth."     

I play it on the phone. OK, it's there. That works. I try it again through the car speakers (Bluetooth?). A miracle. It now plays. 

Huh? 

Don't ask. I'm happy.

I coax the dogs back inside, then leave for home. Julie London’s soft voice is singing.

Why does the sun go on shining?
Why does the sea rush to shore?
Don't they know it's the end of the world
'Cause you don't love me anymore?

The words, the melody, her voice – all of it, touches me. Don’t know exactly why, but a happy feeling comes over me as I move up the street.

It seems that the words, "When you don’t love me anymore," are what triggers happy feelings. Why those words, I wonder ... because the words are, well, ... sad.

I can only think that it is because the words remind me of a time when I was a teenager and I experienced young love and it felt like love was center stage and real, a time when words like “you don’t love me anymore” were relevant, but still not the end of the world. At the time, it seemed that, "you don’t love me anymore," happened every day to someone in our crowd. I attribute my warm feeling to having been there once. To have lived when young love happened, when it was common to feel and believe and remember such things.

Like many thoughts, it's just a guess.

I play the song, over and over.

"you don’t love me anymore," hmmm.

         

Airport Saga

                                                            

Airport Saga

Late August, 2015.

We are flying from NJ to CA, five passengers in our group: Anna 12, Emma 13, Mike 14, mother Brett 46, and grandpa, yours truly, 75. There is one stopover, in Chicago, a fifty minute window to change planes, and connect to LA.

Bad weather over Ohio causes a thirty minute delay before takeoff from Newark so our connection time is now down to twenty minutes. Ten minutes exiting the plane and we'll have just ten left.

I can only think, we'll never make the connection.

Off the plane at Chicago's O'Hare, I spot a nearby official. "Where is Terminal H?”
I shout as we bolt past.

“Straight ahead, then second left,” she says, pointing the way.

“How far?” I yell over my shoulder.

“A mile,” she says.

Perhaps thirty years back, circling a track in ideal weather and strong wind always at my back, I could cover a mile in 12 minutes, not sure really, but at 75, lugging an over-sized duffel bag with ten days worth of clothes plus a computer case slung around my neck and swinging side to side. - not likely.

Regardless, we sprint onward. I lead the pack for maybe a hundred yards, but then, despite feeling legitimately proud of my early speed, I give in and fall back like a NASCAR pace car. My new aim: just keep the leaders in sight.

I am dripping sweat and well behind the teenagers and their forty-six year old mom when we turn the corner into terminal H.  

At our gate, 12, the plane is just pulling out as we arrive. Not a soul in the boarding area.

My shoulders drop. I really thought we had a chance. Planes take off late all the time. Why not this one? 

Despondent, we shuffle over to United's departure board to check for possible later flights.  

Suddenly I notice that our flight number (1752 United) is actually listed as delayed for “mechanical problems” and it is leaving from another gate in an hour and forty minutes.

So, good news, we didn’t miss it. It was actually a different plane we saw pulling out. 

OK. Great!

And the bad news? Brett announces there was no way she is going to get on a plane with “mechanical problems.”

I let this pass. We have almost two hours. Things could change.

Brett doesn’t follow us to the new gate. She takes off for United’s customer service counter where she is told that they don’t know the exact problem, but it could be “something as simple as a broken light bulb.” 

“It doesn’t take two hours to replace a light bulb,” is Brett’s summation of her exchange with customer service. 

I spend the remaining hour trying to persuade Brett to get on board.  Between failed attempts I busy myself pretending to look for alternate methods to LA, car, train, bus, another flight etc. 

Emma dials up her dad in NJ. 

Son-in-law Tom calls me, saying that he has “hotel points” and can get us a room in Chicago (for five?) with his "airplane miles." That doesn’t really appeal to me. My position is to wait out the day. Perhaps, at nightfall, the thought of myself among five forlorn souls sleeping in the airport will motivate me, and others, towards an alternative. But not now.

Finally they bring in our plane. 

Brett bad-mouths it, as she watches it roll up to the gate. "No way," she announces.

Then suddenly we see passengers coming through the exit tunnel. Apparently this (our plane) has flown here from somewhere, with passengers  … so … it can't be the one with “mechanical problems." because a safe flight just ended,

We accost the exiting passengers: "Did the plane fly OK?" (I’m not making this up). One or two, avoiding our gaze, nod, affirmative. 

Brett finally agrees to get on. She is ultimately swayed because she notices two famous celebrities boarding ahead of us. She says it must be OK if they (Seth Rogan and a young woman singer, somebody named G) are on the plane.

So  – miracle - we take off and 4 hours later land safely in LA. All is well.

Clothes in a Haystack

Clothes in a Haystack

I’m in Manhattan Beach (MB on bumper stickers), an upscale coastal town in Southern California (SoCal to West-Coasters).

Yesterday my two granddaughters, ages 13 and 14, rode their bikes to MB, 5 miles north on a bike path they call The Strand which runs along the beach like a cement boardwalk. The girls returned raving about a particular store they visited, that they referred to as L-F.

“Lif?” I said, pronouncing a word that sounded like if.

“L then F,” they shot back, giggling.

What did I know?

 Apparently Anna had spotted a “top” or two that she "definitely really, really" wanted.

“It’s their annual three day sale. Everything is 60% off,” she announced to all.

Daughter Brett, mother of Anna, was not impressed. As for L-F prices, “way up there” was Brett's  phrase, then adding, “Minus 60%, not even a drop in the bucket.”

Hmmmmm.
   

Anna pressed on. As I saw it, her strategy was long term, persistence without end, until someone relents and agrees to transport them to L-F ... and bring a credit card.

Who would that be? Credit card, I mean.

Brett didn’t drop her objection, but her tone softened as the evening wore on. I could see it was a done deal.

So I was on board. I had not listened intently to all of Anna’s accolades about L-F, but I caught enough to know that I'd be on the hook for an item or two. But hey, it was 60% off. How bad could it be?     

We rode over the following afternoon.

On the way, I said, “I hope your tops are not gone.”

“I hid them.” Anna said.

“Where would that be?” I said, a bit skeptical.

“Under stuff.”

I still wasn’t convinced. I hoped she wouldn’t be disappointed.

Here’s what I saw when we walked in:

 

         

Let's just say, "Everything was under stuff."  I strolled around for a bit. 

 

"Just looking," I said to a clerk. 

 

Eventually, I went outside and stood by a parking meter. I was in and out - parking meter / just looking - for maybe an hour or more. Time passed. There was little doubt that Anna's search would be a long process.

In case you haven’t figured it out as yet, twelve year olds are much more adept at various tasks than the guardian class (us). I don’t care if I had tied a radioactive isotope to each garment that Anna had hidden, then searched with a Geiger counter, I would never, NEVER, have found anything, much less what I was looking for in this "haystack" known as L-F. On every table, every rack, and shelf there were gigantic piles of clothes that resembled humongous laundromat loads of wet wash (see images above). I could only think, "needle in the haystack." In a word, hopeless.

To my amazement, Anna found all four items.

So that was it, the great L-F sale. Hmm.

I couldn't believe this place, especially the the whole laundromat mess, but then no one else seemed to mind. There were plenty of customers.

What did I know?

Anna mercifully settled on just two items, both  tops. Total price $102.02. Without the sale discount we’re talking a regular price tally of $255.05 for the two pieces, each with an approximate fabric mass of a handkerchief.

 The good news? I saved over $150.