Reading about other people's recurring nightmares in yesterday's comments reminded me that I in fact left out a few from my list. So I'll take up from where I left off: 9. The Can't Get To Where I'm Going Dreams Like my brother Joe, I have the dream of not being able to get to where I need to be. Though sometimes I'm driving in this dream, I'm often walking or running, sometimes with a child in tow, and getting exhausted. Did anybody see the movie "Melancholia?" It's a great flick, though not for the faint-hearted, with a scene in which a woman with a child can't get to where she needs to be. I swore somebody swiped that scene from my head while I was having that nightmare. In a variation of this dream I can't even get out of the house, again my childhood home on Byberry Road in Philadelphia, to start getting to where I need to be. In this version I'm always looking at the wall clock that hung in our kitchen and panicking that I'm already so late. 10. The Going To The Wrong Class Dream This is one of the College Dreams that Randy and Joe reminded me of because they have it, too. In this dream I'm back in college and have been going to the wrong class all semester. 11. The Chaos Dreams there are two Chaos Dreams: -The Original Chaos Dream In this one I'm again at my childhood home on Byberry Road...
...and the house if full of people and noise and clutter and mess and I can't find any place to be.
-The Chaotic Piano Lesson Dream In this version of the Chaos Dream I'm trying to teach a piano lesson but there's so much chaos in the house I'm teaching in that I can't get the lesson taught though I keep trying to. A half-hour goes by, then an hour, then two, and I still haven't been able to teach the lesson and now I'm anxious and exhausted and hours late for my next lessons. 12. The Traveling Dream I'm back traveling in Europe but don't want to be because my family needs me at home. And besides I'm having a lousy time. 13. The Going To Hell Dream This was one of my recurring childhood nightmares which I stopped having by the time I was 9 or 10, thank goodness! In this dream I'm falling down a black cute at the bottom of which a big-horned evil laughing red Devil sits on a thrown and holds a pitch fork for a scepter. As I fall I'm getting closer and closer to the Devil. In truth that was probably the worse of all my nightmares. I used to wake up crying. I do hope that bad old horns-and-pitch fork devil has been retired from the children's religious education curriculum. So there you have the official monograph of my nightmares. I have so many it's a wonder that I have enough time to dream them all over and over again. But I do usually get in one or two of them a week, so that's probably how I manage so many. But as it turns out I also have a recurring good dream. Just one, though there are a number of variations. Anyway, in my good dream I'm in Europe, sometimes Italy, sometimes France, sometimes Germany, but these places are so much more beautiful than in real life. Sometimes I'm in a lovely garden or on a beautiful street or looking at breath-taking buildings like nothing I've ever seen before. I wake up from this dream wishing I could go to the places I dreamed about. But here's the thing: the recurring good dream is rare while the nightmares are standard fare. What do you make of that?
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Yesterday morning I popped awake suddenly in the middle of one of my recurring nightmares, but as soon as I woke up everything vanished and I couldn't remember which nightmare I'd just escaped. I started mentally scrolling: Was it the snakes one? the dogs one? The fish one? The tornado one? The tsunami one? The unprepared piano performance one? One of the many variations of the high school or college ones?
