Post vacation musings..

This is why I wanted to be away on Halloween:  We both reek from Ben-Gay(me from a long term tendonitis issue, Jim from the thing that just happened in Jamaica that I am forbidden to discuss) and the doorbell is ringing non-stop, and Luke is barking like they are terrorists. So a little Spider Man pets him, and next thing I know,  Spider Man plans an exit route through the bushes right by  our front window instead of the path that leads to the door and he's suddenly on the ground, sobbing like Spider Man shouldn't.  The  Dad comes over and yells at the kid for smacking into the outer ledge of a window and then rubs his back.  We're offering the kid water, band-aids, antiseptic, extra candy.   This better not result in a lawsuit..I didn't want to be home for Halloween and I didn't want a dog after Max died. But Spidey's Dad should have been paying closer attention.  Oh yeah, and then Luke gets  out anyway.  Unfortunately, he came back.  Oooh!!  Now another group of kids just rang the bell and I made Jim answer and I hear a chorus of "that's a MEAN dog!" and Jim is trying to deny it.  He might as well have  been in denial if they chanted "he sure looks like a poodle to us!".  All I care about now is that there will be enough  leftover Heath bars for me.

all I'm hearing now is "don't worry about him" as Jim THROWS candy into pillowcases from a safe distance of about 40 yards.. But they ARE worried about him..him being Luke.  And our candy supply is now down to 33 percent..I just made Jim go to the store for more, so now I have to be the one that needs to warn the  little Spideys.  Oh, I wish I could tell everyone my poodle was actually a Rotweiller or a pit bull, but I can't

I'm updating way too often, I know, but Jim just answered the door and told a trick-or-treater, "don't worry about Luke.. He's much worse than he looks"..My husband needs a nap

I've been trusting my next door neighbor with my  spare house  key for over a dozen years, so imagine my absolute SHOCK when...ha!  Just messin' with you, I wanted to see if you were paying attention.  Yes, the mail and newspapers were neatly piled, but OMG..I was sure we were in the wrong house! We bought new carpets and  den furniture before we left, and then upholstered the old stuff and put it into the living room, and she says:  "I have to bring in the mail anyway, would you mind if I picked up a few things to accent the new stuff?"  Needless to say, I have a beautiful home  thanks to her wizardry!  She moved around some artwork and added something she was no longer using, and moved some furniture so it's visually pleasing to the eye and accented with stunning throw rugs and pillows. Who thinks of color coordinating a doily to rest under a telephone on an end table?  She is GENIUS, but I'm not posting pics until Evan comes home for Thanksgiving break and sees her artistry.  Interior decorators can make tons of money, and she should be one!  We  love you Tami!

"A hot dog makes her lose control??": 10/31/2015

I woke up to reality today, missing the beach and missing trying to avoid eye contact with the Reefer Man. I miss the option of a crepe suzette, and I miss hearing the drunks congregate around the swim up bar, loudly singing, which they did quite often and did it as 'though they were the first people to think of this,  "while Cathy adores a minuet, a ballet rousse and CREPE SUZETTE"..That was a cute tribute, but I was always curious about the verse that follows, being "Our Patty likes to Rock and Roll..a hot dog makes her lose control.."  Lose control??  Of what??  Her bodily functions??  Her mind??  I'm guessing the latter, and the hot dogs contained hallucinogens, which the shows' creator must've eaten as 'though this was Fourth of July at the Coney Island  Nathan's  if he thinks anyone's gonna buy such a thing as IDENTICAL cousins.  I have a DVR with 29 shows, and I'm planning on watching most of them this afternoon while ignoring the little monsters who will be disturbing me with the knocks and begging for candy.  If I wanted to hear begging, I'd be on the next plane back to Jamaica

Goodbye Jamaica: 10/30/2015

As our Jamaican getaway comes to an end today, I realize two things: 1) My marriage may be dysfunctional(because it's a marriage) and wacky as Jamaican toback-y, but we bring out the best in each other when the Caribbean sun smiles upon us and makes the water Windex Blue. 2) My regular blog, kayfivenj.blogspot.com is like Zeppo Marx.  It is fun to write, and actually could be funnier than its sibling, but it won't get the response that this more popular vacation journal does, and I suppose that is indeed the "most ridiculous thing you ever heard" because I'm comparing a diary to Groucho, and I'm sure I'm not the first to do so. We're heading back to a house with no butler, unless you count Jim, and bathrooms with solid doors, but I wanted to tell you about our last night on vacation. We dined in the gourmet french restaurant on things I can't pronounce because nothing on the menu said "meringue" or "mon chien et Luke." I COULD pronounce Crepe Suzette and fried brie, which were both excellent. We then went to the Pirate Show, right on the beach in front of our room "6016!" (If I include the exclamation point, I am Jean Valjean, singing his prison number, which I wish I had thought of earlier)There was a dazzling display of fire eating and walking barefoot on a bed of nails; of contortionists easing their bodies through hollowed out tennis rackets: of a skilled acrobat who hoisted his partner by the ear lobes and put him on top of his head without breaking a sweat. I told Jim if Reefer Man had shown up earlier in the evening, I could have attempted all of the above, and he told me that would never happen, that I'd just get the munchies and be asleep by 8:00.  And if anyone's an expert on the munchies and being asleep by 8:00 PM, it's him.  After the show, we took a stroll in the moonlit surf when I accidentally found myself making eye contact with the Reefer Man on the rocks, and I turned around and walked the other way, only to make eye contact with struggling artists peddling paintings of men selling reefer from their kayaks, but Jim took my arm and led me to safety. I'm going to miss Jamaica and its cast of eccentric characters, with Jim in the lead role.  Or me.  Perhaps I'm the Queen of Quirk. (I was compelled to write a sentence with two "Qs) When we first arrived here in room 6-0-1-6-exclamation point, I was excited to discover the room had his and her closets, his and her sinks, and his and her full length mirrors on either side of the bathroom because we're preeners if we're anything.  And you know what I discover today, as we're about to leave?  I discover that those mirror are mounted on separate wooden doors, that could have been pushed together giving the bathroom occupant complete privacy, which meant there was no toilet that looked like a fishbowl, which meant I would have had nothing to write about.  For some of you, that might have been a good thing.  For others, well, thanks for the feedback as my battery is now at  fifteen percent, which means I don't have to kill Jim for neglecting to bring the charger. See ya'!

"Jim.. The power.. she's down to 22%".. 10/29/2015

Greetings from room 6016(yeah Mon!) where I was so busy writing a book that nobody will ever read that I forgot to read one that people actuallly do and did.  I am down to 22% power, so I gotta ration like I'm Redford in "All is Lost."Let's get something straight:  I am DINGY, not dumb. A dumb person couldn't look at a Wheel of Fortune bonus puzzle("People") that provided only the A,L,S,and T and see "Jovial Hosts." A dingy person would do things that I've actually done, like the time I accompanied Jim Donio to LA in 1987, tore open the curtains of the hotel and remarked, "what a gorgeous lit-up city LA is!" and he replied, "that's the airport and what you see is the landing strip." Or when Andi and I went to Busch Gardens in1980, where she had to teach this dingbat how to use utensils to crack open a lobster and how not to suffer from flatulence when you didn't have to. Or this:  When I took Marissa Levson to Woodloch Resort in the summer of 2004, and we returned President's Weekend of 2005 and I open the curtain and say, "oh wow, I don't remember this enormous field when we were here last summer and she respectfully replies, "that's the lake, Aunt Karen, and it's covered with ice and  snow because this is February." I KNOW the staff here at the Iberostar think I'm dingy, because I walk down the corridors(of the Chinese restaurant/brothel) decor and will suddenly burst into a loud rendition of "I Shot the Sheriff" and when they look at me quizzically, I add for emphasis, wagging my finger, "But I did not shoot the deputy!"  Bet nobody believes me. They're thinking:  "Maybe not, but she shot somebody " Dingy, but not dumb because when Sajak says to Vanna and the contestant, "there's no way to solve this because you didn't have the letters" I'm smugly screaming at the TV "because you're not ME!" We did the lazy river today, which was more like the comatose river, and Jim gets into a political discussion within three minutes of meeting an old man on an inner tube who says, "Jersey??  Governor Christie?  I don't like him and I HATE Hillary" and when Jim asks why, the old guy in the inner tube says"because I want the truth!" and I answer, "Sir, you can't HANDLE the truth!" He was from Rhode Island..is this how Rhode Islanders think?  All I know about the state is what I learned from "Family Guy." Jim's snorkeling trip was a bust..he saw one lone fish, a mangy old grey and white fish that I nicknamed Clara Peller because it swam by him and asked, "where's the REEF?" Tonight we will wait for the kayaks, and watch grandmothers from Maryland say to a rasta, "where's the reefer?"

