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About a week ago I was in Panera working while sitting across from a table of teen-aged girls. Though not intentionally eavesdropping, snippets of the girls' conversation did occasionally waft my way, and at one point I heard one of the girls say, "He said I've got plenty of slap". I looked up from my work. Plenty of slap? I'd never heard that expression before and figured it must be a new addition - or maybe not so new, for all I knew - to the lexicon of the younger generation. But I liked it, I thought it sounded cute and snappy even if I had to guess at what it meant: Was the boy telling the girl that she had plenty of spunk? Or nerve? Was he inferring that she had plenty of money? Or maybe it was idiomatic slangage for a good sense of humor? Or might it even refer to some youthfully inappropriate behavior the two might have been engaged in or were discussing becoming engaged in? I unobtrusively tuned in to the girls' continuing conversation on the subject and immediately realized that I had misheard: what the girl had actually said a few seconds earlier was that the boy had told her that she had a funny laugh, not "plenty of slap". I felt a brief twinge of disappointment that the zippy little phrase I thought I'd heard did not, in fact, exist. But then it hit me: Yes, it does exist! I just invented the saying "plenty of slap"! I invented it but now needed to decide how and in what situation to use it. I personally liked the idea of the word "slap" as a surrogate for "money", as in: Donald Trump may be a billionaire but those others have plenty of slap, too.
...none of them liked "money" for the definition of "slap". They all agreed that "spunk" was a better and more versatile meaning.
...I asked them what they thought of "plenty of slap". Though both agreed that "spunk" was a good definition for "slap", after playing with the word a little they concluded that "slap" actually sounded more like a sports-related word, one that an announcer might use, as in: "Wendel was definitely off in last week's game, but he's showing plenty of slap today." Or maybe as used by a couple of coaches discussing a potential recruit: "Marzetti doesn't have the size or speed but you put that kid out there on the court, he's got a helluva lotta slap". I had to admit that, used in that context, "slap" was a good word. Well, whatever, I'm announcing that "plenty of slap" is now officially out there in the lexicon. Use it as you will,
I was quite flattered. Epilogue: (Sigh). I was wrong. It turns out that I didn't invent "plenty of slap" after all. Just as I was putting the finishing touches on this post I received a message from my nephew Randy. In a spirit of meticulous curiosity he researched the use of the term "plenty of slap" on Twitter. Here are the results which he forwarded to me:      Apparently the term is "got a lot of slap", but that's close enough, and from the above I'd say the established definitions of "slap" are either 1. spunk or life, or 2. make-up.
Mea culpa. And I probably did hear that girl in Panera right the first time.
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...Continued From Yesterday: My second night at The Berlin Resort was, thankfully, more restful than my first (see post from 2/25 /2016) and when we woke up Saturday morning - me considerably more perky than the day before - the sun was shining, the snow had melted and the day was so warm and nice that after breakfast
   Then it was time to pack up and check out,
   As we walked the area we could hear soothing music that seemed to be wafting in on the air until we noticed that the rocks at the base of each lamp post were actually speakers.
The path wound through the meadow until it led to a wooded area.
We walked only a little ways in until the path turned muddy from the melted snow, then we turned back.
...a pet store,
...and a little church.