Then it hit me: I have a heck of a repertory of recurring nightmares. Could this be normal? In the interest (or non-interest) that it may (or may not) be, here's an index of my recurring nightmares, not in any particular order of frequency. They all manifest pretty randomly. 1. The Snakes Dream I'm at my childhood home on Byberry Road with my children and outside there are snakes trying to get in. Some of the snakes get in and I'm running from them through the house, carrying one of more of my children, trying to protect them. Possible explanation: I'm afraid of snakes 2. The Dogs Dream Same as the snakes dream, except there are vicious dogs instead of snakes. Possible explanation: I don't like big aggressive dogs or dogs that have a reputation for viciousness. 3. The Fish Dream We have a big fish tank crowded with fish in the living room. It's so full that the fish keep jumping out onto the floor and I'm struggling to save them and toss them back into the tank but Ican't keep up. Possible explanation: We always had a fish tank when my kids were growing up. 4. The Tornado Dream I can see from the family room window a tornado coming right towards us and I'm struggling to get the children into the basement before it hits us. Possible explanation: When Tom and I were first married we lived in Louisville, Kentucky, which the locals referred to as part of "Tornado Alley." During tornado season Tom and I used to discuss how we might get Mrs. Coombs, the candy-loving obese elderly lady who lived in the apartment above us, down to the first floor for safety. We really liked Mrs. Coombs and used to run to the supermarket for her. Our favorite Mrs. Coombs quote was: "I love my sweets like a man loves his bottle." I knew exactly what she meant. 5. The Tsunami Dream I 'm at the shore with my children where we have a house along the beach but our house is far back from the shore at the high crest of a hill of sand. The sky is overcast and the waves are getting bigger so I gather up the children and we run home and make it inside our house just before a huge wave hits the house. The water comes up over the window so that it looks like we're under water. Possible explanation: I don't know how to swim and don't feel very comfortable in water. I never go into the ocean because I'm afraid of drowning or being hurt in the waves. 6. The Unprepared Piano Performance Dream I'm in an auditorium or concert hall where there's going to be a piano performance. But the pianist doesn't show up so I have to give the performance. Someone hands me some wickedly hard and complicated sheet music that I've never seen before and that there's no way I'll be able to play. Everybody is waiting for me to go up to the piano and start playing. Possible explanation: This did once almost happen to me back when I used to accompany strings workshops at Capital University in Columbus. The accompanist for one of the advanced violists cancelled the day before a concert and the workshop director called and begged me to sit in for the accompanist. I didn't want to do it but I also didn't want to leave the director in a lurch so I agreed, even though I wouldn't have the opportunity to even look over the music before the performance. The next day right before the concert the accompanist showed up so I was saved, and so was the poor violist whose I piece I would surely have savaged. 7. The High School Ones - I'm back in high school though I don't know why but I don't have the right books - I don't which class room I'm supposed to go to - There's no seat for me in my class - I'm in the wrong class -I don't have any friends - There's a math test that I haven't studied for in 48 years Possible explanation: High school angst has an unbelievably long half-life 8. The College Ones -I'm back in college but I don't want to be because my children and husband need me at home - I don't have my class list so I don't know where to go - I have no friends and I'm terribly lonely - I wander the halls trying to find my class room but I can't find it - The semester's almost over but I haven't been to class yet - I'm majoring in French again but I can't remember anything, I'm struggling, I'm doing terrible, my classmates don't like me and neither does the teacher. Possible explanation: More left-over school anxiety, though I don't know why the French motif pops up. I loved French. I was good at it. I was elected president of the French club. I received the Language Department award for top student when I graduated. I was good friends with the teacher who doesn't like me in my dream. Dreams. Go figure. Anybody want to share theirs? Whoa, sorry it's taken me so long to get this post up today. I haven't been able to access my server, Weebly all morning, and, techno-dummy that I am, it's taken me all morning to figure out that the problem isn't with Weebly, but with my home internet, which for some reason is being selective in which sites it will let me pull up. Weebly wasn't among them.
