"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...