“Hi, my name’s Peggy,” I said, introducing myself to my seat mate on United Airlines, 1st class, non-stop flight to Kona, Hawaii.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Iris and I’m 9,” answered the olive-skinned boy with steel-grey eyes and a shaggy Beatles haircut curled up in Seat 3B, “We’re going to the Four Seasons for my brother’s 11th birthday!”

I learned a lot about Iris over the next several minutes. He has been to Hawaii twice a year ever since he can remember! He has a “totally awesome” older brother, Oliver, and a twin sister named Rose. He lives in Hollywood with his family, is in the fourth grade, plays basketball, baseball, swimming and football, but his favorite thing is that he goes to Rock-and-Roll Camp and plays both the bass and slide guitars, the synthesizer, the drums, the piano and oh ya, the ukulele!

“Rock and Roll Camp?” I said, “So, I guess you’ve really got some ‘moves like Jagger,’ right?”

“You bet I do! AND I can stick my tongue out like Gene Simmons, see?!!” he said, thrusting his pointed tongue w-a-y out of his mouth and all the way down his chin.

“Cool,” I said thoroughly enjoying him.

“Oh! And look what I got,” he said as he zipped open his backpack gently pulling out some treasures. “This is LiLi, my stuffed lion, and THIS,” he said, handing me a brand new, crisp maroon, linen-covered Moleskin, “is from my Grandma.”

I gasped at the sight of the beautiful pristine notebook, waiting for him to chronicle his Hawaiian adventures with his family.

“Iris! It’s FABULOUS!” I said, “I LOVE your Grandma! You and LiLi are going to make this vacation last forEVER through your writing! When are you going to start?”

“I dunno,” he answered noncommittally. I got the impression that he wasn’t as excited about his Moleskin as I was. He seemed more anxious to swim, snorkel, play video games and order room service.

“Um . . . Iris,” I began cautiously, “you’re not even gonna start writing in that journal until you’re on your way back home, are you.”

“Probably not,” he agreed, “I never know how to start!”

“O.K. How ’bout if I help you?” I offered.

“Cool! How?” he asked.

“By giving you a beginning. The rest will pretty much write itself. Give me your book,” I said, reaching for it.

I snapped the elastic band off the front, opened to page 1 and, in my very best handwriting, scripted the prompt, “It all began when my dad bought us first class airplane tickets to Hawaii!”

“There! Done! The rest is up to you!” I said, stretching the elastic strap back over the front cover, closing the book, “Now you’re good to go!  Just make sure you mention that you sat next to a really cool lady on the flight over!”

Iris took the notebook, read the opening line a few times, nodded his approval, tucked it back into his backpack and refocused his attention on his tablet where he was in the middle of Call of Duty: Black Ops III video game.

I, too, opened my tablet, but rather than playing my own games, I accessed my electronic moleskin and copied the prompt I’d just given Iris:

It all began with the purchase of first class airplane tickets to Hawaii. Carl had been planning a 60th birthday mystery trip for me for quite some time — since November, I discovered.

On Christmas morning, after all the gifts had been opened and as I was picking up torn and crumpled wrapping paper, ribbons and bows, I noticed a lone, unopened envelope on the coffee table addressed to “Peggy Dear.”

‘Don’t make any plans between February 10 through 16!’ advised the scrawling beneath a primitive pen-and-ink drawing of an airplane on one of Carl’s monogrammed Crane notecards.

“Really? We’re taking a trip?” I asked with utter astonishment, knowing how averse Carl is to travel of any kind. “Where are we going? Oh wait! Are YOU going, too or am I traveling somewhere by myself?”

“Of COURSE I’m going, but I’m not telling you where,” he replied, “You’re on a ‘need-to-know’ basis. I’ll tell you where we’re going when you need to know! And, by the way, . . . I hope you like that card! I practiced drawing airplanes on scratch paper so I’d draw a good one on your card!”

As thrilled as I was about the prospect of a “Magical Mystery Tour,” I suppressed all enthusiasm for the next several weeks, fearing that something would come up that would cause the plan to fall apart. ‘Proceed With Cautious Enthusiasm’ whispered to me every time I thought about the trip and wondered WHERE we were going. Everyone in the entire free world knows how I HATE cold climates, winter sports, snow blizzards, power outages, frost bite and icicles, so I knew Carl wouldn’t subject me to any place where temperatures dared to dip beneath 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Likewise, everyone in the entire free world also knows how Carl hates traveling to Mexico (and pretty much everywhere else too). My list of possible destinations was limited to begin with, and the more I thought, the shorter the list got!

Phoenix or Scottsdale? No, those are nice places, but definitely not worth three practice drawings of an airplane.

