His Cheatin' Heart

CHEATER PAWS!!!!!!!

The cad. All of a sudden Manny the puggle goes from morbidly obese to pleasingly plump and he thinks he's a stud, has three women literally eating out of his muddy paws.

There's the dog lady of course. She starves him to death and walks him until his knobby little knees burn, but his ears literally quiver at the sound of her name. Naturally; she thinks it's acceptable for a man to pee on the living room furniture. I would imagine it was never a bone of contention when her ex left the seat up.

Then there's the cleaning lady. (Yes, I may be trailer bound, but I still have one well-heeled foot firmly planted in terra suburbia, which means I have a "household staff," albeit a tiny and very sporadic one.) So when my staff -- of one -- showed up in my absence the other day, Manny either charmed the pants off her with his crooked grin, or more likely slipped her a little something extra, to leave the pantry door open for him. This woman who is paid royally to vacuum up his dog hair and scrub away his hellacious dog smells with disinfectant somehow allowed herself to compromise her job performance, swallow her professional pride, and risk having me walk into a house that looked as if it had been carpet bombed by a flying Nabisco dumpster.

And me? When I followed the tell tale (or should I say tell tail) trail from the kitchen to Manny's favorite couch and found him sitting innocently amid a circle of half eaten crackers and cookies (I don't know who did this, but we will catch him, his cocked head said to me), did I scold him? No. Did I refuse to feed him dinner? Of course not. Did I just shake my head and spend the next two days bedridden with some strange sort of vicarious food poisoning while he farted in my face? Of course I did. Why? Maybe it's some sort of reverse "sins of the mother" theory. Or maybe it's that he keeps me warm at night without making any demands. Let's just say he knows a back rub means just a back rub.

So what's the deal? A guy with bad breath who bathes maybe once a month, flunked out of obedience school, and frankly isn't much of a conversationalist either has three -- if I do say so myself -- pretty hot babes willing to put up with all his shit and here I am, well educated, getting manicures every once in a while, and working out and showering regularly and I'm near death in bed for two days and nobody even brings me a bowl of chicken soup! I'm throwin' in the towel. And the razor. And the expensive work out clothes. Why bother?

And as for my three-timing pooch, I'm not dumping him so fast. After all, turn about is fair play, and I've never heard him complain that I fart in bed. Not that I ever would.

Where's the Beef???

I must admit it feels awfully good to have a man in my bed again. A snoring, farting, musky (or maybe musty) beast who will lick my toes without even having to be asked.

A break is nice once in a while, but a combination of guilt and pure longing impelled me to fetch Manny a bit early from his free and quite unanticipated extended stay at the spa. Whenever I leave town, I pack up Manny's things (that would be his food) and have no trouble getting him into the car when I tell him we are going to visit Sue, his second favorite middle aged woman. (Hmm, I bet he tells her she's the favorite, but if a little white lie gets him a bit more attention I get it.) Sue runs a strict but loving dog sitting service out of her house. For Sue, it is all about the dogs who are for her, as a species and with few exceptions, far more appealing than humans. When you get to Sue's house, you do not ring the doorbell and risk disturbing canine slumber. You do not hold it against a first time lodger who pees and poops on the "furniture" in the greeting room; in polite dog society, it's what you expect. You call a mom in the middle of the night when her short, overweight pup has somehow gotten a freshly baked, boxed chocolate cake off the high counter in the kitchen and eaten the better half of it, not to complain or seek reimbursement but rather to weep uncontrollably because you think your negligence has endangered his health. And when you realize, much to your relief, that the dog will survive yet another chocolate binge, you grab a fork and dig in to the other half.

Manny has struggled with weight issues for most of his adult life, and, more than once, on walks in the dark of night, has been mistaken for a large, mutant potato on a leash with toothpicks sticking out of the bottom.  The sudden onset of blindness has done nothing to impede his uncanny ability to sniff out hidden treats, and his girth has done nothing to impede his athleticism or ingenuity in helping himself to  whatever forbidden fruit has been placed safely out of reach for your average pooch. Oddly, he will miss a morsel of steak offered up right under his nose, but distant and tightly packaged delicacies somehow turn him into a Houdini-esque treat grabbing homing pigeon. Impressive.

And very unhealthy. Which is why Sue the dog sitter decided to make Manny into her "pet" project for the ten days I was in Japan. For love and no additional charge, she wanted to put him on some special diet dog food ("I hope he'll eat it," she said; I looked at her as if she had gone mad, as if Manny would ever not eat anything!), increase the number of meals while decreasing the portion size of each (again, "do you think he will he be upset about the small portions," as if he could possibly know when no matter how much is in the bowl he will gulp it down in one swallow), and double up on his walks. Okay, that might not go over so big with a fat, lazy ass dog who just likes to eat and sleep, but that's where little diet dog treats would come in.

Somehow Sue is able to ignore Manny's pathetic head tilt and incessant whining for food, and, by the time I returned to retrieve him, he was down five pounds. She begged to keep him, free of charge, for a bit longer so they could finish off what they had started. She wanted two months but would take four weeks. I agreed to a week, with an option to extend. Manny seemed a bit confused that I had stopped by and not taken him with me (coming or going is always preferable to staying, wherever you happen to be), but again, that's what little diet dog treats are for.

Manny is back home, as disoriented as a bumper car after his extended spa vacation, and seven pounds down. Well, maybe back to only five, after our little midnight cheese and cracker snack. He looks as handsome and fit as I've ever seen him. I'm going to try very hard to stay with the program, maybe even  join him in a little healthy living.

But it's going to be awfully hard to say no to him, that most loyal and adorable beast who licks my toes without even having to be asked.

Squatters' Rights

Years ago I used to joke with some friends about winning the lottery and escaping to a remote tropical island. Wheels up, we would say.

Yes, wheels up, jetting off to a place free of the constraints of home, to a place distant and deserted save for a few mosquitoes and a smattering of flesh eating humans. Hmm. Kinda like deep dark suburbia in August, just without the white picket fences and indoor plumbing. Frankly, I can give up the fences any time. No matter how many coats of paint you pile on, no matter how high you build them, they can't really keep the bad guys out. They are as useless as your average moat, which, as my daughter pointed out during our visit to a medieval castle in Japan, could hardly have been much of a deterrent to enemy armies on horseback. After all, horses can swim. Which, I suppose, is why the castle contractors installed holes in the castle walls as Plan B, so that the doomed residents could toss rocks and boiling water on the intruders. Intruders clad in armor from head to toe. Whatever those folks paid for that place, my guess is they paid too much.

The indoor plumbing though, that's a tough thing to give up. The closest I've come lately to peeing in an outhouse was squatting over a porcelain version of a chamber pot in a Japanese public restroom. Other than being the only real exercise I had for ten days, there was nothing good about it. Unless you remove your pants and underwear, you run the risk of peeing on them instead of in the pot, unless your quads are strong enough to get you to a solid right angle. And Japanese style bathrooms go hand in hand with Japanese style customs, which include taking your own shoes off at the door and being left to don public slippers as you enter the public restroom, slippers that have not only been on thousands of feet but have also been in direct striking range of zillions of pee drops. I suppose it beats peeing on your own shoes, but there's something to be said about knowing it's your very own pee.

