AN INTERESTING TRANSITION

In late October, 1970, almost 38 years ago, we were living in Phoenix, Arizona. On a Friday afternoon I was told that I had been promoted from a Branch Manager to a District Manager and I had to report on Sunday (two days later) in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Back in those days you didn’t have options or get to “decide”. We were not even sure where Tulsa or Oklahoma was located.

Cathy was 8 months pregnant. Off I went.

This meant that rather than being able to come home every night as I had always done, I would now have Branch Offices in two states and I would be gone nearly every week.

Fast forward to this afternoon. At 2pm I landed from Sacramento after a wonderful Board meeting the last two days at Freedom from Hunger. I sent Cathy a text as we touched down on the tarmac, and in less than 10 seconds I got a text message from her saying her plane from Dallas had just touched down.

Amazing. What are the odds that we were able to land at the same time given the friendly skies of airline travel this summer?

But that is not the point.

We met up, picked up our suitcases, bumped into our old next door neighbors from New Jersey (see the section "Another Small World Story"at the highlighted post above) at the baggage carousel, went out and got on Marta, Atlanta’s not so rapid transit. There was a problem with the train so they asked everyone to get off so they could take it to the garage.

We let everyone else go first so we could get our bags. Guess what? They sealed the doors shut and the two of us were the only people left on the train and we could not get out.

Note to file: Do not believe the sign that says “Emergency Door Release”. Also do not believe the sign that says “Emergency Intercom-push the red button for immediate contact with the Engineer.”

Of course, it struck me as a little funny. I was alone on that.

We pounded on the door, waved, jumped up and down and had visions of being carted down to the train garage and being sealed in the train for who knows how long. At the end of the car there was an emergency door to the next car. I managed to get it open, but then I was standing out on the coupling mechanism that connected it to the next car. I managed to get the next cars emergency door open and encouraged Cathy to follow me as the doors in the adjoining car had not closed and freedom was but ten yards away.

I am not sure how it happened, but she managed to get herself and her suitcase caught trying to go through the door. It was as if the suitcase had been wedged in with a steam shovel.

Given that a week from tomorrow she is going to have a hip replacement, she is not exactly a gazelle in terms of agility but this was more the fault of the “emergency” door. We solved that problem and both finally made it out of the train .

But that is also not the point of this story.

As we were sitting on the train headed back to our house, after being gone the last two weeks, I pointed out to her that I was going to be in town for the next 7 weeks to help her with her recovery, and that THIS WAS THE FIRST TIME SINCE NOVEMBER, 1970, that I would be at home for that long of a time (or even half that long for that matter). She said “That is really a disgusting fact” or something to that effect and asked me if I thought I was going to be able to do it.

I wonder also.

And finally, por todo nuestros amigos españoles:

¡Felicidades! Después de 44 años, lo hicisteis. La copa Europea. Estupendo, Magnífico, fenomenal y mucho más. ¡VVIA ESPAÑA!

OUT WEST-PART FIVE

We have some history with Big Sur, arguably the most beautiful area in California. Over the years, we have stayed many times at Ventana Inn and Post Ranch Inn in the heart of Big Sur.

One time, we hiked for four hours in sunny, 90 degree plus heat to the top of the mountain overlooking the ocean at Big Sur and thought we were going to die. But we sat down, had a picnic, and started the long road down. That night at dinner at The Ventana, the waiter came over, put a cork in our wine bottle and said gently "I think you two should go to bed. You both are falling asleep in the middle of your meal."

Another time, when my Mom was in her early 80's we took her and the kids on a hot air balloon ride near the ocean and finished it off by taking her to a wonderful lunch at The Ventana. The balloon pilot loved my Mom and would swoop down and skim the balloon like a flat rock on the irrigation canals and Mom would roar with laughter.

