Pop Tarts

I love Pop Tarts. 

That’s right, I said it.  Do I have to say it again?  Call the men in the white coats.  Slap me in the face and try to knock some sense into me.  Make an appointment with a psychiatrist, I don’t care.  I love Pop Tarts, I always have loved Pop Tarts, and now I’m coming out of my Pop Tarts closet – most likely the ultimate and most crowded closet in the universe.  And I don’t mean the Pop Tarts of today with their namby-pamby icing on top; I’m a Pop Tarts purest.  I’m talking Pop Tarts that are nothing more than flour, lard, brown sugar, and cinnamon.  In MY day, we knew what a Pop Tart was.  And I loved – love – them.  And my Mom loved them, too.

I can remember the day I first found out about Pop Tarts.  Mom brought home a box because she got it free from the Kellogg’s salesman.  You see, Mom worked at the A&P store in the little ‘burb we grew up in.  She usually worked 7:00 AM – 4:00 PM, sometimes 12:00 – 9:00 PM, 5 days per week, so anything that helped her get out of the drudgery of raising 4 ungrateful little yard apes was a plus for her.  That job was her escape, I now know.  Mom never wanted to be a housewife; she worked 35 years at A&P, from the day our local store opened until the day she, and the store, retired. 

In the “60’s, convenience foods were popping up on every grocery aisle.  They all were de rigueur in our house.  Frozen orange juice, pot pies, tater tots, packaged bologna, Pop Tarts.  With very little effort Mom had the three meals covered. 

           

     Now, frozen orange juice was a wonder at our house.  I would stand in the kitchen doorway and watch my Mom wrestle with the cardboard can.  When she “made” orange juice she would take a can from the freezer, use the can opener on one end, run the can under the faucet to “loosen” the unnaturally orange colored blob of ice, shake it over the empty pitcher, hoping it would fall out and down into the pitcher, then proceed to the next step and open the other end of the can and squeeze and squeeze the cardboard sleeve until most of the stuff was in the pitcher and the rest was dripping down her hands, onto the counter, and onto our new indoor-outdoor carpeting Dad had installed recently in the kitchen (oh, we were so very chic thanks to Sears, Roebuck and Company). 

She’d spend the next five minutes cleaning up her mess, drying her hands, and putting her hair back in place while I stood there wondering why she didn’t just take the orange juice out of the freezer about a half-hour earlier to set it on the counter and allow it to thaw so she could simply pour it into the pitcher.  But Mom hated domesticity so much that all that anger and frustration from having to perform her wifely and motherly duties just wouldn’t allow her brain to think of household shortcuts, or what today we call, life hacks. 

But, by God, we had orange juice for breakfast…with Pop Tarts.

                Now, I don’t know if my Mom really believed in a higher power or not.  She was a “fallen” Catholic who was excommunicated by the church for throwing her child-beating first husband out of the house.  But I guess God likes marriages to stay together more than He likes children who aren’t black and blue, so after her second marriage the priest at Our Lady of Lourdes asked Mom never to come back to his church.

                Anyway, I swear the day Kellogg’s introduced Pop-Tarts Mom got down on her knees to thank the heavens above.  No more would she slave to pour cereal out of a box, into a bowl, pour milk over it and shove it in front of my sister and me.  She would never again have to even THINK of cracking an egg or frying up a little bacon for breakfast for her snotty little monsters…just open the box, tear open the paper bag and pop two brown-sugar cinnamon (my favorite) or blueberry (healthier) tarts into the toaster and try not to burn them.  And if she did burn them – which she often did, no problem.  Just cut the edges off and toss them on the table. 

Now that I remember it, Mom had a real problem burning things.  The joke in our house – okay ONE of the jokes in our house - was that Mom couldn’t cook or bake anything with flour in it without burning it.  Until I was in high school I thought biscuits were supposed to be black on the bottom.  One day at school I saw another kid’s toasted sandwich and told him, “You better not eat that, your Mom didn’t cook it right.  It’s supposed to be black!”

When I was 17 and began working in my uncle’s restaurant I learned that pre-heating an oven will prevent burning, as long as you don’t go over the recommended baking time.  But my mother was unable to grasp that little concept, even after I told her about pre-heating the oven.

“Jordy, I don’t have time for that!”

So every morning APT (After Pop Tarts), we would get to choose: one Pop Tart, or two?  Plain, or toasted. 

“PLAIN, Mom, for God’s sake, don’t go near the toaster!”

Add a glass of milk and a little orange juice made from frozen concentrate and we would be out the door and on our way to school…and Mom was free until 6:00 when she would toss 6 chicken pot pies into the oven and sit on the porch, smoking cigarettes and waiting for her second husband, my dad, to arrive home while the pot pies turned black on the bottom.

                Did I say I also love chicken pot pies?  No, not the beef ones.  Yuck!  Only chicken pot pies in our house.  The ones with the crust on top AND the bottom, please.  Ah, that tasteless, dry brown crust, the expertly diced peas and carrots, the rubbery squares of pressed chicken parts, and the gelatinous chicken gravy pulling it all together into a meal fit for the queen of A&P.