Let's do the math. Except for the infuriating absence of wifi and the occasional primitive bathroom, Japan is a civilized country, filled with modern conveniences. Though by no means deserted, it is remote, certainly distant enough to offer the kind of protection from malevolent intruders that no picket fence or moat ever could. But, like any remote tropical island, it has more than its share of mosquitoes (I have the welts to prove it) and I would guess it has its share of flesh eating humans who thrive on the misfortune of their neighbors. Anonymity might help in the short run, but stay there long enough and you're bound to make it to someones dessert menu.

As enticing as the remote island seems, and as tempted as I was to stay in Japan indefinitely and escape the realities of my own life, there is a big part of me that always needs to come home. And so, when the wheels of Flight 450 went up, I was strapped in and bracing myself for the inevitable wheels down in my own neck of the woods. Where not everybody has my best interests at heart, but some people do. The ones who are important.

At the end of the day, the familiar creature comforts of home are bound to trump the discomforts of any place far away. So, I suppose I'll just keep my wheels steady and firmly planted on a bathroom floor free of pee splatter, and if anyone tries to bother me as I give my aching quads a rest and sit on a civilized porcelain oval, I'll just turn the other cheek.

Disconnecting Flights

I stared straight ahead at the Polynesian beauty buckled in across from me in the flight attendant seat. Her older, plainer, and hence more credible colleague had stood over me and my daughter earlier, making sure we read the regulations regarding competency to be placed in charge of the emergency exit. This was serious business; I was determined to look lucid and capable. certain that my wrinkles and dark circles gave me a bit of an edge -- an air of maturity, calmness in crisis.

I'll do anything for a little bet of extra leg room -- even contemplate what they mean when they tell us not to send folks down the inflatable slide -- which would probably come down when we opened the door -- if we peek out the little round window and see water. Or, I would imagine, if we peek out and see, up close, the puffy rolling countryside of clouds, but she was no doubt too decent to mention something so obvious. Ahh, but why dwell on death when I'd be stretching my legs out for the next eight hours. I kept nodding like an ass kissing school girl. There was no way this flight attendant was going to know, before it was too late, that the emergency workers in row 34 would likely soon be in an ambien induced stupor.

Frankly the conversation had been a bit surreal, but no more surreal than the feeling I had when we lifted off from the island of Honshu, a tiny land mass so far from home. My son is still down there I wanted to scream, but English was a distant second language on this flight, and I didn't want them panicking and releasing the latch on that door. Water or not, I'd be the first one down, and I sure wouldn't be hanging around to direct traffic.

My recent trip to Japan was encouraging in that I finally realized it is, indeed, on planet Earth, and not quite as alien as I had imagined. It is, however, about as far, geographically, as a place can be from where I am, at least in the northern hemisphere. Lifting off from that seemingly minute chunk of land in the sea made me gasp; I felt as if I had suddenly become unglued, irrevocably separated from my son who, only hours ago, had allowed himself to be wrapped up for a few moments in a desperate maternal hug. Breaking that connection was difficult; embarking on the journey across the damn date line and halfway around the world was excruciating. Had I paid better attention to the flight attendant's instructions, I might well have abused my brief training as emergency row guardian and heaved open the giant door, slid back down to once again plant my feet where my son has temporarily planted his.

I persevered -- maybe because I was still within the Japanese borders and people don't steal or recklessly endanger others there -- and remained fastened into my seat, reminding myself that connections don't necessarily require physical nearness, especially in this day and age. In theory. I busied myself with fantasies of my next trip halfway around the world, willed myself to fall into that long awaited ambien stupor (still waiting, by the way, but at least I would have been ready to perform my emergency row duties at a moment's notice). My weepiness subsided, and I settled in, comforted at least by the sight of my daughter's drooling face flopped against my shoulder. We may have been ready to kill each other before she fell asleep, but there was still the gluey bond of physical proximity keeping us close.

And there is always technology to fill in the gaps. A warm hug texted over thousands of miles, or even two blocks, a picture on the home screen that keeps a sweet memory alive indefinitely. Always, that is, until that little electronic rectangle that has literally become a part of you somehow disappears, along with its rows of photographs and long strings of phone numbers and emails. Five days without a cell phone; when I tell people this -- even people who remember, as I do, the days of busy signals and no voice mail (and walking five miles to school every day, up hill both ways) -- they groan with sympathy. It's difficult for any of us to imagine how I possibly managed that long, so disconnected.

The replacement phone has miraculously arrived, much to the relief, mostly, of my eighty-one year old mother, who has been as baffled as anyone by my ability to survive without it. I spent my insomniac hours last night refilling my SIM card with numbers and emails, preparing to be wrapped up, once again, in life's cyber embrace. Restoring my connections, theoretically.

And I daydream, still, of touching down again -- soon, I hope -- in Japan.

Phone Vex

I almost felt as if I was back in Japan.

Not when I left my brand new iPhone in a taxi in Honolulu during my brief but costly layover (and I'm talking about the cab fare, not the phone) and was told by every single person I encountered in my quest to get it back that I should give it up because nobody around there would turn it in. As I have already learned, folks in Japan don't steal. (And I guess I would have had to stay in Japan to reap the rewards of returning that friggin little extra stuffed toy that could have been mine, all mine.)


No, I felt as if I was back in Japan when I was on the phone with someone at the telephone insurance help line (after failing miserably at getting "quick" results on the claims web site) and she told me, without a hint of irony in her voice, that I needed my pass code to "get in" and unless I could tell her my pass code (which, obviously, I couldn't -- hence the phone call) she could not retrieve it for me. "I'm sorry ma'am, that's the RULE." Can you say "catch 22" in Japanese?

Giving credit where credit is due, I have to say the woman kind of sensed the senselessness of what she was saying and was frantically flipping through what must have been a code thick enough to make an IRS rule drafter proud looking for options. "I know," she said. "I can text the pass code to your cell phone." I was silent. She remembered fairly quickly that she was helping me process a claim for a lost cell phone, was probably even in a cubicle in a big room entitled "Lost Cell Phone Division." "Oh, I guess that wouldn't work." Overqualified, obviously.

"Can you email it to me?" I'm not an expert, but I thought since I hadn't left either my desktop or my laptop in the taxi, that could be an option.

"Oh yes. That's a good idea."

"Great." I was feeling overly optimistic. "Will you be sending it to my comcast or my gmail account?"

"I can't tell you that."

"Huh?"

"I am not allowed to reveal your email address. That would be a breach of security."

"If I tell you an email address, will you be able to confirm -- just yes or no -- whether it kind of looks exactly like the one you have in your file?"

"No. I can't do that." After a brief pause, I'm pretty sure I heard her mutter I'm sorry. The poor woman. I wondered if she had been on the job long, if this was the first time she realized the rules were a little bit off the fucking wall.  I decided to be nice and play along, and I sat staring at both my computer screens waiting for the magical pass code to appear on at least one of them. We waited together, in companionable silence.

Just to make conversation while I waited for what appeared to be the e-pony express to deliver my code, I confirmed that this pass code was all I would need to get back on line and get my claim processed so my replacement phone could be sent out.

"Oh no. I am not sending you your pass code. By the way, is it comcast dot com or comcast dot net?"