One time we stayed at the Post Ranch Inn and I saw an offer in the room that said they were opening another Post Ranch Inn on a small island in Fiji. It would be a Post property run by Jacques Cousteau's son Jean-Michel Cousteau and would be a Mecca for divers. They had a special offer of round trip Business Class tickets on Air New Zealand from Los Angeles to Nandi, Fiji and then a small puddle jumper to the island where the resort was. It included 7 nights and 8 days in our own luxury hut in the jungle including all meals and it promised they would have many of the bottles of wine from their private collection at their Inn in California. All for a very, almost unbelievably, low introductory price.

Neither of us knew how to dive nor wanted to learn. I didn't know where Fiji was and we couldn't really afford it even at the very low price but I didn't care. I stuffed the card down my pants so no one would see it, drove across the street to use the pay phone at Ventana and booked the trip right then and there. C'est la vie.

My family may say I can be a little impulsive.

Two months later the time came. I casually mentioned to Cathy the day before (who knew nothing of this) that we were going away for a week and my Mom was arriving later that day from Arizona to stay with the kids. Of course Cathy had to know where we were going and of course I was not about to tell her.

I said it was none of her business but to bring her passport, a swimsuit and a few casual clothes.

She needed much more information. She didn't get any.

We flew the next morning to Los Angeles and I still hadn't told her so she thought we were going to be in Southern California on the beach and that the passport was just to throw her off track.

When I took her to the International terminal she began to get suspicious since she is no dummy and knew Southern California was not approached through the International Terminal at LAX.

I still wouldn't tell her. As we were standing at the counter getting boarding passes the woman said "The flight to Fiji leaves in about two hours."

Cathy said: "Fiji. Where is Fiji?" I replied I wasn't sure but I thought it was in the ocean somewhere by Australia and I could show her exactly where it was in about 18 hours. I had neglected in my excitement to look on a map to see where it was located.

It was a great trip with incredible accommodations, the fabulous wine they promised and excellent food, without any Ketchup.

I think her favorite part was going around to the villages and meeting the Village Chiefs and their entourages and seeing how the Fijians lived. We wandered for hours in the jungles and interacted with the natives. We drank way too much wine and got way too much sun but had a blast.

My favorite part was sitting in a circle with the village elders at each village, drinking a narcotic drug called Kava out of a communal bowl while my wife worried about how safe it was. You have never really experienced numbness at a dentist office the way your whole face goes numb when drinking Kava, which looks and tastes like dirty soapy water.

We would be sitting on the balcony reading in the afternoon and I would say "I'm going to go see what the gang is doing" and I would wander up to where a bunch of old Fijians were sitting cross-legged in the dirt passing the Kava bowl. I knew I was going a little too often when they would say "Ahh, Grober, come pass the bowl with us". And I would.

So, while that was a little segue to the main purpose of this posting, my point is that we have a lot of history with Big Sur.

Last Sunday we were staying at The Highlands Inn in Carmel so we decided to go down to Big Sur and eat lunch at Ventana since we had not been for a couple of years.

Being from the South, when I saw the sign below on the highway that would take us to the heart of Big Sur, my stomach muscles immediately perked up and I could not stop thinking about smoked ham or barbecued pork.





Then we rounded a corner and saw this:



I screamed "Santa Mierda! I didn't know people in California knew how to have a Southern pig pulling cook-off of that proportion." I began to drive much faster. They were obviously having a huge barbecue competition.

The smoke got larger and larger and I put my head out of the window, hoping to get a whiff of smoking porcine parts, but all I could smell was smoke.

Exactly 10 yards-that is 30 feet or only 360 inches from the entrance to The Ventana and our lunch, which I was hoping would be the pork, we were stopped at a roadblock. The police officer said that the road was closed between here and San Luis Obispo (another 60 miles or so down Highway 1, the main coastal highway) due to bad brush fires and that The Ventana had been evacuated.

So much for my barbecue fantasies.

We turned around and I dejectedly drove back to The Highlands Inn and had a plate of artichokes. It wasn’t the same.