Ireland? Absolutely not! We’re going there for our honeymoon! We’re 23 years late on that, but we’re going to have to wait a little longer! It’s the middle of winter! I’m not going to Ireland in February!

Rancho Santa Fe? No, we can go there any time and we wouldn’t fly! Rancho Santa Fe would be a waste of practice drawings!

Pauma Valley? Hmmmmmmmmmm . . . a definite possibility! Maybe, JUST maybe, Carl is throwing me off guard and he’s REALLY planning a surprise party for me in Pauma! Note to self: Start baiting Rene, Heidi, Eleanor, Pam, Patty and Gayle. See if they slip up!

Tahiti? Nope. Definitely practice-drawing worthy, but way too far to go. And besides, Carl hasn’t been pushing that hard for me to get my global entry card. All of that AND his strong aversion to international travel make Tahiti a No.

Hawaii? Well . . . Let’s just think about this: IF he’s really planning a party for me in Pauma Valley and is just telling me we’re going somewhere, then Hawaii would be the most logical decoy. And if he’s NOT planning a surprise party for me in Pauma, then Hawaii HAS to be the spot! The only unknown about Hawaii is WHICH resort and which island he has chosen!

Sherlock Holmes would be proud of my deductive reasoning!

The guessing game over and the list narrowed down to two possible destinations, I still operated with ‘Proceed With Cautious Enthusiasm’ in the forefront of my mind. There is ALWAYS a chance that an arbitration or mediation will trump our best-laid plans.

The eternity between Christmas and February 10 grew to a close with no intel provided from anyone anywhere! My friends claimed ignorance of any knowledge about my Magical Mystery Tour and family divulged nothing.

As I lay flaked out on the couch on Super Bowl Sunday, desperately fighting off a head cold and wishing myself well in time for my mystery trip, Carl offered a tiny bit of advice.

“If you’re out and about tomorrow, you MIGHT want to buy a bathing suit!” he said coyly.

“He’s GOT to be kidding!” I thought, “I’m in NO mood to even stand up, let alone go shopping!” I mustered all my energy  to raise my stuffed head from the pillow. I looked at him through my watery, glassy eyes, head pounding with every word and hissed,

“Bathing suit shopping requires perfect health and a positive outlook! And even WITH those two things, bathing suit shopping is stressful and unpleasant! I’d rather stick needles in my eyes and eat liver for dinner! Right now I can’t imagine wrestling with Spandex, straps or clasps of any kind! I’m SICK! Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier? I could have been prepared!”

“If I had told you where we are going any time earlier, you would have gone out and bought all new clothes! I am just following through on my ‘need-to-know’ rule. If you don’t have a bathing suit, you need to know that you might want one later on in the week! That’s all!” he explained.

Ugh. I didn’t have the energy to argue. Oh well. There were still three days left before our departure and plenty of time for me to lay low and rest. There were a few errands I needed to run in the next couple of days, so “look for a bathing suit(?)” was put at the bottom of that list. I already knew the first, most important, MUST BUY items were: a pipe, 3-4 pouches of Captain Black tobacco and a lighter — not for me, but for Carl. If he decided that my mystery trip would be another good time for him to try to quit smoking, I’d be ready! Neither a head cold nor a lack of tobacco would ruin this time for me!

“What do you want for your birthday?” asked Carl the night before our departure.

“Really? I thought the Magical Mystery Tour was my gift! You don’t need to get me anything else. Just tell me where we’re going!” I answered.

“Does the trip count for Valentine’s Day too?” came the follow-up question.

“Absolutely NOT!” I answered, surprised that he’d even try to double dip. “You’d do something nice for me for Valentine’s Day if my birthday weren’t so close to it, so . . . it goes without saying that my birthday trip does NOT satisfy your Valentine obligation! Besides, I have a Valentine for you, so wouldn’t you feel embarrassed if you didn’t have something for me?” I reasoned.

My Valentine for him, of course, was smoking paraphernalia!   I guess it could be argued that my gift to him was, in fact, double-dipping: feeding his habit also eases the first days of vacation for me, but let’s not digress!

“We’re going to Hawaii!” Carl finally divulged. Packing was easy since I’d already narrowed the possibilities so many weeks earlier. Hawaii had always been one of my suspicions, so I knew exactly which outfits to take! Four golf skirts & tops, four dinner ensembles, a couple of sun dresses, comfortable shoes and The. Dreaded. Bathing. Suit! Along with my usual toiletries, throat lozenges, DayQuil, Mucinex and Neutrogena Sunscreen for Sensitive Skin with SPF-60 were also stuffed into my bag. I was more than ready, eager and willing to board the plane.

“Hi, my name’s Peggy,” I said, introducing myself to my seat mate on United Airlines, 1st class, non-stop flight to Kona, Hawaii.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Iris and I’m 9,” answered the olive-skinned boy with steel-grey eyes and a shaggy Beatles haircut curled up in Seat 3B, “We’re going to the Four Seasons for my brother’s 11th birthday!”