Tom and I could practically see our two young grandchildren, delighted, noisily running in, out, and all about the playhouses and we so wished they were there with us doing just that. As we left Holmes County we talked and decided that next time we return to The Berlin Resort we want to have our two little ones with us. How much more fun would that be? I guess we'd like to find out.  ...Continued From Yesterday: My first night at the Berlin Resort it was after 3 am before I finally manged toss and turn myself to sleep. Still, I managed to haul out of bed in time for Tom ( who chivalrously waited for me) and I to catch the tail end of the hotel breakfast,
...and the friendly, grandmotherly-looking Amish lady who stopped to wish us a good morning as we entered the room then continued her patrol of the area, replenishing the food bins as needed, clearing away the tables and pouncing on spills and messy spots on the food counter almost before they happened. I say this because as I lifted the glass dome covering the cinnamon rolls I swiped the bottom of the dome against one of the rolls so that the icing stuck to the bottom of the dome . I swear that the lady caught me and knew that I was going to then place the sticky-bottomed lid on the counter and leave a spot of icing there, which I in fact proceeded to do. As I replaced the dome the lady was right behind me with a wet cloth, cleaning up my sticky spot. In my three-fifth's of a century roaming this planet I've stayed in many's the public lodging of all stripe, but I'm prepared to declare the Berlin Resort the cleanest place I've ever stayed. The housekeeping staff - most of whom appeared from their dress to be Amish or Mennonite women - were knocking at my room door before 9:30, at which time I was still hustling to get my tired act together to make it down to breakfast. After breakfast we set out on our day in Amish Country. To be perfectly honest, unless you're interested in shopping for Amish furniture, crafts, baked goods or cheeses there isn't a whole lot to do there. And yet it's kind of interesting just being there. Ohio Amish Country is one of those places that's boring and interesting at the same time. We started with a once-around the two big shopping centers in Berlin,
   Next we visited the Amish Mennonite Heritage Center outside Berlin,
...which presents its mission as:
The highlight of the Center is Behalt, the 10-foot tall, 265-foot round cyclorama telling the story of the Amish, Mennonite and Hutterite people which one sees accompanied by an oral presentation by one of the staff; however as Tom and I had already seen Behalt twice we just visited the cultural center and bookstore.
We then went for a drive out into the beautiful, serene Holmes County countryside dotted with Amish farms, homes, and schoolhouses.     We passed through the another Amish Country tourist stop, the town of Sugar Creek,
Then we returned to Berlin, where the streets, stores, and restaurants were beginning to fill with Friday afternoon week-end visitors.
...but where this time we made the mistake of ordering one of the healthy options, the marinated, grilled chicken breast.
The chicken wasn't actually bad, but the marinade was rather uninspiring. Well, that's what you get for ordering the healthy option at a place that specializes in the voluptuous options.
After lunch we returned to the Berlin Resort where Tom went for a swim while I took a nap, then I went for a swim while Tom took a walk, then we both sat around and read until dinner time. As for the night life in Berlin, the town closes down at around 5 pm except for the restaurants - there are only a couple in town, which we find a bit strange for a place with such a big tourist trade - which close at 8 pm except for the East of Chicago Pizza, which closes at 10. Anyway, for dinner we did find a really local nice place called The Farmstead that one of my aerobics classmates - see yesterday's post - told me about.
We opted for the $13.99 buffet, which was copiously stocked with tasty entrees, vegetables, salads, and desserts.
Of course, there was no alcohol served at The Farmstead, or anywhere else in town,
After dinner Tom and I returned to our hotel where, as we passed the front desk, I over-heard the receptionist talking on the phone telling someone that, yes, the restaurants close at 8 o'clock and no, there wasn't really anything else to do in town at night and no, there was no alcohol served anywhere unless they wanted to drive to Millersburg, where there was one sports bar that served drinks.
As the movie showing that evening in the hotel theater didn't interest either of us, nor could we find anything of interest on any of the over 50 channels offered on the TV, we spent the rest of the night until bedtime buried in our books. "This place is kind of boring," Tom observed. "Yeah," I agreed. "But it's not bad," he added. "No, it's not," I agreed. To Be Continued....
...and find oneself surrounded by countryside,
... small-town Ohio,  ...all of which Tom and I passed through last week as we traveled northeast from Columbus on our way to Berlin, Ohio, the heart of Ohio Amish Country.  
