Paying to Pee

Bathrooms in Italy are a challenge for Americans. You have to figure out if the flusher is a wall-mount flat panel, a pushbutton, or a foot lever. The flat panel flushers are easy. The push buttons can be really hard. Thank God I'm flexible enough to put my foot 3 feet up on the wall to push the damn thing in--one was way too hard to push with just my hand. Same issue with the sinks. How do you turn on the faucet? Some have sensors, some have knobs, some have foot levers. It's a game to figure out which it is and we spent a lot of time looking around every bathroom we were in. Then the big issue: paying to pee. What a racket! We want to open public pay toilets in the US. Most toilets cost .50 to 1 Euro. It's not cheap! There were a few places without attendants and one where we could squeeze past the turnstile--what a bargain! We were happy on those occasions when we got a free pee.

Italy is a Workout

I spent 2 weeks in Italy. I ate a ton of food. I drank a few tons of wine. And I lost weight! So did my friends. The tour we took was titled "Leisurely Rome and Tuscany", plus we added Sorrento and Venice to our itinerary. I need to check my Webster's because either the tour company or I have the wrong definition of 'leisurely'. We were constantly on the go. Not that I'm complaining--we saw everything! We estimate that we walked 40 - 50 miles over the 2 weeks we were there. Italy is hilly. That's why they have better skiers than golfers. And it's why most of our miles were up and down hills and steps. The climb to the top of St. Peter's Basilica was brutal, but the view was worth it. Plus, it was good for bragging rights in our tour group--no one else attempted it. The subway in Rome is way underground, lots of steps to get to the trains--although I admit we cheated and took a few of the escalators. In Sorrento, it was quicker to take the steps down to the port than to wait for the bus--even if I did whine about the climb back up to town. On the Isle of Capri, the signs for the Blue Grotto were probably meant for cars, not walkers. After what seemed like a marathon, we caved in and flagged down a bus for the last few miles. Even Venice, built over the water, has only arched bridges: up the steps, over the bridge, down the steps, bridge after bridge after bridge. Italy is a great stairclimber workout. And every second of it was awesome!

Italian Customer Service

Italian Customer Service is kind of a funny thing. You just have to laugh and take it with a grain of salt. It started on our Alitalia flight to Rome. A 12-hour ride and not a single flight attendant even cracked a smile. The food cart rammed my friend's seat evey time it came down the aisle, and she never even received a 'sorry', 'excuse me', or any kind of acknowledgment whatsoever. When they needed you to do something, like move aside if you were standing in the aisle, they didn't speak--they just pointed. At a hotel in Rome, we needed to buy bus and metro tickets from the front desk. We knew how many tickets we needed but the desk clerk wouldn't even let us finish a sentence and kept interrupting us when we were trying to explain it all. My favorite 'customer service' experience was at Termini, the train station in Rome. We needed information on the times and prices for the train to Venice. I had already researched this from home, but we wanted to verify it in person. After waiting for half an hour, our number is called and we go to the window. Some Italian woman pushed in front of us and he waited on her first. Only Americans stand in line, Italians push to the front. Once she was done, I told him what we wanted. He presses a few buttons on his computer--and this is my favorite part: turns his computer monitor towards us, then promptly turns around to talk to his friends who were gathered in his cubicle. I had to get his attention in order to get him to scroll so we could see the next page of the train schedule. It was unbelievable and funny at the same time! But, I guess, in their defense, it all worked out: we landed safely at Fiumicino, we successfully hopped the correct bus and subway to get into town, and we made that train to Venice. And for what it's worth, I'd do it all over again!!

Replacement Refs

I had to wait a day before I commented on the incredibly controversial ending to Monday night's game between the Packers and the Seahawks. I know it's big business with lots of money involved, and I also know it's still just a game. There are way more important things to concern ourselves with--like the economy, war, poverty, world hunger, healthcare, education. But football is an escape from that for a few hours each Sunday (and Monday and Thursday.) To me, what happened Monday night shows us that the NFL epitomizes "Corporate America", where upper management simply doesn't understand how the work gets done. Where they think the 'stars" are all they need and the 'peons' are expendable, interchangeable, that anyone can do those jobs. Monday night's ending proved that blatantly wrong. Nothing personal against the men who are the replacement refs, but you don't have a first year medical student performing a heart transplant. These guys are Division 2/3 college refs. That game, while entertaining, is slower, the players aren't 350 pounds, and the stakes are smaller. It's not that it's good or bad--it's simply very different. That two refs, standing next to each other, signalled 2 opposite calls, and totally missed the correct call, was an embarassment. It looked like a Three Stooges sketch. There is too much money involved to exhibit that kind of incompetence. And it is devolving each week--what will happen when a wrong or missed call results in some kind of injury? Is the NFL going to let it go that far? The NFL and the Referees Union need to sit down, hash it out, and not get up until a deal is struck--and both sides need to give in just a little to restore the integrity and safety of the game before something even worse happens. The clock is ticking a lot faster now.

Was Jesus married?

