Vacation Withdrawal

I walked into my office today at 7:20 am. It looked the same, smelled the same. It was exactly as I had left it eleven days ago. Thirteen hundred miles to the south, someone else was taking a morning run on my beach, someone else was swimming out to the float, someone else was saving a couple of chairs steps from the water.

I rummaged through the 84 e-mails, deleting all but 7 of them. I checked the real, old fashioned stack of mail, throwing away all but two pieces...both bills. There were a lot of voice mail messages, but none of them were urgent. I took a few notes, then wiped them clean from the log.

I made some coffee. It was the only thing better in Short Pump than the Cayman's. The water there isn't the best, making the coffee quite pedestrian. Plus, all the coffee down there came via a Keurig machine, that monument to capitalism and marketing whereby millions of otherwise bright discerning people become convinced that tiny cups of coffee produced individually by a machine so poorly calibrated that it cannot properly fill a mug, is somehow better than coffee brewed by the pot-full using freshly ground beans. But, I digress.

I returned to my desk and began preparing for my first appointment, due to arrive in 2 short hours. Somehow, I was going to have to wipe the silly, self-satisfied grin from my face and manage to look both professional and serious before he showed up. I went to the bathroom only to discover that I had forgotten to shave. Sigh....

My neck is killing me. While on vacation it started acting up mid-week, but I was able to manage the ill-effects because I was in the most beautiful place on earth...and the daily consumption of mudslides and pink sand beaches serve as excellent pain management therapy. Now, there's just Advil. There are a couple of bulging disks back there and the beginnings of arthritis so once every six months or so it blows up into a hot mess of discomfort.

I turn on the iPod and dial up some Caribbean music. It's horrible. Listening to steel drums on a beach in the tropics is one thing, but in Short Pump it sounds silly, childish. I quickly switch to Frank Sinatra since there is absolutely nothing silly about Frank.

The appointment goes well. By noon, I have checked off seven items that had warranted immediate attention. I glanced at the market and noticed that the Dow was down 200 points, clearly just to piss me off. The phone rings a few times. Clients with questions. I answer them. I hang up the phone and it occurs to me that exactly four days ago to the minute,  Pam and I were hanging from a parachute 300 feet above the ocean. The neck is getting angrier by the minute, a raging mess.

I pay a few business bills, prepare for a couple of reviews later in the week. By then, I'll be over vacation withdrawal. I will, right?

The Magnificent Cayman's

I'm writing this, 30,000' somewhere over the Caribbean Sea, or to borrow from the great Louis CK, sitting in a chair...in the SKY! What better time than now to write about my week on Grand Cayman? 

My biggest worry in the weeks leading up to this trip was, "is seven days and nights too long?" Before you laugh consider the fact that Pam and I had never been away for this long before...ever. Our honeymoon was shorter. Would we run out of things to talk about? I mean, we do at home. When you're around each other all the time, it's easy to run out of stuff to talk about. How many times can you tell your wife about your latest pulled muscle without it getting a little boring? How many times can your wife regale you with the latest insane happenings within the education bureaucracy without you just tuning her out? I pictured the very real possibility that by Wednesday night we would be sitting at some five-star bistro, picking at our risotto while checking e-mails on our cell phones. On our last dinner I shared my fear with Pam and she informed me that she had worried about the very same thing. Then we looked at each other and said, "What the heck were we thinking???"

This place has been so glorious, such a delight, it has afforded me the opportunity to think of nothing but her for over a week. Doing so has been like a holiday from life. What happens when your mind suddenly empties itself of every care, every burden, real or imagined? You become a different person, that's what, and this new guy is way cooler than the guy you were at home. Your wife becomes that beguiling creature who spun your head around 30 years ago. You wake up on day two and realize that you're on a second honeymoon, but this time you're not a couple of witless idiots, and this time you have enough money to eat something besides oatmeal cream pies and orange soda. Sweet!!