Though I'd been a non-fan of Amish Country after our first visit to Berlin years ago, last year we decided to give the place another look-see - thanks to the incentive offered by a really good Groupon deal for a local hotel, The Berlin Resort - and that second time was, for me, the charm (see posts from 2/23/2015-2/25/2015). And so this year we decided to return to The Berlin Resort for a Thursday-thru-Saturday get-away to celebrate our 39th wedding anniversary. We set out last Thursday in the early afternoon
...where people were, well, hanging out,
As it turned out I was much more enthusiastic about my Turkey Reuben than Tom was over his Chopped Sirloin sandwich,
...where we learned to our happy surprise that due to an overbooking our room was upgraded, 
...the interior of The Berlin Resort is laid out in a maze of meandering, fun-to-explore hallways and stairways. 
    Among the hotel's pleasant amenities are a pool, work-out center,
...beauty salon and massage room,
...a couple of lounge areas and an outdoor deck,
After we'd settled into our room, relaxed for a while and done a once-around the hotel I decided to try the 5:30 pm water aerobics class being offered at the pool. There were five other women in the class, regulars, it turned out, who live in the Berlin area and come weekly to the class - a great work-out with a friendly young instructor - which is available to local residents as well as the hotel guests. The regulars, all ladies around my age except for one phenomenal 88-year-old lady, were friends who meet weekly for the class the go out for dinner afterwards. This night they were planning on going to a restaurant down the road in the town of Winesburg and they invited me to come along with them. I explained to them that I was there with my husband for our anniversary and so had to decline, but they were a really nice group. "You'll sure sleep well tonight after this work-out," one of the ladies said to me with a smile. After my aerobics class we grabbed a quick dinner at an East of Chicago Pizza shop near the hotel and made it back for the 8:00 movie.  The hotel guests can choose on a first-come-first-serve basis from a list the nightly movies, one shown at 6 pm and a second one at 8. There were a lot of good movies on the list but unfortunately we'd already seen them all but, as no one had as yet chosen a movie when we asked at the front desk, we requested one we hadn't seen, Pretty In Pink, an old John Hughes flick from the '80's,
After the movie Tom and I returned to our room and climbed into our oh-so-comfortable bed, where Tom immediately fell into the arms of Morpheus (the god of dreams, not the Matrix character), while I, in spite of the long enjoyable day and the prediction of my aerobics classmate, spent most of the night jousting with my old nemesis, Insomnia.
To Be Continued... (See posts from 2/15-2/18/2016) There was a time years ago when I used to be a really avid gardener. Which is not to say that I was a really good gardener; just an avid one. In truth, for all the work I used to put into my garden it never turned out to be the great work of landscape art I always envisioned at the beginning of each spring and I swear that none of the flowers I fussed and fawned over flourished half so well as the weeds I was constantly yanking. And it was one day as I knelt in the mulch staring at the tough, gargantuan root of a wonderfully healthy-looking dandelion which I swore I'd already pulled up three times previously that summer, that I had an ephiphany: the beautiful things in life are fragile while the noxious things thrive and thrive. I've come to believe this is true, and not only in my garden.
...the vet explained to me that rabbits are among the most vulnerable of all the animals, possessing no natural defenses. So meek are rabbits that at the sight of a predator they often drop dead before the attack even begins. Yes, I know the feeling, thought I. I know about being so non-confrontational that one would rather lay down and die than put up a fight, less out of fear of fighting than simply not knowing how. I know kind, gentle, beautiful good-hearted people who are no more a match for the tough and aggressive go-grabbers of this world than a little rabbit nibbling peacefully under his shade tree would be for a big-jawed German shepherd on the loose. Jesus said blessed are the meek, but if they're in line to inherit the earth I don't see that happening anytime soon. The world's just not a safe place these days for the gentle, meek, or vulnerable. There are too many vicious dogs running loose and sharp-fanged snakes slithering through the grass.