Ah ha! Comcast. At least I could just watch one screen. "Well what are you sending me then?" Maybe it was jet lag, but I was getting really confused.

"I'm sending you a four digit number. When it arrives, if you read it to me and it's the correct number, then I'm pretty sure I can give you your pass code."

Well, the change to "dot net" sped up the cyber pony, and I know my numbers pretty well, so I got the answer right and she gave me my pass code (which, mysteriously, was exactly the same as the one I had been punching in, but that's neither here nor there). I was excited. Maybe the whole problem was just a typo on my part. "So all I need to do is enter that pass code and I'll be set?"

"No. First you need you password. The sad thing is I know the difference between my password and my pass code, but it didn't really matter, because while she was explaining this to me my pass code actually worked and got me through to what I thought would be the final "submit" button. There was something to submit, for sure, but it wasn't my claim or even my two hundred dollars. The screen was very apologetic to me, but it needed more information. Meanwhile, the nice lady on the phone was refusing to hang up; instead, she was trying to sell me some stuff, like roadside assistance for my phone.   I told her I would consider it at a later date if I ever actually got another phone, and we managed to end our conversation with our friendship still in tact.

As far as the additional information the screen needs from me goes, well I just decided at that point I didn't feel like talking to anybody anyway, so who needs a phone, and I abandoned the whole thing to go take a nap. But it's a new day, and I realize my phone is not only the keeper of all phone numbers and appointments and even email addresses but is also my camera, so I'm preparing to finish up the very official affidavit and fax it to the folks in the affidavit division in hopes my claim will be approved. I'm not sure if I have to send them my first born child or, worse still, tell them what I weigh (I didn't read it that closely) but I do know I have to get the thing notarized so if anyone reading this is a notary and lives in my time zone please let me know.

Being home is exhausting. But at least I can jaywalk.

Foreign Exchanges

On my final day in Japan, I stood waiting at an intersection for about three minutes until the light turned green. It was five thirty on a Sunday morning. There were no cars, hardly even any people. To call it an intersection is a bit of an overstatement, since there really isn’t a cross street. But I waited, all the same.


Whoever said “rules are made to be broken” was not raised in Japan, at least not the Japan I have come to know in my short stay here. Rules of the road, other laws, even rules of basic moral conduct. So, for example, after spending the equivalent of about ten dollars trying to get a tiny (and worn looking) stuffed anime figure from one of those coin stealing machines that lure you in with the big claw that looks like it will actually grasp one of the thousands of toys piled below it, my son finally succeeded in snagging one for his sister. When he reached in to get it, he discovered another unclaimed stuffed figure, and left it there. Naturally, I reached over to grab it, which is when he looked horrified and shoved my arm away. “That would be stealing,” he told me, “and they just don’t do that here.”


Well I certainly don’t steal. Do I? I thought about the occasional extra candy bar I had taken from a vending machine over the years, feeling as if I had hit the jackpot when I reached in and found out the thing had malfunctioned and sent down two. Has it ever occurred to me to take the extra treat and return it to the person in charge of the particular machine? Not on your life, after all the times those damn machines have malfunctioned in the other direction, eating my quarters while I get to eat nothing. Will it occur to me now, now that I have experienced the wonderful feeling that washed over me when I returned the dirty little toy to the employee in the arcade full of money stealing machines? Not a chance. Unless, of course, I end up with some dirty little toy instead of a candy bar as my unexpected prize.

Then there are the unwritten rules, rules of conduct not to be found in any moral or legal code, rules that often defy logic. Like not crossing when there’s a red light. Even at five thirty in the morning when there are no cars and it’s not even a real intersection. Or like not even attempting to order off menu. The item is the item, and the picture shows exactly what it will look like, and whatever ingredients are in the picture are going to be on your plate, like it or not. Needless to say, dining in Japan with my daughter the vegetarian has been a bit of a challenge. Or like not making a face in Starbucks when the barrista realizes she gave you a vente intead of a grande and, instead of just turning the other cheek, takes the vente, spills it out, and pours a second, smaller cup of coffee. Because that is what you ordered. And modified orders are not allowed, whether you are the orderer or the order taker.

The rules can be infuriatingly arbitrary. In Himeji, when you ride an escalator at the train station, you stand on the right, making room for walkers and runners on the left. In Tokyo, you stand on the left, making room for the movers on the right. And then there’s the rule about being polite, which is probably why folks are so good about following the rules in the first place. If you are in Himeji and you are in a hurry to make your train and someone is blocking you because she is standing on the left, you say nothing. You stop dead behind her, but you don’t make a sound – no sighing, no exasperated breaths, not even so much as an “excuse me.” Certainly yelling “move your fat ass, fucker!” would be out of the question Not just because of the politeness thing, but because nobody even approaches being fat here; I have never seen so many tiny people in my life! Oh, and if you are one of my children, and mom is the one standing on the wrong side (of course I am; it's where all the elbow room is) the politeness rule does not apply.

So on our last evening in Japan – the evening before the morning on which I waited impatiently for the light at the non-intersection to turn green – my kids and I were quite shocked when we stepped into that same non-intersection and the two folks standing behind us yelled “NO! NO! NO!” Not just one “no;” three. Three loud ones. Almost knocked us over, which would not have happened otherwise since there were no cars in sight. I glanced back at them, possibly with a dirty look. I figured if they were going to break the politeness rule first, all bets were off. I took a closer look.

“Korean,” I whispered to my kids. “They’re Korean.” Okay, I may have been basing this on my own uneducated and baseless notion of how Koreans differ in appearance from the Japanese, but they had scared the living shit out of me. My son, who usually gets his knickers in a knot over racial stereotypes and other kinds of overgeneralizations, paused and listened for a moment.

“You’re right, they’re Korean.” I thought about asking him how he could possibly tell, since all Asian chatter sounds like the same brand of gibberish to me, but I thought better of it. Anyway, at least now it all made sense.

Damn foreigners.

A Half Month of Sundays

Tomorrow, our last day in Japan, will be Sunday. So will the next day, when our flight to Hawaii takes us over that damn date line. I suppose -- now that I have had some time to do the math -- the whole thing makes a lot of sense. Quite ingenious, actually.

I am going to try to spend most of my two consecutive Sundays in true Sabbath style as days of ambien induced rest. I have kept my hands out of the illicit prescription cookie jar for the entire ten days here, sacrificing sleep in a bed so I won`t build up any immunities and have to stay awake for one moment on an airplane. That is until the nice flight attendant with the flower in her hair on Hawaiian Airlines gently shakes my shoulder so she can hand me my mai tai. And my macadamia nut short bread. Some Americans are not ugly at all!

The small town appeal of Himeji is a bit less appealing after two days in a Tokyo hotel with free Internet in the lobby and more than an inch of space in which to move around the bed. And plenty of Starbucks that open well before eight in the morning. I have to admit that as I sit here in the cramped Internet booth that reeks of smoke -- and that wasn`t even available at four thirty when I first ventured down because there was no Internet connection (wretched, just wretched) -- I am feeling a bit nostalgic for the insanity of Tokyo. And a bit wistful that when I leave this nasty little hotel tomorrow it means I will be leaving Japan -- and my son -- for who knows how long.