Anyhow, as soon as I realized there was nothing wrong with the website I zipped over to the library, where I now am, and here's today's post, finally. Anyway, my sister Romaine offered a comment on yesterday's blog, which began with a story about a man I met at church who came from a small town and who was impressed by the polite propensity of Columbus people to hold doors. Here's what Romaine, who lives in Portland, Oregon, had to say: "I think for the most part Portland is also a very polite city. It would be an interesting experiment in one of these small towns to see if a few people start holding the door and see if it catches on to the general populace. As humans we have "mirror neurons" - which cause us to respond in the same manner in which we are treated. Babies learn to smile because their mommies and daddies smile at them first. If someone frowns at you it makes you feel bad - that's mirror neurons too. Maybe the same could happen with politeness. If people start being polite to others, it causes the recipients of the politeness to respond in kind. That's how we are wired." I thought the data about "mirror neurons" was interesting and thought-provoking, kind of a scientific underpinning for "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Maybe when Jesus said that he was really just giving us some advice. And though I also like the the idea of running a politeness experiment in the social petri dish of a small town - introduce a polite behavior, see if it grows - the man from my church who talked about the absence of door-holding in his town seemed to feel that it was not so much politeness that was lacking in the town as friendliness. Not that the town wasn't a friendly enough place to live - provided one belonged to the social group made up of those who moved in the town's circle of influence. Those who belonged. Those whose parents and grandparents had belonged. The Star-bellied Sneeches, as it were. The man and his wife finally moved away after having felt like outsiders for the 40 years that they lived, worked, and raised children in that town. They weren't from the town, and in that small patch of Eastern Ohio that kind of thing mattered. I asked the man and his wife if they thought that the people of their town just happened to be particularly close and cliquey. No, the man said, he thought all small towns were probably that way. Now, never having lived in a small town - I'm a city-girl down to the bone, though I can happily abide suburban-but -close-to-the-city- living - I couldn't personally confirm or deny the man's experience, but just by coincidence after I came home from church where I'd talked to the man and his wife I started reading the New York Times Sunday op-ed section where there was an essay by writer Reyhan Harmanci entitled "Giving Up My Small-Town Fantasy." The writer and her husband had moved from San Fransisco to Hudson, New York with the dream of living a simpler life. But, as Ms. Harmanci learned, "Living in a small town....is complicated." In her essay she writes of the difficulty she and her husband Patrick had making social connections: "For the first time since college, I became depressed. Listless, I spent long hours lying in bed... Patrick and I became lonely together...Maybe things would have been different if we had done a better job of integrating into the community. But while meeting people happened easily enough, making friends — laying down roots — proved difficult... my connection to the community seemed only geographical. Often, it just wasn’t enough to cement relationships." The writer and her husband finally gave up on trying to live in Hudson. She writes: "By early this year, I had had enough. It was time to move to the city. Patrick felt torn about leaving such a cheap setup for writing, but as the snows continued into March, he saw the wisdom of a more connected life. In August, I began a job in Manhattan..." The experience of the writer and her husband seemed so similar to that of the man and his wife whom I'd just talked to that I subsequently decided to ask a friend of mine who grew up in a small town before moving to Columbus if she could identify with these versions of life in small town. Absolutely, said my friend, who's observation was that in small towns people's social status gives them a sense of importance because it's all they really have, especially in economically depressed communities. They sometimes don't warmly welcome newcomers because they don't want any changes to the the social status quo. On the other hand, both my friend and the couple from church agreed that life in a small town can be good - for those who belong and those who fit in. Which I guess for this city girl begs the question: Is living in a small town like spending your life in middle school? During last Sunday's service at Peace Lutheran we had a little welcoming ceremony for some new members.
There were about half a dozen new people and our pastor Doug Warburton had them come to the front of the room where he invited each one to tell a little about themselves and what brought them to our congregation. There was one married couple, both retired professionals, who told us about how they'd moved to Columbus two years ago from a small town in Eastern Ohio to be close to their daughter and grandchildren. They spoke a bit about the joy of being near their grandchildren and how welcome they felt at Peace. When the man added that what most impressed him about Columbus was how everyone opened the door I thought he was speaking figuratively about how friendly Columbus people were. But no, he literally meant that he was impressed by how people in this city open and hold the door for each other when they're entering or exiting a public building. He said that in the small town where he was from people as a rule let the door close in each other's faces. I was intrigued by the man's observation and after the service I approached the couple and asked them, do people in your town really not hold the door for each other? What about all that homey friendliness we always associate with small town ways? But now you're telling me that where you're from people don't hold the door? "No, they don't," the man replied. He and his wife then proceeded to debunk for me the myth of small-town hospitality, though that somehow seemed beside the point of whether or not people hold the door. I mean, isn't holding the door an instinctive thing that people just automatically do for each other? The acts of holding the door or having it held for me seem such unconscious transactions that I've never even noticed whether Columbus people practice them more or less often than people elsewhere. But these newcomers to Columbus