What the h*ll did Jim do? 10/29/2015

The battery on this lap top is now down to 33%, but it could be worse because I could have dying batteries  in appliances..yeah, "appliances"..that really matter. I cannot thank you enough, Christine Cherry Hommel and Cherry Travel for always steering us in the right direction..You make every birthday and anniversary so special! And you know, Ground Hog Day is only three months away...maybe someone outside of Puxatawney PA should celebrate those suckers? Food for thought. I'm glad you enjoy my travel journaling Christine, but Jim is forbidding me to share the funniest thing that's happened so far.  Here's hoping an astute beachgoer captured it all on video and put it on YouTube because if I told you what it is I'd have to kill you, and then who would make my travel arrangements when we want to celebrate Arbor  Day? I'm going to miss those crazies on their kayaks at 5:00 PM. The ones who may succeed in selling a bunch of grandparents some premium ganja, and who may even convince me to buy a silver bracelet that I'll take home and find out I haggled for some Jamaican kid's used dental retainer. It is going to be so hard adjusting to life in suburban NJ after this trip.  It's not like I can approach someone in Stop n Shop and smile and wave and say "hey, where are you from and when did you get here?"  Or maybe I can.  Maybe I will, just to break up the monotony of suburban life.  I hope I see those hilarious women from Baltimore this morning..Also, I've been thinking of Donald Trump, like everyone should on this third anniversary of Hurricane Sandy, because we should be thinking about disasters during a crisis.  I'm thinking of the first RNC, when Megyn Kelley asked Trump that question that accused him of misogyny, when he answered:  "Only Rosie O'Donnell..and Karen Levson-Amster" because let's face it, the Donald would not appreciate me one iota.

Boogie Nights! 10/28/2015

We just returned from the fantabulous Boogie Nights Show, followed by 30 minutes of really fun and intense disco dancing.  Poor Jim..I can't tell you how many Club Med-dish discos we've gone to where he had to dance alone and listen to my choruses of " I am dizzy! I've got vertigo!  I've got sciatica! And even with directional dyslexia, I have two left feet.!" He is a good egg who loves me and puts up with all my mishegos, but then Bob Marley pulls me onto the dance floor and wasn't having any of my lame  excuses, and not just because he's dead and has no idea what "mishegos" means. You don't say no to Bob Marley, and then Donna Summer pulls Jim onto the floor and they dance like it's their Last Dance. (Can you get sued for libel by dead reggae and/or disco stars?) So yes, I HAD to dance, and Bob Marley was making my almost sixty year old self feel really really good.  I was considering ditching Jim and inviting BM back for a nightcap, but you all know why I couldn't do that, and it has nothing to do with marital vows of fidelity.  It's because I still can't remember my effin' room number

The Doobie Sisters..: 10/28/2015

Another fifteen minutes to kill before show time, another update, another apology who have had their fill of Karen updates. This was a fun day, once the  magnificent rainbow came out.  Very cool, Mother Nature, considering the government in Jamaica has a somewhat homophobic rep. We had a great time with these hilarious women from Baltimore, six of them on a girls' week to celebrate someone's sixtieth.  (Oh, how I wish I could follow suit with my besties) These women are die-hard sports fans, not just the kind who try to follow sports to impress their sons, but the real deal who live for the Ravens. And they were so observant, noticing it was five o'clock not because of anyone's watch but because of how they'd collectively watch the kayaks come in with the natives pushing junk jewelry and hats and pot..lots of pot.  They warned us not to make eye contact and narrated in quite an entertaining way as this teeny weenie bikini chick walked to the far endr of the resort, obviously to buy some weed. Which I'm assuming she did all week because we only saw her once before, when she joined us in the hot tub, rinsed her hair under the bubbles, and then split. And then we were joined by a couple from NJ whom we met on the first day who are the exact same age as us, and here we are, in the calm blue water, in our fifties and sixties, and the Baltimore ring leader and the NJ guy were actually considering scoring some pot. And everyone shared college experiences and I'm giving Jim the evil eye that said, "don't even think about it, your mind is gone enough in your non-hazy state" but wow, I felt like I was in someone's dorm in the 70's, pretending to take a hit just so I could justify having this personality..  The Baltimore ladies then notice someone we noticed in the elevator a few days ago..a giant with a giant smile,  Turns out he played for the NFL for the Houston Texans. (Do you know the name Will Kegler, Gary R. Lassin and/or Arlene NissonLassin?) Very sweet guy..There are no iguanas here, but we have seen a lot of stray cats. Not very likely we're going to take one home, but my BFF's husband did on a diving trip to Cozumel a few years back, so you never know.  Except you should know because I'm not a cat fan.

Jerking the chicken..: 10/28/2015

Relax peeps, I'm not wasting vacation time to type my hourly therapy session, it is raining.  Real rain.  I'm not buying this' liquid sunshine' crap. We actually had a great morning.  I met the dive instructor, Rachel from Australia, who assured me the jellyfish around here have no spines(and then I told her about some people from my  real life with the same issue) She may have said "tentacles" because no jellyfish have spines, but I'm on a roll, so inaccuracies are OK. Rachel said that there are no sharks and as long as I wasn't wearing a hot urine-trapping wet suit, it was OK to pee in the ocean.  It would not attract predators.  Jim went snorkeling and came back to join us(by us I mean three guys, 42 fat women, and me, who couldn't follow a damn thing) for water aerobics.  The instructor was very very hot but remember, I can't follow the simple instructions of the hokey-pokey, and after four days I still don't remember my room number.  So I pretend to follow hot Jamaican guy.  At least I could scream out "yeah Mon!" like everyone else.  He then, and I kid you not, and  if I could take pictures of anything other than the inside of my eyeballs, I'd have photographic proof, that Jamaican Hot Guy put his hands on his crotch and makes a jerking motion then while the reggae sound pulsated through the air, he squirted a fountain in the pool and joked, "it's not what you think, Mon" and the fat ladies are laughing and I'm thinking "It's EXACTLY what I'm thinking, Mon, and if I had a body like yours, I'd be making porn." Oh, and I know what you're thinking..there are plenty of porn sites that look for actresses with a body like mine, so thanks for visiting those sites.  Is it still raining??  Yes, yes it is,  so I'll share one more story. We went to the beach for a Jerk Chicken demonstration and Jim was recruited immediately to be a chef.  I think it's because someone liked his sick humor when the chef standing next to him was handed a pair of plastic gloves and Jim quips"  "Bend over.."..So he was Chef Number Two and he was told how to apply the spices and basically how to jerk.   And the main chef is yelling at him to "massage those breasts sir!" and I'm thinking "are you so blinded by the Jamaican sun that you can't tell we've not exactly  defied gravity?" I'm not saying I don't enjoy a good breast massage, I'm just saying they're not chicken cutlets, they just LOOK like chicken cutlets. The lights just went out.  I'm thinking it's not going to be a pool day

Who makes me laugh..: 10/28/2015

We saw a show last night with the theme of Big Band that rivaled anything we ever saw in Woodloch, who set the standard for excellence. And the dancer, Leslie, came over to speak to us after telling us all about life in Jamaica, and we were both sorry we missed the show on arrival day with its Broadway theme because we were exhausted. The entertainment offered here is top notch, and I just wanted to prove I could write about something other than marital minutia. Because this really isn't a travel journal, I'm not back packing through Europe or teaching kids from South Africa how to solve the cryptograms that appear daily in the Star Ledger(the only thing I do well), I just happened to be able to swing a couple of Caribbean all-inclusives, funded by the meth lab I run in my basement, and suddenly people are asking me to blog and I don't get a single visitor, which is OK because face it, I'd be sick of me by now too. Yesterday, we were in the hot tub and Jim says to me, "You know, I've been following you on Facebook(as he should!) and I bet some people are going to say you are funny, and I reply "what do you mean I'm funny??" and then I shot him but actually did not because at least on vacation, he's a Goodfella. He then asked about whom makes me LOL, and we decided to challenge each other and name our top three contenders for FB friends who give us the giggles.  Mine are, in no particular order but I'll start with the guys, my brother Steven Levson who puts me in stitches every time he calls, even 'though it takes about fifteen minutes of "what's new?" and "what's going on?" before he makes it real, and especially when his sidekick Kenneth Paul is in the room, and Kenny would make this list if he could make fun of me for other reasons than the fact that I see a lot of movies and I have a lot of respect for buffets. Next would be my college BFF James Donio, and it should be required that every insecure college frosh meet her gay BFF the first month they're on campus.  They'll still be insecure about grades, but damn, they'll no longer give a shit about what they look like. Call me sometime, wouldja Jim? And then I should mention my blog muse Don, whom I won't embarrass with a tag(only my son Evan, who belongs on this list too, would be more embarrassed with a shout out) but Don makes me laugh, and even 'though I've known him for forty years, starting back when he had the rep of being one sardonic SOB and we might have lost touch had it not been for FB, he's the kind of good fella who showed up on the day I had to bury my Mom, even 'though it was minus eighty degrees outside, and he's the kind of mensch I hope my sardonic son turns out to be as well.  Ladies second..The woman who makes me laugh the most is my BFF Rochelle Polonsky Napoli, and she is  introverted so you'll just have to believe me when I tell you that she is much funnier than I could ever hope to be.  We bonded over vomit in camp in 1976. I over ate, on sucky CAMP FOOD, which tells you how pathetic I am, and she walked me to the infirmary and she told me about all the counselors she didn't like, who also made my list, and by the time we reached our destination, we were both vomiting and I knew then we'd live happily ever after.  Ro doesn't vomit, and she doesn't drink, but she did both at a very important time, the night before we were supposed to leave for Club Getaway, so she didn't go, so I had to go without her, which meant we just couldn't sit back and cut up everyone there, so I got out of my comfort zone and met my husband who yeah, has seen me vomit quite  a few times and thanks to the fishbowl toilet of this room, seen more.  I can't mention bodily functions without giving an honorable mention to Andrea Miller Seitchik, another camp friend who can talk about toilet humor and make you a four-year-old.  There are so many contenders, but if I have only two more slots to fill, I'd go with the big sis I don't have but wish I did, Robin Siegel, who is so witty and brilliant she could make your head spin, which is why when you ask her who her favorite SATC character was she'd answer without thinking, "Miranda because she's a bitch." Or.."I'm glad you invited your Mom to the seder, but within minutes of meeting me she started to talk about her bowel habits."  For those of you who don't know Robin, yes she works in a hospital, but as a librarian.  My mom, rest her soul, loved to discuss her bodily functions. Oh, I miss you Mom., and what your reaction would have been when you saw the toilet had see-through walls.And if I have to think of one more female who makes the cynical me laugh out loud, I'd have to think of a FB friend I never met, someone I met through an on-line game and whom the world cruelly lost to breast cancer last year. I love and miss you, Kelly Covello, and talk about marital minutia, nobody captured it like you did. She made me laugh with every post, be it discussing the sliver of soap her family left her to shower with, or all the hilarity that ensured during SuperStorm Sandy, and because she lived on LI, she had more to complain about than even we did, but she weathered the storm like she weathered everything, from hating all the pink of this breast cancer awareness month to hating drivers who couldn't park. (Yet she liked me anyway!) She did..she liked my game playing skills and she was a FOKA(for you "Acrophobia" players, a Fan Of Karen Amster) and wow, did she make me laugh, even 'though she was a Republican.