OUT WEST-PART FOUR

Last night we had dinner at Mustards Grill with Rich and Mary. Rich serves on the board with me at Freedom from Hunger but Cathy had never met either of them. We had a great time. We met at their house in St. Helena, the heart of Napa Valley.

What a home and what a garden. Just some of the things in their garden include an acre or so of grapes, which we looked at while drinking a bottle of his wine he bottled in 1997. Then there was the artichoke plant that produces about 25 artichokes a year.

For me, nirvana would be having my own artichoke plant. Of course there is also the Capers plant, the Olive trees (and we had a wonderful bowl of their olives), the red peach tree that has such good fruit that Dean and Deluca buy some of their fruit. Then there were the pomegranates and plums and on and on.

It was the single nicest garden we have ever seen. They are thinking of selling it and moving farther west due to the onslaught of tourism in St. Helena and I had to almost tie Cathy’s hands before she wrote a check for the down payment.

Here are a couple of photos that do not do their garden justice unfortunately.


Note the artichoke plant with the pink flowers right in front in the photo above.



Then today we had a special event planned. There had been a program on The Food Channel a few months ago called “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” and one of the ones featured was Taylor’s Automatic Refresher in St. Helena. We had seen it many times but had never been so for lunch today we went there.

This is definitely Napa Valley's idea of a hamburger place. It looks like a burger joint and tastes like a burger joint, but since 1949 they have been here in St. Helena and along with Burgers, Fries and Dogs, you can get a bottle of red wine from Napa (2005 Caymus Cabernet) for only an additional $80.



You order at the window and then go sit at some picnic tables around the corner and wait for them to call your name. The guy wanted my name and the first letter of my last name. I gave it to him and said “You likely won’t have a lot of Grover’s here” to which he said “Oh, I am used to weird names.”

I let it go.

Cathy had found a table out in the back in the shaded area and was waiting for me. I brought the food over and, as a good husband, asked her if she would like some ketchup, a substance I hate and feel should be outlawed. She said yes so I went and got two little packets and wrapped them up in a paper napkin so my hands wouldn’t touch it.

She told me she needed two more. I went to get them. Please note, for future reference, the two metal trash cans in the photo below.



As I was walking back with these little packets of putrid Ketchup, I felt like they were sweating and the Ketchup was seeping through on to my skin. I was studying my hands and the packets as I walked along.

The next thing that happened was, in front of 50 or so people sitting around picnic tables, I crashed into the trash cans. The sound was similar to when a Rose Bowl Marching Band all hit their cymbals at once. Everyone stopped eating to stare at me and my companion was falling off of our bench.

Advance forward 15 minutes. I have recovered, the crowd has gone back to lunch or left, and I decided to go to the bathroom. When I entered into the bathroom, I realized that the entire time my fly had been open for all to see and of course, my spouse was too busy laughing to notice it and to tell me. Of course I had been walking around all morning with her and she hadn’t mentioned it.

OUT WEST-PART THREE

It is always a good idea to book in advance during the busy summer months, especially in the Napa Valley.

We have been to Napa on more than 20 different trips so I know that. I just don't always practice it.

So, by the time I got around to it, the only decent thing I could do was reserve a place I had read about called The Cottages of Napa Valley. It is an old Motor Court from a century ago that also did some time as a whorehouse. They have remodeled it into a very nice quiet retreat (see photos below) and we had our own cabin (they look like schoolhouses) with all the amenities of any five star property.

Of course, it costs more than two and a half times what I was paying at the Grand Hyatt in San Francisco earlier this week (due to my procrastination in finding a more reasonable place).

But here is the first question:

Wouldn't you think that for that kind of price, they would have laundry service? After all, they bring you fresh croissants and muffins to your room every morning from Bouchon Bakery, owned by the famous Thomas Keller. His restaurant, The French Laundry, one of the top two or three restaurants in the country, sits one half block away from his bakery.

