Life Savor!

I just read back through my last three posts (a writer’s self-gratification…or not), and realize that they are all about vehicles. As a psychotherapist I ask myself whether there is a hidden significance therein. So far the answer has come back, Naaaah.

But the number of wheels is a recurring theme.

First, let’s eliminate any fantasy about unicycling. Not now, not ever.

Then we come to the Segway, the two-wheeled sci-fi-looking “personal transporter” that scared the living bejeebers out of me. That was a disappointment. I acted no-big-deal about it, but actually, I felt like a failure. A balance-impaired failure. That’s the truth, damn it.

Then I wrote about my beloved Austin Healey, with its four mag wheels, a mighty heart, a throbbing voice, and considerable sex appeal that enveloped me when I drove it. Hey, I was very very young back then. Then when I tried to climb back into my Healey days, I found they didn’t fit any more. Well, duh, no wonder.  I’m now in what I call Profound Middle Age, with way more sands in the bottom of my life’s hourglass than in the top. Physically too, come to think about it, though I’d rather not.

So there I was, a failure at space-age two-wheeled vehicles (balance too impaired to risk a bicycle) and gorgeous yesteryear four-wheeled ones.

Ah, but Fate had a gift for me, the three-wheeled scooter! Picture this. Two sturdy wheels in back and one in front, giving it a turning ratio similar to simply reversing direction when you walk. Capable of jogging speed. Bright light in front. Only a wimpy beep for a horn, but you could customize it with a klaxon bulb horn. The word REVO stamped into the floorboards, suggesting revolutionary overtones. Available in candy apple red.

Now as I look into the future and ponder how I’ll fare if my knees and ankles continue to mutiny, I see myself on a sassy scooter that’s narrow enough to go through almost any doorway, peppy enough to outdistance a fast-walking partner, and flamboyant enough to keep my spirits way up.

Back in west Texas when I was a girl, there was a cheerful saying: “Keep your dauber up!” I heard it all the time and thought it just meant, Keep smiling! Be of good cheer! When I found out it had a naughty, sly meaning I stopped using it.

I just this minute decided to dust it off.

So hey, friend, keep your dauber up! Whether it’s a scooter or a Harley, an outrageous haircut or spontaneous trip (I’m a believer in cruises), an impulsive decision to write your memoirs or to never again send out Christmas cards—whatever pumps you back up when you’re feeling deflated, go for it! Throttle open, and damn the number of wheels!

Love, Roz

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Tags: celebrate, go for it, middle age

Can you imagine being a kept woman in Las Vegas? Your every wish attended to, every whim indulged? Going to the head of every line? Playing blackjack with somebody else’s money? Going to the exact shows you’d most like to see, primo seats? Being told sternly that you are not permitted to buy so much as a lozenge … Sugar Daddy will get it for you?

That’s the fairytale time I just had, with one important edit: there was no Sugar Daddy, there was my Sugah Sistah, Carolyn, who gave us this remarkable adventure as a Christmas present to our sisterhood. (Sismas present?) She bought the airline tickets, show tickets, hotel room, a dozen taxis, all meals, little gifties I spotted and wanted. She even rented a scooter! so my slightly disabled ankles were given a few days off.

I felt bad when I backed over her toe with my little jitney, but otherwise I became magnificently adept at Scooting. Honey, that little vehicle had a turning ratio of less than three feet. It would slip between slot machine chairs like a hot knife through butter. With my right thumb on the Go lever and my left hand turning the speed dial, I was a magnificent menace.

It all began when I emailed her, back in November, about how I adore Terry Fator, the winner of America’s Got Talent. I said, “He’s the best ventriloquist, the best impressionist, and the best singer in the world.” The reason I added “singer” is that he perfectly becomes the voice of Nat King Cole, Natalie Cole, Kermit the Frog, Louie Armstrong, Garth Brooks, Elvis Presley, Vikki the Cougar, and Winston the Impersonating Turtle. Her response to my adoration was, “Well, let’s GO!” … and so we did, for the past three glorious days.

Terry Fator was as delightful as I’d thought he would be. His characters are just that—characters, not dummies.  He reacts to them as if they are alive, and he has a mic for each of them. Wonderful evening.

The next two days we Scooted through half a dozen wonderful hotels. Onto an undulating tram that linked the Mirage with Treasure Island. We lucked into special taxis that opened up and let down a ramp, and I Scooted up and stopped a quarter-inch behind the upfront seats. I mean, I got good at Scooting.

Last night Carolyn arranged for us to take a helicopter ride over the Strip. She told me just to be a little wan and not be surprised if I got extra special treatment. She’d told them how important it was that I got to sit up front, as “this may be our last trip together.” Turned out she was only somewhat overdramatic, as it looked for a while that we weren’t going to get me on board. The step is almost three feet off the tarmac, a hard pull for all us passengers. And then I did indeed get to sit Right. Up. Front. in the half-bubble of the nose. We saw the pyramid Luxor shoot its light beam a thousand feet into the air. The waters of the Bellagio did their adagio just as we flew by. The whole thing was Fantasy.