Carl attended to every minute detail associated with pulling off a 60th Birthday Surprise for me — except seat assignments! When we arrived at the gate, Carl inquired about the possibility of changing some passenger seating to enable us to sit together, but no one would change! That’s how I came to sit with Iris. Throughout the five-hour trip to Kona, Iris and I chatted about lots of things in between his frequent time outs for video games and The Lego Movie he had downloaded on his tablet. It became very clear that Iris LOVED his family very much. He kept talking about his dad and all the activities they did together. At one point, I looked across the aisle smack dab into the lens of Dad videotaping Iris talking to me. I smiled and waved for the camera, memorialized forever in that family’s library of home movies.

“Gosh, Iris, you guys seem to have so much fun together! I see your dad and Oliver and Rose, but where’s your mom? Did she have to stay home and work?” I asked, truly wondering where the icing was on the cake of this Perfect Family.

“I don’t have a mom,” admitted Iris, “I don’t know what it’s like to even have one!”

“Uh oh!” I thought, “Did she die in childbirth? Are his parents divorced? Did she abandon the family? Is she in rehab?! Oh NO!! Why couldn’t you just keep your mouth shut?! Everything was going just fine! What do I say now???? AAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHH!”

“Oh, Iris, I’m –” I began, but was immediately cut off.

“I have TWO DADS!” he reported as happily as if he’d just been given a season pass to Disneyland.

Now, here I was, seated in first class where there is MORE than sufficient legroom. Why was it, then, that I STILL managed to cram my foot in my mouth?!

“Oh . . .! Of COURSE!!! TWO DADS!!!!” I began, my mind racing to find some words to cover my faux pas. “Wow . . . um . . . ya . . . two dads . . . yes . . . that’s what you’ve got . . . two dads! Yep, I see them now! There’s one of your dads, videotaping us, and look — there’s another dad, sitting up there right next to Oliver! Well . . . families come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and aren’t you lucky to be in one that loves each other as much as you guys do!” Beads of perspiration dotted my brow and the palms of my hands felt clammy.

And just then, Dad #2 turned from the aisle seat diagonally in front of us and flashed our photo on his cell phone! I shudder to think about how the expression on my face looks . . . for the family album! Shock and Awe? Probably.

I immediately remanded myself into a Time Out and pretended to play Free Cell on my iPad, hoping neither dad had heard our conversation.

The plane touched down for a smooth landing, and in no time at all, we were headed toward baggage claim. Suitcase after suitcase dropped onto the conveyor belt as anxious passengers clamored to retrieve their belongings. I finally wriggled my way up close to the carousel when I felt a light tapping on my left shoulder.

“Excuse me, but would you mind if we shared a ride with you to the hotel?” the lady asked.

I turned to see who was so bold as to ask a perfect stranger for a ride to her hotel and was surprised to see Rene Savard, my very, VERY, VERY good friend from Pauma Valley standing right there!

“RENE!” I squealed, “What are YOU doing here? Is Al here too?”

“Yes, Al’s here too! He’s over there with our luggage.  We just wanted to know if we could ride along to the hotel with you!” she said, laughing with delight at my utter astonishment.

“Oh! My! Gosh!!!!!” I said, too stunned to say anything else, “WHAAAAT? ”

“Surprise!” exclaimed Carl, “They’re here to help celebrate your birthday! Happy Birthday!”

Now it was I who acted as if I’d been given a season pass to Disneyland.

“Hey Al . . . Where’s the potatoes?” I asked, sharing an inside joke as I hugged him as tightly as I could and blinking back tears of joy.

All the way to the Mauna Kea resort, Al and Rene talked about how they’d been setting things aside for the trip while I was at their house for breakfast not even a week before the trip!

“You kept saying that you weren’t sure where Carl was taking you or if you were even going any where at all and we had our suitcase half-packed in the very next room!” explained Rene.

Upon arrival at the hotel and adorned in the customary plumeria leis, we agreed to freshen up before heading down to the Beach Bar for our first official birthday cocktail.   I could hardly wait for a giant coconut shell brimming with “that frozen concoction that helps me hang on” garnished with a slice of pineapple and a maraschino cherry skewered by a bright pink paper parasol! Yessiree, Bob! I was in a hurry! But as soon as we’d swiped the card key over the lock and opened the door, another surprise lay in wait! There on the sideboard sat three silver ice buckets chilling three different bottles of champagne – all for me! “Happy 60^th Birthday! Love, _______” greeted me on each of the cards resting against the buckets!

“I LOVE being 60! I can’t believe how fun it is!” I shrieked. “C’mon, let’s go down to the bar! We’ll take one of these bottles to dinner tonight! One tomorrow night and the third one the next!”