Karenoia!!

When room service came today, I poured coffee into a glass filled with ice, but I didn't notice the deceptively thin cover of plastic on the glass, so the coffee went everywhere but where it needed to.  Does this make me crazy or merely blind?  I hope it's the latter, because if I'm NOT losing my eyesight, then I AM losing my mind.  The sun is out, the water is blue, and I decide to do my 30 minute treading in the ocean, because all poolside seats were taken, even unfairly, like with empty tubes of sunscreen. I'm alone in the ocean and I start to panic like I'm auditioning for "Open Water, Part Three". I was seeing what looked like a sea of white tissues--pulsating white tissues, and I was positive I was going to be consumed by every vicious Man-o-War in Jamaica, which is insane because there are none here, but that didn't stop my Karenoia. If Jim couldn't even figure out that a tap on the wrist was Dolphin-speak for "what time is it?" how would he possibly figure out that I was signaling to him that I was about to be a nice big snack for some pretty pissed off jelly fish? I thought if I scream "there are a million venomous jellyfish in here!" I'd be in hot water because if I were RIGHT, then every guest in this Iberostar would be demanding their money back, and if I were WRONG, I'd be carted off to a loony bin, where I'll bet ya the toilets are less private than the fishbowl ones in our room. So Jim begruningly joins me in the water, MAD because he was en route to the bathroom, which made ME mad because he should be able to do it in the ocean like the swarms of people and jellyfish do. Then I told him my fear, the aforementioned tissue issue, and he couldn't stop laughing at me.  He told me I'd be intense pain had I been covered in stinging jellyfish, and what I was seeing was merely shadows of seaweed or more likely, water droplets on my glasses that reflected back as white gelatinous blobs. So yes, we white gelatinous blobs make our way back to the safety of the dry beach where I confess to Jim, "I'm still seeing the jellyfish" and he tells me"there's a little optical anamoly called..FLOATERS.  You were seeing eye FLOATERS the whole time you were having a heart attack out there." He was so annoyed that he went back into the water..to pee.  While he was in there, a group of women talked non-stop, and he said one of them must have said the word "vagina" like 90 times, or however long it took his shy bladder to work. As long as we both stay THIS level of crazy, we can be on vacation any time we want

"Was that from you?".. : 10/27/2015

Karibbean Koffee: Karen's Konstipation Kure-All. Jim has not had any problem with this fishbowl of a toilet. Jim can go ANYWHERE, because he is a MAN. And wives, don't tell me that I'm the only one who has ever had THIS thought, even fleetingly, upon discovering the little steaming gifts left on the living room rug by  housebroken poodles, "well..it WAS late in the game, and the Jets were only down by two, and Brady's ball looked a little deflated.. so maybe that wasn't from the dog??":  I reiterate:  Men can go ANYWHERE when there's another living thing blame. Jim informs me that I don't have to find that elusive Apple Store in Jamaica, because I don't need a charger, because this hotel has free Wifi and an Internet Cafe. I tell him I will never be able to figure out a new computer, and he replies: "Your user ID and password are simply your room number..a monkey could do it!" and I answer, "not if that monkey has an undiagnosed dyslexia issue" because our room number is four digits long, and I'll never remember them in the right order, nor will I find the cafe or our room again. Last night, after a wonderful Surf and Turf dinner, we saw a great show about the history of Ska and then returned to our room(and don't ask me the number because it's not important and I don't remember it) to find the lights dimmed and the sheets sprinkled with chocolates and rose petals, and terrycloth towels sculpted into what looked to me like a dolphin and a monkey. I'm thinking: "we've been married nearly 26 years..we love each other in a way that we don't need terrycloth animals in the bed unless they look like Luke"..When you've been married as long as we have, it's more about Partner A sniffing the air and asking Partner B "was that from you?" and Partner B responding "no, wasn't it from you?." A shout to to Urban Dictionary student extraordinaire Lexi Seitchik, who informed me recently that "cropdusting" isn't just about ambitious farmers dealing with an infestation of boll weevils, crop dusting is an act of love between two consenting adults. Oh, and thanks to all the personal comparisons to Chelsea Handler and Amy Schumer, but their brand is hard-drinking whore and mine is soft-drinking ..whatever. I hope the rain holds off. The water nearest our room is turquoise and seaweed free, but if it rains, there won't be much to do besides trying to figure out how to use the Internet Cafe.  And there's Bingo.  There's always Bingo

Why Donald Trump hates me..: 10/26/2015

Thanks for the comments that make me want to continue writing.  I appreciate them, because not everyone is a fan of my stuff.  In fact, here's a starter list of types who are no fans of yours truly: Smokers/Fattists/hard workers/careful drivers/Republicans/impatient techies/homophobes/telemarketers/judgmental JAPS/every Jewish guy from Philly that I was hot for circa 1970-1987(but not their Moms..Moms loved me)/vegetarians/lovers of brief blogs/texters/sharp dressers/lovers of quiet, reserved lady-like ladies/hypocrites/my neighbors/my family/my friends. ..Ninety percent of what I've just listed describes Donald Trump.  He'd HATE my journaling and that's fine.  I guess as long as there are at least two of you that like what I have to say, I'll continue until this Mac up and quits on me.  It rained a lot today and we're still having a wonderful time.  Oh yeah, add that to the list of People Who Don't Like Karen: Those who can't appreciate a little rain, or those that hate the name Karen..

Lobster aerobics..: 10/26/2015

We took a water aerobics class where everyone was suburban Philly, and I half expected everyone's water noodle to turn into a weapon, jokes this Philadelphian native. Oh, and never listen to a word I say. Remember how I claim to dislike seafood? It's not true.  The lazy lobster grilled on the beach was terrific, and not just because it was lazy and will never ever leave my body. And then someone says that wasn't even the real lunch!! It was merely snack time. Wow...again, why are their scales in the see-through bathrooms?  More later...

The Old Man and the Sea..: 10/26/2015

At least the rude smokers here understand you, unlike the French in Club Med, who just have to guess what your dirty looks and fake hacking sounds mean.  If they'd only EAT, they wouldn't smoke.  You don't see an iguana going through nicotine withdrawal, do you?  Do you?? I guess places that have infinity pools attract infinity smokers.  It's what I get for staying in an Adults Only resort.  Adults smoke, drink, have uninhibited hot tub sex, and don't mind who sees them on a toilet. What a great looking staff here, with their corn-rowed heads and flawless complexions, looking at me and thinking, ":she with her average complexion and head of stubborn cowlicks, WTF is she writing about all day?"  Jim just got back, white as a ghost or as Jim Gaffigan and says:  "Remember on our honeymoon when the instructor just shook his head and looked at me and said"he's no sailor?" And.." AND... I almost became a widow.  Even 'though he mastered sailing last April in Cancun, he got himself in trouble and lost his favorite hat, the one bought in the Mexican town I can't spell, where the final scene of  Shawshank was filmed. He should have secured everything with dental floss and duct tape, like he usually does.

People who sh*t in glass houses..: 10/26/2015

I now understand why the newly incarcerated don't answer nature's call.  I went into the glass throne, finally feeling relaxed, when the butler shows up with a working coffee maker.  Of all times to knock!  I'm not ever going to the bathroom again, am I? Oh wow..we just got outside and the water is The Hue Of Windex.  (There's your new rock band's name, The Hue of Windex) Jim tried to explain the science behind this, that the sun's rays reflect on the surface, but it's like trying to explain Advanced Calculus to me.  Jim is brilliant enough to master a Smart Phone and to understand why 4:00 PM green-grey water becomes 10:00 AM turquoise, but he has selective hearing, because he's a man. I say while exercising: "If I put my hands in front of my eyes and make a clicking gesture, it means it's OK to snap a photo. If I point to my wrist, I'm asking for the time" Simple hand signals a dolphin could understand, but sadly Jim is not and never will be a dolphin.  He wants to check out the Lazy River, which will be renamed the Karen Amster Memorial River by the end of our stay, and not just because of the word lazy, but because it's the least they can do after I succumb to intestinal injuries.  The New England Journal of Medicine will and should blame it on the glass hopper.