But there`s good news. I finally had sushi. Not the kind that`s safely wrapped up in seaweed and camouflaged by avocado and cucumber and wasabi, but the real kind. Maybe it`s sashimi. You know, the humongous slab of fish flopped down on a tiny and relatively useless (for the squeamish among us) bed of rice. Good shit, for raw fish.

Nothing much to tell today -- certainly nothing worth paying extra yen for in this wretched booth -- so off I go to press my nose against the window of Starbucks and wait for them to open. Back Sunday (hey, I have two chances, so odds are good).

Really, Who Gives a Shinto?

My son's preparation for our whirlwind tour of Tokyo apparently involved throwing a dart at a map of the city. And I use the term "preparation" loosely, since I am the one who finally insisted on purchasing the map. I'm just relieved he didn't toss the dart at me.

All three of us got a little testy yesterday. This is, after all, a family trip, and if you can't act like an asshole in front of your family, why live? Matt feels unduly pressured to give us a perfect tour of Tokyo in less than two days. Nicki is struggling with the physical effects of too much travel, too much food, and a significant interruption in her routine right before school begins. I am just old and ornery, melting from the blistering heat (and blistering feet), and in the throes of an oxymoronic and particularly delightful bout with pre-menopausal PMS. As a threesome, we have been an accident waiting to happen; I'm just surprised it took as long as it did.


Naturally, I had thought I was putting on a good face in spite of my physical woes and hormonal bitchiness. I suppose my frustration may have come to the forefront after we wandered around aimlessly in a red light district in oppressive heat at midday for what seemed like an eternity. FYI, there are no trendy stores in the red light district. As for Nicki, god help anyone who even suggests she is capable of bitchiness. And, in her defense, she was never thrilled about the timing of this trip, but has for the most part been a trooper and, as she always is, a major source of delight for her brother. She has an uncanny ability to make him smile, to step in when I fail miserably (which is most of the time). And Matt, our host, has one lousy week of free time from an exhausting job and has to spend it all entertaining us. Shit, I'd be in a bad mood too.

The testiness was nothing too serious, and we managed to tackle it with a little rest stop in a Starbucks, and, later in the day when we found ourselves again wandering aimlessly in the heat near the Imperial Palace (which we couldn't even see, much less enter), a bigger rest stop in a hole in the wall Indian joint for some samosas and cheese naan. Luckily, we are all able to laugh off our shortcomings, especially when each of us knows, deep down, that the other two are the ones with the real issues.

When I reflect on yesterday, we really did not see anything of note, at least from a tourist perspective. No museums, no Shinto temples, not even a real geisha. We did, however, bad moods and physical ailments and sheer exhaustion notwithstanding, enjoy dinner on dad for Matt's birthday in a unique Japanese style restaurant (sitting on the floor and everything -- ouch) in what appeared to be a really cool neighborhood. Maybe next time Matt will have better aim with the dart and we'll see it in daylight, when things are open. But it was a day in Tokyo, with two of my children, a day that I never in my wildest dreams would have expected to have, and it was one I will remember fondly (with a touch of ironic smirk).

For three people just having a bad day, not bad at all.

Salt of the Other Side of the Earth

We are certainly a little less conspicuous on the teeming streets of Tokyo than we were in Himeji which, despite its castle (famous primarily within the confines of the Kansai region), is not exactly a mecca for American tourists.

Tokyo is everything my stereotypes had led me to expect in some ways, and, in other ways, it is a complete surprise. Emerging from the supersonic train that barely seemed to make a sound as it cut through miles of cities and towns to get us from Himeji to Tokyo, I immediately fell into step with what seemed to be an entire continent's worth of people crammed into one building. The silence of the train gave way to a din of constant chatter and hurrying feet (tiny feet, mind you). Had I not known better, I would have thought the floor itself was moving, transporting the mass of commuters in every which direction without ever allowing a collision.

Outside, the scene was as hectic and crowded and downright overwhelming as I had thought it would be. We've all seen pictures of Tokyo streets, ablaze with neon signs, looking, at any hour of day, like Times Square at night. When we finally emerged into the hot sunlight from the subway station near our hotel, I was not disappointed. Everywhere I turned, my eyes were assaulted by a barrage of flashing bright light, signs beckoning us into blinking corridors of pure commerce that seemed to spread out before us like spokes on a wheel. The place is a madhouse, but in a good way. Organized chaos, perhaps.

Yes, Tokyo looks and sounds and even smells the way I thought it would, feeding my long nurtured stereotypes of a place that, in my mind, was as unfamiliar as Jupiter. But the similarities between reality and my conjured up images end there. To an extent even greater than was the case in the small town of Himeji and the larger cities in the southern Kansai province, Tokyo is not at all what I expected. Though white people are certainly outnumbered, and indecipherable Japanese characters dominate the oversized signs springing from every building, I feel surprisingly at home here. The people are as diverse, if not in skin color, then in fashion, apparent social status, age, and purpose as they are in New York City, the place that, until now, was the standard bearer, at least in my mind, for diversity. American and European labels abound in the stores, to be sure, but there is a combination of international and home grown flair here that really defies description, and certainly debunks any notion I may have had of what is distinctly Japanese.

Most surprising of all, I think -- not just here in Tokyo but in the other places I have visited -- is the dining. I have been in Japan for almost a week, Tokyo for almost a full day, and have yet to eat so much as a morsel of sushi. I have had enough tempura to give me a full blown case of adolescent acne, and I think the soba noodles I ate my first night here are still in the pit of my stomach, a permanent base for the virtual mountain of starch I have since piled on. And, though no raw fish has passed my lips, I have consumed so much sea salt that my weight has nearly doubled. I may be imagining it, but I think I hear a sloshing noise when I flip over in bed. Though I'd say salt fresh from the Sea of Japan has been the most common denominator, I have eaten Spanish, Italian, Nepalese, Indian, and Vietnamese food here, and am fairly determined to grab some Mexican tonight. Sushi before I leave? Maybe. But it's more likely I'll hold off on that until I get back home and take advantage of all the other options Tokyo has to offer.

I admit I have paid dearly for the sodium rich cuisine. Let's just say that my good time here would be even better if the person staring back at me in the mirror didn't look like a pimple faced mutant amoeba. I have brought new meaning to the phrase "ugly American," but I have decided to embrace my temporary (I hope) physique and am already looking forward to my daily lunch of some ethnic variety of fried salt. I will simply avoid mirrors, scales, and blood pressure tests. And, come to think of it, shopping for anything other than jewelry, fans, or one size fits all kimonos.

One of my favorite restaurants so far was a place in Himeji called Ganesh.  Ganesh, the Hindu god of new beginnings, the god of overcoming obstacles. Even if the food had not been so delicious and the staff not so welcoming, I think it would still be my favorite restaurant for the name alone. My visit here has been a new beginning of sorts, and I have already begun to feel less impeded by obstacles of time and space that had only recently seemed so daunting. I feel less detached from my son, whose geographical distance from me since June has been difficult, at least on my end. It is far too costly to just pick up the phone and chat, access to email is -- as I have mentioned -- limited, and a time difference of more than twelve hours has us living life on a completely different cycle. Popping in for a short weekend visit is not an option, and we will no doubt be spending holidays and birthdays and just most plain old days apart for at least the next eight months. I get it though; I finally get it.