But when I asked them to do some laundry (I also am not good at packing in advance), they told me they don't do it there and it would take three days.

So, for my close friends that have known me for years, can you imagine, in your wildest dreams, that you would ever see a photo of me sitting at the place below, while my clothes tumbled?




Hey-you gotta do what you gotta do.

OUT WEST-PART TWO

Napa Valley, June, 2008



Some of you have asked me why I do not post more photos of Cathy when I post so many of other weird things. Wait, did that come out right?



Now you know the answer.

SHE HATES TO HAVE HER PICTURE TAKEN.

OUT WEST-PART ONE

Having grown up in the West, it is always fun to return. You never know what you may encounter and over the next couple of days I will share some of the more interesting things from the trip.

I enjoy taking photos of unusual signs, and today as I drove along the Northern California coast on Highway 1, with a destination of Starbucks in Carmel, I saw this sign.

Whoever did this combines a great sense of humor with way too much time on her or his hands since they took the time to go find and buy this red dot (I assume they did not have a bag full with them in their car at the time).

Merry Early Christmas from Rudolph.

NOTE-I WROTE THIS ON FATHER'S DAY BUT FOR SOME REASON IT DID NOT POST AND I JUST REALIZED IT THIS MORNING SO HERE IT IS AGAIN.

HAPPY FATHERS DAY, POP!

A Fathers Day never passes without my thoughts turning to you, even though you left this world over 17 years ago. Every day, something I do, something I like or dislike, something I am happy or sad about is connected to you as I am the sum of you and Mom.

Usually I remember the happy times before you had your problems. I feel like so much was lost in growing up because of the impact of the issues you could not bring yourself to deal with. You were so intelligent and knew so much about so many things. I could have learned so much more from you if you would have been willing to get help.

But after many years, I realize that I never held it against you and I never had any anger about it. Instead, I just feel sad about it because you carried so much pain for so long, all inside you, because you would not allow others to help you. You left this world never really knowing how happy life can be-how to enjoy life to the fullest-how joyous a family can be. Thank goodness Mom instilled all of that in me.

But I still loved you because you were my Dad and I wish you were here today so I could honor you and show you how much your family has grown and celebrated life. You will be pleased to know that later on today we are taking Grover, Cris, Landon and Wes out to see Mom in Arizona, and tomorrow, we will have Andrea, Lee and Finn live from London on the Webcam. They left Atlanta last night to fly home and landed in London this morning.

I remember the times learning to plant and harvest a vegetable garden. I remember you helping me create my own little business at 6 or 7 years of age where I would take the veggies in my little red wagon and walk from home to home selling them. This was back in the days before copiers and computers so you painstakingly and lovingly made up a little advertisement on small index cards and copied each one over and over by hand so I had a business card to hand out to each customer. I am certain my success in business could be traced back to that initial venture.

Christmas was always special and you would go way overboard on presents for all of us. Christmas morning would always find a new electric train or accessory under the tree and I still remember the Christmas Eve when I was about six and I woke up, heard noise downstairs and crept to the top of the stairs and peered downward. There were you and Mom, on hands and knees, putting some track together around the tree and a shiny new Lionel engine. I didn’t quite understand it at that moment but when I came down the next morning to open presents and you and Mom said “Oh, look at the train Santa brought you” I had two immediate thoughts that I still remember to this day.

The first one was “Crap-there really isn’t a Santa Claus.”

The second one was “I better not mention that just in case I am wrong and there really is a Santa.”

I really miss you Pop. I think about you so often and wish you were still with me so I could share all the ups and downs in my life, but especially all the joy.

EMERGENCY BLOG ALERT!

For the last two and a half years I have used a photo I took in Spain of me and my two Washington, DC grandsons, Landon and Wes, on my profile page when you first go to my Blog.