Pillow Hawk..: 10/26/2015

I miss my Cancun iguanas! The only animals I've encoutered here are around the swim-up bar, drinking and smoking at 10:00 AM. And missing out on all my free iguana food. OK..to get my inner Jim Gaffigan on, whom my husband compares me to because we're both cynical foodies(except Gaffigan seems less goyish than me) what's the deal with room service? I got corn flakes with warm milk. Jim got oatmeal that he was awaiting like the second coming of Christ. "Hangry" Jim is no picnic, so remind me not to get room service as late as 8:40, especially when the coffee maker is in the shop. We get cornflakes and oat meal. Also, a bowl of ketchup and marmalade, but not mixed together, although I'll bet that would make a good glaze for chicken. Very odd room service.  Odder choices. The butler just asked if I needed anything, and I say, "I dreamt Ethan Hawke was in the six foot deep hot tub and invited me to join him.  Make it happen, Stanley!" (or was he Livingstone?) Oh, I forgot to mention that last night's butler handed me what folks around here call a"pillow menu" which had more choices than the continental breakfast. I could order a custom pillow off the menu, and when he asked if I had questions I answer: "Do any of your pillows have MSG or non-fructous corn syrup?" because isn't that what you're supposed to ask when someone wants to know if you have questions about the menu?

The butler did it..: 10/26/2015

My first full day(well, not exactly..the day just got up, just like me, but I can make some observations) This place is NOT swarming with french ala Club Med.  It is swarming with drunks, but they seem happy.  They seem happy because they probably haven't seen their rooms yet, and seen  that the toilets have clear glass walls!  And worse, SCALES!  Truthful scales!  What was the CEO of Iberostar thinking? ' Hey,  I know!   Let's put SCALES in the see-through loos.  That way, we can save a lot of money on buffet night toward the week's end.!" The food is good..or good enough at this point. The desserts are so tiny and bite sized--a good thing--but who possibly thought to create baking vessels this small?  They are miniature miniatures and some are the consistency of snot.  Our butler Stanley(not Livingston) booked meals at all the gourmet dine-in places for the remainder of the time we'll be here, so we'll see how that goes.  This place is ginormous.  Jim will be oriented in an hour, I'll figure out where everything is after I'm home for two or three days.  It's big..big and strange, like a weird dream you have, where the place looks familiar, like your childhood home or summer camp, but it's not them. There are endless corridors and everything feels like a hybrid of a chinese restaurant and a brothel. The marbled lobby is majestic,  I'm afraid of the porch swing on the balcony.  Jim said it's the best thing he's ever napped on, but I'm afraid I'll be tempted to take balcony shots, and you know how I feel about THOSE.  How are folks supposed to respond to balcony shots?  "That water is beautiful!"  or how about.."Wow..looks nice!"  It looks nice, but it's not exactly Windex upon closer inspection.  Maybe Top Job.  Top Job after someone wrung a mop in it.  It is warm, with nice waves, but it's not Cancun.  And there's seaweed, but not an overabundance of it.  Oh, and pine cones??  Am I seeing pine cones along with drunks from North Carolina in that water? We came back to an electrical problem and complete darkness last night that was remedied in like five minutes, and I'm thinking, "oh, what the bitches I've encountered on Trip Advisor all these years wouldn't do with THAT story!" The night butler could not provide a charger for this lap top(now at 92 percent, and dropping) but he did say to Jim:  "I can set up a romantic bath with rose petals and soft towels and candles and soft music for when you come back" and I'm thinking, "did he actually take up someone's offer of "some pot for you sir?" at the airport?  We're in our sixties for Godsakes! " We'd crawl into that six foot deep tub and never get out because we physically  COULDN'T. I'm not saying we haven't ever found romance in tubs, I'm just saying this is not the place because the toilets are surrounded by glass, and we're just not quite that intimate. Now SOME people will go back home and say:  "Hey Betty, me and Chuck got drunk and ate snot cakes and then took a bath in rose petals and then I could see Chuck taking a six minute dump after" but that's not me, because I don't know anyone named Betty.

Rhett and Brett Butler..: 10/25/2015

The last time we were in Montego Bay was for our honeymoon, nearly twenty six years ago, and a rasta man stopped us in the airport and asked: "Some pot for you sir?" Now it's simply "some jerk chicken for your pot belly?" Actually, that didn't happen.  Jim doesn't have a pot belly, but I just wanted to type the phrase "some jerk" as in "some jerk in a window seat had the nerve to want to use the airline bathroom and disturb me in the aisle" and "some jerky flight attendant was quite rude to me." This place is, to use an over used cliche, absolute paradise, with waters clear as Windex and I know what you're thinking,..."yeah right, like SHE knows what cleaning products look like!"  For the record, I have calculated that a housekeeper costs the same as a nice piece of jewelry, and I'd rather have sparkling sinks and johns than sparkling earlobes.  Speaking of that, I plan to not go to the bathroom all week because the gorgeous toilet is enclosed with a GLASS wall.  I mean, I'm comfortable around Jim but even I have my limits.  I guess it's time to defile the ocean again. We have already met our "day" butler, and his name is Stanley. (The "night" butler is Livingstone, I'll presume?) I haven't met him yet, but I'm nicknamimg Jim's "Brett Butler" because he always shows Grace Under Fire(ha,,wait'll you see my next paragraph!) and mine will be "Rhett Butler" because obviously, I'm never going to go hungry again. And for all of those annoyed by my fat jokes, well..frankly my dear, I don't give a damn and after all, tomorrow is another day:)  OK..my next entry will show how my loving better half does not always show Grace Under Fire...

Les Miserables.. 10/25/2015

Jim came here to de-stress, and I'm afraid I'm going to make him stroke out because I must have nagged him a thousand times to remember all the essentials I need for journaling, which he claimed he did, but then realized he forgot the charger for this lap top.  Who but me arrives in Jamaica and asks for the nearest Apple Store?  So lucky reader..I may have no choice but to cut the updates short, which will force me to actually do vacation stuff, and force you to read more interesting things than this.  So this happens at the airport:  Jim is waiting forever at a coffee stand  for a bottle of water as everyone is beginning to board, fearing, as only he would, that there'd be no available bottled water in the air. I know he is stressed(he forgot to tip the groomer yesterday and had to go back with his tail between his legs!) but he couldn't figure out how to pay for the water!  I tried to tell him the Jumba Juice kiosk was taking cash but he wouldn't hear of it. Finally, after waiting in two separate lines with no success, he tells me, OUT LOUD," I am just TAKING this water and not paying for it."  I'm telling him that Jean Val Jean spent nineteen years in prison for stealing a loaf of bread but nope, he was determined..for the TSA to hear about it?? I wasn't going to board without him..he had the wits, the passports, and most important, my make-up bag. I finally convince him, or his George Kellerman to go back and pay for the water or die trying.  We made our flight with seconds to spare I have 98% juice left on Day One...

The Rainbow Bridge

The best canine parents I know lost their eleven and a half year old cocker spaniel this weekend and are completely shattered, as we all were and will be again  when it happens to us.
I'm hoping Jim and Larry eventually get a new dog, which seems impossible to even think about now that the pain is so raw and intense, but if everyone felt that the pain of losing a dog was so great that there could never be another canine member in the house, man's best friend would certainly die out as a population. .  You can't replace the dog, but you CAN replace the love for another.  You couldn't buy another parent or child or sibling or spouse when suffering from the loss of one, but you can and should find a furry companion to fill that void. When we had to put down our beloved poodle Max in 2009, Jim wanted a new dog right away.  After fourteen and a half years, he could not get used to the barkless house,  Evan and I were skeptical, but Jim volunteered to do all the hard work.  I eventually gave in, as long as we'd have the summer off so we needn't worry about rushing home to a puppy.  I actually wanted another male miniature poodle..a chocolate we'd call Max II.  Jim was OK about the breed and size, but he definitely wanted a new name and color.  I thought we'd join the KENNEL-literation club, as I called it, since we seemed to meet so many dogs with names starting with the letter "L", like my new dog niece Lulu and my new neighbor Leo.  Dog experts say that one syllable names are great for training and learning new commands, thus Luke was named before he was even picked out from a reputable poodle breeder.  I was all set to not only replace the love of a poodle but to have Max, the Sequel, ready to start in the fall of 2009.


And I couldn't have been more naive.

So here are my five thoughts:

1) Max lived to retrieve tennis balls..he was the master who'd regale spectators at the park with his sheer determination and athleticism, Luke wouldn't care about tennis balls if they contained  life-sustaining properties.  Two throws and he's out.