I have found myself encouraging him to stay on, to use his year in Himeji as a stepping stone, a beginning, as it were, to his Japan experience. Back in Kansai province, I realized immediately how much he would enjoy extending his stint here if he moved, say, to Osaka or Kyoto. But now, there is little doubt in my mind (nor in his) that he will stay on another year, but take a giant leap due north right into the center of Tokyo. He had been here years ago, as a high school student, and had visited Tokyo once or twice. When we arrived yesterday, I saw -- and understood -- in his eyes the feeling of coming home. It is exciting here, challenging, intimidating, vast, and complicated, and I do not think his journey will be complete without his experiencing life as a Tokyo native.

He is concerned that we do not have enough time here this week for him to show us the sites that tourists should see -- the museums, the temples, the shrines, all the neighborhoods. But I have seen enough, and if I really want to, when I return for another visit I will be sure to put some Tokyo "must see" tourist sites on my list. And even a sushi restaurant or two. Mostly, I will enjoy seeing Japan through his eyes, and I will revel in the adventure, albeit vicariously.

It has been a new beginning for me, and, as much as I would prefer to have my son closer to home, I certainly will not put any obstacles in his way should he decide to stay.

The Occidental Tourists

Memorial to Air Raid Victims

Yesterday afternoon, as my son, his friend, my daughter, and I roamed the hills on the outskirts of Himeji, we came upon three Japanese twenty-somethings goofing around and taking videos. They stopped and smiled politely at us as we stumbled by, all of us nodding and bowing awkwardly. The four of us collapsed on stone benches, catching our breath after the long trek up. We remained acutely aware of the little group with the camera, glancing over occasionally only to see them peering at us as well.

There appears to be little reason for an American to fly halfway across the world to Himeji, Japan. Frankly, there is little reason for most Americans to have even heard of Himeji, Japan. That is, unless, one of your children happens to be living and working there.

Few people here speak English. There is little need for it. As little need as there is in my neighborhood, back home, for anyone to speak Japanese.  Since we arrived here five days ago, I have mastered two words (hello and thank-you) and the incredibly underrated art of pointing. We have gotten along fine with our limited communication skills, relying on my son and his mastery (even minimal comprehension constitutes mastery as far as I am concerned) of the language to negotiate more complicated transactions. Like explaining to the hotel clerk that we need to stay an extra night and then leave for a few nights and then come back again for two nights. Or explaining to waiters that his sister is a vegetarian and that no, she does not make an exception for fish (that she is indeed more likely to have a hot dog than eat any sort of sea creature, but try explaining that in any language to folks who can`t even wait to cook their fish they love it so much).

We have been using Himeji as more of a travel hub than a destination, our hotel -- like many here -- an easy walk to the train station. There is easy access from here to all the places worth getting to. We weren`t really expecting to have an interesting day in Himeji yesterday; we were just looking forward to a day`s break from long train rides to famous and far more interesting places, where we walk until we can no longer move, trying to cram everything in. Exciting, yes. Draining, oy.

When you lower your expectations, you avoid disappointment, and sometimes you even get a pleasant surprise. So yesterday morning, left to our own devices while my son slept in, my daughter and I did a little wandering of our own through the hills on the outskirts of town. We anticipated gardens, nice scenery, a big park. We found all of those things (including a playground where I gave myself a few souvenier butt burns going down a slide of metal rollers) and then some. Signs containing English translations directed us toward a huge monument high at the top of one hill. From afar, it had looked like a smokestack. Odd, since there are no factories here.

We made our way up the hill, and found a memorial to victims of World War II air raids and a museum documenting the carnage of war in the area during the 1940`s. Himeji, not far from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was devastated by air raids in June and July of 1945, a good month before the atomic bombs were dropped. Oddly, one of the few structures in the town that survived was its historioc castle which, as the local treasure, had been draped in black to prevent it from being a target.

Though it was midday during a week when many people here are on vacation, there was nobody else in sight. We spent a bit of time by the monument, gazing up at its soaring centerpiece. What looked like a smokestack was actually a representation of a sword stuck in the ground. The monument was constructed as a vow, by the people of Japan, to never make war, to cherish peace.

We toured the empty museum as well, which, similarly, offers little in the way of blame or justification, and is designed, instead, to demonstrate the atrocities of war, no matter who starts it. Though it has its share of gruesome images, the museum is aptly named the Himeji Historical Peace Center.

Like Nagasaki and Hiroshima -- and countless other locations before and since -- Himeji is a place where too many ordinary citizens just trying to live their lives had their lives and loved ones destroyed, destroyed in a most horrible way, in a blink of an eye. Like other Japanese towns, it has been rebuilt, the old, unassuming, unpretentious river town now stuffed with bland post war buildings that somehow do not manage to erase the flavor of the place it once was. It is still a town proud of its storied castle from the middle ages, filled with hard working people, content to let Osaka and Kyoto and Kobe hold onto the limelight.

Later that afternoon, when the four of us mustered up enough energy to head back down the steep hill, the three Japanese twenty-somethings stopped us, bowing and pointing wildly. Realizing my son could understand them, they explained, laughing, what they wanted from us. They were making a video for a friend`s wedding, and wanted us to be in it. We happily complied, forming an uncoordinated little dance line around their "star" as he sang some ridiculous sounding Japanese song. They thanked us profusely, bowed, shook our hands, and, finally, we departed,still smiling and giggling all the way down the hill. By now, my fear that we will actually be appearing on You Tube in a porn flick has abated.

Today, we are off to the train station, off to Tokyo -- a place worth going to, one where we will walk our legs off trying to cram it all in. We will, no doubt, encounter a fair share of pleasant surprises, and create a neat little pile of memories. I am looking forward to our Tokyo adventure (especially my nap on the bullet train).

But I will always treasure the memories of yesterday, our accidental tour of a small town, then and now,  called Himeji.

One Day (or Two) at a Time

It:`s a new day (though I`m not quite sure which one, since we hopped over that damn date line) but for the first time since I arrived in Japan it is morning and I don`t feel as if I`m ready for dinner.

I have already made several discoveries during my time here. One, I am a bit too old for three plane rides and then a bus ride to get to a place where I cannot even read the street signs. My son must have been terrified when he saw the broken old creature standing and looking for him in front of the Mister Donut at the bus station (the only place we could identify), and his sixteen year old sister wasn:t looking to spry herself.

Two, I am a bit too old for a lot of things. I have become the one who everyone clears a path for when a seat opens up on the subway (in all fairness, my complexion was a bit green and I was literally drenched in sweat after a day wandering around in -- and I am not exaggerating here -- 300 degree heat and 300 per cent humidity). I have become the one who can barely lift herself onto the tatami mat in a tea house much less scoot over to the cushion toward the back and sit cross-legged. Most frightening, I have become a person who can skip dinner because she is just too friggin tired to open her mouth (other than to beg for water).

Three, I am officially a bit too old to backpack through Europe, so I might as well strike that off my bucket list. Time has crept up on me -- and not just because the damn date line makes tomorrow come so much faster. When people stare at me on the street, it is no longer because I am hot. Well it is, but hot and smelly does not evoke cat calls, just some muffled gasps. In any language, those are not lost in translation. Nope, I will never carry a Euro Pass in my pocket.