Our hotel, the Grand Cayman Beach Suites Resort, is very nice but initially disappointed me. I planned everything about this trip, I picked the place, made all of the arrangements and did all the research, so on the taxi ride from the airport, I was nervous. It didn't overwhelm me, and for the first few hours, I felt like I had failed somehow. Our suite was very nice but the hotel itself seemed a little threadbare, a little long in the tooth, especially for the money I had paid. But then we walked down to the beach and suddenly felt much better...or at least we would, as soon as it stopped raining. Yes, after a five and a half hour flight, paradise greated us with a torrential downpour that had us fleeing to the Seven Mile Beach Bar for a drink while we waited out the storm and waited for our room to be cleaned. Our friendly barkeep,(and everyone on the Island was friendly), assured us that rain in the Cayman's was something that blew in and blew out with little notice. Before we could say, "Good Lord, look at the size of that iguana," the rain was gone and the clear blue sky opened up above us like a dream. The ocean lapped up on the perfect, shell-less sand with less force than the waves on a lake in Maine. A turquoise expanse spread out before us as far as the eye could see like a blue mirror. We both looked at each other with mouths ajar like a couple of tourists from Des Moines. The only thing missing would have been black socks, sandals, and a metal detector. We have been to many islands in the Carribean, but neither of us had ever seen such a beach. The vacation had begun!

The cab ride from the airport had disabused me of any notion I might have had of renting a car for the week. Being a British nation, everything was backwards...and terrifying. Just about the time I would finally start feeling comfortable, we would enter one of the ubiquitous roundabouts, which is English for, "what the &&$:@&8,?¡$7!!!!!" No, if we were leaving the resort it would be on foot or in one of the handy island buses, which amounted to private Caymanian citizens out to make a buck by offering to take you anywhere on the island for 5 American dollars. No need for bus stops or posted routes, just start walking in the direction you intend to go and wait for someone to honk their horn politely at you. Wave back at them and you've got yourselves a deal! This arrangement was literally the only affordable thing to be had in the Cayman's. The cost of living here is outrageous thanks to all the American tourists willing to pay 20 dollars for a tuna wrap, bag of chips and a flat soft drink. But, you know that going in, so you have to mentally prepare yourself to overpay for everything. Oh, and then there's the relentless problem of having to constantly perform math. Prices are generally posted in Cayman dollars, which are worth .80, but everyone accepts American dollars as well. So, when you find yourself pleasantly surprised that the green fee for nine holes of golf with rental clubs is only $80, you're only allowed to be shocked once when the nice man behind the counter asks you for $100 American.

But that's the only thing bad I can think to say about this place. In every other way it is truly a paradise. The people are friendly beyond description. The streets are safe and clean. Almost every night Pam and I would leave the hotel grounds and walk somewhere, and never once did we feel threatened. You try leaving your hotel in Jamaica after dark and your experiences wind up being made into a Lifetime movie starring Valerie Bertinelli!

We began every day by parking ourselves in our nifty resort beach chairs, featuring a retractable roof which could be raised and lowered as needed. With the temperature each day topping out at exactly 86 degrees, this little convenience was worth it's weight in gold. About every twenty minutes or so one of us would say, " Time to get wet." Then we would walk ten steps towards the beach, take another five steps and suddenly we were up to our chests in clear water, so clear you could see your toes against the white sand bottom. Heaven.

At least once before lunch the drink-boy (me) would walk up to the Beach bar and order up either a Pink Sand Beach or a Mudslide and bring it down as a surprise. Pam was quite impressed. Then we would apply for a line of credit on our house so we could have lunch beachside. I'm mostly just kidding...Each evening we would do something different. One night we took a catamaran ride across the Cayman Bay to Rum Point for a romantic dinner. Incedently, on the Cayman's there are no other kinds of dinners. We never ate at the same restaurant twice, and each was a wonder. 

