Time....Whose Side is it On?

One of the best things about retirement is not having to maintain a daily schedule generated by the clock. Although I find myself in a bit of a household routine, it's wonderful to 'kind of' wake up when Flint tells me goodbye then drift along with the neighborhood rooster crowing then to sleep or not to sleep....that is the question.

I did go on base recently for a haircut. Flint dropped me off at the Food Court where I ate breakfast with the Food Court breakfast crew, puttered around here and there before going to the Beauty Shop. The girl who works at the Pick Up Point spoke as she exited and I entered. A couple of beauticians were seated, talking. They looked at me and said, "Cut?"

I said, "Si."

They looked at the book. "No appointment?"

"No."

Pietro said, "Come on."

Noticing they weren't as friendly as usual, I said, "Y'all aren't very busy today, are you?"

He replied, "We aren't open yet."

Mortified, I asked, "Why didn't you tell me?"

He said (smiling), "We'll just charge extra!"

I told him, "You may go home early today!"

The Collection to End All Collections

As I sift through all my lifes' treasures, one of the strangest collections-and the one that made my Flintster roll his cute, little eyes at me-is my European toilet paper collection.

Collected over two summer trips to Europe with some pieces donated,

I was fascinated by the various colors and textures.

The 'government property' came from the Tower of

London. The labeled paper with one waxy side and

the other with a slight paper feel could be found at

any national site restroom. Was it labeled to prevent theft? Why would anyone want it?

Stories from Storage

I moved overseas for one year. Twenty-one years later, I'm still here. Golden Transport recently delivered 'stuff' I stored when I sold my house.

Some 'treasures' include:

• a rabbit from my first Easter without ears and tail. There is a family picture somewhere of me as the centerpiece on the dining room table with this rabbit and Easter baskets surrounding me.




• my baby blanket, brush, shoes



• my Barbie doll received in fourth grade. (Her pearl necklace fell apart when I touched it, but the handkerchief is still in her blue purse.) My friends and I were saving Blue Horse coupons to redeem for one. However, Mother surprised me one day when I came home from school , and she had made the weekly trip to El Dorado. This was the only doll I ever received at a time other than Christmas.





• my bride doll and my last baby doll; 'stuffed' items-nearly all homemade usually with embroidery details. My oldest sister always brought me something from college at the end of each semester. The autograph dog was one of her gifts. Many of my facebook friends signed it.



• calendars, journals, diaries, letters, postcards-I don't think I have ever thrown away a postcard mailed or given to me.



• a doll suitcase, a suitcase my Uncle Buck and Nell gave me that I used to take to friends' houses for bunking parties until 8th grade when I received my first piece of Samsonite-the Silhouette makeup bag in red. That's with me again, too!




• my Kodak Instamatic camera. Daddy and Mother surprised me with it when I was in college. Probably my 19th birthday. That started my love of photography.




• books! and more books! the Scholastic book club orders that I treasured, read and reread; Daddy's The Pocket University. Volume 1 Part 1 begins with Thackeray. They seemed to be falling apart years ago as we searched for poems and stories. They still are falling apart, but they don't appear to have aged. Like some people...they have always been old. Published in 1925.

Among all the 'stuff' yesterday, I had to stop and read D.H. Lawrence's short story "Things" as I ran across his book of short stories. Great story, and it helps me get rid of things much more easily. Almost as good as feng shui, Julie Morgenstern and the other clutter experts.

Neighborhood Update

Upon our return from Sorrento, we drove to Valentino's for supper, then immediately returned home. Having had automatic lights off in our BAV, we couldn't get the car started for church the next day as the lights were left on. We hitchhiked with neighbors.

Sunday afternoon soccer ended, and The Flintster decided to check the battery again. I did not go outside, but just listened to the sounds of male voices as they became involved with the jumping process which they eventually managed to do. Whew!

Some of the conversation during that time: An older gentlemen who apparently built the complex and lives one door away claims ownership of the cats. 'My' Olivia is actually Lulu, and she did have her kittens. I've walked down to where they 'live', but I couldn't see her . I trust she will bring her babies to meet me when they are big enough.