And off we went, back down to meet Rene and Al for the birthday party kick-off!

“I’ll have the biggest, coconuttiest, rummiest, yummiest, Hawaiian slurpee you’ve got!” I said to the bartender, placing my first drink order. “And you’d probably better bring me some snacks, too . . . to soak up some of that rum!”

All cocktails delivered and glasses raised in mid-toast to ME, we were suddenly interrupted.

“Wait for us!! You’re finally here! Happy Birthday, Peggy!” they said.

WHAT??? Who’s talking?! Wait for whom?

 Before I knew what was happening, John and Sue Symes appeared, drinks already in hand ready to join in my birthday toast!

“SURPRISE!” everyone screamed. “Happy Birthday! You’re FINALLY 60 – Welcome to The Group!”

Sue crowned me with a ring of dried Hawaiian flowers with two sparklers raised up front, a six and a zero. John lit them as a chorus of “Happy Birthday” was sung; however, only the 6 ignited. The zero was a complete dud.

“Hah! Get used to it, Peggy! Now that you’re 60, LOTS of things don’t work the way they used to!” he said, divulging some of the secrets of the Over-60 Group!

Halfway through the first cocktail, Carl commented that he’d really like a smoke, but he’d forgotten his pipe! Sooooooo thankful that I had come prepared, just like a Boy Scout, I told him that his early Valentine’s Day surprise was waiting for him at the bottom of my suitcase.

“It’s your lucky day, Carl! I brought you a brand new pipe, three pouches of tobacco . . . your brand . . . AND a fancy lighter! Happy Valentine’s Day and You’re Welcome!”

Now who just got the season pass to Disneyland??!!

Carl trotted off to collect his Valentine, then retreated to the designated smoking area – – a not-so-welcoming 20’ x 20’ patch of sand offering one small bench shaded by a turquois umbrella tucked back in an isolated area of the landscape. Nothing about that spot screamed, “Aloha!”  Only nicotine fiends and sometimes loyal spouses dared venture to the land so far away!

For the next four days we optimized every single minute of my Magical Mystery Tour so expertly planned and executed by Carl. He sent the invitation, he made the reservation, he thought of everything we’d need and satisfaction was definitely guaranteed! Al and I beat Carl and John two days straight in better ball of partners golf matches. John crafted a new trick shot that he named after a popular Hawaiian fish that he calls “The Ono” – for “Oh! NO! I didn’t mean to hit my ball over there!” He taught it to ALL of us! Of course we never wanted to use it, but . . . “The Ono” LOVES to play golf! We snorkeled around the rocky coves, watched the manta rays feed off the plankton, lazed at the beach, imbibed numerous tropical cocktails and even launched a gin rummy tournament between Al and Carl each day at Happy Hour.

My Hawaiian head lei embellished with the sparklers designated me Queen for the week! I was serenaded with “Happy Birthday” each night at dinner, toasted with expensive chilled champagne sent to me by loving friends and honored with complimentary birthday desserts every evening. There was nothing that could have made the celebration any better!

Count me IN for the next Magical Mystery Tour!

 

 

 

 

 

 

As as excited as I am about being whisked away on a “mystery trip” later this week, experience has taught me that I must be prepared.  Because I am, shall we say, overly organized and methodical, packing for a vacation is more than a 30-minute exercise of throwing clothes into a suitcase.  Oh yes.  I plan for days, if not weeks, for any and every possible item that I might need during my time away from home.  I make lists.  I make a list for what I have, for what I need, for what I want, for what I might want and sometimes I make a list for things that I should take “just in case.”   Throughout the years, three items have made their way from the “Just In Case” list to the “Definitely Don’t Leave Home Without It” list.

The first time I should have recognized the importance of these three things was on a trip to the Pacific Northwest when my younger son, now thirty-one, was twelve years old.  My husband decided that this 5-day getaway would be the perfect time for him to jump-start one of his periodic attempts to quit smoking.  Oh, it’s not that I don’t support his desire to quit!  That’s not it at all!  However, using vacations . . . times that are meant for relaxation, rejuvenation and recreation, to commit to arduous, habit-breaking, decades- long habits sucks the fun right out of every. single. minute.

After retrieving our luggage from baggage claim, wending our way through the line at the car rental desk, and navigating through the unfamiliar roads toward our hotel, Carl’s agitation grew.  He hadn’t smoked his pipe for almost seven hours.  His valiant attempts to suppress the growing cravings proved no match for his nicotine nemesis.  We HAD to find a smoke shop somewhere.  But where?  Here we were, in the dead of night, on a two-lane highway in the middle of nowhere!  No matter how many times he patted his pockets, checking for a pipe, he still found them empty.  I thought that chewing gum would perhaps alleviate his discomfort, but I had given the last piece to my son on the airplane to pop his ears!