Along the way there was snorkeling. But this was exclusively a Pam thing. She was amazing at it, gliding out there fearlessly. Twice before I had tried, without success, to snorkel. Each time I had the same result, a lung full of salt water. Apparently, the combination of my facial hair and my "face shape" does not lend itself to a pleasant snorkel experience. I went back to the Red Sail Sports desk to inquire if perhaps they had a larger mask to accommodate my..er...prominent, aristocratic nose. I was told that they used to have a special size HH mask, (huge honker) but had gotten rid of it ever since Barbara Steisand stopped visiting the island back in the 80's.

One day we made our way into Georgetown, the capital city. We bought two tickets for a submarine excursion out to the coral reef, and got to view it up close from a depth of 107 feet. Then we had lunch at a famous local place called Guy Harvey's. Food was excellent, but the house music was about the most horrible, but hilarious soundtrack...EVER. First, there was a local Caymanian artist doing a synthicizer and steel drum version of a Captain and Teneal number called "Love will keep us together." Not to be outdone, another local artist provided his soulful reggae-elevator fusion take on Steely Dan's "Do it again." This was music to die a slow death to, the kind of music you would expect to hear through the loudspeaker at the Montego Bay Wallmart. We couldn't get back to the beach fast enough!

Our last full day was perhaps the best. I took Pam up in a parasail from which we could see the entire island. It was magnificent. We even saw a turtle on the surface, lime green in color, lumbering 300 feet below us. For a minute I thought Pam would cry, she was so happy.

This morning, we both got up extra early so we could spend some time on our beach, wrenching the last few drops out of our time here. I went for a run on the beach. Pam snorkeled some more and saw another turtle. After she went in to shower and pack, I swam out to the fifteen foot float that was secured out a ways in front of the hotel beach. I laid on my back and closed my eyes, rocking gently in the soft current. What a week this has been, I thought. Best money I have ever spent.

The World at 5 AM

For the second consecutive day I have awakened at an absurd hour. Yesterday it was 5:30, today 4:30. Man was not created to be awake this early. It is unnerving, and deathly quiet. Both nights I have slept well, and both nights I retired later than usual. Still, once my eyes pop open, there's no going back. So, I brew some coffee, start reading the news and an hour and a half later it's still too early to be banging about the house since my wife is up there enjoying the deep, peaceful sleep of the just.

Lucy is not impressed with me at the moment. She's been sleeping on her downstairs bed of late after her life-altering encounter with our bedroom ceiling fan. Pam accidentally turned it on a few weeks ago when Lucy was laying on the bed and the poor girl nearly killed herself fleeing the room in terror. Before that Lucy had decided that sleeping in the bed with us was just about the greatest thing ever. No more.  She enters our bedroom with extreme caution these days, keeping a wary eye on the five-fanned menace overhead. Anyway, the last two mornings I have stopped to pet her after coming downstairs. She seems puzzled at my presence as if to say, "Dude...what's it, like 4 in the freaking morning??" Still, obeying some centuries old instinct, she begrudgingly follows me about while I putz around in the kitchen, then sits at my feet at the sofa. When I ask her to jump up and lay down beside me, this is apparently a bridge too far. " What? You expect me to leap? At this hour?" She's had enough of this foolishness, and disappears.

There are advantages to being an early riser, I'm told. Lots of time for reflection, reading, and prayer, not to mention all of those worms that we early birds have the monopoly on. Speaking of birds, there are a couple outside having a raging debate about something. So much for the deathly quiet. Back and forth, back and forth, it's quite intense. I wonder what they are saying to each other? Is it a conversation or an argument? Sounds like one of them is pissed. "How many times have I told you look before you poop??!!"

Today is my last day of reality for awhile. Tomorrow morning Pam and I will be flying out to the Grand Cayman Islands for seven days, celebrating the first anniversary of our 30th wedding anniversary. I haven't looked forward to anything quite so much as this trip in a long time. Maybe that explains my early wake ups. But today will be long and stressful with all the last minute stuff that you have to do before leaving town. I've got an important appointment to start my day, then it's twelve items to check off my list including things like:

1. Make sure you call Capitol One to let them know that you're leaving the country for a week.

2. Go by the bank and draw out some cash.

3. Get all of your traveling papers ready.

The greatest thing about this trip, besides the fact that I will be spending it with the most beautiful and amazing woman in the world, is the fact that I won't have to pack one single solitary pair of long pants. Let me tell you something, if you're going somewhere for a week that doesn't require long pants, you are going someplace...niiiiiice!