My tiredness did evaporate briefly after the initial journey when I first caught sight of my son, looking happy and healthy (and quite tall) and smiling the same warm smile that has warmed my heart for twenty-two years. Yes, somewhere in this whole international date line mess, he turned twenty-two. Twice, I think. He wrapped me and his sister up in a huge hug, and the muscle cramps and watery eyes and the all around gross feeling we had from flying so long (all of which pale in comparison to the way I felt when I collapsed from sightseeing  last night) seemed to fade. My son was fine, we had arrived, and there was a hotel with a tiny toilet and an even tinier bed with my name on it just a short cab ride away. Life was good, or it would be after about eighteen hours of sleep.

`Are you hungry?` he asked. Maybe he had not, after all, noticed my sagging shoulders and my dull expression. Even his young sister looked like she had been through a war. We both stared at him as if he had spoken in Japanese. It was ten o`clock at night and eating was somewhere at the bottom of our wish lists, along with being among other humans. Nonetheless, when his work colleague suddenly bounced out of the driver`s seat (on the wrong side, naturally) of an impossibly small car and grabbed our suitcases and stuffed them, somehow, into a trunk the size of my purse, my son explained, a bit apologetically, that he could not miss dinner since it was a surprise party for his birthday. Obviously, the surprise was certainly not on him.

Well, having lived a somewhat landlocked (and stifling, but that`s another story) existence for more than a quarter century, I had almost forgotton how good shrimp tastes when it literally walks down the street from the sea to your plate. My tastebuds awoke, and I followed suit. All it took was a nice authentic Japanese meal to draw me out of my near death stupor. Okay, and a big hug from my son. And okay, the restaurant was actually Vietnamese, but this was good shit!

Yes, good shit, and it totally made me forget how excited I was about the tiny bed and tiny toilet awaiting me in my hotel, which is a good thing, since tiny would have been a gross exaggeration. Had our ankles been any more swollen, we would have been unable to walk between the bed and the wall.

It`s been a few days, and we have grown accustomed to our dollhouse sized accommodations, which make more sense now that we have attempted to get our massive western feet into shoes they sell here. I`ve been feeling like one of Cinerella`s hideous stepsisters. Stuck with our own big shoes, we have wandered around a little town called Himeji, and, so far, visited Osaka and Kyoto. Each day, we have collapsed on the brink of heat stroke into our minute bed, and, to look at us, you would think we had spent our days laboring in a death camp. But the small chunk of this country we have seen so far is nothing short of magical, if anything for itss sharp contrast to the places we know. Our treks have been physically draining, to be sure, but it`s an experience I will surely write about one day, as soon as I figure out how to get on the Internet for more than a half hour.

Today, even my son -- who is no longer a stranger to the heat and humidity and the amazing capacity of the people around here to keep moving and not break a sweat -- decided a day of rest would be good. Our most arduous decision will be where to eat lunch. Our most arduous walk will be the one back to our rooms, mid-afternoon, for naps. And then there will be dinner to look forward to, and we will pack up for our trek to Tokyo tomorrow. It will be cool there -- only about 250 degrees -- although I suspect the crowds will add to the humidity.

Can hardly wait. No, really, I can hardly wait. This place is amazing!

Lost in Space (and Time and Vegas). Travel Log, Day 1

We had been looking forward to our overnight layover in Vegas.

I am not a gambler -- at least not in the casino, cards, and chips sense -- but I love the sights and sounds of the Strip, and could not wait to give my daughter her first glimpse of life`s glitzy underbelly. Ladies still clad in cocktail dresses at five in the morning, stacks of emptied glasses nearby as they use every ounce of energy they have left to tug on the one armed bandits. Folks sitting at the smooth felt tables, desperately trying to avoid losing their shirts. A parade of disheveled bride stumbling by, their veils cocked oddly on their heads, the looks of wonder on their young grooms` faces having nothing to do with newfound wedded bliss. An occasional health nut in running shorts emerging from an ornate hotel into the dawn light, an anomalous figure in Sin City where, inside the vast windowless lobbies, it is always nighttime.

Things did not go quite as we had planned, and instead of boldly wandering through the hotels on Las Vegas Boulevard, we spent the night sleeping off my daughter:s puking episode from flight number one of our journey to Japan. Over the years, all three of my kids have puked on airplanes -- usually on me -- so the fact that everything ended up hermetically sealed in barf bags this time around warmed my heart. And, in hindsight, a little sleep and a good shower were, for us, like hitting the jackpot.

The flight to Las Vegas was short compared to the taxi ride from the airport to the airport hotel, and probably a lot cheaper. The driver had pretended not to know the hotel was practically sitting on a runway, but when I later noticed the hotel and the airport shared a name, I became a bit skeptical about his intentions. Note to self: pay attention idiot. Anyway, I had forgotten that Las Vegas is somehow exempt from regulatory agencies and other typically American overseers who prevent that kind of thing from happening to visitors who either don`t speak the language or are just plain stupid.

At any rate, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas -- the cheerful TSA agent pretending to check our tickets against our passports reminded us of that -- so forget I said anything about the taxi. And while I`m not telling, I won`t bore you with memories of the Elvis wedding my husband surprised me with for our seventeenth anniversary. It`s all a bit foggy, actually, but I remember he had taken the liberty of writing vows for both of us to read, which we did. Not Elvis, my husband. Apparently, we both must have had our fingers crossed. I often wonder if we would still be together if he had just gotten me jewelry.

Vegas seems like a distant memory for me now -- not just the long ago wedding but also the taxi ride -- as we approach our descent into the airport at Osaka. The journey through the twilight zone continues. At the beginning of the flight, I watched in awe as the young Japanese boy across the aisle from me bowed his head in silent gratitude when the flight attendant handed him a wrapped blanket and a package stuffed with headphones and an eye mask. Desperately seeking a dose of reality, I glanced over at my daughter in the seat next to me. She had already ripped the cellophane off her blanket and the little package with headphones and an eye mask and tossed the wrapping on the floor in front of her. For a moment I thought she was going to bow in gratitude (on the `when in Rome` theory, since we appeared to be the only folks on the plane who needed a non-resident customs form), but she was just looking for the pillow she had dropped.

As we continue to soar through unfamiliar galaxies, I expect we will experience more than a few culture shocks, stark contrasts to our own brand of civilization (or lack thereof) from the other side of the planet. Oddly, we didn:t need to bring an adaptor for our various electrical appliances. For our habits, well let`s just say we`re wired differently, and though our cellphones will be properly charged, it may just take us a few extra days to plug in.

FIDL-Sticks (Travel Blog Day 3)

The mere fact that I have been walking around the streets of Japan looking like a hayseed with ill fitting shorts and sweat stained tops does not prevent me from unleashing my inner fashion police. (I am in a foreign country; sex with a tall dark stranger -- or anyone, for that matter -- doesn:t count, and I get a pass for looking like shit.)

My son mistakenly thought my running critique was an ethnically motivated condemnation of an entire people.

