Couldn’t Make this Up

Our Wild Car(d) Rental

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‘Scoring an F150 from Thrifty’

Not to sound like a summer deadbeat or anything — though I am kind of a deadbeat, and not just in summer — I was going to skip yet another week of blog-posting. (I was AWOL last week, in case you didn’t notice.)

My AWOL view; perfect for working on a photo book to commemorate the Living Wake

But then I realized that you Faithful Readers (Madeleine and Becca and Ruth, I’m talking to you) would wonder if I’d fallen off the face of the earth.

See, Dude Man and I are going on yet another of our Wacky Birdy Adventures, and we will be out of internet contact for three whole weeks. And gosh, if I didn’t write one of these things till the end of September, I might even lose Madeleine and Becca and Ruth!

Showing off a leech bite on one of our birdy adventures (Borneo). Now I’ve done it; you’re all going to Borneo

So, what’s been keeping me away from my keyboard? Ta-da! Another wedding, that’s what. And boy oh boy do I love weddings. I have said it before, but I’ll say it again: What’s not to love about a wedding? There’s a big gathering of family and friends, toasts and food and more toasts, and everybody’s happy. The only other time I can think of when this kind of thing goes on — well, except for maybe the “happy” part — is a wake. (Though a wake can be happy; read about my Oldest Younger Brother’s genius idea, his Living Wake, right here.)

Scott and me living it up at his wake

But what’s that about a rented F150, you might be asking. (A couple of 70-Somethings don’t exactly seem like the F150 type.) Well, this wedding took place on the Biltmore Estate — Biltmore being the name of the extremely large (more than 250 rooms) and extremely luxurious (an indoor heated pool and a bowling alley) house situated on equally large (some 30,000 acres) and equally luxurious (designed by Frederick Law Olmstead) property near Asheville, North Carolina, that the Biltmores built more than a hundred hears ago.

Dude Man, with the Biltmore mansion a hike away in the background

We booked rooms in the Biltmore Inn, since no one can stay at the mansion itself. (A pity; there are 33 guest rooms.) In the weeks leading up to the wedding, I received several emails from the Inn, inviting me to book events — dining (nah), flowers in the room (also nah), tickets to the mansion (yes!) — in advance. But we were also advised to rent a car. They said the property was way too big and shuttles too infrequent to opt out. (We also discovered that GPS was completely unreliable, but I’ll get to that.)

Dude Man again, with the Biltmore Inn a walk away in the background

So I scrounged around on the internet and found that the best car rental deal was through Thrifty. They have this thing called the “Wild Card.” Which is their cheapest option — even cheaper than those micro-compacts that look and feel like those clown cars they used to have in the circus. (Maybe they still do; I haven’t been to a circus in decades, thank god.) To get this cheaparino rate, you simply agree to take whatever car they might have available at the time. It’s a surprise — hence the “Wild Card” moniker.

Dude happily at the wheel of the F150. There was no way I was going to drive that thing. It made my Dad’s cars seem like Tonka Toys — see “Boats? Dad had yachts of them” for Dad-car stories

Well, I think they should just call it the Wild Car. Because what did we score? This brand-spankin’-new F150 truck, that’s what. It was shiny, it was blindingly white and fragrant with that lovely new-car smell. Wild, indeed. Also, it was huge. Not as huge as The Child’s F350 — which they used to haul their camper shell around the country during the late not-lamented Covid Lockdown — but way bigger than our Honda, that’s for sure.

We could have hauled the whole wedding party in that thing. Plus a cooler and some lawn chairs in the truck bed. (Which is something people did in my home town; we called it a “Clinton County Cadillac.”)

The happy couple. The groom is Dude Man’s cousin’s youngest son. Yes, we’re digging deep, wedding-wise

Oh yes, the GPS Thing. It took us ages to find the Biltmore Inn. When we programmed the address into Apple Maps, we kept getting sent to the employee-only entrance. Turns out everyone gets sent by GPS to the employee entrance — except for the employees. (Or so a very nice employee told us when we finally checked in. I had to get out in town and ask directions, which an antique-store-proprietor helpfully scribbled on the back of an old receipt. He even drew us a map. I felt bad not buying anything, but not after all that downsizing.)