2)  We could take Max on any vacation to any place that allowed dogs.  We could trust him to be left in the room alone for hours while we enjoyed beach days.  Luke is now six, and his puppy chewing stage will be as permanent at as poodle tail puff.  He treats comforters, quilts, pillows, and bedding in general like costly chew toys.  I joke that the sheets we have to replace so often have enough holes that it looks like we're getting ready for an Orthodox wedding.  The late Zach's canine father Jim suggested Linus for Luke's name(Evan didn't want it) but it's true, maybe if he had been a Linus he would have loved and respected security blankets.

3) Max started off a deep chocolate brown color and eventually faded to a Michael Jackson white.  Luke is supposed to be apricot, but I can't see it.  I am literally color blind when it comes to describing his fur. I can't imagine that even the most gifted artist could ever find the right tone.

4) Max was a picky eater, and eventually, Jim would have to make him  a hamburger nightly on the George Foreman grill.  But he'd eat...!  Luke..well..let's just say that Luke could never be my biological child, in more ways than the obvious that we're not the same species, because he's the worst eater I've ever seen.  Sometimes he'll eat the canned Beneful chicken flavored dog food, most of the time he won't. He'll sniff the cut up Perdue chicken that most shoppers buy to feed their FAMILIES, but he actually prefers playing with food to eating it.  He refuses to use a bowl, so early on, we realized we're going to have to pollute the environment and use a paper plate, to be discarded daily.  You've never seen anything like Luke at mealtime, if there even IS such a thing as meal time.  Food gets pushed, flipped over, and eventually covered with plush toys.  I dare you to figure that one out.

5)  My poodle sons are so different that one of that might as well have been a lizard, but they do have this in common:  Both have filled our home with joy, frustration, anger, hilarious laughter, controversy, stress,  and barking..lots and lots of barking...

o'KAY.  That's FIVE

Woodloch..simply Woodloch

Of course I was inspired to start a blog after so many FB friends commented on my trip journaling from Club Med Columbus Isle last November, and from Cancun in April. The FB posts seem to attract more commenters than my actual blog, but that's OK..I still feel inspired.

Enjoy my random recap of Woodloch Pines..it's it our 24th visit since discovering it in 2004.  You do the math and while you're doing it, tell me how it's mathematically possible to highlight just five events.

 But try I will...

1) For at least five summers in the 2000's, we shared a beautiful home on the Woodloch property with our friends who shared our passion for all things Woodloch. Real life was a little different than vacation life, and many complications caused us to lose touch with these folks who still owned a big chunk of our hearts.  We hadn't seen them in close to four years, so imagine this scenario:  Our Woodloch Family(friends we've been gaming with since 2008) are known as The Woodloch Pickles, a name coined by a remarkably bright teen named Seth many years ago. So for every  event we attend as a team, our name somehow incorporates this word. (Side note:  the "kids" are growing up now, so when a staff member suggested "There's a Pickle in My Speedo" for the Pool Games, no censors were notified!)  So anyway, we're attending our favorite event, the Scavenger Hunt, and we notice there's a team with a similar name to ours when the Social Director was giving out instructions. We laughed about it, of course, teasingly accusing them of stealing, but this was Scavenger Hunt, a chance for wordsmiths to shine as brightly as athletes, so all was OK.  We were so excited to take third place..a bronze medal in a well attended event is an amazing accomplishment.  And ironically, the other "Pickle" team got the gold..good for them!  So we are all donning our medals proudly around our collective necks when Evan gets a curious text, congratulating him on his bronze and semi-apologizing for her team's Pickle name, even 'though they got the gold and she wasn't part of the naming process.  The text was from Natalie, whom we've vacationed with all those years.  Natalie could not have known we won the bronze unless she was in the room..wait..she was in the room??   We didn't see her, even after we commented that our team member looked like a young Natalie, or I told another team member how much I loved where she was staying, our rental house all those years ago?  Natalie was in the ROOM???? Her family is here at Woodloch??  It was a long overdue joyous reunion and I was elated to see everyone.  It's time to put my fragile ego aside and resume a friendship with this remarkable family.  I just can't believe Woodloch provided the setting.  Oh wait.. yeah, I can!


2) I have always been blown away by the brilliant mind and energy of Social Director Joey and his amazing staff.  The thought they put into creating and conceiving these Big Games should be attracting the attention of major network executives who want high ratings. OK, so many other resorts know that there is a big summer movie release, "Jurassic World" , but who besides the Woodloch Social Staff could create such amazing games like a food eating contest with this theme(dino shaped nuggets, molten lava cake, rib bones) and that's just citing  ONE of SIX events?  And this was just ONE  major game..so many others were in store! Pool Games, the messy and hilarious Double Dare, Olympics...it's more than Summer Camp for Everyone and it's more than "Dirty Dancing." or the "land cruise" it's been compared to.
 Again, if the network suits discover this place....I'm afraid we'll never be able to book again!

3) I can't list trip highlights without mentioning Woodloch's arguably  most beloved staff member, the unique and hilarious Randy Barnes.  He's semi retired now, and although we no longer get to see him singing and dancing in the Broadway caliber show or clowning around in the less professional but equally enjoyable Staff show, he's still around and he's as hilarious as ever.  He runs the "Scattegories" game like a professional emcee, and this is an example of how the guests can be as inspired as the staff!  Randy gave a room of maybe ten teams the following challenge:  The long-word was "Turnoff" and teams had to come up with a no more than two word phrase with each of the letters of that word to describe what might be a turnoff on a first date. Randy's reactions to the brilliant and unique answers was priceless.  (They'd have to be unique..a duplicate answer of another's team submissions meant no point)  I don't know what was more enjoyable..his reaction to great and clever  answers..or to the hilariously insipid ones! I also have to cite this example of inspiration from the guests that's on the same level of the staffs', and that would be the Dessert Wars.  Each "bakery" is given the same time constraints and ingredients and plastic carving tools, but even with a time limit and less than desired tools, masterpieces were created that I got to view.  When the theme was "Independence Day" I saw a team
create a likeness of the White House, when it was "Summer Movies" I saw a replica of "The Dark Knight" that belonged in an art studio. Sometimes it's the little events that warm your heart too, maybe the ones that aren't as well attended as the major attractions. I went to a game of Trivial Pursuit where I was paired with a team of adults with special needs and they were awesome!  We didn't win a medal, but their enthusiasm for every correct answer was contagious.  Those high fives and smiles meant so much more than the gold!  I also have to mention this as a week highlight, and that is Randy donning his judge's robe for a thought provoking game called "You be the Judge" where teams with legal-inspired names get to hear real cases and decide outcomes.  Jim was the foreman of our team "Judge-MENTAL" (and yes, I liked the name I created!) and we won the gold medal for the most points, but that's not why this particular story gets a blog shout out.  Nope, that's because of the pre-teen on our team who burst into tears, who has been coming to Woodloch for years and has participated in many athletic events, but this was her first medal. Oh, how I wish I could have captured the look on her face, but let these words suffice:  she was on cloud nine!

4) Oh my..why did I limit myself when I created this blog to just five thoughts? There's so much more to say!! Like how I appreciate everything done for us by Guest Relations Manager Chris Bower, or how wonderful it was when the weather broke and we got into the lake.  Or..oh..I know!! When we walked barefoot to the pool deck, which was obviously close enough to our room that footwear wasn't even necessary,  to see spectacular fireworks that rivaled any we've seen in Philadelphia or Red Bank,  but with the latter, we'd see the show and pay a price of two hours of traffic after. Woodloch offered fireworks without the stress.

5)  Whenever my family heads home, we play the "high light" and  "low light" game, something I recommended for every family who needs to unplug and recapture the week.  We always have way too many highlights(what I've blogged here is just the tip of the Woodloch Pines iceberg) and we usually have to wrack our brains to think of a low light, but I've got one, a petty one but it's something that was significant nonetheless.  We were teamed with some brilliant movie afficonados for the wonderful "Woodloch Salutes the Movie Game" and yes, we really wanted some Oscar gold in this one!  We sailed through the first semi challenging category where we were shown 10 very quick clips of Richard Gere movies which we not only had to identify but put in the order of release without an electronic help.  Part two was fun as well:  Identifying sound tracks from ten movies..we even got the obscure ones!  Parts four and five showed movie clips again, much shorter clips and some of the movies were obscure, but we prevailed.  But it's that Part Three..oh man, I'm still smarting that our smarts were not acknowledged by some clueless judging!  We had to guess the common bond of the ten film clips we were rapidly  shown, and by clip number three("Working Girl") I recalled that Carly Simon's "Let the River Run" got an Oscar for Best Song..and soon concluded that the common bond would be exactly that..Best Song!  Which we put on our board..which would have resulted in a 100 point bonus..which would have meant the gold medal for all the deserving adults and hopeful kids who made up our  movie savvy team. Obviously I knew the answer but because we had simply  written "Best Song" those clueless judges didn't give us the bonus!  Yes, I am still REELING from the Movie Game, but I'd come back to Woodloch in an hour if I could!

OKAY..that's FIVE...

So I'm probably going to be a great Great Aunt, but...

After visiting my new great  niece Shoshana yesterday, I remembered how different I was as a new Mom, and  not necessarily in a good way.  Ponder this:

1)  My niece  Miriam  had a long hard labor without any drugs.  I insisted on..and got..not one but TWO epidurals after dialating only one centimeter.  I don't think CentraState Hospital had ever had a laboring mom like me before..or has had one since, which is why the obstetrics staff remain happily employed over these last twenty years.