Continuing to drive along through the night, lights eventually glimmered in the distance, marking a gas station!  Hallelujah!  We’re SAVED!!  Carl’s foot rested more heavily on the accelerator and before we knew it, we’d arrived at a Sunoco Filling Station complete with a mini-mart.  I jumped out of the passenger side door and began filling the tank while Carl frantically ran inside in search of something to smoke.  The Bloodhound sleeping on the stoop did a double-take at Carl, recognizing that the crazed man rushing into the station just a few minutes before bore absolutely no resemblance to the calm, peaceful one returning to the car, puffing on a bright yellow corncob pipe holding a Bic lighter!  He looked a lot like Grandpa McCoy!

“Well,” said Carl in between deep, lung-filling puffs, “it’s not the kind of pipe I’m used to smoking, I guess but it’ll have to do!”

So . . . Note to Self:  Next time we take a trip, insist that Carl NOT decide to quit smoking.  

Subsequent trips presented much the same dramas.  One of the most noteworthy happened not too long ago when we flew to Hawaii over the Christmas holidays.  Rather than recount the incident in a lengthy narrative, I have chosen to reprint my journal entry for that day.  It was after this Hawaiian adventure that I have begun making my travel list for all necessary items and checking it twice!

Enjoy!

Christmas in Hawaii 2012 — Day 2

Every time we go somewhere, Carl intentionally leaves his pipe and pipe tobacco behind, resolved NOT to smoke for those days; and also every time we go somewhere, we find ourselves searching for a smoke shop so he can purchase a pipe and some tobacco. So too began Day 2 of Christmas in Hawaii 2012!! This time, however, we were also in desperate search of a hairdryer for me!! The “let your hair dry in the wind” method accomplished nothing other than possibly making me #1 choice on a casting call for the ugliest monster in the next Steven Spielberg sci-fi fantasy thriller!!

Carl researched for a smoke shop on GoogleMaps and off we went in search of Holy Smokes. We did find it, but being that we arrived prior to 9:00 a.m., the wrought iron gates and padlocks were still drawn across the store front.

Judging from the paint combination, the dread-locked Rasta man graphic on the window and the neon signs advertising “pipes, zigzag & detox,” I suspected that an entirely different kind of smoke shop lie behind the doors.

After a quick stop at Walgreens for a high-intensity Revlon ion hairdryer, we swung back to Holy Smokes where two “people” (term loosely referring to the beings working on unlocking the myriad barricades).  In walked Mr. & Mrs. Conservative–me in pinstriped seersucker golf shorts with golf greens and flags scattered all over them and Carl in his Reyn-Spooner Hawaiian shirt and Docker shorts!  (Imagine me being almost overcome by the heavy scent of incense wafting through the air in a feeble attempt to mask the heavy odor of pot). Carl asked if he could see some pipes. The female looked toward a back room and gestured us in that direction without uttering a sound.

The room was a huge cavern, filled with a treasure trove of every type if hooka, bong and water pipe imaginable!!! I could hardly contain my laughter!!! The hilarity of the situation was astounding!!!!

Carl DID ask if they carried wooden pipes for tobacco and was politely told that they specialized in glass but if we left their shop and travelled to another village about 1/2 hr away, he was SURE we could find what we were looking for!!! I’m SURE they thought we were under cover DEA, but hadn’t researched our “cover” very well!!! They couldn’t get rid of us fast enough!!!

I’m sure this description pales in comparison to how everything really unfolded, but …. It’s had me in fits of laughter ALL DAY LONG!!!

I told my daughter-in-law about it and she said she looked on line for smoke shops to buy cigars for Greg and she went to the Holy Smokes site. Immediately a warning flashed on her computer screen saying, “If you are connected with the military in any capacity, IMMEDIATELY exit from this site!!”

Aloha!!!!

Day 3 Recap

The wisdom of age-old advice should NEVER be discounted!!! “You get what you pay for!” is among the sagest quips and should be forever in the front of your minds–especially when in desperate need of something!!! Exhibit A: The $12 pipe that Carl purchased yesterday from Discount Tobacco–lasted perhaps through 1 1/2 smokes before cracking and getting so hot that it burned his lips, tongue and hand!!! So—guess where that put us this morning????? Right back in search of a wooden pipe; however, now the quest was for a “quality” wooden pipe!!!  (I really entertained the idea of heading back to Holy Smokes, purchasing a glass water pipe AND the stuff that goes in it, to take the edge off of Carl — and ME, at this point!!!)

