Travels with The Rayman

So, I haven’t been able to sleep a full night.  This is highly unusual.  It’s because I’m doing a fair bit of soul searching.  Having just returned from my vacation with the Babes, I’m traumatized.  Why, why, why?

The Babes are turning into old friends in more ways that one!!!  Time marches on.  This year two of them bought everyone a towel that announces the 20th anniversary.  Being the newest member of this august group, I marvel at that achievement.  Being the newest member is a kwirk of fate.  I have known many of the Babes for years and years.  The coveted inclusion into the group is not easy to achieve and it was years before an invitation was extended.  That being said, I are one now!!

Individually these women have achieved great things chief among them staying married to the same man their entire adult life.  This is no easy fete.  For anyone.  But many of them can boast about this.  And they have raised a family.  This is triumphal.  Many held jobs with great responsibilities.  Wonder women, really.

And perhaps the most impressive thing is that they have learned to play golf!!!  Perhaps the cruelest game ever devised by man…and they are very good players and don’t mind playing for 4-5 days in a row.  Is that fabulous or what?

So what’s the problem?  Is there a problem?

Am I the problem?  Perhaps I am.  My politics are 180 degrees from theirs.  I think global warming is real because a majority of all serious scientists worldwide believe it to be true.  And I confirm that the world got warmer this week in Aptos with the steam emminating from our condo!!

My opinion of Sarah Palin is that she is an airhead.  They like her.  Okay.  We can find some common ground.  She is a likable airhead!!  The list goes on.  But does any of that matter.  I say no.  They are just opinions presented forcefully at times and formed based on our life adventures.  Or misadventures in my case!!

Am I too too?  Too dominating?  Too neutral?  Too opinionated?  Too wishy washy?  Too tall, too short?  Too happy?  Too angry?  Too up?  Too down?  The list does on.  The possibilities are endless.

Ah, ha.  Too many chiefs and not enough Indians.  Now that could be a problem because many of us are type A and like to be in charge.  There is some real possibility that this could cause a problem or two….you think?

Then there is the age issue.  As you age, the area of your cerebral cortex “atrophies” and you say things you would have never uttered a decade back.  So there is that.  Another very good possibility.  And as we age our memory goes bonkers.  Wandering through the house wondering where we put this or that or the other.  Leaving things where they shouldn’t be.  Losing things beside our minds.  It is a scream.  Where are my glasses?  Oh, on my head!!   Where is my pencil?  Or, behind my ear!!

But this is where I have to turn the page and think about all those good times.  They far outweigh the “other” times.  To this there can be no doubt.  And one of the original Babes had the brilliant idea to chronicle the comings and goings every year and documented her remarks with pictures.  It is quite remarkable.

So, for all our trauma and drama, I say, let the games continue.  There’s more golf to be played, more food to be eaten, more wine to be drunk…yes, even more cigarettes to be smoked before they put us into the ground…or scatter us at sea.

That’s my vote and I’m sticking to it.  But I might recommend that we adopt the Larry Hazen method of assignment for who plays with whom.  Who cooks with whom.  Even who rides to the golf course with whom.  It is a sure way to eliminate hurt feels.  And hurt feelings are no fun for those with those hurt feelings nor are they fun for those that caused the hurt feelings.  And the rest of group is thus in a situation of reconciling their feelings about those hurt feelings…and the beat goes on.

So, I publicly am apologizing for any and all faux pas I have made.  I’ll try like the dickens not to do any more faux pas (a french phrase).  But really, what was Meg Whitman thinking?

Today we played a very tough course.  It wasn’t pretty.  No one shot under 100.  End of story.  Just too many sand traps.  Too many trees.  Too many out of bounds.  Too too!!!

We had fun though.  The weather was beautiful.  Everyone got along.  A fabulous occurrence in and of itself.

Dinner was good.  We had Costco chicken.  Tomatoes, cucumbers and lots of vinegar.  Corn on the cob.  Artichoke hearts for pupus and triple cream cheese that sista loved.  Whole artichokes for dinner.  The weather right on the beach was warm and without wind.  Dolphins were spotted.  Pelicans dove.  Great stuff there.