We ended the trip with last night’s performance of Mystere, one of several Cirque du Soleil shows in Las Vegas. A truly other-worldy experience … smoke, a thousand colors, spinning dancers, amazing acrobats and aerialists. A stage that divided, sank, reappeared and ascended elsewhere. A lithe ballet dancer (male) who was the Firebird throughout.

I wanna go back! I love Las Vegas. I thought I’d sneer cynically at its Disneylandishness, but I adored it. The Venetian hotel is a work of art, right down to replicas from St. Mark’s square, and indoor/outdoor gondolas with singing gondoliers. The rugs at the Encore are brilliant red, bordered with that wonderful color that is blue with a purple undertone, and butterflies woven into the center. Also in mosaics set ino the marble floors. At the Mirage, where we stayed, there is allegedly a volcano that erupts on the hour, but it was down for repairs. How other-wordly is that? “Sorry, but the volcano is down for repairs.” Or maybe it was maintenance.

Home again, I’ve still got air-quivers of Vegas. Ready to go do it again!

That’s how I spent my week. Thanks, Carolyn, for the most glorious Sismas gift.

Love, Scooter

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Tags: fantasy, Las Vegas, scooter, sisterhood

Post-Thanksgiving. Hallelujah! The usual: too much food, big crowd of inlaws and outlaws, much champagne and laughter.

An old friend blew into town pulling a teardrop trailer as a portable home. She has already lived all over the world, now all over the U.S. of A.  She and her husband follow wherever the weather or their whims call. I admire their gypsy spirit but don’t envy them. I love my little house with all its red-&-plum eccentricities; a week is the longest I like to be away from home.

But those two wanderers got me to thinking about the freest I have ever felt. It was in my spectacular silver-blue 1953 Austin Healey 100/4 sports car with navy blue top. Only convertible I’ve ever seen than looked like it was vroooming even when the top was up and the car at the curb.

And oh, what a thrill to drive. You’d slam that stick into the next gear and it would leap forward like a racehorse. Then, at cruising speed you’d flick a little switch and get another gear, electric overdrive. Want to blow past a car you’re passing? Flick the overdrive off, and now the car responded like a tiger with the most amazing, primal growl. Whew!

It had a few idiosyncracies, of course. Mainly it was the electrical system designed by Lucas “The Prince Of Darkness,” notoriously unreliable in all English sports cars of that era. I’d be tooling around town with the top down, huge Breakfast-at-Tiffany’s shades on, big lavender hat to keep my red-headed skin from burning, feeling SO glamorous, when the car would suddenly stop. The electric fuel pump had gone comatose again. Feeling considerably less stunning than before, I would grab the wrench I kept  handy, raise the boot to the rear engine, and bang on the pump till it leapt back into tick-tick-tick life. Then, back to the driver’s seat to resume glam.

The Healey had navy leather upholstery and isinglass side windows. In a heavy rain it was a tossup whether more water would slosh in from the sides or the top of the windshield. This was a drop-down windscreen, so elegant that I guess the factory figured a little leakage was a slim price to pay.

And of course it was very VERY low to the ground, the chassis being below the back axle. You didn’t so much get in as fall in, and climbing out required a lot of push. I once asked a famous driver how I could gracefully emerge from that car, and he grinned and said, “Wear cute panties.”

I used to drive competitively in homemade gymkhanas—an empty parking lot with traffic cones to navigate. I often won, though the bathtub Porsche was tough to beat.

Fast-forward a few decades to 2000. I reverted to youth and decided I had to have another Healey. I found one only an hour from home, and Robert and I drove over to see it. Miraculous! It was the identical twin to my beloved Healey of yore. Fabulous job of restoration. After stroking and adoring it for  while, I took it for a spin.

Thomas Wolfe was right. You can’t go home again. I discovered that the clutch gave me a semi-charleyhorse, the wheel was hard to turn, and the floor almost melted the bottom of my shoes. Ah yes, now I remembered: the heat transfer from the engine made the floorboards hot even in winter, and very very hot in the summer.

It’s great to return to yesteryear for a short visit, but as I drove back home in my Honda (with a stick shift!) I was serene in the knowledge that I didn’t, after all, want to live there even temporarily.

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Tags: driving, sports cars

Hi, everybody!

Herewith an embarrassing report on my brief flirtation with Adventure. Extremely brief, as it turned out.

We’ve both been so bound up lately in projects, either finishing them or finding creative strategies to avoid them, that we were two quarts low on fun. Then in Friday’s Weekend Guide I saw an ad for Segway Tours, an hour and a half along the Katy Trail for bikers, walkers, joggers, and Segwayers. What an adventure that would be! Sightseeing as you glide on a Segway at a cool 12 MPH. Probably the last hurrah of fabulous Indian summer, 78 degrees, cloudless, mild breeze. Perfect.