Speaking of downsizing, I don’t want to expand on this story further. If I get too longwinded I might alienate even Madeleine and Becca and Ruth. I will leave you with a few more nice photos of where the Biltmores once roamed. I’ll be back with stories at the end of September — unless we get stampeded by elephants.

Me, making like a Biltmore

Dude, ditto

Dude, admiring the indoor pool. Nope, no water. It leaks

The two of us, plotting how to marry Biltmores. Except we’re already married, darn it

Amagansett, New York. August 2023

 

Hangin’ with Gouda, Jook and The Dude

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‘Those Dartmouth Boys do love their nicknames’

Many of you Faithful Readers think that I’m the one who dubbed The Dude “his Dudeness.” An honor I would love to claim, were it the truth.

But no. Wayne was The Dude way before I clapped eyes on him in the late lamented Shabu Shabu on our first date. (You can, of course, read about this sacred event in “The Time I Had A Blind Date with an Eye Doctor.”)

What The Dude looked like on our first date. Well, except he wasn’t wearing that white doctor coat at the time

He was christened “The Dude” because he showed up at the freshman mixer at Dartmouth College wearing a tie. This was in 1970, when Dartmouth Men were sporting fringed suede vests and/or leather hats instead of ties. (I have this on good faith from the suede-leather-vest guy, a perfectly lovely man nicknamed “Crud,” for some reason I’d really rather not know about. The Dude was the one with the leather hat.)

That’s Crud, seated left, with Dude and me. That’s Eleanor, Lady Shearing (“Ellie” to us) standing in back. Her husband was knighted by the Queen. Which is a great story: “She’d Better Put a Bell on It”

Like I say, those Dartmouth Boys do love their nicknames. It’s been ages since The Dude last sported a leather hat, but he and his bros still call each other by their college monikers.

Earlier this summer, one of Dude Man’s roommates, a man with the perfectly good name of Ken, contacted us to say he’d be in town — he and his lovely wife Ellen (no nickname that I know of) live in LA — and would we like to get together to have lunch?

“I’ll make a reservation, but it won’t be under “Jookbock,” was how he ended the conversation. See, Ken was quickly renamed “Bookjock” at Dartmouth because all he did was study. He studied all the time because he didn’t like Dartmouth (He really really wanted to go to Harvard) and wanted to get out of there as fast as he could. So he hit the books — “Bookjock” — and graduated early. Well, for some reason, “Bookjock” morphed into “Jookbock” (more fun to say, maybe? Dude Man can’t remember) and was eventually shortened to “Jook.” Which is pronounced like “book,” only with a “j.”

That’s “Oooo Come On,” or even more familiarly “Oooo” with The Dude and The Child as an actual child. He was called “Oooo Come On” because he was always urging himself on while playing squash. At D’mouth, of course

Also at this lunch was a guy named Gouda, whose mother named him Scott — a perfectly lovely name. I know because I have a brother named Scott. My Scott owes his Actual Name to a nickname — something I found out about at his Living Wake last week. (A thoroughly enjoyable event you can read about here.) Turns out Scott was named “Scott” in honor of our Dad’s nickname: “Scottie.” Dad got called this because when he was little his mother used him as kind of a dress dummy so she could pin up the hem of a skirt she was making for one of his sisters. Dad loved wearing the skirt and didn’t want to take it off. It was plaid — so, “Scottie.”

Two Younger Brothers at the Living Wake event last week. That’s Doug on the left and Scott-named-after-our-dad’s-nickname on the right

But back to the Dartmouth Scott. It was his mother who was responsible for the name “Gouda,” since she used to send him care packages of cheese. (At this point I have to wonder what kind of mother sends cheese care packages. My mom sent brownies, or sometimes Rice Krispy Treats.)

(Before I forget, I must point out, in the spirit of full disclosure, that the three Dartmouth guys in the photo at the top of this post are not, alas, Jook and Gouda. If they didn’t have nicknames, they certainly compensated with what appears to be a very nice marijuana crop.)

I’ll close by mentioning that The Dude and I did in fact have a most marvelous lunch with Gouda and Jook. Their wives too, though as far as I know, they don’t have nicknames. At least not nicknames they get called in public.

