POSTING #59

"May you live in interesting times" (Supposedly an Ancient Chinese Curse)

Our trip south this year---we left Virgil on December 23rd for Hilton Head and arrived back on February 1st---was a classic case of 'living in interesting times'.

Pat has catalogued all the grim and gory details in an email to a friend, which she has kindly allowed me to reproduce below.

As you read the email, I would ask you to think about what we might have done to deserve this Job-like testing.

I will return to that issue after Pat's account of our woes.

000


"Before we left on December 23rd, I (Pat) had what was diagnosed as probably a light case of shingles - so we cancelled our family Christmas because some of us had not had chicken pox. I was given a strong anti-viral pill which I ate all of (love the grammar).

"Set out on the 23rd, and arrived on the 24th in a tiny town called Emporia on the border between Virginia and North Carolina. DO NOT EVER GO
THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We had been there before, stayed at a good hotel, and had dinner at a great locally owned restaurant.

"That is why we stayed there this time.

We had made better time driving than we had expected and since our villa rental didn't start until the 26th we decided to spend two nights in Emporia. We booked a hotel for Christmas Eve and Christmas night Found that the locally owned restaurant was closed over Christmas week, went for dinner to Applebee's which was fine.

"Christmas Day came and we thought we would do a repeat on dinner.

"THINK AGAIN.

"Everything was closed - and I mean ALL the restaurants. A drug store was open until 3 pm so we hustled over there and bought 2 pull-tab cans of baked beans and a bag of bagel chips and 2 yogurts.

"That was Christmas dinner

"So we went out the next day and arrived at the house in HH on Saturday.

"Unknown to me, John had been having a toothache during the trip so on Monday we hustled off to a dentist who said the tooth was really rotten and should be pulled.

"Tuesday it was pulled and now for a week of antibiotics.

"Also, the high-speed access for the computer did not work so we could not email kids or pay bills etc.

"And the cold weather set in and it was rocking between plus freezing and minus freezing --- AND THE FURNACE DIED. Died as in pulling in cold air from outside and whipping it around the house.

"So we hopped in the car and trotted off to Fort Myers in Florida - saw friends and explored the city and even there it was cold but the hotel was warm.

"At the end of that week our landlady assured us that the furnace was fixed so we returned to HH. We arrived at night to find that the furnace was indeed NOT fixed - phoned said landlady but no answer.

"Off to the nearest Crowne Plaza hotel which was going to be at her expense let me tell you! And was.

"And furnace got fixed.

"So there was a week in there when things were basically OK - but oh, was it cold!

"Then there was a call on John's cell phone at 4 AM from our alarm company, ADT. The phone didn't actually ring at 4 AM--- reception is poor because of all the tall palm trees---but the ADT operator left a message that our sump pump sensor back in Virgil had just gone off.

"We got the message four hours later when we woke up.

"With visions of water flooding our newly finished basement and heading up the stairs, we called our contractor, who still has a key for our house.

"He found that everything was fine---some water had just splashed up on the sensor and set off the alarm.

"Then, back in HH, the toaster died, the delicate cycle on the washer died, the knob to open the door on the dishwasher died, and on the last day the insinkerator died.

"So far, we had not died.

"However, I was having somewhat of a relapse of maybe shingles or maybe an allergy and trotted of to a medicine lady who prescribe the same pills as I had before but to the tune of $345.

"We set out for home a day early because a storm with snow and ice was to come through HH on Sat. But it hit early. However I-95 was OK all the way to Emporia (yes, we are going back to Emporia on the assumption that everything would be open because it was not Christmas).

"WRONG!

"The next day everything was closed - a Snow Day - all the restaurants were closed. Now then, it is the end of the month, and we have masses of people on the road traveling north to go home after a month away, and masses of people traveling south to spend the rest of the winter in Florida etc.

"They are all stopping in Emporia for the night intending to carry on the next day -- they all need to be fed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So down to the Red Lion grocery store which was going to close at 3pm (the night before they had run out of milk!). So the snow and ice were coming down in droves. All the people in the hotel were stuck.

We ate nuked frozen food for dinner with some yoghurt---a step up from baked beans, wouldn't you say!

"The next day, we set out from Emporia and the journey thru Virginia on I-95 was a positive nightmare. They had not ploughed at all in places, and in most places they had just ploughed one lane and we are in the midst of heavy car traffic and truck traffic like you would not believe -- all wanting the same 2 ruts in the road.

"At least the snow and ice in the sky had stopped.

"When we arrived in Pennsylvania everything was fine and remained so for the rest of the trip.

"But to cap it all off, the people in South Carolina are no longer the
lovely Southern charmers they used to be. That is another story."

000

So maybe old Job's afflictions were worse than ours, but I think you will agree that our experiences do sound like 'living in interesting times'.

What (or who) cursed us?

I have a theory.

You may recall that in Posting #6 on February 8, 2009 I told how the Hunters brought with them from Wales in 1907 the tradition that required that the father in a household had to eat 12 mince tarts between Christmas and New Years so that the family would be protected against bad luck for the coming 12 months.

Although Pat was initially sceptical, she has churned out 12 tarts each holiday season for 49 years except for the time we were in Baku, Azerbaijan and couldn't get the ingredients. The health and other problems that followed us that year convinced Pat that the custom should not be trifled with.

So, before setting out for Hilton Head, Pat baked tarts, which we stowed with the spare tire so they would stay cool.

On Christmas Day, I ate a couple of tarts (Pat forgot about those in her description of our Christmas dinner in Emporia). Everything was going well until I had my rotten molar extracted on December 29th.

