Allan and I will soon be leaving for Japan, and as we prepare for our adventure, it reminded me of another Asian trip we took years ago to China on a Wendy Wu tour, spending a month touring the country and seeing the sights. We had folks from the U.S. on the tour, as well as a few from England and Australia. Our guide, Candy, was excellent, and she spoke English fairly well.

During our orientation meeting after the welcome dinner, Candy laid out the itinerary and told us what we should expect weather-wise as we traversed from one side of China to the other, what the amazing sights we would be visiting were, what the food would be like, etc. She gave us the lowdown on the beds in the hotels (which were like sleeping on cement), and also on the “happy house”, (which were not too happy since they were merely a hole in the ground sans toilet paper).

Everyone was listening very carefully, and when Candy mentioned that some of the happy houses were a bit dark inside, one of the Brits on our tour exclaimed cheerfully, “Oh, no problem. We have our torches with us.”

Well, the look on Candy’s face was priceless. Her eyes opened wide in panic, and she began to shake her head rapidly. “No fire! No allowed! No safe!” she emphatically stated. We all started to laugh and then we reassured her that there’d be no blazing bonfires being started in the happy houses, since most of us knew the Brits were referring to their flashlights.

The next evening, we were chatting over glasses of beer with those same Brits, and one guy mentioned the pastas in their village. I said, “Oh, we love eating pastas. We try all different shapes and sizes. Allan favors the thin pastas, and I love the broad pastas. We eat them quite often!”

When we started talking about eating pastas, our English friends’ faces resembled Candy’s shocked expression when they had mentioned torches.

“What do you mean you eat pastas?” one Brit nervously queried while taking a step backward.

And then another Brit lowered his voice, also taking a step backward, and said in disbelief, “You eat the people who preside over the church services?”

And I swear, they all nonchalantly started looking for the exits.

It took me a minute to comprehend, and then I said, “You mean PASTORS?”

“What? No!” they emphatically said. “PASTAS!”

And then we all laughed.

But I’m sure for a nanosecond before the laughter, the Brits were surmising we might be cannibals. And in that same nanosecond, they were probably regretting the fact that their flashlights weren’t tiki torches, since those flames on a stick could have come in handy to fend us off had we started boiling water in a huge black cauldron and gotten out the salt and pepper.

Did you ever notice how the catcher suggests to the pitcher what pitch he should throw and the pitcher stands on the mound and shakes his head ‘No’ for maybe three or four times until he finally agrees with the pitch the catcher suggests?

It reminds me of that Seinfeld scene when Kramer pretends to be the MoviePhone recording. Kramer finally out of sheer frustration finally says “Why don’t you just TELL me what movie you want to see!” since he has no idea what buttons the caller is pressing.

Mark my words. One of these days…a catcher is going to go ballistic, throw down his catcher’s mask, storm the mound and grab the bat out of the batter’s hand  shouting

When I was a kid in elementary school, once a week my grandma would give me a dime, and I would walk down to ‘Al’s’, the corner grocery store, to buy the twin package of Hostess cupcakes.  Al was a big burly guy with curly hair, who stood behind the counter and always said, “Guess you’re here for your cupcakes”, and I would shyly place my dime on the counter, and quickly leave with my treasure tucked safely in my hand.

Some kids when eating their cupcakes would peel the icing with the white squiggle off the top and eat that first, and then they would open the cupcake, scoop out the cream with their finger..and finish up by popping the chocolate cake into their mouths. I never did that. I preferred to take a bite of it all…icing, delicious rich cream center and soft moist cake…savoring each mouthful.

When I say I went to Al’s once a week…I mean EVERY week during the years that I went to P.S. 100.  By the time I entered the sixth grade, I was sure that one day Al would say to me, “You know what kid?  You’ve been buying these Hostess cupcakes for years now.  Today…they’re on me!”

I waited for that day to happen all through that sixth grade year of fractions, ancient Greece and book reports, before moving on to another school to attend junior high, but it never did.

Years later when I had children of my own, I bought a package of Hostess cupcakes to eat, (they were no longer a dime), filled with the anticipation of that little kid. Yikes!!! Hostess obviously changed the recipe, and took out all the wonderful ingredients that clogged arteries but tasted so good, because the cream was cloying, the cake was rubbery, and the icing tasted artificial.  I guess my palate was now a bit too sophisticated for long ago dime-store treats.  Yes, of course, I had aged.

Hostess…even though your cupcakes are probably more heart-healthy now, thanks for the memory of that delicious confection from years ago, enjoyed and anticipated each week by a little kid.

I was in the doctor’s office the other day, reading Glamour Magazine and I came across an article entitled “Hey…It’s OK To Try A Sport Just For the Cute Gear!”

WOW! I totally agree…and I actually put it into practice many years ago when we would take the boys skiing at Big Boulder, a ski resort in Pennsylvania. We would go up for almost a week with the O’Connor clan and some of the families from Floral Park, and stay in a beautiful lodge and the kids would ski from morn till night.