A gaggle of Dartmouth guys — all with nicknames

Amagansett, New York. August 2023

Easy as pi

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‘What The Child does every March 14’

It’s been quite a while since she wowed the math classes at Stuyvesant High School with her ability to recite pi to more than 400 places. But The Child still keeps her pi oar in, so to speak, by reciting pi to one hundred places every March 14. Which is still no mean feat.

Concentration is key. She says she imagines pictures. Or something

See, March 14 is Pi Day, when math nerds celebrate the one and only true magic number: π. Pi is 3.14 — get it? March 14 — a mathematical constant, never-ending, the circumference-to-diameter ratio of a circle.

But, math nerd or no, it’s still fun to watch her do her Pi Thing. He she was, just this morning:

Yes, braggety-brag brag brag, The Child has a knack for Pi reciting. She was so good at it at Stuy that the math department suspended the competition while she was student there — and just had her go around to the math classes and demonstrate.

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Technical difficulties

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‘On leaving the blogosphere for good. Almost.’

Those of you who have been reading my stories for a while (bless you) know that I try to publish fresh nonsense every week, usually on a Tuesday. If I miss a Tuesday, I’d better have a darned good reason — like going to a wedding or visiting my mom or roaming around in the jungle dodging leeches and internet holes.

The wedding, as the story appeared in the East Hampton Star. (No, don’t squint. You can read it by clicking here)

Well. The pretty good reason was that none of my subscribers got my last post. And if you write a post and your subscribers don’t get it, that’s kind of like dressing up in your fanciest duds just to hang out at home. You express yourself, sure. But what’s the point?

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Bed-Hopping, Seventies-Style

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‘It’s still pretty darned exhausting, if not exciting’

I woke up the other morning and, as I squinted blearily at an unfamiliar bedside view, thought to myself, “Where the heck am I?”

For a moment I was taken back to The Golden Olden Days when waking in an unfamiliar bed meant something, well, exciting had happened.

Strange beds but no strange bedfellows. A recent Air BnB nest

I remember, a few years ago when I was still doing some freelance ad writing, riding in a car with a group of much-younger female coworkers. Somehow we got on the topic of dating, and, let me tell you, these women were shocked — shocked! — when this other ad exec (also a female of about my vintage) and I started reminiscing.

We regaled these Twenty-Somethings with tales of office parties and hot tubs and Boone’s Farm and strip poker and one-night stands and The Munchies. We spoke of dating coworkers, dating clients, dating editors, dating art directors, even (heck yeah!) dating director directors. Sometimes (gasp) at the same time. 

Me, back when I was running around a lot

Of course, things were different then. Back when the earth’s crust was still cooling and I was in my Prime Dating Years, smoking couldn’t kill you, drinking couldn’t kill you, and certainly sex couldn’t kill you. Though you might end up with a little souvenir if you weren’t careful about the sex. Continue reading

Be glad I’m not Katie Couric

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‘Feeling all cuddly after my colonoscopy’

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how I almost had to live forever in Colombia because of a Covid test gone awry. (See “I Was Positive I Was Negative” for the gory details.) And then I wrote about the time I got mugged on Thanksgiving. (Check out “Your Turkey or Your Life” for some scary stuff.)

Scary: how quickly you have to switch from the turkey napkins to the reindeer ones

I guess I’m on a roll here spinning strands of woe into the gold of glee, because today I had a colonoscopy. And, trust me, the whole experience has been so all-consuming of both body and mind that I can’t think of anything else to entertain you with.

Oh yes (speaking of being on a roll), I did think about riffing on a piece I saw in The New York Times about how young girls in Korea have started wearing hair rollers in public. The piece claims that they are “saving” their best groomed selves for the people they care about. Well. I’m here to tell you that this is not the reason. At least when I was a teen, we traipsed around all day in rollers to signal that we had a date that night.

Teen me not wearing rollers (because I was at school) but I did sometimes twine my locks around a giant tin can — and even, on occasion, ironed my hair

But yesterday I had to stop eating food and start drinking disgusting slimy sludgy concoctions designed to “flush my system” and produce a “nice clean colon.” I’m here to tell you that the stopping of the eating is a piece of (ugh!) cake compared to the flushing of the system. Continue reading

I was positive I was negative

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‘But my Covid test said, “Not so fast.”‘

Was it the hairpin turns at 13,000 feet? The overturned tractor-trailer along the road to Buga? Or the super-sized snake being mobbed by birds?