Me: `I`ve seen way too many women wearing those hideous stirrup pants we used to wear in the early nineties.`

Matt (and here I may be paraphrasing, even exaggerating, just a little bit): `So Japanese women are vile, uncivilized people who don`t know how to dress?`

Me: `No, that:s not what I said. But the lady across the street over there, she has a lousy sense of style.`

Matt: `Just want to make sure you are aware of what motivates your criticism.`

Feeling defensive, I explained to Matt that I was well aware of what motivated my criticism. Stirrup pants are an eyesore, and I would think so even if I saw someone wearing them back home in my very own neighborhood. At the very least, they are so yesterday, and would be even if it weren:t for the havoc being caused by that fucking international date line (FIDL). To prove the purity of my motivations, I pointed to a woman approaching us on the sidewalk, noting how chic she looked. Especially compared to the woman walking a few paces behind her in stirrup pants.

Matt let up on me, at least for the moment, which, to tell you the truth, is no fun.

Me: `But what`s up with no wifi?` One of the most technologically savvy countries in the world -- the place that gave us Sony -- does not offer Internet access to the general public. `It`s a disgrace.`

Matt: `They are not bad people just because there is no wifi.`

Me: `I didn:t say they were.`

Okay, well maybe I sort of did, but bad judgment at Pearl Harbor notwithstanding, I expect better of the Japanese. Maybe I:m just bitter and ornery without email access. Maybe, as I suggested to my children, I feel I have a duty to my blog reading public, and hate letting them down by going so many days without publishing my newsy little reports about my trip. I keep cranking them out, but without my regular audience, I`ve been forcing my kids to read them on my laptop screen (which is probably why they both chuckled about the notion of letting my audience down, assuring me that my three loyal followers would survive the week). Yeah, give or take a day. FIDL.

Bottom line: the people here are -- if I may overgeneralize in a positive way -- quite pleasant and, despite the incredible heat and humidity, we are enjoying our visit immensely, looking forward to travelling around the country starting today. But let`s face it: for people of all nationalities, petty incessant complaining is sometimes a necessary evil, and though I might have to bite my tongue the next time I spot a pair of stirrup pants, I have worn my son down on the Internet issue. He is going to tidy up his apartment so I can go there today to post my posts, just to shut me up. I`m not proud; a win is a win.

And when I sit in Starbucks later today wondering why there is no wifi, I will not consider it a crisis of international proportions. After all, it pales in comparison to you know what.

Note: I did go to Matt:s apartment. He did not tidy it up. I could not connect my laptop to the Internet. So here I am in a smoke filled Internet cafe retyping blog number three, leaving numbers one and two for another time (my half hour is almost up). Which is why you may not yet be aware of my fucking international date line fetish. Oh well.

Nippon it in the Bud

Okay, I'll admit I have been a little nervous about my upcoming trip to Japan, even though my travel companion  -- my daughter -- is a savvy teenager who is well equipped to navigate unfamiliar waters. Even an airport in a place that is halfway around the world and filled with indecipherable symbols instead of letters and whose clocks suggest it is closer to us than it is to Hawaii even though Hawaii sits right there, a short swim away, in the very same ocean.

I was getting better though, even coming to grips with the whole insolvable math problem that is the international dateline, feeling flush with an armload of yen that, because of another kind of baffling math problem known as international currency exchange rates, makes me feel like I have somehow come into a bit of good fortune. Funny that money would be called yen, although I suppose the word has a different definition across that damn dateline.

Feeling better, that is, until my son (the sole reason I am taking three flights and crossing imaginary crooked lines and counting on wads of monopoly money to get me through) sent me a very helpful email instructing me how to get from the airport in Osaka to Himeji, the town where we will, theoretically, find both him and the hotel whose name I can't pronounce where I think I have a reservation, though not necessarily on the right day. The email contained a link to a bus schedule, which seemed to be a good start. And, truth be told, the bus schedule alone would have seemed to be self-explanatory, as it listed, in English, departure times from the airport and arrival times in Himeji, along with some town with an odd sounding name on the way.

But my son decided to be helpful and elaborate. After first explaining why we would be taking a bus rather than the world renowned bullet train (the bus would be faster -- WTF?) he gave us step by step instructions on how to take a bus in a place that is, much to my surprise, apparently a third world country and not the highly developed leader of the civilized world I had thought it to be:

You can purchase a ticket in the airport (just run around yelling, "basu kippu" and someone will point you in the right direction), and then catch the bus from terminal five at the airport, which is easy to find as I recall. When you are getting on the bus, just yell "Himeji" indiscriminately until someone confirms that it's the right bus. 

Again, WTF? There certainly seems to be a lot of yelling, and I have a feeling after twenty-five hours of travel (time travel, no less, as I may have mentioned I still am not sure what day it is supposed to be when we arrive in Japan, and not even my new best friend Siri on my brand new iphone can tell me) when I yell "basu kippu" it's going to sound a lot like "where the fuck can you buy a bus ticket around here?" And, unless my daughter is willing to step on a bus and yell "Himeji" indiscriminately until someone confirms we are on the right bus (I ask you, how will we be able to tell the difference between a confirmation and an announcement that we are disrupting the peace when we don't even know what day it is?) we are screwed. Given that my daughter gets embarrassed if I speak above a whisper in a public place, it is quite possible we will end up on a boat to North Korea rather than a bus to Himejii, which will certainly make the international date line and currency exchange problems look like child's play.

I don't know, maybe I'll feel more calm if I just pack. But what's the rush. We may be leaving tonight, but in Japan that's tomorrow, so we have plenty of time.

My Kind of Town, Sort of

"You're funny, mom."

An epiphany last night, from my youngest daughter, the one who still lives with me every day. She knows my habits -- how early I wake, how little I sleep, what I like to eat, how I revolve around the needs of a blind dog, that driving for long distances puts me to sleep. She knows, in the deep recesses of her sixteen year old brain, that I will go to the ends of the earth for her, even when she treats me with disdain ninety per cent of the time. She knows too much, maybe, about my role in the break up of my marriage, and she knows precious little about the other side of things. And, as my older daughter would point out, that sucks for me, but that's just the way it is.

I went downtown yesterday to have dinner with my oldest daughter, who lives there, and my youngest, the one stuck in suburbia with me. When I am with the two of them, I often feel like the odd woman out. Their sister bond is so strong I can almost see the secrets pass between them, the stories they have told each other when I am out of earshot, the grievances they share -- mostly, I assume, about me. My guess is they speak infrequently of the times I have held them, eased their pain, licked their wounds. Why discuss that when it's so much more interesting to discuss the ways in which I have screwed them up? I get it; I have spent years examining my own mother under the same skewed microscope.

It was a beautiful night and we sat outside at a trendy restaurant, our waiter flirting shamelessly and periodically bringing us extra treats to try. A little wine took the edge off for me, and, as the meal progressed, I began to feel almost as if I was part of the conversation -- not just there to pay. I discovered my older daughter is both the keeper of all our stories and the teller of many, to each of us, separately. In the complicated triangle of our relationship, she is, oddly, the shortest distance between me and her younger sister. Sometimes a straight line is just too far to travel.