2)  Miriam lives in a small two bedroom apartment and has to scale a flight of steep steps(well, normal people would call them average steps) and has taken the baby out a lot, even 'though she's not even quite a month old.  My poor son stayed trapped in his playpen for what seemed like ten years, because I am neurotic, and I worse case scenarioed a lot, which explained why he never got bitten by a tarantula, but  may also explain why he's not all that comfortable going outside the box.

3)  My nephew and his wife's apartment is small but cozy and neat.  My house was peppered with baby  paraphernalia and toys when Evan was just a twinkle in his Dad's eye. I had diaper genies and changing tables in every room.  Laziness:  not a great trait when diving into the parenting pool.

4) Scott and Miriam cuddle  Shoshana non-stop, and shower her with affection and compliments.
I tried.  I tried, but when you cradle a newborn like he's a football made of porcelain, you may not get the desired effects you had hoped for.

5)  My nephew and has wife have seemingly flawless parenting instincts.  Miriam comes from a large family so she had a lot of practice with nieces and nephews, but the only thing I practiced with my nephew is teaching him the dirty words for every day things.  And yet, he turned out to be a great father to Shoshana anyway.

o'Kay.  That's FIVE

Sometimes it's easier than others.

1) Cheddar cheese
2) frozen peas
3) Febreze
4) Sara Lee's
5) T.P.'s

oKAY.  That's FIVE

A Patriotic Song For Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day!  Since I woke up humming many patriotic melodies, I've decided to write some custom lyrics to a familiar one.  This may not be my last attempt at shameless self-promotion, but let's hope for everyone's sake that  it will be.

1) (Sung to the tune of:  "You're a Grand Old Flag!")

It's my brand new blog
and my head's in..a ..fog..
will I ever.. be clever enough?
to keep this..a-live?
Will this Kay Five
draw viewers
to skewer
my stuff?

Will I stay inspired?
Do I have what's..required?
Will things spiral? Go viral?
Who knows???!!!
Five paragraphs!!!
Will there... be... laughs??
well let's..just...see... how..it goes!

2) Technology is not my friend

3) Neither is coordination, or following anything with more than three steps.  Deejays go into full panic mode every time I attempt to do a cha-cha slide

4) Speaking of patriotic songs, let me segue into a brief discussion about "Veep" which is a show I consider to be one of the funniest written comedies of all time. I was not the biggest fan of Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Elaine Benes(People who can't dance aren't THAT funny, right?  Right?) but then I grew to really love her work on "The New Adventures of Old Christine." It is, however, her  stunning work as the title character that will have me opining that there's not enough gold in Fort Knox to make an Emmy award big enough for the one she deserves.  Well done!

5) The song in paragraph one mentioned skewering, and now I want a shish kebob.

OKAY.  That's FIVE

Toaster ovens, Biscuits, and a shout out to a funny lady

I doubt I'll be posting every day, but it IS Memorial Day weekend, so I'm going to attempt to make a memory or two.

Here are my thoughts for today:

1) I want to share a clean story that happened when Jim and I got married in November, 1989.  We got gifts..loads and loads of gifts, which meant more salad bowls than a non-salad eater could ever use, and forks that would eventually get lost in the shuffle, and..toaster ovens.  Way too many toaster ovens. I opened one box(and I still use the appliance today) and the other one stayed unopened in the guest room.  I wrote a lovely thank you note and did not lie..I told the giver how much we like the toaster oven, and that we were using it daily.  Except..it WAS a lie.  A few days before we were about to return it to an appliance store, the giver sends us a poem, explaining how he felt "dejected" as we had "neglected" to actually open the toaster oven BOX..which contained not an oven but a hand-carved wooden rack for knick knacks or books.  That would have been very hard to explain to the return desk at the appliance store:  "We are returning this Proctor Silex  toaster oven because it's a book rack"

2)  I want to share an inadvertent not clean story that happened around the birth of my son Evan in July of 1995.  The doctor had warned me a few weeks earlier that a C-section would be likely because I was, as he put it, "very tight" and I replied: "so where was my popularity in college?"  But yes, I indeed had that painful C-section, and eight days later, a houseful of company as we held the ceremonial circumcision ceremony known as a "bris."  I wanted a modicum of decorum as a rabbi was in my home..and lots of other important people.  A friend asked me how I was feeling, and I quietly answer:  "I'm OK but my cut is really bothering me."  She winced, paused for a moment, and then her jaw hit the floor.  She offered:  That's from the episiotomy..that goes away after awhile" and I reply, "I didn't have an episiotomy..I had a C-section."  The look of relief on Barbara's face was priceless when she uttered:  "Oooooh!  Your CUT is really bothering you, I see!"

3) My late  Dad always said that Jewish girls are never "fat", even when they were.  He always had a  Yiddish sounding word, the sweeter "fet" which was used more often than I care to remember by my BFF from college, Jim D. One day I convince the very urbane Jim to accompany me  to a woodsy single's resort in the Berkshires, and we're napping in our twin beds on a sunny day when I hear the familiar whispers from Jim's voice, a chorus of "fet" and then more "fet,"   Hey, I have a lot more self-acceptance than I probably should, but I bark at him anyway, ordering him to cool it with the "fet," And he denies saying it, until we hear it again, coming from..a bird!!... So yep, even mother nature's fine feathered friends have their moments of unacceptable fattism. No wonder they gave Hitchcock such grief.

4)  I woke up today in intense pain, thinking my hypochondria was finally paying off, that someone would finally diagnose my vague pains and take me seriously.  Until I discovered that the back pains were the result of some carefully planted and sharply bitten dog biscuits.  How does Luke know when I reach REM stages of sleep?  More important, why is he in my bed?

5)  I am very saddened with the passing of Anne Meara.  She was an excellent celebrity partner in 1977 when I was a contestant on "The Pyramid" and fed me excellent clues that should have resulted in my winning a boatload of money, but I was twenty-one and  clueless about clues then..clues and everything else.

oKAY.  That's FIVE

Welcome to Kay Five!

I don't know who will be sorrier, you, the Facebook friends who've requested that I start a blog after reading my updates from my two recent Club Med trips, or me, who can never  stick with anything but will try to write one because I've been requested to do so.

 Welcome to Kay Five, where, when motivated, I will post five random or not so  random neurotic thoughts that will make you laugh, make you think, and make you wonder why you ever decided to friend me.

First of all, a brief explanation of the most ridiculous user name in the history of the Internet. When I first got on-line around a dozen or so years ago, Jim convinced me to pick a name that would a) be easy to remember and b) reflect something about the person I am.

  Considering even  I can never even remember my own password most of the time, I miserably failed with item "a".. But I picked it, as some of you may have guessed, because the activity that best describes the kind of person I am is playing Scrabble.    Scrabble and Wheel of Fortune puzzle solving are the only things I do well, thus the name Kay Five, since the "K" is worth five points in the beloved game created by Alfred Butts all those years ago. I guess if I chose a name that accurately described me, it might have been easier to remember, but "sleeps 'til noon" or "scared of highways" is more convoluted than even  Kay Five.

I never seriously considered blogging before I took these last vacations.  In fact, I didn't even call it blogging then, I just called it journaling.  And even 'though I talked about things that most people talk about on vacations, ie. the weather, the room, the food, I hoped to do so in a way that didn't feel like I was forcing people to look at my  home movies, but rather, to capture the hilarious moments that occurred and to  share them.   Don't get me wrong, I appreciate everyone's vacation photos, I really do, but how many palm trees can you really see from someone's balcony?  What are you supposed to say?  "Now THAT'S some kind of greenery!" or "well..that water certainly is wavy, isn't it?" I also don't like seeing photos of museums or churches or anything old unless they're made out of cheese.  Unless the person taking the photo is actually IN them. I don't need to see yet another vacationer holding up the leaning tower of Pisa, it makes me want to tour Europe even less than I already do. (But truth be told, I am lazy and don't like the idea of walking for a thousand miles)  I feel the same way about vacation updates and photos like I do about birthday acknowledgments.  Make them personal.  Make me CARE.  Just adding an exclamation point or a name doesn't make a birthday greeting special.  Nor does using a redundancy.  Saying "happy birthday, I hope it's fun!' isn't saying anything unique. And neither is showing me a photo of your hotel's night stand, even 'though I've done just that when I remember to use the camera the right way and not just post photos of my eyeball.  (Yes, it's true..my 1972 trip to Canada has 24 photos, and 21 of them are of my eyeball)

So let's give this a whirl.  It certainly won't be my first--or last--failure if I throw this party and nobody shows up.

  Here are my Five Thoughts for today:

1) why, when someone is trying to be complimentary, are negative phrases used?  We call a very clever person a "riot"..we call hilarious comics "screams" who have "killed it" or "nailed it" or "slayed it".  I question this.

2)  On the other hand, why, when someone is trying to be negative, do they say such wonderful things?  "Go jump in a lake?"  That's something I LOVE!!  "Go to Hell?"  Isn't that that wonderful little touristy town in Grand Cayman Island?  Even the standard "Go "F" yourself"..uh..would if we COULD..why is that bad???  "Eat "s" and die", yeah, I guess I understand why THAT one's a negative.