Perhaps I should have appealed to Mary instead of taking her picture. (Note snake with an apple in its mouth at her feet not being mobbed by birds)

Nope. The scariest part of our trip to Colombia was when I got the results of my Covid test:

See, a negative Covid test is one of the many requirements to regain entry to the United States if you have been anywhere outside its borders, not just Colombia. And, yup. This triple-vaccinated person — along with two more of our group — tested positive. Continue reading

My date with Monsieur Henri

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‘Heading home to a hurricane’

Well. At least I wasn’t the only one traveling toward Hurricane Henri.

East-End friends and relations had shared stories of long gas lines and even-longer traffic lines as Henri-spooked Hamptonites fled West.

Hamptonite Traffic. And this is when there isn’t a hurricane bearing down on us

But, judging by the crowd waiting to board the next bus (er, excuse me, “Jitney”) at the Long Island Airport Connection — a hot, dusty patch of concrete smack-dab next to the roaring traffic on the LIE — there were plenty of other fools heading East. (For those of you who are not familiar with Long Island Geography, “east” is the direction you go to get to The Hamptons; “west” is the way out. The LIE is the Long Island Expressway; trust me, there is nothing “express” about it.)

Also, I must interject a teensy qualification here, mainly because “The Hamptons” sounds so all-fired snooty and all. For most of us East-Enders, The Hamptons just happens to be where we live — and shop for groceries and vote and go to the dump and fold laundry. Oh, I have spotted Sir Paul, but he was standing in line at the farmer’s market just like everyone else.

Traffic at the Farm Stand. (Sir Paul could very well be in one of those cars)

Pro Tip: you can spot a “local” out here because we always say “hello” and smile, even when met with stony stares aimed at us over a cellphone screen.

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Beware the Rage Rover

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‘The pitfalls and perils of traffic in The Hamptons’

I’m a little late today. I had to (gasp) leave The Compound by car. Which is something I rarely do out here in The Hamptons.

Why don’t I like to drive out here? Take a guess

Did I dash out to Citarella for a twelve-dollar loaf of bread? Or to Lunch for a forty-dollar lobster roll? Nah. I loaded up the Toyota for a trip to the dump. Er, “recycling center.”

I usually put off my Dump Run until Thursday, when I can combine it with my Groceries/Mail/Liquor Run for a trip I call my “Vector.” But I made grilled chicken involving a garlic-loaded marinade the other night, and the garbage bag which I hung on a hook in the basement (to discourage mice) was starting to, well, infuse the entire house with a not-very-enticing aroma.

There’s even traffic at the Forty-Dollar Farm Stand. But there’s a nice aroma of roasting corn. So there’s that

So I screwed my courage to the sticking place and nosed my way out of our driveway and into — Hamptons Traffic.

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Things that go shriek in the night

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‘This never happens when The Dude is here’

Everything was going so well.

Feast your eyes: Even the Taco Tuesday table setting was delicious

I was happily full of beans (both literally and figuratively) from a delightful Taco Tuesday. I’d watched my fill of fabulous first-round Wimbledon tennis, and had just tucked myself into bed with a copy of Fatal Vision. (The book about the Jeffrey MacDonald murder trial that I was re-reading after reading Janet Malcolm’s New Yorker essay The Journalist and The Murderer.’)

Some light summer reading about murders, trials and journalistic ethics

Anyway. It had been a marvelous day — and I was looking forward to an equally marvelous (and restful) night. As far as I could tell, there were no partying neighbors present, and even the helicopter and jet traffic had settled down.

I’d just plopped down my book and popped in my mouthguard (which I call my “biter,” much to my dentist’s chagrin), when I hear this terrible shrieking sound.

Was it coming from the neighbors? Fourth of July Weekend was coming up; maybe what I was hearing was a new form of pyrotechnical display.

I closed the bedroom slider. But that only made the noise louder — and, if possible — even more ear-piercingly shrill.

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