The first year we went, we bought the boys and ourselves the required “ski paraphernalia” of which, trust me, there is quite an array. You need your ski pants, ski jacket, ski mask, ski hat, ski goggles, ski boots, ski gloves, and Chapstick. We took the family to a discount ski shop out on Long Island to procure everything. I wound up buying a lovely teal blue ski jacket with matching hat, earmuffs and gloves and finished the look with black ski pants. I really looked adorable!

Ski slopes are very slippery, as I quickly came to surmise, with skiers swooshing by every second. I needed an instructor…someone who could show me how to get my ski boots clamped to the skis and how to get down a summit without breaking a leg.

The mentor was very nice (although after working with me, I suspect he packed up his poles the next day, moved to Hawaii, and began teaching Surf Boarding 101!) After much struggling, my skis were finally on the bottom of my feet and I found my gloved fingers hanging on for dear life to a tow rope, which was dragging me to the top of this enormously large, treacherously slippery, dauntingly steep precipice, known as…The Bunny Slope. It isn’t easy holding on to a rope while you are carrying huge poles in either hand, your goggles are fogging up and your feet are taking on a life of their own as they vee out while you ascend to the top.

The instructor positioned me at the top of the slope, straightened my skis so they were both going in a downward direction and gave me a tiny push. I had ear muffs on, but still, I thought I heard him snicker “Rots of Ruck” as I started my descent, but I could be wrong.

Wow…look at me. I’m swooshing down the slope with everyone else. Okay, everyone else is yelling “Get out of the waaaaay” as they whoosh past me, but I’m still upright and doing rather well…when suddenly I start to accelerate…and now I’M screaming “Get out of the waaaaay” as I am now literally barreling down the slope. My instructor was there to greet me at the bottom. Okay, he had to leap out of the way as I whizzed past him, but still…

He strolls over to me, takes my ski poles away and says “Now I want you to go down without the poles”. WHAT??? This guy has got to be kidding and I’m beginning to suspect it’s not Evian water in that bottle he keeps slurping. I can barely stand with the skis on…no less actually ski with them. The poles are my lifeline…what I need to keep me in the upright position…what I find useful to plunge into the snow when I am accelerating at an alarmingly fast rate….what I fantasize I could use to skewer my instructor to a snow bank if he keeps making outlandish suggestions. But alas, take away my poles he did, and I found myself clinging to the tow rope once again. I’m back on the mountain, making my descent sans poles when…uh oh.. I realize that falling is imminent. I decide that I’m not going to make a fool of myself…sprawling like a beached whale with skis askew in midair and my head stuck in the snow…so I gently tumble backwards, sit on my tuckus, carefully unsnap my skis from my boots and proceed to sashay down the rest of the slope.

The instructor greets me once again at the bottom, grateful that he didn’t have to dive out of my way this time, and says “You need to go down once more before I can promote you to the big mountain.” I glanced over to that mountain in the distance as it stood proudly like Mt. Everest with a ski lift at its side that ferried happy skiers to and fro. Given my fear of height, discovering myself perched in a ski chair that hovered several hundred feet in mid air was probably not ever going to happen. My instructor broke my reverie and said “Meet me at seven pm, after dinner on the Bunny Slope for the last run. ” I said “Absolutely. I’ll be there. This is so much fun. You can count on me. See you then. Can’t wait!!”  I walked off, handed my skis and poles to Allan and said “My skiing days are over. Turn in everything…stick the fork in…I’m done!!!

And so for the rest of that vacation (and subsequent ones after that), I passed the time sauntering around the ski lodge, lounging in front of the roaring fire and sipping hot cocoa in my really cute teal blue ski outfit. According to Glamour magazine, I was on the cutting edge even way back then.

Every woman has her skinny jeans. We pull them from the recesses of our closets, suck in our tummies to tug them on and then, if Jupiter has aligned with Mars, we punch our fists in the air and scream “Yes, they still fit!”

I made a ton of desserts around the holidays, and except for the ones I served to family and friends, I consumed a vast number.  Will my skinny jeans be relegated back to the recesses of my closet?

I still have some of the cookies frozen, and every time I open the freezer drawer, a little voice in my head I like to call “Thinner” would caution me “Don’t pop that rum ball into your mouth. You’ll be wearing it on your thighs for the next 5 months”. But “Winner” her nemesis would rationally say “You only make these at Christmas.  Enjoy!! ” Suffice it to say, “Winner” always won.  I mean seriously, they’re rum balls!!!!

I’ve been exercising as of late with wonderful classes given by a resident of our community via Zoom.  “Thinner” is ecstatic. “You won’t be having to closet your skinny jeans after all,” she chirped.

I attended Tuesday’s class, but unfortunately “Winner” triumphed on Thursday. The day dawned cloudy and chilly and she murmured in my ear “So many things to do. Pour yourself another cup of coffee and do the crossword puzzle instead.” And I did. And I surrendered to her the next few mornings the class was offered as well.

Some would say hoping to continue to wear my skinny jeans is the least of my problems. Hearing voices in my head probably should take precedent. Fortunately, I’m told, straight jackets come in One Size Fits All.