Ok. Great. It's finally 6 o'clock.

Is America 70% Christian?

There has been much talk about a recent nationwide poll that reveals that the number of Americans who self-identify as "Christian" has dropped to 70%, the lowest such percentage since these types of polls have been asking the question. It should be noted that the methodology employed by the pollsters might raise questions about its accuracy. The subjects were contacted using land line telephone numbers. The last time I picked up an actual ringing land line in my home was when George W. Bush was still in the White House! But if anything, this methodology would have the result of yielding more traditional Christians than fewer since it would favor older respondents. So, I find the results of the poll to be believable. So, what's the big deal?

The suggestion that America is becoming less and less Christian in nominal terms should surprise absolutely no one. Over the past twenty five years, the Catholic Church has been decimated by a priest sex scandal, no doubt disillusioning many. Mainline Protestant churches haven't faired much better, with practically every denomination experiencing declines in membership and attendance. And yet, in my part of the country, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting one of those strip-mall churches that have sprouted up like mushrooms after three days of rain. They are everywhere, in schools, old Seven-Elevens, abandoned warehouses, with names like "Velocity" and "Movement"...sounds exhausting! These non-demonization, mini-congregations offer church for people who wouldn't normally attend one, I'm told. Either that or they serve as a place for people to go after they got tired of their old church. Either way, it seems that less than gaining new converts, modern Christianity has become a mile wide and an inch deep. So, 70%? I'm thinking that might be a little high.

I have no answer to the problem of the declining popularity of Christianity. Partly because I'm not even sure it's a problem to begin with. Whoever said that being hugely popular and mainstream was so great? I can make a case that the Christian "church" was much more effective at changing people's hearts and minds and transforming lives back when we were a persecuted band of outcasts. ( See the Book of Acts ). The beginning of the end for transformational Christianity began the night that Constantine saw the comet and Christianity began its long ascendancy to power and wealth. Seems to me that even Christ himself warned us that, "broad is the way that leads to destruction and many will find it, but narrow is the way to the Kingdom of God and FEW will find it," ...or words to that effect.

Maybe Christianity has tried to get too cute with all the jazzy entertainment driven services, or maybe not. Maybe prosperity gospel heretics like Joel Osteen have muddied the theological waters so as to make sacrificial Christianity unrecogizable. Or maybe, in this new era of relativism, any dogmatic orthodoxy will naturally fall out of favor. What do I know? I'm no expert.

But, there is a sense in my heart that something is wrong. It's as if the Titantic is sinking and the
Christian Church is busy rearranging the deck chairs. I live in a world that is morally unrecogizable from the one in which a I grew up. I watch my cities on fire with discontent, read stories of truly epic corruption and self-serving in the halls of power. But when I go to church I hear sermons with little relevance to what I see happening around me. There is no connection to the real world, only my more secure, less violent slice of it. That's not comforting, it's boring.

70%? Yeah, definitely on the high side.

My Favorite Part of Life After 50

And now...my favorite part of life after 50, the annual physical exam. In my case it's more like the bi-annual physical exam but you get the picture. This is that prudent, responsible, adult thing we are shamed into doing by our wives once we reach a certain age, whereby we haul ourselves to the doctors office so he can measure the degree of our decline and check us over for any new visitations of decrepitude. "Wait, what's this new weird looking mole on your back Dunnevant? That doesn't look good!"