What’s a Segway besides a cute spelling of segue, defined as a smooth, uninterrupted transition from one thing to another? Alas, for me the segue from solid ground to this space-age vehicle was neither smooth nor uninterrupted.

The Segway is a two-wheeled personal transporter—their copywriting, not mine. It has two big wheels with footpads in between, and an upright pole with handlebars. In a housing underneath there are five gyroscopes that make it work and stand it upright. In three years and over a thousand tours, they’ve had only four people fall off. I’d have felt a lot more comfortable if they’d said NO ONE had ever fallen off.

Our guide explained that you simply pull a handlebar left or right to make it go that way. OK, I thought, like reins on a horse; so far, so good. Oh, and you must always stand erect with slightly bent legs and elbows at your sides. You shift weight forward or backward to make it accelerate or slow/stop, but never bend your body in any direction. “You’ll get the hang of it in a few minutes. Let’s practice now.”

He steadied the Segway as I stepped aboard and immediately panicked. It felt like trying to balance yourself on a board atop a large ball. My balance can be kind of dodgy on flat ground, and this felt scary as hell to me. I said, “I can’t do this,” and stepped back off while he again steadied the device.

Frankly, I’d expected a smaller version of a golf cart. Ah, but they have FOUR wheels. Big difference.

Everybody else looked so cool, skimming around like they had personal hovercrafts. I envied them till I thought it through. An hour and a half of standing erect with slightly bent knees? I don’t think so.

[I had a flashback on learning to drive a car with a stick shift, saying in my head, "EASE out on the clutch, EASE down on the accelerator, use the hood ornament like a gunsight." Of course, eventually it became motor memory, so to speak. But that car had FOUR WHEELS.]

Robert was gliding around like a veteran, a big grin on his face under that helmet-over-gimme-cap. He was in heaven. He would have bailed with me out of gallantry, but when I said our fees at that point were non-returnable, he acquiesced to my leaving. I assured him I’d be fine on my own till he got back, and I high-tailed it back to the hotel lobby where the Segway Tours sign-up desk is. I had a lovely 90 minutes just hanging out, watching on TV the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile horse race at Santa Anita. The winning horse, by the way, is owned by Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. The rich get rich and the poor get children.

When Robert got back he said I was smart to bail. Everybody had achy backs and legs. He’s sweet that way. So we went out to dinner and had a margarita, then picked up Buddy from Happy Tails and went home.

That’s actually a happy ending. My main adventure is loving and laughing with my guys. And some day I’ll have my own version of a Segway—one of those motorized scooters like Bette Midler rides as Delores Delgado, the Toast of Chicago. Haven’t seen that video? It’s on YouTube and it’s a hoot.

Cheers!

Roz

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Tags: adventure, humor, panic, Segway

There’s a lot I can’t remember about life-changing moments. When you’ve reached a Certain Age, you just have to rearrange all those files in your memory banks, and the details of momentous events can slip away.

However, I believe that if the time comes when I can’t even remember my name, I’ll still remember the night my best friend Robert and I became lovers.

For several months we had palled around together. Movies, lots of lunches, flea markets, an afternoon concert, antique stores, shopping for the exact winter coat I needed. We found it at Neiman’s, a classic black cashmere coat with detachable black fox collar. It was clearly something I couldn’t afford, but when he pointed out that all other coats looked like bathrobes compared to it, I bought it. Many years later I got too wide to wear the coat and gave it away. The fox collar is still going strong.

Maybe you’re wondering, So why didn’t he offer to buy it for you, or at least go halfsies? He’s the one who promoted it. The answer is, When you go shopping with your best buddy, do you expect him or her to pay for what you find? Of course not. He was my pal, not a sugar-daddy. (Not that I’d be immune to a sugar-daddy, but no one has ever offered, so we’ll never know.)

Then came Christmas, 1980. The 26th, to be exact. We’d been out to dinner, where as usual we laughed so loud that people glanced at us. Then we came back to my rented condo and sat on the floor by the light of my small Christmas tree, sipping wine and listening to a record (remember vinyl LPs?). I felt so peaceful and happy, and he did too. Then Robert leaned over and kissed me.

Mama mia, what a kiss! Sorry to turn all Hollywood on you, but it really was electrifying. At that moment we both knew our friendship had just taken a very different trajectory. We talked for a while about what we wanted in a relationship, and agreed that we didn’t want to have to work at it. Energy and attention absolutely, but not struggle-and-effort. Been there, done that.

He said, “I would like to take you upstairs and make sweet love with you.” I said, “Oh honey, I want to be courted. No one has ever courted me.” He said, “Baby, I will court you within an inch of your life. We’re talking notes under your windshield wipers, flowers, candy, whatever. You are gonna get courted!”

Then he kissed me twice more and I said, “Aaaaah, that’s enough courtship. Let’s go upstairs.”

And we’ve been there ever since. Mates, still lovers, still best friends. For 29 years. Wow.

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Tags: lovers, marriage, memories, Relationships