did notice. "Even the children here hold the door," said the man from my church, recalling how on occasion parents have told their children to run ahead and hold the door for him. From their experience the couple found door-holding to be a not-so-common courtesy. At least not in their town. What a peculiar town they must be from, thought I. Later that evening when my son Tommy and my nephew Randy came over for Sunday dinner I recounted the story of the couple from a town where people didn't hold the door, thinking they would find the couple’s response to local door-holding custom as curious as I did. But no again. Tommy said that one time a co-worker from Boston commented to him on how unusual it felt when he arrived in Columbus to have all this door-holding going on, and on another occasion Tommy heard a similar comment about Columbus door-holding offered by an acquaintance transplanted from Miami. “Really?” I asked, now wondering if we people of Columbus might be a band of door-holding outliers. Randy then jumped into the conversation and began talking about how, far from coming naturally, door-holding as it is practiced in these parts can actually require some tactical maneuvering. He brought up a couple of common awkward scenarios, such as when two people arrive at the door at the same time, who holds the door for whom? Or most vexing, according to Randy, is when you're approaching the door from a distance and can see that there's another person directly across from you and you're both converging on the door at approximately the same rate of speed and so you must now decide how you're going to pace yourself. Are you going to slow down and to allow the other person to get the door first, making sure to lag far enough behind so that the other person won't feel obligated to hold the door for you? Or should you take the matter in hand and speed up your pace sufficiently so that you get to the door first and hold it for the other person? Or would it be easier to just start walking so fast that you get to the door far enough ahead of the other person that you can avoid the "who holds the door?" question altogether? Tommy brought up the situation of when the person you've opted to hold the door for is still a little distance off so they feel obligated to hurry to the door so as not to make you stand there holding the door for them. Which then makes you feel bad because causing someone to run for the door pretty much cancels out the courtesy you're extending them by holding the door in the first place. In fact, now that they'd brought it up, I knew perfectly well what Randy and Tommy were talking about, and the next day when I went to the Y in my new state of heightened awareness I noticed myself hurrying up the path to the front door, which was being patiently held for me. I also became newly aware of the game of double-door leap-frog that we play: most public buildings have two sets of doors, an outer door and an inner door, and and so it usually goes that one person holds the outer door, then the person who had that door held for them hurries ahead to hold the inner door for the person who held the outer door. Right? So, why do we good folks of Columbus hear and answer with such scrupulosity the call to hold the door for each other? The man at church told me he did once put the question to a stranger who was holding the door for him. The door-holder answered, "Because it's the proper thing to do." I doubt that we here in Columbus have a monopoly on propriety. But I think we must have this one sewn up. This past Monday Tom and I went out for lunch at King Gyros, a little gem of a Greek restaurant on Hamilton Road in Whitehall. 
I had a delicious mini-gyro with french fries. The fries at King Gyros have got to be among the best on the planet, kind of small and irregularly cut, always hot and crispy and oh, so perfectly seasoned. Tom, however, ordered the cabbage rolls, which was a mistake. Not because the cabbage rolls were bad (they weren't at all). But because there was just no way those cabbage rolls were going to be as good as the ones I make. But I if I make the best cabbage rolls it's only because I have the best recipe, which I got from Tom's mom who brought it with her when she came to this country from Pusztadobos, a small village in Hungary close to the Russian border. So my rolls are of the Hungarian version called turtur kapusta, stuffed cabbage, and are so good that they raise cabbage to an altogether higher culinary plane.* In fact I was a little surprised that Tom would even order stuffed cabbage in a restaurant knowing he was sure to be disappointed, until he reminded me that it had been so long - years, in fact - since I'd made stuffed cabbage that seeing the dish on the menu gave him a mighty hankering. I was then struck with remorse, which was why I dashed off to Krogers that very day to pick up the ingredients for a batch of stuffed cabbage (and subsequently got all caught up in all the new stuff at Krogers. See yesterday's post). Anyway, I thought I'd share Tom's mom's stuffed cabbage recipe, not only for the sake of sharing it, but so that it will be recorded somewhere. Tom's mom is now 96 years old and her recipe, which she never wrote down, lives on only with me and with her daughter, Mary Jane. So the recipe needs to be written down. And the dish needs to be made from time to time. So yesterday, for the first time in probably ten years, I made a batch of Hungarian stuffed cabbage. Did it turn out as good as we remembered? Maybe it was a case of absence making the stomach grow fonder, but Tom and I both swore it was the best batch ever. So, here's the recipe for the best stuffed cabbage on the planet, with some hopefully helpful photos. I'll try to give the measurements as precisely as I can, though the recipe was originally was told to me not in precise amounts, but rather in terms of some of this and some of that - some ground beef, some cabbage, some rice, some salt, etc. Also I've tweaked the seasonings slightly from the original , which called only for salt and pepper. And the original recipe calls for adding sour cream at the end of the cooking, which I don't do, but which you can if you want to. And, by the by, I usually make a double recipe then freeze some. So: Hungarian Stuffed Cabbage 1 head of cabbage. Try to find one with nice big leaves 1 pound ground beef 1/2 cup of rice 1 46-oz. can of tomato juice (You might need a bit more, so maybe buy two cans) 1 14-oz. can sauerkraut 1teaspoon of salt Lawrey's Garlic Salt* onion powder* parsely* *I generally give two or three good shakes of each seasoning. 1. Boil the head of cabbage in a pot of water for about 20 minutes. Looks like this when it's done. 