3) I treat every guy like the pool boy except the boy who actually opens the pool.

4) When I wake my husband up at 3:00 AM, what could I POSSIBLY be saying besides "YOU'RE snoring?" He actually asks this, each and every time.  "What about snoring?" he'll quiz me at that ungodly hour. I'm not asking how to spell "snoring" or how many Scrabble points it's worth or even what the medical explanation of it is.  I'm simply barking an order.."STOP snoring!"

5) I cannot wait to meet my new niece, Shoshana Levson, who was born just two weeks ago. And I'm very glad my nephew and his wife didn't combine Hollywood baby-naming trends with their strong religious convictions and name the kid something like "Schmatah" or "Plotz"

oKAY...That's FIVE

Back home: Playing DVR "catch up"..

Just a few days ago I was so worried that my French 101 would embarrass Jim so much that he'd swim away from me in the other direction and bring the barracuda back with him, now I have even deeper waters to negotiate: Where to even BEGIN with 68 taped shows(40 percent) on the DVR?? I wish someone important(but not important to me) had died last week and there would have been news coverage the whole time. Just my luck, Nancy Reagan seems to be just fine!

One day later....

down to 53 unwatched shows @ 30% of the DVR's available space. I better learn how to break my addicition to The Weather Channel before the next vacation

Back home: Fun with the Mexican TSA.. Catching up on the essentials..

I KNOW I have all that grocery shopping and laundry and TV to catch up on, I know it, but I just wanted to thank some people before I forget. People who work in Mexico can be so funny! Well, two of them anyway. The beach boy who smiled when I tried to get out of a beach chair designed for comfort but that made me look like I was getting a PAP smear(he smiled but he didn't laugh AT me) and the woman at the airport who was holding my Woodloch Pines carry-on hostage on the conveyer belt. First she holds up two tubes of sunscreen that I had forgotten were in there, and then she holds up a breath mint still wrapped in its partriotic wrapping with a very puzzled look on her face, and I'm about to shout "Mint??" like she's deaf but then she just points at me and probably muttered the Spanish word for "gotcha!" before giving me a big smile and instructions to proceed. Not that that confiscated sunscreen was doing me any good anyway...

Laundry is DONE!! Well, I'm clothed, so VACATION laundry is done!! Mail is sorted! Now I have to do six cryptograms and figure out where to start on the DVR that has almost 60 recordings

Back home: The bird that ate my omelette..

OMG, I forgot to mention the most important thing that happened in Club Med! I can answer the age old question that has dogged philosophers for centuries. Jim said yesterday that a black bird swooped in and took a huge bite out of my mushroom onion cheese omelet when I went to refill my Diet Coke which yeah, I know, I shouldn't be drinking for breakast..or EVER...but the point is the omelet was on the table before the bird was so there's your "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" answer with poetic license taken. The egg comes before the chicken, or more specifically, the cheese omelet came before the scavenging bird. And no, I did not finish it after the bird had it's way with it. Do I really look like the type of person who'd eat a cheese omlette after a bird hacked through it? (Don't answer that)

shocked to read that Roseanne Barr is losing her eyesight. Now if it had only happened before she married Tom Arnold

Back home: "Duty Free"...

We were delayed four hours and I am tired and cranky and guilty..guilty because there is so much I didn't share in my travel journal so that trumps sleep and nutrition and TV..For example, I never shared the evil looks I'd get daily from the chambermaid who had to replace the plastic bags in the bathroom dispenser daily, because you could just tell she was looking at me and thinking "dis seniorita..she no need to wrap the feminine hygiene projects at HER age, nu?" The truth is I'd collect those bags for the fruit I'd feed the iguanas, but the problem is we didn't go to the center of the resort and their path until noon every day, which meant the fruit got hot in the sun and melted, which meant it probably fermented and I got some iguanas drunk enough where they contemplated propositioning married businessmen from Indianapolis. Oh, and this..this I'll share as delicately as I can, but if you build a bathroom in MEXICO, where the cuisine is MEXICAN, you'd better make sure you NEVER run out of TP..or at least mark one of the stall doors "Duty Free"..because a..um..friend of mine was up the creek if you get my drift. And just my luck...er.. MY FRIEND'S luck....who is the only other person in that bathroom at the time but that smug little tween from the hotel next door. "Brag about your foam pools and your beach parties and buffets all you want. Sure, our hotel makes you cook your own meals and the activities are time share pitches and bingo, but at least the WESTIN never runs out of toilet paper!" And news to brighten the night of Andrea Miller Seitchik..unless there's a heavy current bound toward the Jersey shore this summer, those turquoise flip flops are gone! Adios! Let's have a party! Some guy on the return flight asked the attendant if anyone had a couple of empty vegetable tin cans and string because he wanted to communicate with his wife several rows ahead. I was so travel weary and delusional by that point that I'm pretty sure I saw an old lady in a "Tequilla Mama!" tee open a floral beach bag and say"One moment dear..let me have a look." This same guy
was rudely remarking that it seemed to him that many more people needed seat belt extenders on the departure flight that they did upon arriving. Oh..and my suitcase LOST three pounds going home..ditto for me! Out of all the images that are staying with me, I can't seem to forget that frenchman being pelted with white fish, and my attempt to paddle over to him to over help, and Jim reminding me how bad I am in a crisis, and that this poor schmuck really didn't need to know that I know the french word for meringue is meringue and that my dog is Luke. ("Why should the Frenchman who was nearly pelted to death care about a dog that you yourself don't care about?") But that's just one memory..the journal captured many! I'm thinking next trip I should just post pics of views from my balcony, but I'm afraid they'll all be eyeball shots. Anyway, for those of you who stayed with me...thanks! You made recapping fun!

Cancun 4/20/2015: Walking on broken glass takes talent..

Jim says we have time for a quickie so let's all assume he means an update. The weird thing about a Monday arrival and departure day is that we're the only ones getting it. Orientation was last night, and we were introduced to all the GO's, the Gentile Organizers. (The FRENCH pronunciation of "gentle"..this is not a Christian youth group) I guess if I saw on arrival day what I saw last night I might have been freaked enough to cut our losses and check into the Westin, where we'd survive on Jim's breakfast bars and we'd play bingo, because the GOs did a TALENT SHOW, and one act was handing to ringside audience members pieces of authentic glass from the two bottles he just smashed with a hammer, and then this guy not only stood on said broken glass, he got prone and made audience members stand on him! I'm glad he didn't pick ME to step on him. Not only would he have felt those shards on the floor, he would have broken a rib or two. But seriously, all the GO's were introduced in native costumes in their native tongues with film describing their native countries in the background, ending each intro with "Club Med CANCUN!"(at least I think that's what they were saying!) and I felt like I was live at the Miss Universe pageant only without the misogyny, and with contestants with IQ's high enough to know that countries such as "The Iraq" and such as countries like that don't exist. I really don't hate the french. I love french fries, french film, and the French Revolution, but only because of Les Miz. I love french accents and if Ethan Hawke walked in here right now, french kissing but only if he was still in his Jessie Wallace character. And I love my french poodle, the one you all know as mon chien et Luke. Jim thinks I'm silly because we don't know anyone who ever calls their dogs by their given names. Am I right dog owners? So yep, I love me some french pastry but if they don't make cigarette smoking ILLEGAL in France, I am totally done with the lot of them. Before we board in a few hours, I am going to share something very special with those of you who have been kind enough to stroke my ego and bear through every last word of everything I've journaled. Inquiring minds want to know so I'll finally tell them the real name of Abba Song. You asked, so I'll tell you but it should seem obvious that his name is "Dancing Queen"

Cancun 4/19/2015: Almost back to reality..

So sad that we're off to the last buffet dinner, the last sound of the crashing waves, the last chance to see our iguana friends. I'm ready to go home and tackle the mail and laundry and the jam packed DVR, but I will miss Cancun so much..I cannot remember a vacation this fantastic, although Columbus Isle comes really close, and Woodloch, of course, is in a category all its own. No more journaling for awhile as well. It's one thing to write about iguanas and drifters from the Westin and swallowing creme rinse and meeting the Howells from Gilligan's Island, but my real life is a snooze fest. There's laundry, shopping, bed making, teasing the dog, trying to be creative at least once a day..Minutia does not a good read make:) Or maybe this has been minutia all along? Back to reality...

Cancun 4/19/2015: A Joni Mitchell-esque evening with the "Mad Vacationer"..