Was Jesus married? I love this news item about the parchment allegedly written by Jesus referring to his wife. I was raised Catholic. I attended Catholic schools from kindergarten through high school. I used to go to church, but haven't for years--I golf on Sundays now. But I still consider myself Catholic. Old habits (no pun intended) die hard. I find the story of Jesus and the times in which He lived very interesting. I simply adore biblical movies (Jesus of Nazareth is my favorite--I watch it a couple times a year) and books, especially ones that get your imagination running wild, like The Da Vinci Code. Did Jesus have a wife? If you look at it objectively, it's pretty likely that He was married. In that time period, marriages were arranged by relatives and community elders. You didn't really have a choice, most people were probably married off by the time they were 16 years old. Jesus was 33 when He died--He could have been married more than a decade by that time. I hope He was--everybody needs someone! I also really, really like how the parchment reads "She will be able to be my disciple." This means women were equal in His eyes. That's my favorite part! This is where the church went the opposite direction and that's too bad. Maybe the church wouldn't be dying out in Europe and North America if women could be priests, and if priests had been allowed to marry--just like Jesus. And maybe that little peice of parchment, with a look into the long-ago past, gives us hope for the future.

The Worst in Some People Brings Out the Best in Others

I love the Batman movies. I've seen them all: Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight series, the older ones with Michael Keaton, Geoerge Clooney and Val Kilmer. So it was a lock that I would go to see The Dark Knight Rises. I thought I'd wait a week or two for the crowds to die down, but after the shooting Friday night in Aurora, I decided it was important to go opening weekend. I don't want the bad in this world to win out over the good, I don't want to live in fear, and I wanted to stand with Christopher Nolan and his cast to honor the people in Aurora who couldn't wait to see that movie and now never will. I chose the earliest movie, figuring it would be the least crowded. On my way there, I was the first car stopped at a red light. When it turned green, I went. BOOM--IMPACT! And a person went flying across the hood of my car! Holy Shit!! This guy jumps up and starts saying that I hit him. He hit me! Unfortunately for him, a busy road yields a lot of witnesses. Witnesses who got involved, got out of their cars, blocked traffic and kept telling me "It's not your fault. It's not your fault. He ran the red light. Are you OK?" "Call the cops, his insurance needs to pay for the damage to your car." "I'll wait with you. I saw everything. It's not your fault." My hands were shaking so much I don't know how I managed to dial 911--it's a very interesting experience to watch a person roll over the hood of your car. Then the red-light runner gets belligerent with me! Says "You fucked up my bike. You have to pay for it." I wanted to say 'Dude--I didn't run the fucking red light--you fucked up your own bike.' But I didn't say that because I was terrified he'd take a swing at me. That's when the huge, burly, tattooed motorcyclist pulled up and stopped. My witnesses were still there--but they didn't look like this guy. The motorcyclist didn't see the accident, but he said "I'll wait with you. I saw him getting belligerent. I'll wait with you till the cops get here". He stopped merely to protect me, to make sure I was safe from this guy. How nice was that? The cops arrived, got the witness accounts and my information. Then they talked to guy who hit me--who was such a dick that he was mouthing off to the cops! I'm standing next to my car, surveying the damage and I hear him say "Your car is fine, Lady". It's not. The cop standing with me says "Pipe down, you're not helping yourself here. You're really lucky, you know? It could have been a lot worse". He finally figured it out and shut up. And he is very lucky. If he had been 1 or 2 seconds faster, he would have passed in front of the northbound lanes, and with that 30-foot head start through the intersection, a car would have hit him, instead of him hitting a car--he could be dead. I'm sure he'll have a few bruises, and his insurance will probably go up after I take my car in for repairs, but he's alive. And I hope he learned his lesson and won't run a red light on a bicycle on a very busy 6-lane road again. And I have to thank the CMPD officers who responded. They were very nice. When we were done and getting ready to leave, one of them said "I'm sorry your day started like this. I hope it gets better for you". That's when I almost started to cry. When something bad happens in the world, like the shooting in Aurora, you lose a little bit of faith in the goodness of mankind. I am grateful to the people on Harbor Blvd this morning: my witnesses, my protector, and the cops--strangers who stopped to help me, and who made me believe again.

Trump National vs. Pelican Hill

I have been lucky enough to play two of the premier golf courses in Southern California: Trump National Los Angeles and Pelican Hill Newport Beach. They don't even begin to compare! At Pelican Hill they couldn't wait for us to leave and tried to shuffle us off the course at the 17th hole. We told them we were going to finish our round. God knows how rude they were to the foursome behind us! We even had to go to the mall down the street to get a post-round beer as they had closed the bar early! Guess they all wanted to get home. Trump National--totally different story. They could not have gone more out of their way to be friendly and accomodating. Range balls, water, and golf towels were included. Every single employee introduced themsleves and asked if they could be of any assistance and told us to push the button on the golf cart if we needed anything while on the course. (All I needed was a better game--and I don't think they could have fixed that!) Pelican Hill doesn't even have GPS on thier carts--shocking for a course charging $250 a round! Pelican bills itself as an ocean view course. If you carry around a postcard of Newport Beach, you'll see the ocean--otherwise, don't count on it. Trump National is truly on the ocean. It might be chilly and windy, just to test your game, but the ocean views from every single hole are spectacular! And best of all, Trump National plays like it's your own private course. We did not even see another golfer until the 16th, and then we just got a glimpse of them driving away from the hole as we were pulling up to tee off. If you are going to drop a shitload of money on golf in Southern California, go to Trump National--it's a great golf day!