I'll get weighed. Then they actually check my height, I suppose to discover if I have begun to shrink since I haven't grown an inch since tenth grade. My blood pressure will get checked. It will most likely be slightly elevated. Bi-annual physical exams will do that to a person. Then they will take a blood sample to check for a variety of things. They will discover that I am not a drug addict. Then I will pee in a cup and they will discover that I don't smoke and that I had asparagus for dinner last night. All of this stuff happens before I actually see my doctor. The nurses are all angels, smiling all over the place, bouncing around with the enthusiasm of teenagers. Some of them look like they could be teenagers. I've got wrinkles older than some of these women.

Then the Doc comes in. He's the same guy I've been going to since I got married 31 years ago, and man has he aged! Good guy, decent bedside manner, goofy smile and a slightly annoying whiny voice, but good egg. He smiles at me and tells me I look great. " Good  to see you're keeping the weight off. You should see some of the tubs that waddle in here asking why their blood pressure is through the roof as they munch on a snickers bar!" The good part about having the same doctor for 31 years is that they know everything about you. The bad part is...they know everything about you and never fail to remind you about the time that they had to prescribe you that "mystery medicine" before your 13 hour flight to Hawaii at the request of the wife. The generic name was unrecogizable, and at first I thought it was a placebo, until my wife informed me that I had been given Valium to keep me in my seat for the duration of the trip. After all these years he still thinks that's an hilarious story. I fail to see the humor.

So, hopefully after this $275 exam I will be given a relatively clean bill of health...along with an admonition to schedule another colonoscopy since its been seven years since my last, and that I should probably head back to my cardiologists for another one of those ultrasound thingys of my heart. I will promise him that I will and then immediately banish the thought from my head until a few months from now when Pam will pester me into following through.

But here's the good news. I will tip the scales this morning within five pounds of my wedding weight. I still have plenty of hair. I can still see and my hearing is fine regardless of Pam's complaints to the contrary. Not exactly Hercules, but I'm no Homer Simpson either. 

I'll take it.

Our Wedding Anniversary Trip

Last year this time Pam and I realized that our 30th wedding anniversary was about to happen, but neither of us were at a place where an elaborate celebration seemed either appropriate or possible. We were hip-deep in planning Kaitlin's wedding and my father was in the final stages of his life at the Westport nursing home. We made the mutual decision to postpone the celebration until this year.

That has given me an entire year to plan a trip. The two of us haven't been out of the country, just the two of us, in quite a long time. Can't wait. 

It's not hard to believe that we have been married 31 years. Actually, it seems about right. What's hard to believe is what we've managed to do in those 31 years. We brought two babies into the world, knowing virtually nothing about parenting except how to become one. Despite our manifest ignorance, both children survived. Towards that end we were assisted by two wonderful, wise and generous families who were there every step of the way to offer aid and comfort. Looking back on those early years, I can't imagine how we would have managed it all if we lived in Kansas somewhere, a thousand miles from both of our Moms. People do it all the time, I'm told. Just glad we didn't have to.

Raising Patrick and Kaitlin was the hardest but most noble thing we have ever done. We made lots of mistakes along the way. Parenting is a giant trial and error experiment. Stuff that works like a charm on one of them flops on the other. But you keep plowing ahead, mistakes and all. You learn to rely on others. A church comes in handy in that regard. Our kids were nurtured every Sunday by able and loving teachers like Mark and Joann Terlep and Larry and Diane Collawn. They were fortunate to be a part of a youth group led by a youth pastor, Jeremy Welborn who loved them both and helped them find a place. Still, it was no guarantee that they wouldn't turn out to be hooligans. You spend half of your life as a parent second guessing yourself, and the other half praying that God won't punish them for your failures. 31 years later we look at what has become of them and we can't help but feel proud and grateful.

But raising two great kids isn't the only thing we have to show for our time together. I'm still in love with her, for one thing. I think I'm a better person now than when I first got married, and most of that is because of her. I'm not the easiest person in the world to live with, what with my antsy, can't stay on task for more than ten minutes, neurotic behavior most often associated with adolescents. My risk-taking personality has given her logical, organized, planner personality fits for 31 long years now, and yet...somehow it has all worked.