2. Cover the rice in water and let it soak while the cabbage boils. 3. When the cabbage is finished rinse it in cold water to cool it down so you can handle it. 4. Drain the rice and mix it with the ground beef, Lawry's garlic salt, onion powder, and parsley.
5. Open the can of sauerkraut and spread about a third of it on the bottom of a large pot - can be the same pot as you cooked the head of cabbage in. 6. Tear off a leaf of cabbage and place a small oblong ball of meat mixture in the center. wrap the leaf around the meat and fold the edges under. (Oops! forgot to take a photo of a cabbage roll!). Repeat until you've used up all the meat. 7. Place the cabbage rolls on top of the sauerkraut in the bottom of the pan. Continue placing the rolls in the pot, layering the rolls with the sauerkraut. 8. If you have any left-over cabbage after the meat is used up, cut it up and put it on top of the cabbage rolls in the pot. 
9. Sprinkle some salt on the top layer of cabbage. 10. Mix the can of tomato juice with 1 tsp salt and some parsley. If you need more juice add a little more salt and parsley. 11. Pour the juice over the pot of cabbage so that it almost covers the cabbage. 
12. Cover the pot and simmer for about 2 1/2 hours. 
13. It's done! Enjoy! 8)
*Not to mention how good cabbage is for you, a real health super-food, full of vitamins, minerals, fiber, and glutamine, which has anti-inflamatory properties. And it's low, low, low in calories 8)! I was out of town for a couple of weeks visiting Los Angeles:  And so it had been a while since I'd technically been to Krogers, though in reality I just switched locations; I'm sure I more than satisfactorily made up for my absence from Kroger's by my presence at Ralph's, the Los Angeles cousin of Krogers. (Any Big Lebowski fans out there?) Ralph's is the same as Krogers, except that Ralph's has palm trees, a red tile roof, and cerulean blue skies.   Anyway, yesterday afternoon was my first trip in over two weeks to my home base stomping ground, the Gahanna Krogers at Rocky Fork. But when I entered the store, instead of being greeted by the expected seasonal items and candy display I saw:  I did a double-take and thought for half a confused senior moment that I'd driven to the wrong store. But no. My Krogers, which had been hiding this part of the store behind a mysterious wall of plastic sheeting for the past few weeks,finally pulled back the curtain last Friday to reveal its new make-over. It was a real wow moment. All this stuff at the grocery store! Not that there hadn't been lots of stuff in my Krogers before. But it was different stuff, home goods, like sheets and towels and furniture and art and rugs and toss pillows. In fact, besides spending half my life in Krogers, my home is so full of stuff I've bought from there,
    
 ... that it's like I'm there even when I'm not there. But yesterday Kroger's was full of totally different different stuff:
Clothes! Jewelry!
Toys! Hats!
Shoes! Boots!
Undies! And - yay! - still some furniture! And it was nice stuff! Now, yesterday I'd only been intending to pop in and out of Krogers to pick up ingredients to make a batch of stuffed cabbage rolls, but so mesmerized was I by all the new nice stuff that I just wandered the aisles checking out the wares. I even tried on a couple of things: These shoes. Aren't they so cute? Potentially comfy, but a little too big. As I've previously moaned (see posts from 3/12/14 and 4/25/14), I seem to be fated not to be able to wear cute shoes.  I also tried this sweater:  I ended up buying it but in the next size up from the above one, which was a large. Jiminies, I needed an extra large! If all the clothes run as small as this piece then they're really going to have to tweak the sizing. But anyway, it was a pleasant shopping experience. There was a sales assistant - two of them actually - to show me to the dressing room and when the large sweater was too small one of the gals ran and brought me an extra large. Very good service. So anyway, you figure here's me, just popping into Krogers to pickup a few ingredients for my stuffed cabbage rolls and sailing off to shopping Byzantium. So to speak. Multiply that by everybody who enters the store just to buy some groceries.