We walked along the lakefront after dinner, enjoying the sights and the sounds and the perfect August evening. I said something -- I can't for the life of me remember what, but my guess is it was inappropriate, something moms don't tend to share with their daughters -- and my youngest burst out laughing. Hence, the epiphany: "Mom, you're funny." My older daughter reminded her, as she has many times, that I can be a good person to talk to. That she can actually tell me things, reveal confidences, and I will not judge. That I will never cast stones, and will, more than likely, just make her laugh, make her feel okay.

Time spent downtown tends to stir up in me some unproductive, not to mention irrational, thoughts. Jealousy over the time my older daughter gets to spend with dad, who lives just down the street. Nostalgia for a youthful existence in the big city. A feeling of somehow being left behind, not living the well-heeled condo life downtown of suburban empty nesters my age. Last night, as I often do, I had to remind myself not to idealize a life I am not yet ready to live, not when there is still work to be done in deep dark suburbia, not when there is a teenager at home who relies heavily (as much as she doesn't know it) on the humdrum certainty of my routine. I would not have it any other way.

Nope, it's not exciting at all. But at least she knows I am funny. That's a start.

Feline Groovy

I was already home, peering into the bathroom mirror for my nightly wrinkle inspection and giving myself faux facelifts with my palms. My phone slid across the bathroom counter with the vibration of an incoming text from a friend.

"Weren't you just in Glenview?"

Yes, as a matter of fact, I was, but I could not for the life of me figure out why that was newsworthy. Especially for this friend, who had actually just been with me in Glenview, so it's not as if there was some heavy duty sleuthing involved. I felt a bit huffy. The rude interruption was hardly worth releasing the tight pull on my cheeks and watching, with despair, as the dull, inelastic skin returned to its prune-like state.

In response, a curt "yes" seemed appropriate, but good friends are hard to come by so I opted against curtness and chose instead to become fully engaged in the conversation, wrinkled cheeks be damned. Friendship first. "Why the fuck are you asking me that, idiot?" was what I said, on the theory that negative attention is better than no attention at all. And I just couldn't muster up the kindness to respond cheerfully to a stupid question which had interfered with my nightly facial exercises. I went back to my routine as I awaited a response. A few broad smiles to tone the cheek muscles, a few slow chin stretches to exorcise the turkey who had taken up residence in my neck.

"There was just a cougar siting in Glenview. I heard it on the news."

Hilarious. The skin on my face is as rugged as the landscape in a Marlboro cigarette ad and I'm supposed to have a sense of humor about being mistaken for a cougar? The men in the cradles I might rob are more likely to wear Depends than Pampers; without their glasses (and, thankfully, nobody wears glasses to bed) they have no way of knowing what I look like naked. All good. A forty-something year old babe is cougar material; a woman who carries an AARP card and actually might start to sprout some whiskers loses some of that edge.

So, like your average mall shopper, when it comes to younger men, I am "just looking." Hey, I'm wrinkled, not dead. Which is fine with me, because I don't have to say things like "shut up and look pretty." I must admit I had a bit of a senior moment (of the dirty old woman variety) when I sat down to watch the Olympics yesterday. I swear I didn't plan it this way, but the upcoming event was men's beach volleyball. Visions of the male counterparts of skimpy-bikini-clad buff athletes on the women's side danced in my addled brain. Speedos might have made me spit up my Geritol, but the prospect of some glistening bare pectoral muscles grabbed my attention. Much to my dismay, though, the young studs wore shirts (and, happily, long shorts). I suppose they are just not as comfortable as women are leaping around in sand in front of millions of viewers, constantly tugging small swatches of material out of their butts. Hmm.

I have no doubt there were more than a few cougars sited in Glenview the other night, some in restaurants and bars, maybe one or two skulking in the shadows on the streets. But the one that made the news -- it definitely was not me. I had already headed for home, my AARP card in my purse and sensible shoes on my feet, to contemplate the deepening grooves on my face, feline charm nowhere in sight.

Animal Instincts

Being kind to animals is honorable; trying to look like them can be unseemly. Which is why I just tossed my relatively new leopard print strapless top in the garbage rather than the bag of clothes headed for some as yet undetermined charitable organization.

Charity may begin at home for most of us (exhibit A, my decision, right in my own house, to rescue some poor unsuspecting soul from wearing leopard spots), but the real satisfaction comes when we bring it outside. For some, that may mean donning an apron and wielding a ladle in a soup kitchen, for others, days spent comforting the elderly or the infirm. We all write an occasional check, which doesn't involve a huge time commitment or all that much elbow grease, but it's not always so easy to part with a buck, so let's give credit where credit is due.

Before....

I've been remiss on all of it lately, but, if you consider working part time for peanuts in retail to be charity, I could very well be the philanthropist of the year. For quite some time now, I've been spending way more money than I earn just for the warm and fuzzy feeling I get when I can take a woman who thinks a muffin top, hips distended by childbirth, and a bit of back fat disqualifies her from wearing anything other than a gunny sack and transform her into a smiling and self confident goddess of fashion. At least for a day. The mere fact that she already carries designer purses and has a closet full of shoes (the antidote to feeling as if nothing fits) in her well maintained five bedroom home does not render her any less worthy of the kindness of strangers.

Or friends, for that matter. So when two of my gal pals wandered into the store a couple of weeks ago to test out my claim that I could, indeed, make them look sizzling hot in designer jeans, I threw myself into "giving" mode and began to work my magic. My ladle was the little cherry picker type pole that helps me grab trendy little delights off of high hangers, my elderly and infirm beneficiaries the middle aged friends who had entered the shop looking like sugar deprived children in a candy store. They were skeptical but grateful, I was determined and energetic.

...After

Let me tell you, as good a feeling as someone might get from spooning soup into the bowl of a hungry person, my own soup bowl literally runneth (runnethed?) over with droplets of good will each time I watched my friends gaze at themselves in the mirror. Tops with gathers and deflecting designs in all the right places, jeans sewn together with some miracle body shaping thread and strategically placed pockets -- they were floored. To the point of being obnoxious, I might say, so wrapped up were they in admiring themselves that I began to feel a bit sloppy and in need of my own little fashion tune-up. Yes, I know it's better to give than receive, but I thought crowding my own ass into their fitting room with them so I could try on a few transformative little items would be good for all of our souls. They went along with it, although they seemed a bit peeved. I was so tempted to go and bring them some leopard prints, just to put them in their place.

The gift of giving keeps on giving. The other day, a heavy set young woman came in looking for anything not strapless to wear to dinner that night on a yacht with her husband's law firm. I sent her off, happy as  a clam, in a strapless romper with a crocheted cardigan, plus two other tops guaranteed to make her feel like a million bucks some other day. And, in a store filled with animal prints, I protected her from them as if she were a lost child about to be attacked. Who needs a ladle when you have this kind of power?

Mind you, I am not completely opposed to emulating the occasional animal. The hair on my legs often gets as thick and downy as my beloved Manny's coat, and he doesn't seem offended by the resemblance. I favor solid grays and browns and blacks, which I know can often make me look indistinguishable from your basic elephant or grizzly bear or penguin's ass. But just as I am kind to animals (I would never think of shaving one down to the skin or plucking ones whiskers) I am learning to be kind to myself. Remember, charity begins at home.

And so it was that I bid adieu to the leopard print. Had it been cougar, well that would have been a different story. For now, though, I have no need to look like a loon.