Town of Sorrento

Being retired provided the perfect opportunity for me to go with Flint to a conference in Sorrento. What made it even more fun was that another spouse went, too. Unlike our spouses who flew, we took the 'night' train; however, our mistake was that we didn't upgrade to a 'sleeper' car. It has been years since I had taken a night train, and when we checked at the Catania station about the couchettes, the man said, "Only four people, all women, couchettes." We should have known that the Italian train system doesn't keep up with the gender of their customers! LC and I found ourselves sitting up all night with four men in a car that was as hot as a sauna! They were polite, and I'm sure the three across from us had insisted on washing our car windshield on occasion when we have been stopped in Catania traffic.

With our husbands 'conferencing' all day, we hit the ground running with M, a wife we met at breakfast. I'm not a shopper, but I did pretty good each day. LC is a 5-start shopper. Antonioe shuttled us back and forth to town. We managed the streets of Sorrento nicely in pouring rain, unseasonable cold, hail, and located some excellent places to eat. Franco's for pizza; we took our husbands to Sir Joe for Festa della Donna; and Chanticler. Plus Flint, a colleague, and I found a place one evening with the most delicious dessert ever in the land of lemons.

One day we caught another bus to Positano, probably the most charming town on the Amalfi coast. Rock slides caused the road to Amalfi to be closed. We waited for our return bus in gale force winds! The news reported that the Mediterranean had over 100 kph winds that day. Two scheduled buses did NOT come, but finally one did just before the rain intensified and we blew away!

The Navy Supply Corps ball on our final evening provided the opportunity to dress up and visit. I appreciate all the Navy traditions I have encountered, and one of the most touching was the table for one, toasting with the water glass to those at war, missing, etc.

The train ride home during the day wasn't quite the adventure of our night train, but we shared the compartment with some delightful young people...a young man studying to be an actor; a young lady who works in a chocolate factory, and a young Japanese girl on her way to visit Taormina for the second time.

What a wonderful week!

Life with Rubbermaid

A few Sundays ago, I complimented a lady at church on how nicely she was dressed for church. (I find base church-goers to dress extremely casual. I wear pants to church when the weather's not even cold.....) She replied that she just took something that wasn't in Rubbermaid!

And so the life without closets has become 'Life with Rubbermaid.' I could start a Bubba Gump litany of uses/places for Rubbermaid. We have drawers, ladders, photo boxes, step stools, regular boxes, dvd boxes, Christmas boxes, wrapping paper boxes, the heavy duty boxes....If the NEX gets in some products, they sell out in no time. Just like a run on a bank, people run for the Rubbermaid.

Jan Scissorhands

I'm sure that if Thoreau were alive today, he couldn't wait to come in from the great outdoors, sit down at his computer and blog. Since the rainy season appears to be over, I tackled 'the yard' yesterday. 'The Yard' is about as big as a postage stamp and greets our guests as it is in the front, but it's totally overgrown with vegetation and a single, small olive tree stuck right in the middle.

Identifiable plants include some good ones: the olive tree, rosemary, sweet pea, thistle. (Yes, thistle is Scotland's national flower. And didn't you pretend thistle flowers were powder puffs when you were growing up?) Bad: Nettles, nettles, nettles....reminding me of the time in the warmer Bavarian season when Flint led me through some as we walked through the beautiful countryside in shorts, and the movie, "The Magdalena Sisters." Ouch!

The NEX (Navy Exchange) had no snippers or clippers in their gardening section; therefore, I bought Henckel kitchen scissors that weren't even made in Germany. And I started snipping away at the yard. During my second trip to Europe years ago, I recall the workers using scissors to trim carefully around the grave markers in the American Cemetery of Normandy. My snipping is more slash and pile. I knew 'the cats' had been around as they love to sun on the lava rocks that form the base of the fence. One left shortly after I started snipping.

Today I uncovered a rock about the size of Plymouth's, a maze of various sized rocks, a faucet, cat tunnels and the stench of 'the cats.' Oh, my Law! I trimmed nettles away from rosemary, left the thistles, cut out masses of an unknown plant, left plants that must produce some variety of gourd or squash, mistakenly cut the sweet peas three times, and didn't worry a bit as plants grow quickly here. And from 'the yard', a beautiful view of Etna still with quite a bit of snow on her shoulders.

A note since yesterday: The photo is of a half-scissored garden and Olivia the Garden Cat. She naps under the olive tree, and her eyes are green like ripe olives. She stayed with me all day today, and I am a bit concerned that she may be pregnant and not able to get through the fence ....or she's on her last leg. The wind has blown fiercely today, and she just moves from one spot to the other.