Carl had never been to Pearl Harbor and wanted to visit the memorial, etc.  I know that he likes to get an early start in the mornings, but when on vacation, I thought our pace would be a little more relaxed. NO!! I faintly heard reveille bugled in the distance and heard the singsong cadence of platoons in their early morning PT, but didn’t realize that THAT was my call to muster too!!!  I rushed to dress, skipped coffee and yogurt, jumped in the car and fastened my seatbelt for yet another day of Adventures with Carl.

Upon arrival in the parking lot of the Pearl Harbor Visitor’s Center, an unmarked Toyota Forerunner police unit stopped right behind our rented Jeep.

“Good morning, Officer!” greeted Carl, “What a beeeeautifil day, isn’t it?!”

“Uh, sir,” began Officer Hawaii Five-O, “I’ve been following you for the last 5 miles–you were travelling at the speed of 55 mph. Were you aware of that, sir?”

“Really??! Was that YOU behind me -for all that time? Well I’ll be damned!! I didn’t realize you were a cop–I would have pulled over!” said Carl.

(Oh boy!!! NOW he was going to know how I felt when Officer A@#hole ticketed me near Pauma Reservation Road!!)

“Well,” began Officer Hawaii Five-O, “I figured you were from out of town and didn’t realize you were in a 35-zone, so …just be careful, sir, and have a nice day!! Mahalo” and away he went!!!!!

(WHAT THE #@!!!!???) uh–will someone explain what just happened??!!  Why is it that I always get the ticket and Carl is told to ‘have a nice day?’

Into Pearl Harbor Memorial–WAY ahead of any tour busses–just like Carl wanted, we got a ticket for the10:30 boat out to the USS Arizona. We wandered around for a while (with over 1 hr. to kill), but then Carl did a 180 and said he’d had enough. We got back in the car and headed toward Honolulu. I needed to do a little Christmas shopping for last-minute trinkets, but Carl’s need for nicotine trumped me and my plans. He plugged “tobacco shops near Honolulu” into GoogleMaps and, like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, we began reliving yesterday’s quest for the Holy Grail!!

GoogleMaps Lady directed us to Tobaccos of Hawaii, a small, independently-owned shop in a REALLY seedy part of Honolulu, just on the perimeter of Chinatown, sandwiched among other establishments like a girly strip club called Moulin Rouge,” a pawn shop and a massage parlor.  Carl parked in the reserved customer parking area in the alley behind the shops. Of course alleys are full of dumpsters and other containers, so the over-stuffed Hefty brand trash bags did not seem out of place –that is UNTIL one of them coughed and kersnuffled, spraying green, bilious phlegm toward me and my FitFlops!!!

I hurried into the tobacco shop, praying to God, Buddha, Allah and anyone else, that we would find the elusive but coveted Wooden Pipe!!

When the proprietor and the two other customers in the shop got a look at Carl and his uncanny resemblance to Santa Claus, they started ticking off the various items on their Wish Lists!!!  (Good Lord, deliver me!!)

One already-stoned-out-of-his-mind “gentleman” asked Carl for a Lamborghini, a high-rise apartment building and one of the Kardashians!!! I told him he’d better think twice about a Kardashian because they were such high maintenance. He said, “Ya man!! That’s probably right—and I’ve already had a lot of “kardashian” today!!!” (Uh—at least he was right about THAT!!!)

The Holy Grail selected and purchased, Carl & I headed back to the car. I was ready to clobber any Hefty trash bag that moved or made even the slightest noise!!! Safely inside our vehicle, Carl queried, “huh—look at that–a massage parlor, a pawn shop and a strip club! Why d’ya think tobacco shops have such seedy neighbors?!”

(I let the question just hang in the air!!!!) I just replied, “Fill that thing with tobacco, light it up, inhale a few times, suck up whatever nicotine you need and let’s get OUTTA here!!!”

Carl, calm as a well-fed puppy, was amenable to anything: even a MALL!!! We finished our Christmas shopping then drove back to Kailua and had lunch & well-deserved mai tais!!!

Lesson Learned:  Pack a wooden pipe, numerous pouches of Captain Black tobacco and a lighter before you pack anything else!  Don’t Leave Home Without Them!!!

 

“The light’s on, but nobody’s home!”  “Where were you just now?  You seemed a million miles away!” “I TOLD you about that yesterday, but you obviously weren’t paying attention!”  Sound familiar?  Have you ever said any of these things to someone or has anyone ever said them to YOU?  Well . . . I have, and I have.

I can’t help it.  My mind wanders — a lot.  I’ve stopped into grocery stores on numerous occasions for a few things but am easily distracted by some fancy display offering free samples or the seductive aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafting through the air from the embedded Starbuck’s.  I find myself back in my car sipping a grande non-fat no foam double mocha latte without the items I intended to purchase in the first place!  Other times I sit, wrapped in a comfy blanket reading but I have to turn back several pages and reread them because I’ve lost track of the storyline! I’ve even double washed or double conditioned my hair due to inattention to the task at hand! I don’t seem to focus on what I’m doing for very long, so you can only imagine what I’m like on the golf course  . . . for eighteen holes!