So, we will go away to a tropical paradise for a week. We will do whatever the heck we feel like doing. And you know what? We deserve it!

Oh, and just in case anyone is reading this and thinking since we will be out of the country for a week, it might be a good time to rob our house? I should probably point out that we have employed a full time dog-sitter for the week named, "Max the mule-skinner Monroe" , or " Spike" to his friends...and if you try something while he's here, you will not be his friend.

The Evil Words of the Internet

There are two words in the English language that I have grown to hate, a third that I fairly despise. These are the words that strike terror in my soul. When they appear, very bad things happen. I see them and my heart sinks, my disposition sours and great lamentation is sure to follow. These words have the power to transform me from an efficient, productive businessman into an incompetent, bumbling idiot in a matter of seconds. At the mere appearance of these words on my computer screen, I feel isolation, frustration, then anger. Which words am I referring to, you ask?

                      USERNAME,    PASSWORD,   and their evil cousin...PIN

To get anything done on a computer, one has to identify oneself. I'm not an idiot, I understand the way the world works. There are bad people out there who would love to steal my identity and go on a shopping spree at my expense. So, every website that I frequent for either work purposes or for pleasure requires me to prove that I am, in fact, who I claim to be. To accomplish this, I am asked to provide my USERNAME and PASSWORD.( ok, for the rest of this blog, I'm gonna use U & P...just typing these words is giving me the creeps ). 

So, I cast about trying to come up with a U & P that is at once familiar to me but difficult for some would be identity thief to decipher. To aid me in this effort, I am given special instructions that look something like this:

" U & P must be no fewer than 8 characters and must include both lower and upper case letters, no fewer than two numbers, plus at least one symbol."


So, I fool around with several permutations of dog names, birth dates and street addresses and finally 

enter something that I have at least half a chance of remembering, then get a flashing message that says words to the effect of, " Your U & P really suck! I mean a third grader could figure them out!!" So, it's back to the drawing board. Finally, fifteen minutes later, I manage to enter something marginally acceptable at which I am greeted with a drop down box filled with, "personal identification questions." Wait, what? I thought the whole purpose of the U & P nonsense was to prevent unwanted access from someone other than me. Now, I have to run the gauntlet of personal questions? I must pick three out of a long list of trigger questions:

1. Mother's maiden name

2. Name of first dog

3. Favorite sport

4. First name of closest gay relative


Finally, I'm approved! Then the computer asks me the blessed question..."Would you like to save this U & P?"  My God, YES!!!! You have no freaking idea how much I want this computer to save this U & P!!!! But...there's a problem. Because my computer has done me the great favor of saving this information for me, I never again have to enter it myself, which means it immediately enters the ether, along with the million other things that I have permanently forgotten. Even this isn't a problem, until I try to access this site from, another computer! When I do this, I am always at a different location. So when I try to access say, Expedia, from my iPad, I am restricted from doing so, because all my U & P information is stored on my work laptop! 

See, I know what all of you computer geeks are thinking out there. I can practically feel your judgement and ridicule. " Why don't you write all of your U's & P's down on one piece of paper or
even on some handy storage device so you will always have them available?" Already did that, and
it's three pages! I actually counted them last night. I have 67 different sets of U's & P's to keep track of. Most of them are work related and since I work in the investment business, we are legally obsessed with the privacy of data. You can imagine how complicated and bizarre the U's & P's have to be to enter some of the websites I have to use. My three page cheat sheet is about as dog-eared as the Dugger's family bible.

But the worst thing that happens to me is when I successfully enter a U & P, think I'm home free, only to be greeted by that ghastly formulation: "Please enter your four digit PIN."

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Or, even better..."For security purposes, we require that you change your U & P every six weeks. Please enter a new U & P. And this time, try not to suck."

So, I enter, " YourCOMPAny BLOWS&$@#2 "

" Sorry. Someone has already used this Password. Try again."