Yesterday afternoon they flew to Atlanta to meet their new cousin, and my third grandson, Finn, who has to go back to London tomorrow night. I said the first thing I wanted to do was to get a new photo of the three of them together with me to use as my new profile.

A half hour after they arrived, they were fast buddies as you can see from the new photo that is now on my profile!

And yes, I did just notice that in both cases I was wearing a green shirt-fortunately a different one. I must really like green shirts.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

LIFE GOES ON, BUT AT TIMES I MISS THE DAYS GONE BY

Before they grew up, before we became older, before our family had health issues, before we had any resources, before we had any education,

We had each other as a Family.

And it was so nice.

Like all families, we had things we collected together. Some families collected stamps, others baseball cards, others Cabbage Patch kids, others coins and still others collected trips to baseball stadiums or National Park

In our case, we collected Hair.

ALICE AND ERVIN ARE NOW MR. AND MRS. BAGLEY

Alice and Ervin got married yesterday in the very full chapel of the Georgia Baptist Children's Home in Palmetto, Georgia where Alice works.



It was a wonderful service with the church filled to capacity, 95 degrees outside and cool and comfy inside.

Ervin looked both handsome and happy and Alice was calm and beautiful in her gorgeous dress.

As an usher began to escort Alice's mother, Barb, down the aisle at her daughters wedding, she looked down in the pew at us, and exclaimed "Oh look, there is Finn"! It was so, so funny.

After the wonderful service we went outside for lemonade and iced tea under tents on the campus but we couldn't stay long as we were a little concerned about the heat's impact on Finn so we went back to the hotel to let him rest.

Later that night we went back to a clubhouse for the real party and we dropped off Andrea and Lee and we went in only long enough to wish them well and let Alice say goodbye to Finn since he will be back in London when they are back from their honeymoon.

We went back to the hotel and put Finn to bed about 730, which was after midnight on his time. We were watching TV about 10pm and I decided I was hungry so walked down to the lobby to find a vending machine.

Andrea and Lee were staying in room 115 and as I approached it, the door opened. Since they were at the reception I thought this a bit odd and then a woman walked out completely dressed in red, carrying a large red bag made out of netting and it was full. I realized she was stealing their things so I blurted out "Hey, what are you doing with that stuff?"

She wheeled around (I thought she might have a gun) and had this startled look on her face. She said "I'm going to the laundry room to do this laundry."

About the time she began to answer my question, I noticed that she had exited Room 117, not Room 115 as I had originally thought.

So, for reasons that are not clear to me since I have never said this before, I looked her in the eye and said, in my best Aussie accent, "Okay, Carry On" and I briskly, very briskly, walked away.

This was the first night Finn had stayed with us and he slept from 730pm to 630 this morning, with just a couple of little short wake ups for a bottle during the night. But at 630 when he woke up, he had managed to have an atomic bomb poop during the night so one of us (not me) changed him. Since his clothes were covered they were rinsed out and then put in the bathroom sink to soak.

You can see in the photo below he was so happy after his great bowel movement it made his hair stand straight up.



After I had gone to Starbucks to get coffee I decided to brush my teeth and immediately dropped my toothbrush into the sink full of poop water where Finn's clothes were soaking.

ALICE & ERVIN GET MARRIED TOMORROW

And wouldn't Alice like to know where and how I obtained a photo of her from 1997 or so?



Congratulations to you both. I know that one of your litle visitors from London arrived safe and sound last night and is going to be happy to meet you. And I can't wait to get home tonight from Chicago to see him and to be with you two tomorrow.

I think it is going to be one "HOT" wedding!

FLYING

I know this sounds like whining and that is my intent.

I understand I am blessed to get to travel to very interesting places and so I shouldn't complain, especially since I am the one making the reservations.

And if you are a long time Blog reader you know I don't complain about the travel part of the interesting places.

But crap-it is the Atlanta to Chicago or back trip, which I make all the time, that just seems to turn my toenails upside down.