The photo of our rabbit caused Andy to recall his family's pet rabbit, a cute little black critter named Barney.  Later roaming through the family albums, for which I've volunteered to be the temporary archivist (see post from 2/11/2016), I was able to find a few pictures of Barney, including the one above and
Andy told me a little about Barney but it was Tom who filled in the details. Anyway, back in 1965,
...the school had a book store with a glass store front, behind which was displayed books, school banners, bumper stickers and other school spirit merchandise for sale to the students. One day towards the end of Tom's freshman year there appeared in the school book store window among the items on display a little black rabbit. Where the rabbit came from Tom couldn't say, but it was being raffled off that day by the book store. The raffle tickets were ten cents each and though Tom bought a dollar's worth, someone else won the rabbit. But after a moment of excitement the winner was hit with a hard realization. "Holy smokes," he cried, "what am I gonna to do with this rabbit? I can't bring it home!" Tom, on the other hand, felt quite sure that he could bring a rabbit home. He bought the rabbit from the boy on the spot for five dollars. As Tom had suspected, the little black bunny was an immediate hit with his animal-loving family,
But Tom's grandfather, who'd come over from Hungary, could not pronounce the word "bunny"; he pronounced it "barney". And so the whole family called the bunny Barney. Tom's grandfather found a long piece of rope in the garage and made a leash for Barney which he tied to a tree in the back yard. In the summer Barney lived under his tree in the backyard, while in the winter his leash was moved into the garage where he was a quick study on the use of a litter box. Barney lived under his tree and in his garage for two years until one summer day when a troublesome German shepherd whose careless owners allowed it the run of the neighborhood came into Tom's yard and grabbed poor Barney who'd been sitting peacefully under his tree munching on the grass. With its powerful jaws the big dog yanked Barney from his leash and ran off with him . Tom's grandfather witnessed the attack but he couldn't save Barney. Tom and his brother Andy confronted the shepherd's owner, who took the defensive over his dog. The man grudgingly gave the boys five dollars for their rabbit then sternly warned them not to come back bothering him anymore. It was just a rabbit.  ...Continued From Yesterday: Buddy was a cute, fluffy little grey rabbit,
...that my daughter Maria got from, oh, I don't know, somebody or somewhere sometime during her sophomore year of college. Buddy lived with Maria and her housemates until summer vacation, then Maria brought Buddy home for us to take care of while she spent the summer doing a botany internship at Harvard. Figuring that rabbits were supposed to live outdoors,
...or treats. We brought him carrots and sometimes pieces of fruit, especially his favorite, watermelon rinds. But one day Buddy wouldn't eat. He was weak and sick and when we brought him to the veterinarian she informed us that Buddy was suffering from fly strike. Apparently there had been too many flies in his environment, subsequently the flies laid eggs in his fur and ears, the eggs had embedded into his skin and hatched and now our poor bunny was being eaten inside by fly larvae. I felt so terrible, recalling the pieces of fruit and rind I'd left sitting in Buddy's pen and how lackadaisical we'd been about keeping his area clean. Buddy had been silently helpless to protect himself from the flies while I, who could have protected him, didn't. I left Buddy at the animal hospital, but the next morning I received the call that he didn't make it through the night. The vet explained to me that, while dogs and cats generally have a fighting chance of recovering from an illness or injury, rabbits are such fragile little creatures that they rarely do. Furthermore, the vet explained, rabbits have no natural defenses; they are so defenseless that when approached by a predator they often drop dead before they are attacked, nature's meager blessing to keep them from suffering. When I arrived at the animal hospital the sympathetic veterinarian handed me a small bundle wrapped in a white cloth and tied with a ribbon strewn around a pretty wildflower. I truly don't know why I cried so hard that day over that bunny; I think it was in part the thought of how defenseless he was and the sight of the white cloth so loving tied with the ribbon and the little flower and the words of a Stephen Foster song that kept playing in my head: Long may the daisies dance the field, frolicking far and near, Why should the innocent hide their heads? Why should the innocent fear? I cried and cried.  Last week while I was going through some old photos I found at my in-laws' house (see post from 2/11/16) I came across this picture, taken in the summer of 2001:  The critter in my daughter Maria's arms was Daisy, our house bunny.