Sue spilled vinegar on Dianna’s pants and was totally traumatized.  I was non plussed.  It came out.  Other than that, things were uneventful.

Some of the Babes may try to stay another day.  I’m out of here.  Dinner party tomorrow night.

End of story.

I don’t even know what to say about today.  Everything started out fine.  Then it all when to hell.  And then it got better, then it got worse…and there you have it.

I’m not at all sure a bunch of older women should even travel together anymore.  At least with the men, the women got along better, don’t you think?  Is that something to consider?  Or am I crazy?  Cathy thinks we need to work on not being grouchy and old.  Judy thinks there should be a leader that organizes and calls all the shots.

Here’s the funny thing.  The sisters, Carolyn and Cathy are a hoot to travel with.  Sitting in the back seat listening to their conversations re: where we are going (in the car) is hysterical.  It’s worth the price of admission.  I think.  Carolyn listens to the GPS lady and then repeats it.  Then Cathy repeats it.  And then they have a conversation about it.  At every turn.  Too funny.

The golf was good.  The day was hot, hot, hot.   Probably about 90 ish.  The shade was essential to our well being.  We shaded up whenever possible.

When we returned, Kris announced that she was going to the market to pick up something to eat.  Everyone sans Donna, who returned home after the round, decided to go to the store too.  Cathy and Carolyn and I went together and bought two fresh dungeness crab, sourdough and the trimmings.  The other sisters had hamburgers without buns and corn and cole slaw.  Judy and Linda did fajitas.  Muy bueno.

Then we had arguments, disagreements, words.  Then we cooled off.  Then we started watching Dancing with the Stars.  Bristol Palin was there so Sarah showed up…why?  What other parent shows up for the affair?  But Dancing is a bust.  They do more talking and recapping than dancing.  So off to bed many of us went.

And there you have it.

Hope tomorrow is better.  At least I hope it’s cooler.

What a fabulous day it was.  Beautiful.  Shorts and short sleeve weather.  Light breeze.  Not sure it could have been better.

An update first.  Donna left us to go to Kaiser.  Her cut hurt.  She didn’t sleep.  She ended up in San Jose where they tended to her wound.  Too late to stitch.  She plans to return tomorrow.  To play.  Wonder Woman?  One wonders.

We drove to PG, had breakfast and teed off after watching deer, well…fornicating behind a bush.  Frisky deer.  I played with Linda and sista Judy.  The real sisters played as a foursome.

We all scored within a few strokes of one another.  Fun, fun, fun.

Returned home, ordered pizza to be delivered, ate baked artichoke hearts, drank plenty of wine.  I downloaded courses to Carolyn’s skycaddie.  Had watermelon for dessert (3 of us), watched Dancing with the Stars (all or part of it).  I’m upstairs in bed writing in the dark (except for the light of my MacBook.  Listening to the waves break.

Just about a perfect day all the way around.  I took movies today which I will try to download another day.

For the uninitiated, the Boulder Babes is a group of women that should know  better…but thank goodness we don’t.  Sort of.  Anyway, we are a group of 8 (ocho mujares) women (I’m studying espanol now) who go off once a year to ….well, have fun playing golf and on occasion, acting crazy.

So, where do I start this years adventure?  At the beginning?  Perhaps not.  Let me start by telling you that Kris thinks I’m dark.  This emerged as quite a revelation and so I said to her, “Dark?  Me?”  And she muttered something about my emails.  Now, for the casual observer, I read interesting articles on the internet and pass them along.  Most are left-leaning but I also pass along other tidbits that I find fascinating…like the one about dolphins.  Did you know that researchers have discovered that dolphins recognize themselves in the mirror?  or health articles.  But mostly left-leaning political articles.  I do this because I can’t help myself.  And I hope people will read them, but I know most do not.  I don’t care.  You can lead a horse to water…

So, Kris thinks I’m dark.  So, I said in self defense, “How can you say that?  Didn’t you read my blog?”  Oh, well.  I think she must think I talk politics on my blog.  Can’t help that.