Congratulations, you lucky members of the TLDR Club! WIFI was down last night so there was nothing "Too Long" that you "Didn't Read" to post anyway. You were all spared the Sophie's Choice decision of wading through my posts that are becoming more and more the size of "War and Peace" each time I write..or having to lie and say to read it just to spare my feelings. Actually there wasn't a whole lot to write in for my bedtime story entry...no barracudas, no charismatic Los Angelinos telling us about the joys of the death business(although curiously she called me "New Jersey" and not Karen when she saw me last night) and no GOs telling us salacious tales of seducing button salesmen from Denver, or wherever he was from or what he did. Nope..just the two of us, with free flowing conversation and lots of laughs, and then arguing over who was more tired at 8:40 PM. It was a turnover day anyway, with many people departing and arriving, so there wasn't much going on, besides a carnival and an outstanding guitarist/vocalist from Canada. I can't believe how many songs and genres she knew. We plopped down in comfy chairs in a smoke free zone and enjoyed her vocals and the stars. Wow..just got a pang of guilt from describing a carnival and a Joni Mitchellesque showcase as "nothing"..That's as bad as when I tried to downplay the buffets here to those drifters from The Westin who had to cook their own meals on VACATION! I can just hear that poor tween asking her Mom: "are you sure it's OK that the buffets at our Westin aren't good or aren't even real? Do you REALLY believe that crazy lady was a size six when she left NJ a few days ago?" And the poor Mom had to console this kid with"oh, don't feel bad..she's some delusional neurotic who starts turf wars with iguanas and wears coffee stained shirts to a Cappuccino color theme night"..

Back to last night..Wow! It was really great listening to the Canadian's pure and sweet vocals and blessing Christine Cherry Hommel and Cherry Travel for making this dream a reality. We headed toward home..(Ha! Freudian slip! Only Thurston Howell III and his prime rib hating wife could call this five trident Jade village home because anyone who could afford to stay here for one night like it's a Motel Six can probably stay here indefinitely.!!)

Where was I? I tend to drown in my own stream of consciousness..oh yeah..we were heading BACK, not HOME, when a mob of enthusiastic GOs got even the weariest travelers..those who probably came from the South Pole or something..to kick off their boots or flip flops to participate in "Hands Up!" For you Club Med virgins out there, you gotta find "Hands Up!" or their even newer theme song, "Free From Desire" on YouTube, and you too will catch the fever and lose said virginity. I told Jim..or anyone else reading this(hint! hint!) that a great gift for my 60th in January would be to combine this journal with the one I wrote in November at Club Med Columbus Isle, and put them in some kind of bound book so someone with computer skills even worse than mine can see just what makes me tick. (Or I can have something at home by my bedside to to put my eyeglass case on) He suggested "Diary of a Mad Vacationer" for its title, but I think that makes me sound mean, mean like a hungry barracuda or a put upon busboy serving me one Diet Coke too many. I was thinking: "Seriously? SHE Abstains from Alcohol?" but I'm open for suggestions. Anyone?

Cancun 4/18/2015: Flying phish and a Philly connection..

This had to be a two parter, because this just happened this afternoon: Jim and I are pretty far out(in the water, not in a groovy way but hey, that counts!) and he asks where I got my vacation journaling voice, and I credit Robin Siegel and Melissa Amster for all their book recommendations. Reading books by smart women make me smarter than I actually am, So I'm thanking my muses when all of a sudden a see a gigantic white arc pop out a few feet in front of me. I see this massive arc before Jim does, and he says"oh, it's just a wake" and I scream"but there's no BOAT anywhere in sight!" and then the arc starts shimmering and moving, and I'm actually praying that my bodily functions in the ocean stop at Number One. This entire school of leaping shimmering fish make a mad dash for the shoreline, which I should have done myself but my sea legs realized I had eaten too much tiramisu for that to happen. So these white fish(not the kind you usually see surrounded by bagels and onions and tomato) completely cover this french guy right in front of us. I'm panicky, because what good would "My dog is Luke!" do for this Frenchman now? Jim is saying, "so help me Karen, if you bother that fish covered man with your French 101 and your knowledge that the french word for meringue is meringue, I will swim in the other drection and bring back some predators and let them smell the tiramisu on your breath!" But then his wife is laughing as are his kids, and said Monsieur(see? I DO know more than Luke and/or meringue!) and everyone was OK, just mad that we all lacked cameras at that moment. I had a great caption too: "you shoulda seen the ONES that got away!" People were running from their safe spots in the sand to check us out when quick as a wink, the fish started circling us and doing what looked like a Hora dance. People were calm, saying "don't worry, they're only interested in something blubbery with a fish scent" and that offered someone like ME very little comfort.:) I realized by then that everyone but Jim were probably peeing in their bathing suits, when a woman randomly blurts out her e-mail address, "just in case." She convinced us all that this was indeed a wonderful once in a lifetime National Geographic experience that she was happy to share with that fish covered Franc and us, the aforementioned zhlubs from NJ. This woman, Lynn, ws the first person to leave the water and she consulted the lifeguard who told her the fish were indeed running from a predator, a barracuda, but people were safe in warm water. A barracuda?? Man, I managed to piss off the busboy when I asked for an additional Diet Coke today, a barracuda is going to be OK with me intruding his home? What would I do if he came over? My Pat Benatar impression, and tell him I wrote it, the song,
"Barracuda!" just for him? Anyway, it eventually became just a source of great excitement for all, even 'though I bet I'm the only one writing a journal the width of the Manhattan phone directory. Lynn swims by us and baits me and I took the bait like it was tiramisu and says: "Wow..that was more than a nice Jewish girl from Montreal could handle!" and I say "ditto for the nice Jewish girl from Philly." She then introduces me to her husband Dave, who was in the center of all this, and I discover his Mom went to my HS..what are the odds of this, especially since Jim already found an alum of HIS HS. The guy Dave says they are Orthodox, but they're eating a lot of fish and veggies from paper plates and letting their two year old granddaughter handle Sabbath issues like room keys. He tells me he moved out of Philly at age 8(we had played many rounds of Jewish geography by then) and now is a Disney toy executive in Beverly Hills. But as soon as he said Beverly Hills, I became more interested in a pop culture connection than a religious one. He was good friends with Buddy Hackett's son growing up. he just designed a new talking Olaf plush toy, but most impressive of all, his best friend growing up was the son of Ann Blyth, an Oscar nominee for "Mildred Pierce" and the Hostess cupcake spokeswoman in the 1960's. Which reminded me of a very strange piece of correspondence I got in the 1980's, yes, I'm outing you, Jay Goldberg, when your letter merely said: "Is Blythe Danner still your favorite cupcake queen or is Fong Lee?" Almost everyone I know mixes up Ann Blyth with Blythe Danner so it was cool. And now, for the fitting end to this tale of the flying fish, we had just settled into our beach chairs, discussing the plots of the different novels we were reading when Lynn stopped by to discuss the Barracuda(is that spelled with an "i" or an "a" in the middle? Doesn't matter..I'm on a roll!) to discuss a different kind of plot, her job at one of the biggest Jewish cemeteries in LA. For you know, the time I fall into a bubbling vat of cheddar while touring that cheese factory. Lynn is seriously awesome! She could not only sell me a plot or two(it 's a moot point, she doesn't do the east coast) but she'd make me believe in many things I question, like "will Hillary take it all in 2016?" or"is Evan totally mortified by this journaling?" Off to find something pink and black to wear ..the buffet tonight is Italian. Should be good if we translated correctly!

Cancun 4/18/2015: Aging Hippies and Flip Flop straps

OK FB friends, make sure you save this entry for Mrs. Jim Amster II, you know, the one he'll marry four days after I get kicked to death by an ostrich or fall into a vat of hot gouda while touring a cheese factory, because there's no way I'll die from natural causes or anything even remotely related to lifestyle choices, right? Right? And remind her that he is indeed a good egg. Because he will let her sample every bit of that tiramisu on the table, as long as she does a vigorous thirty minute workout in the pool afterward. There are other things you'd have to alert my replacement to, but's that's for another day. Vacation Jim is SOOOoooo relaxed that you'd think those beach crawlers with 846 sombreros atop their heads and briefcases full of silver were selling him the finest Mexican weed that pesos can buy, but no no no no, he don't smoke it no more. My aging hippie better half, who sees others running for cover at the first droplet, just shrugs, buries his head under his Yankee's cap and says: "I'm not moving for a month." This relaxed Jim is so pleasant, yet I can't figure out why he has to trek to the nearest toilet when the Gulf of Mexico probably has more pee in it than actual fish. At least THIS week it does, and I'm not ashamed to put that out there for the universe to judge. I am totally defiling this place anyway, urinating in the ocean and instigating fights with rival gangs of iguanas over a piece of mango.I saw the exact same fight between two anorexic women in NYC last month, coincidentally. Am I going to regret trip journaling one day? Lose friends because of it? (Those two anorexics already unfriended me because I mentioned their fight over a piece of mango even 'though they're fictional) I mean, I KNOW y'all have better things to do than read these tomes but I'm thinking it's better than posting photographs from cameras I don't know how to use, which explains why my entire album from my 1973 trip to Canada is filled with nothing but pictures of my eyeball. See? When you take PHOTOS, you won't let your husband post any one them because your wind-blown hair makes you look like Alfalfa from "The Little Rascals." So then you just wind up with pics of thatched roofs that you could find on your own in any non-pornographic Internet site. I can't tell you how many FB friends post pics of flowing creeks or nameless mountains or strangers in front of museums. I'll just assume their wives were having bad hair days too. Oh, and this will have YOU, Andrea Miller Seitchik, doing cartwheels! I broke the strap on those $6.00 Walmart flip flops, you know, the ones that were part of my Cinderella story during our last Club Med trip. I didn't say I threw them out mind you, I just said a broken strap is like they're in critical condition. Unless you're me. Then you're delusional enough to think of them as an heirloom. Hope you like the color, Marissa Levson..They'll be yours one day!