Yesterday was Monday. My friend who was working the self-check lane yesterday told me that the new section opened up last Friday. And in those four days the sales at this Krogers has soared above the sales at all the other area Krogers's combined. Draw from that fact what conclusion what you will, but the only conclusions I draw from the new Krogers are: 1. I'm going to be spending a bunch more dinero there. 2. And I love it. 3. But they really need to tweak the clothes sizes. 8) Big in the news last week was the quick string of robberies in which over 100 movie stars had their valuables stolen.
They were robbed not of their money or expensive jewelry or priceless art pieces, but of their digital nude photos of themselves which were stored for safe-keeping in an internet data storage system. Since breaking into the stars' cyber safety deposit box and lifting the goods, the thief has been cyber-fencing the photos on the internet where millions upon millions have become accessories to the crime by receiving the stolen property. The FBI is on the case. Other than the question of whether this crime will be treated as grand larceny or a felonious breach of copyright, I guess the biggest question in my mind about the whole thing is this: Do all movie stars keep a collection nude photos of themselves? I mean, for them is having a nude photo collection just as normal as having a rare coin collection or a DVD collection or a Jackson Pollock collection? Are the photos to be shared with someone else, presumably the person who took them? These aren't just rhetorical questions. They're things I really have been wondering about since first hearing the news of the photo theft. In fact, now that I think about it, I'm really wondering if social nude photography - as I'm christening the private taking of nude photos to share with, well, whoever - is something that's pretty common among the population? I mean, I wouldn't willingly let myself be snapped in the altogether, but then I can think of lots of things that I don't do - jogging, swimming, drinking, watching sports, playing cards, dying my hair, eating chicken noodle soup from a can- that are commonly done and considered perfectly normal by everyone else. * In fact, now that I think of it, I personally know of at least a couple of photo bugs who've dabbled. For example, I used to know this arty guy who once (well, once that I know of) took nude shots of his wife, which I guess he considered legitimate art pieces and wanted, as artists do, to show them so he showed them to me. I looked at the photos of the parts of the gal who was sitting right next to me for as many moments as etiquette required and responded with polite comments like, "that's very nice," while managing to squelch my inner response of "ew, ew, Ew!" But then, I don't like watching Chinese art movies either, so I guess it's all a matter of taste. So, here, in summary, are my questions on social nude photography: Is social nude photography one of those perfectly normal things that many or even most people do in the privacy of their own personal space? Is it, like, give a person two sticks and they'll make a fire, put a camera in their hand and they'll take nude photos? Is sexting to social nude photography what drunk driving is to social drinking? In any case, if social nude photography is destined to be a pervasive and permanent social trend, in this age of internet hacking might it not be wiser for people to take their nude photos off the internet and from now on keep them stored in a locked box under their bed? *But even though I would not be into social nude photography, when I was hiking the 490-mile Camino de Santiago de Compostela through the Spanish Pyrenees last year I had no problem taking a shower in the co-ed bathrooms in the albergues (hostels) I stayed in along the way. Being drenched in sweat and dust and smelling like Frankenstein somehow has a way of tempering modesty. If you'd like to read all about it you can check out my Camino blog, "Tighten Your Boots" at www.pattiliszkay.weebly.com Over the course of my recent plane trips to and from Los Angeles I once again encountered that ubiquitous little sign above the sink in the airplane bathroom that reads: “As a courtesy to the next passenger may we suggest you use your towel to wipe off the wash basin.” Now, as I tend to be a rule-follower and like to think of myself as the avatar of courtesy in all situations, I do in fact usually wipe out the basin as a courtesy to the next passenger, for whom I also hold the door if possible, or even take it upon myself to be the squeezee while allowing the other person to be the squeezer when the space outside the bathroom door will not accommodate two bodies. Which it usually won't. But for some reason on a bathroom visit during the final flight of this past trip - I don't know whether it was because I got squeezed a little to tightly on my way into the bathroom, or maybe it was because because I was being squeezed a little too tightly the whole trip by the person of size who was wedged in next to me, or maybe it was because by the time I got to the bathroom there were no more paper towels left for me to dry my hands or wipe out the basin with - anyway, upon reading that condescending little bathroom sermonette it occurred to me that, since the airlines are so very concerned about us, perhaps I could do them the service of suggesting some things they could start doing as a courtesy to the passengers. So, airlines, as a courtesy to all the passengers, may I suggest you: 1. Go back to allowing the first bag to be checked for free. Bringing one suitcase on a plane trip is a necessity, not a luxury. 