Really, this conversation happened because we were discussing Mad Men.  I love that show.  Well, Kris and Donna have given up on it because it is too dark.  This saddens me.  Mad Men has always been dark.  Just listen to the opening score.  They disagree and have erased all the episodes.  Oh, well.  I love Mad Men.

We had a very eventful evening.  We all arrived about 3:30 and the games began.  Some of the Babes had played golf at Salinas Country Club and partied the night before.  They didn’t look green behind the gills, so I guess last night was tame.  Tonight would be another thing.

In an effort to get maximum fun out of this annual outing, we decided to order food to go and eat in so we could drink more?  I was delegated to pick up the food by Kris.  Didn’t mind as I didn’t want to drink much anyway.  Linda  volunteered to go with me to pick it up.  Most people ordered pulled pork, steak sandwiches and two of us had pasta.  Then there were 4 artichokes which we all split.  Yummy.  As some of us were cleaning up, Donna cut herself on a wine glass.  None of us were surprised.  Donna is a bit accident prone.  The problem was that the cuts were deep.  So, after Nurse Betty (Kris) and her sidekick, Sue, tried to fashion a butterfly bandage out of sports tape, it was decided to go to a Med Stop so Linda (my trusty helper as she went with me to the restaurant) and I took Donna to the Med Stop that was closed.  She refused (for good reason, she had languished there with heart palpatations several years ao) to go to the hospital emergency room, so we turned around and came home.  Donna promised to call her Doctor in the morning.  We’ll see.

So, that was pretty exciting to everyone but Donna.

The plan tomorrow is to have breakfast at the golf course, stop for frozen artichokes, eat at Phil’s in Moss Landing and come home to god knows what else.

In the meantime, I’ll try not to be so dark.

Lightly yours,  me

We lucked out today.  Our taxi driver was there at 4 a.m.  He moved to Paris with his family 12 year ago from Lebanon.  Speaks Lebanese, francais, and english.  Rents his taxi otherwise it is too expensive.

I’m proud to announce we were the first people at the airport this morning.  Everything was closed, even the check in counters.  That was okay.  No hysterics were involve and all was well.  We took a flight from Paris to Frankfurt, held over about 2 hours and then loaded up to head out.  Oops.  There were two people who checked in luggage but disappeared.  So…the flight crew had to located the missing luggage and remove it before we could leave.  So we were about an hour on the plane before take off.  Flew a lovely 747 across the sea and Iceland and Canada and we’ve just landed.  I took three glasses of wine with lunch and polished it off with an ambien.  Slept like a baby.  Ray woke me up about an hour out of LAX.  Fabulous landing.  Except…the plan was to tow the plane to the jetway.  While doing that there was a mid-hap that crippled the plane.  So we’ve been sitting here waiting while, as near as I can tell, every person who wears neon green or orange vests has come up to the plane to get a laugh (oops, to survey the situation.)  We are now in queue for a different type of towing vehicle that will lift the front of the plane up to do the towing.

So here we are.  Ray is working a Sudoku and I’m blogging and watching all the running around outside the aircraft.

Ray reminded me that on our flight to Paris via Munich out of  LAX a passenger had died in flight and that necessitated police filing thru upon arrival.  No one died on this trip although the plane tow truck machine driver may be killed for all this trouble…so this is a much more successful flight.  Just a bit more waiting.  I could actually use some lunch.  It’s 1:10 p.m.  A new type of airplane tow truck just pulled up.  We may escape sooner than we thought!!

Whops.  That piece of equipment didn’t do the job.  So now they are going to change the punctured tire.  Some pictures for your viewing enjoyment.

Our nice captain has just announced that they are in the process of changing the tire.  It will take 10-15 minutes and then we will be allowed to escape.  An hour here, an hour there…pretty soon it adds up some some real time.

Alas, we escaped and I write you from the comfort of my leather chair in my house!!  And there is no place like home!!!