The dentist warned me about being careful not to disturb the clot where the tooth used to be and went on at great length about the dangers of 'dry socket'---what a horrible-sounding ailment.

He suggested I live on cold, liquid food for 4 or 5 days, until the clot was thick and sturdy.

With 6 tarts still to go, I was in trouble.

Our rental place had a blender so I experimented with smoothies, throwing in milk, yoghurt, cottage cheese, apricot jam, ice cream, Ovaltine and other goodies from the back of the fridge. The drinks weren't bad, by the way (recipes provided on request).

But what about the mince tarts?

I decided that the only thing was to add them to the smoothie ingredients and moosh them in the blender.

Our most serious problems (broken furnace etc.) started almost immediately after the mooshing of the tarts.

I've concluded that trolls and dragons sleeping in the Welsh mountains were jarred awake by the indignity being inflicted upon the tarts. Angry at being awakened, they decided to teach us a lesson.

The moral of the story is clear.

If you have any Welsh blood in you, don't moosh your mince tarts.

000

Some Verbal Snapshots of our Holiday

What a difference there has been in the last 12 months in the attitude of people in Hilton Head and other parts of the US!

In Posting #6, February 8, 2009 (referred to above) I described attending a lunch to celebrate the inauguration of President Obama. Everything was hope and optimism. Change was possible and people were so happy to see the end of the Bush Administration.

Now, there is a great deal of anger and a deep underlying fear. People seem more short-tempered, more testy, more mean spirited. We were honked more than ever before as we tried to find the right road, and there were more insults about Canada's weather.

000

We had a chat with a retired professor of political science after a presentation he made at the Hilton Head library on what should be done about Iran and nuclear arms. I asked if he thought that there could be a rational discussion of the issue in the country.

He shook his head and said that he couldn't see how the US could have a rational discussion of the Iran issue, or of the other domestic and foreign issues that confront the country. He said he had never seen such polarization of the nation. "Everything, just everything, is polarized."

000

Last year, the slips in the harbour at Sea Pines---the posh development on the south of the Hilton Head Island---were all full of large, expensive pleasure boats. This year, half the slips were empty.


000

Each Friday, the Island Packet, Hilton Head's daily newspaper, had 8 or 9 pages of small-type legal notices announcing upcoming auctions of foreclosed properties.

000

An experienced real estate agent in Fort Myers, Florida told us that the housing market seemed to be coping reasonably well with a large number of foreclosed homes and condos in the $100,000 to 300,000 range---thanks to buyers from the northern US and Canada. However, she was worried about whether the owners of more expensive homes, who had been holding on waiting for a recovery in housing prices, might be forced to give up their homes. A surge of more expensive homes onto the market could badly destabilize the situation.

In the interest of full disclosure, we got bitten by the 'buy-a-cheap-Florida-home' bug ourselves but the 'infection' lasted only a few days. The more we looked at the idea, the more we decided we didn't have the financial acumen, the energy, or, finally, the interest to make a sound purchase. Good buys are available --- a Canadian friend, who is a retired banker, and his wife have bought a beautiful home at a very reasonable price---but the scamsters who got the US into its real estate crisis are everywhere. Caveat emptor!

000

So, a glum and difficult time for the US society and economy but we had a reminder that one should never underestimate the American entrepreneurial creativity and resiliency.

Our landlady, upset by the furnace problems, sent us a "Lobstergram" from someone named "Lobster Dan" in Maine.

A few days later UPS delivered a large box that included 2 good-sized, live lobsters, an enamel pot, and all the things needed for a lobster dinner including a lemon, butter, nutcrackers, picks and bibs.

And a sheet on cooking the lobster (e.g. "rubbing the back of the lobsters before putting them in the boiling water relaxes them").

Pat and I had a delicious lobster feast.

I marvel at the ability of American entrepreneurs to put together an attractive package, market it well and then deliver it on time and in superb condition.

It is not really relevant I guess but I get a kick out of studying the UPS computer tracking record.

The tracking (that starts at the bottom) shows that the lobster package was picked up at 5.29 PM on January 12 in Maine and was in Hilton Head by 8.28 the next morning (we got it around 2 PM).

As Martha S. would say, "How good is that!"

Location Date Local Time Description What's This?

HILTON HEAD, SC, US 01/13/2010 8:28 A.M. OUT FOR DELIVERY
01/13/2010 8:27 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
WEST COLUMBIA, SC, US 01/13/2010 5:33 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
01/13/2010 4:49 A.M. FORWARDED TO THE FACILITY IN THE DESTINATION CITY
01/13/2010 3:55 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
PHILADELPHIA, PA, US 01/13/2010 2:41 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
01/13/2010 12:01 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
MANCHESTER, NH, US 01/12/2010 10:46 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
01/12/2010 10:17 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
SO. PORTLAND, ME, US 01/12/2010 8:25 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
01/12/2010 5:29 P.M. ORIGIN SCAN
US 01/12/2010 4:24 P.M. BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED
Tracking results provided by UPS: 01/13/2010 9:47 A.M. ET

000

A final note on our holiday.

We went to The Soup Kitchen, an annual event to raise money for a charity that provides free medical and dental care to the poor. Guests pay $10 and get a hospital-style wrist band that entitles them to sample signature soups from 30 local chefs.

We overheard a man who was standing in a line for some seafood gumbo and cornbread tell a friend this joke:

A kid from the south went north to a fine school - came home for
Christmas and saw an old school friend who says "Well, whatchalearn up in Yankee
country "?

Kid says. "Well, I learned a lot about pi r squared.

Friend says, "That's stoopid. Everybody knows pie are round --- cornbread are square."

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
See you next Sunday for Posting #60 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting, or email me at johnpathunter@cs.com.