I know I’m not alone with my attention deficit issue, though.  Many of my friends have nodded in agreement that a round of golf should only include fifteen holes MAX! After putting out on Hole #15, we’ve succumbed to inertia.  It’s not that we’re not interested, it’s just that our thoughts have been hijacked.  We’re planning dinner or rushing to finish our round for bridge or any number of other reasons.  How professional golfers can stay wholly focused, hole after hole, shot after shot, putt after putt is truly the Eighth Wonder of the World!

Last summer, three of my friends and I committed to improving our golf performance once and for all.  We enrolled in a clinic consisting of four sessions with a female professional golfer who had the extra qualifications of a Masters degree in clinical psychology!  We hit the Mother Lode!  Abby had the experience of playing on tour, she could head-shrink us AND she’s a woman!  Her being female sealed the deal in our selecting her as our teacher.  She KNOWS how thoughts dance through our minds, just like stones skipping across a pond!  One minute we’re concentrating on our next golf shot and club selection but in less than a split second, we’re thinking about what color nail polish we’ll choose at our next manicure or gasping at how fat our shadows look!

“O.K., Ladies,” Abby began in our first classroom session, “one round of golf takes around four hours, give or take right?”

“Right!” we all agreed, proud of ourselves for knowing something about the game.

“What happens to us,” she continued with professorial wisdom, “is that we lose focus over that long period of time! That’s NORMAL!”

<Oh! My Gosh!  This woman is AMAZING!  She thinks we’re NORMAL!>

But then as if on cue my thoughts skipped . . . <But wait a second . . . she just met us!  Let’s hope she doesn’t change her mind by the time this is all over!> 

Session 1, “Focus and Thought Management,” was exactly what we needed.  Just think: Each golf shot requires only 20 seconds of pure focus.  For a player consistently scoring 92-ish (like Yours Truly), only 31 minutes of intense concentration is needed over that 4-hour period.  So . . . what happens during the other 3 hours and 29 minutes?

Abby provided us with a variety of focus-driven strategies, visual images to picture during our pre-shot routines, physical cleansing breath techniques and positive self-affirming mantras to chant silently just before hitting the ball.

“After you’ve made your shot,” she continued, “go ahead and chat a little as you walk down the fairway!”

<I LOVE this Pro!  She just gave us permission to think and talk about something other than golf while we’re actually PLAYING golf!>

<Things are lookin’ up!!  I only have to be serious for 31 minutes!  The rest of the time I can have fun and joke around!>

This was JUST what my Inner Voices needed to hear — well, The Comic, anyway.  The Coach and The Critic had been confined to 1/2 hour’s worth of “air time,” but The Comic just got THREE HOURS AND TWENTY-NINE MINUTES of liberty!

An entire year has passed since that enlightening lecture, and, being the good student that I’ve always been, I have to boast that I’ve gotten pretty good at focusing for 31 minutes over a 4-hour period.  I’ve ALSO become profusely accomplished in effectively using the 3-hour and 29-minute recess!

“O.K., Everybody! Shut up!  I have to focus for 20 seconds!” I demand as I assess my shot, quieting all conversation.

And with that, words drop mid sentence.  Everyone and everything immediately stops as if in the midst of a game of Freeze Tag.  Only the caddy is in motion, setting down the golf bag to select the appropriate club.  Sunglasses lower over my eyes, my breathing deepens, making me sound like Jethro Tull’s Aqua-Lung, my leg and arm muscles tense as my fingers interlace gripping the club with clear, confident conviction.  I am a human Transformer, morphing from a woman wearing a brightly obnoxious argyle golf skirt into a fierce Decepticon Golf Machine . . . for 20 seconds.

“There!” I say as I hand my club back to the caddy, “what were were talking about?”

“Is you all going to the Super Bowl party at the Club next week?” asked Inga, resuming the conversation.

“IS you all going . . .?” I ask, stressing her error in subject-verb agreement, “Really?  IS you all going?”

In her defense, Inga is an Austrian, making English her second language.  She should be cut some slack in her usage of the language.  But then again,  I, forever an English teacher, just canNOT stand some of the errors that I hear.  Listening to incorrect grammar, to my ears, is worse than a whole classroom full of students dragging their fingernails down a chalkboard.

“‘You’ can be either singular or plural.  It’s a pronoun.  You HAVE to use the plural form of ‘to be’ with it whether or not you are asking one person or more!” I corrected.

“Oh.  Well then, could I say, ‘Is EVERYBODY going to the Super Bowl party?'” she asked.