As Buddy had ultimately not survived well in the outdoors, we decided that Daisy would be a house bunny, though it took us some time and learning - sometimes the hard way - what being an unofficial member of the House Rabbit Society entailed.
...along with, as we learned within days, to our sorrow,
...electrical cords, computer wires,
I recall the day shortly after Daisy's arrival when we were unable to figure out why our computer crashed until someone discovered the chewed-up cord. That was the day when my sister-in-law Mary Jane said to me, "if I were you I'd do something about that rabbit." So we did.
And so for the next two years we had a bunny living in a big cage in the middle of our family room. Daisy seemed happy enough in her cage, though, and busy enough. All day long I'd hear the sounds of our industrious little bunny nibbling on her rabbit chow, nibbling on an old book placed in her cage, playing with her newspaper or a magazine, drinking from her bottle - it seemed she was almost always busy doing something,
It was my directive that the the bunny's cage had to be cleaned every day, and by someone other than me. Thus Tommy and Theresa (and Maria and Claire during those times when they were home from college) took the daily job of cleaning Daisy's cage, during which time she was free to roam - we learned that spraying a substance called Bitter Apple on anything we didn't want chewed was quite effective to that end. The job of cleaning the rabbit cage was divided into two segments, known as "uppers" and "downers". "Downers" referred to the task of taking the bottom of the cage downstairs to the basement to wash it off in the big laundry sink and then cleaning and re-filling the litter box. "Uppers" was performed after downers, and consisted of covering the bottom of the clean cage with newspaper and re-filling the water bottle and the food dish. The kids generally worked out among themselves each day who'd take uppers and who'd take downers.
...she lived for only 2 years. But I felt like she had a happy life for a bunny and when she died, though I felt quite sad, I felt more at peace than when Buddy, our first rabbit, died.
To Be Continued.... 
...when I noticed on some left-behind shelves next to one of the beds a couple of rows of old photo albums.
...and other peoples' kids.
After a while Tom came into the bedroom looking for me. "Who's getting the photo albums?" I asked him. "Those go to Mary Jane," he replied, referring to his sister. At that moment Mary Jane entered the bedroom. "Are you getting the photo albums?" I asked her. "No, Donald gets those," said Mary Jane, referring to one of their other brothers. A little later Donald came into the bedroom. "You're getting the photo albums, then?" I asked him. "Me?" Donald asked. "Gee, I don't know...does anybody else want them?" "I do!" said I. I asked if I could have the albums, at least for a while, until someone else wanted them. No one objected. When we returned home laden with the photo albums,
...ourselves,   …and we look and look at these younger times, transfixed by the bittersweet wonder of it all.  
Tom and Tommy started on the carpeting in the two upstairs bedrooms,
...each carpet of which had its own release style, so to speak. Again, it was all about the padding.
Then came the challenge of the upstairs hallway and the stairs,
  …upon which our imagined contractor’s kid (see yesterday’s post) must have not only gone into hyper-drive with his dad’s staple gun - we counted around 20 staples in each step – but must have also laid hands on the hammer and nails, as each step also had a row of nails hammered in across the top.
...as did all the floors.
 The next morning Tom's and Andy's brother Donald and wife Mary arrived from Columbus and their sister Mary Jane and husband Ken came in from Amherst, Ohio.
Everyone spent the day taking care of odds and ends, cleaning out closets and drawers,
As for me, I spent the day mostly meandering around, straightening up the rooms, making the beds,   ...looking at things.  
Good-bye, old house.  We've had some times.  Mary Jane Donald Andy Tom  |
"Equal And Opposite Reactions"
by Patti Liszkay Buy it on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa or from The Book Loft of German Village, Columbus, Ohio 
Or check it out at the Columbus Metropolitan Library
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