Here I am typing this from the Delta Crown Room in Atlanta at 6:50 pm on Wednesday, which is about 12:5o am on my body clock since I just got back from Spain. The plane is supposed to leave in one minute.

At first they said it was 45 minutes delayed and about 20 minutes ago they said it is an hour and a half delayed leaving Atlanta. I asked them why. They said the weather in Chicago is horrible.

So I called Dave McDonough, the CEO of our company and he just told me there is not a cloud in the sky.

So, as usual, they are lying (the airline, not Dave). It looks now like I will get to the hotel about midnight and I have an 8am meeting at the office.

This just really pisses me off.

To make me feel better and entertain myself so I won't fall asleep and miss the plane, I have been watching this video over and over that my friend Bill sent to me. It is funny.

BEING A BILINGUAL IDIOT

First, a little background to this story.

My Spanish is far from great and I would kill to be able to speak it as well as our son Grover can. But over time and with lots of effort, I have become what I think most people would say is fairly fluent. I can certainly read anything and understand it and I can argue, laugh, cry and give speeches in Spanish. So I am not great, but I am not a beginner and I am past the point where when I approach someone in Spain and begin speaking in Spanish they answer me in English.

As many of you likely know, in Spanish, all nouns are either feminine or masculine. The noun itself is preceded by a definite article (TMI, I know) of either “el” if masculine of “la” if feminine.

In general (not always), nouns ending in A are feminine and nouns ending in O are masculine. This means that there is often a difference in the noun of one letter-such as “el niño” (little boy) or “la niña” (little girl). Usually, in a case like that, if you used the wrong form, the listener would still understand.

But sometimes that one letter changes the meaning significantly.

So, a couple of days ago at a hotel in Spain I could not figure out how to get the shower (la ducha) to work. It had one of those knobs you turn to set the right mix of hot and cold coming out of the shower and the button that keeps you from accidentally turning it on too hot was broken so the knob would just turn round and round and not change the temperature of the water.

So I went down to Reception and walked up to Martín, who I had met and chatted with for a while earlier in the day. I confidently said to him:

“Hombre. Tengo un problema. Me duchaba y la grifa no funcionó. Note the dark shaded noun, “la grifa”.

What I thought I said was: “Hey-I have a problem. I was taking a shower and the faucet wasn’t working correctly.” With one small exception (la grifa), that is what I said. Those of you who speak Spanish may now get up off of the floor. The rest of you will have to wait.

He asked me to repeat it and he did. He had the look on his face of someone who is talking to a well dressed woman when she farts loudly and he doesn’t want to start laughing. So he asked me what the problem was.

I said: “Fíjate. Giré y giré la grifa y no me ayudó por nada. Traté con más fuerza pero todavía nada sucedió.

What I thought I said was “Listen. I turned and turned the faucet and it didn’t help me at all. I tried with more force but still nothing happened.” With one small exception (la grifa), that is what I said.

He started laughing and I didn’t think it was particularly funny. He asked me how I was feeling. I thought that was a bizarre question but to be polite I said “Estupendo” or Stupendous. By now he was really laughing and little droplets of water were streaming out of his eyes.

All of a sudden you could tell that something had just dawned on him and he said “Pues, Sr. Tomas, voy a mandar el hombre del departamento de mantenimiento en seguida. Él lo reparará pronto.” Which means, “Well, Mr. Thomas, I will send a man from the maintenance department at once. He will repair IT soon.”

I thanked him and walked away quite perplexed about why he was now leaning against the counter to keep from falling over because he was laughing so hard.

I entered the elevator and realized that when he said the man would repair IT, he used the masculine form (lo in this case) instead of la. Which meant that La Grifa was incorrect and I probably should have said “grifo”, not “grifa”. I thought to myself “No big deal, there are likely female faucets and male faucets just like we have female and male connections with electrical stuff in our country.”

I got to the room and looked it up in the dictionary.

El Grifo is a faucet.

La Grifa is Marijuana.