“YES!” I said, believing that she was really interested in a mini-English lesson before it was her turn to focus on golf for 20 seconds.

“Why?  ‘Everybody’ means a lot of people,” she asked, a little confused.

“Ya, but it’s a SINGULAR pronoun.  You have to use a singular verb!” I clarified.

Inga lit a cigarette, blew some smoke toward my face, gave me a quasi-blank stare and said,

“F*k you!”

“O.K.!  Great! Now see?  We’re getting somewhere!” I complimented her, chuckling at her response, “You used an imperative sentence, and you used it correctly!  You inverted the subject and the verb to form a command! Well done! Congratulations!”

And with that, she attended to her next shot, bringing her focus to the forefront.  How hard it must be for Inga!  She not only has to battle the stones of thought skipping through her mind, but she also has to fight stones of language nuances that tiptoe through many of her conversations!  Noun/Pronoun and Subject/Verb agreement were two of these.

As an aside, I quietly whispered to the caddy,

“By the way, as long as we’re talking about grammar, it’s not ‘Mrs. West, where’s your putter at?’ but rather, ‘Mrs. West, where’s your putter?’ NEVER end a sentence with a preposition!”

Shaking his head and laughing, he said, “Is THIS what White women from small towns talk about?  Grammar?”

Because my grammar lesson to the caddy continued through Inga’s shot, I didn’t see where her ball landed.  Neither did she (a clear sign that she had kept her head down).  The other two in the foursome hadn’t seen it either.  They were headed toward their own balls and focusing on THEIR pre-shot routines.

Inga pointed in the direction she THOUGHT her ball went, sending us all out in search of it.

“It’ll be easy to find,” she said, “it’s got gravity all over it!”

“What?!  ALL of our balls have gravity all over them!  It’s what happens when you hit a ball: it flies through the air and because of gravity, it drops down and lands!” we told her.

“Didn’t you ever study Isaac Newton and his Theory of Relativity?  He’s the guy who’s famous for all those laws of motion and universal gravitation things!” I said, overjoyed that I finally had the opportunity to use the only thing I remembered from high school physics.

“NOOOOO!!  GRAAAAAAAAVITY!” she repeated, expecting that lengthening the word and increasing the volume on her pronunciation would increase our understanding.  “It’s got lots of blue and red lines on it that I made with my Sharpie . . . it looks like a gang member painted markings on it!”

“Good god, Inga,” I said, “You mean GRAFFITI, not GRAVITY!”

<Clearly, she’s just skipped another stone . . . across the ocean!>

“Found it!” exclaimed the caddy, nearly doubled over with laughter, “I know it’s the right ball because it’s got GRAVITY all over it!”

I successfully resisted launching into another English lesson, this one on correct pronunciation, but thought better of it.  Instead, I silently reviewed Abby’s instructions to us about focus, visualization and confidence during a round of golf.  Conscious attention to the mechanics of the mental game awarded me with a steady rhythm of 20-second focus, execution of steady shots and, to my great happiness, good scores.  A few more holes of minimal idle chatter passed but as usual, when something seems too good to be true, it usually is.  Our round of golf was in its final quarter, leaving us with only four holes to go.  The afternoon was wearing on, the air was cooling rapidly, and our shadows were lengthening.

All four balls on the green, we began putting; the ball furthest from the hole to be played first, and so on in.  As each player read the green from her position, the others moved to get out of her line or peripheral view.

“I’ll move over here,” offered Inga, “to get my shade out of your way.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

<I failed to notice she’d just tossed another stone!>

“Move way over here. See? When I come over here, my shade comes with me and it doesn’t darken your path anymore!” she explained.

“Oh!!  You mean your SHADOW!” I said, in full comprehension.

“Yes. ‘Shade,’ ‘shadow,’ what difference does it make?” she asked, rhetorically.  “I always get those two words confused!”

Another couple of holes memorialized on the scorecard, the four of us marched down the last fairway when stones of both types were tossed, one being a random thought; the other being an English as a Second Language one.

“If you guys were going to get a tutu, what would you get?” asked Inga.

“A pink one . . . like the ballerina in Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy” wears,” I said, not having to think very long about the kind I’d like.

“A TUTU!” clarified Inga, “like the burn-in-your-skin kind! If you got one of THOSE, what would you get?”

That was it.  I dropped by 3-wood on the ground.  There was absolutely no hope for any of us finishing out the hole.  Even the caddy couldn’t contain himself.  There was such an uproar of uncontrolled laughter from our fairway that golfers on nearby holes stopped to wait for an acceptable level of decorum to return to the area.

I’m guessing that we’ll all be back in Abby’s clinic again this summer.  Despite having passed through her first seminar and improving our mental focus, it’s still blatantly obvious that stones are still skipping through our minds and through the green!