2. Stop charging extra for an aisle, window, or emergency exit seat. 3. Stop charging extra to allow people traveling together to sit together. Especially families with children. I mean, that's not just greedy, that's wrong. 4. Stop charging hundreds of dollars if a person has an emergency and has to change their flight. I mean, what's it to you? It takes, like, a minute on the computer to change someone's flight and what difference does it make if somebody fills an empty seat on one plane or another? 5. Don't even think about starting to charge people to bring carry-on luggage. Though I know you have been thinking about it because one of the flight attendants I was talking to let it out of the bag that you are. 6. Enforce for other people besides me the rule of only one bag of the designated size. I've seen people stack two bags and pass them off as one or cram behemoths the size of golf bags into the over-heads while I was once given grief for my carry-on bag, which was of the acceptable size. (Or, I mean, it would have been of the acceptable size. If I hadn't crammed and stretched it to within an inch of it's life). 7. Standardize the check-in protocol at all airports. When I have a bag to check I never know whether I need to first stand in line for the check-in kiosk then stand in line for the desk to check my bag, or go directly to the line for the desk to check in myself and my baggage at the same time. 8. When there are two or more people traveling together, don't allow some members of the group to zip through the quick pre-check line while making the other members wait to go through the long security lines. That's just rude. 9. If, over and above the exorbitant price of our plane ticket, you insist on charging us through the nose to check a suitcase, have an aisle seat, sit with our family, change our ticket, buy flight insurance, provide us with a movie, the internet or a meager snack during our flight, then may I suggest that you at least be decent enough to provide us with planes that are of an adequate size so that people do not spill over into each other's seats and that there is tolerable space between the seat rows. According to the news there has been a recent spate of in-flight fights over people leaning back in their chairs and infringing on the space of the people sitting behind them. These incidents, which have been nasty, are the fault of the airlines, who, in seeking to increase their profits by decreasing plane size, have socially engineered this hostile seat situation during flights. I suggest that the airlines take responsibility. 10. Finally, as a courtesy to the passengers may I suggest that the paid airline staff pop into the bathrooms from time to time and wipe out the dang basins themselves?! ;) Everyone have a wonderful weekend. 8)  LA International Airport
Today's post is about a concept invented by an acquaintance, which I kind of wish I'd known about when my kids were small but which I'll share with all of you on the chance that some of you out there with small children might think it's a neat idea, too. He made collage of family photographs which he secured with furniture-and-wall-paint-friendly painter's tape to his toddler's crib, where it serves as visual stimulation and lets her see photos of her family when she wakes up.  He also made a second collage and taped it to the wall outside his other daughter's room at her height:  ...where she enjoys checking it out now and then.
I asked my friend if he would mind sharing his instructions and he was glad to share. So here are my friend's instructions for making a wall or crib collage: "I taped the pictures to a large piece of paper and then went to FedEx and got it laminated. My daughter drew on the back of them and I signed and dated them. Kinda fun. Cost was about $0.02 per picture and about $30 (each) for the lamination. I asked my daughter where she wanted it and she chose the hallway. For the baby I just picked that location but was considering lower on the door (her eye level). " Neat idea, no? |
"Tropical Depression"
by Patti Liszkay Buy it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTPN7NYY 
"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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October 2024
I am a traveler just visiting this planet and reporting various and sundry observations,
hopefully of interest to my fellow travelers. Categories |
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