                It wasn’t really as bad as I make it sound.  And when I say I love chicken pot pies, I mean it.  The foods you grow up with hold a special place in your memory – no matter what they are.  They harken us back to simpler times, family sitting down at the dining table together, arguing about who is the stupider brother or telling on them, (“Bill peed in the sink!”) or regaling the family about that new TV show, “Lost In Space” (“It really happened, you know.”)  And in the end, dessert!  And if the A&P didn’t have a ready-made loaf-shaped pound cake wrapped in cellophane, no problem.

“Who wants a Pop-Tart?”

Careful, There

They say, “Careful what you wish for.” 

(Who is “They”, you ask?  Anyone to whom I’ve ever complained about my life.  “Oh, Merida is SO hot in May.”  “Oh, I WISH it didn’t rain so much in the summer.” I have a great life, I’ve been extremely fortunate in my oh-so-various jobs over the last 40 years, so whenever I have the least little complaint someone calls me on it by either pouting out their lips and saying something like, “Oh, pooooor youuuuuu!”  Or they say, “Careful what you wish for”, which really means, “Shut up, you ungrateful piece of crap.”)

But I digress.

They say, “Careful what you wish for”.  As I turn 60 this year and Steve and I begin to contemplate a retired life, that phrase keeps popping into my head during certain times in our lives. 

(60!  I look at that span of time and realize I have much more time behind me than in front of me and that scares the hell out of me and makes me want to run and hide in a cave – a well-appointed cave, mind you.)

But, again, I digress. 

(A symptom of being almost 60.)

Shit, did it again.

So there are times in my life when I have achieved something, gotten something I wanted, ended up in a place I wanted to go, started that “dream” job, gotten married(!)…and then experienced that feeling of regret, or longing for something else, something more – felt that feeling of ennui.  I realized about a decade ago that I’m an extremely restless person - I always have been, but just realized it when I was in my late 40's.  I’m rarely satisfied with the status quo;  I have to be constantly busy.  And in that busyness I have, sometimes, experienced a sense of accomplishment and tranquility.  I have been very lucky to pretty much always gotten whatever I wanted.  But then, when I do get what I want, I hear myself say, “Careful what you wish for.” 

(Several years back I had the job I always dreamed of.  I was a theatre teacher, and I loved it…for three years.  Then those old feelings began to set in and I got utterly bored.  That was the ultimate “Careful what you wish for” because after that I was not only utterly bored, but utterly lost.  If my “dream job” couldn’t keep me satisfied, then what could I do that would?  Which brings me back to the present…)

Oops, did it again.

So here we are in Merida.  A wonderful city.  A growing city.  An historic city full of vibrant, hard-working, forward-thinking people, young and old.  We have a great little business, we meet people from all over the world, our back yard is a paradise, we are putting aside a little money for retirement.  It’s a great life.  But as I approach 60 years of age, as my knees snap and crackle, as my right ear canal pops when I chew, when the knot on the sole of my foot aches, and when that palsy shake begins again in my left hand, I cannot help but look forward to the time when we might retire. 

(I seem to be rapidly deteriorating, physically AND mentally.  The worst is the palsy in my hand.  Thanks for the remembrance, Mom.  Whenever I look in a mirror – and I try NOT to do that very often – I see my father.  But in every other way, including that nice palsy in my hand, I am like my mother.  Hers started when she was in her mid-70s.  I guess it begins earlier and earlier with each generation.)

Ah, digression…another symptom of dotage, I suppose.

Our retirement plan is to live 6 months in one location and 6 months in a different - warm - place each winter.  But then I wonder what I would DO all day.  I have no hobbies, other than writing.  I don’t like video games.  

(as so many of my Facebook friends seem to – “Jon just invited you to the Angry Birds Challenge”, whatever that is.  I still have no idea what Candy Crush is.) 

Sorry.

Do I take up pottery?  Continue to post a blog every day and continue to get lost in the untold millions of Internet blogs all searching for an audience?  How many books can I read in a day?  Do I make cute videos for my Facebook page?  Or, better yet, make a bunch of those really awesome memes and pass them around the World Wide Web?  “Live For Today!”   “That Person In The Mirror Is Your Best Friend!”  “Careful What You Wish For!” 

(Okay, I admit it…I just looked up “meme” to find out exactly what it means.  Seems it is a piece of text, video, or other image, altered in some way, conveying some kind of message, and meant to be shared across the Internet.  (Across the internet?  Around the internet?  Throughout the Internet?  On the Internet?  To the Internet?))

Oh, this is getting really bad…a double digression. 

(I see your double and raise you a triple.)

Okay, so in retirement I will have more time for the things I now squeeze in each day.  I won’t have to rush through my stationary bike ride or “run” to the store for something we need for the B&B, or beg the workers building the palapa to “hurry and finish because we have guests tomorrow.”  I will be able to complete projects on MY schedule.  So the house is torn up; who cares?  No more rushing to answer all the emails piling up in my inbox.  I will be able to get back to bike riding for fun. 

(I used to be such a bike rider.  When I was a kid I would bike sometimes 50 miles a day.  There is a road in Louisville - River Road - which runs from downtown Louisville, along the Ohio river about 25 miles to a little suburb on the East Side of the county.  I cannot tell you how many times I biked along the river, stopping here and there, exploring abandoned riverfront houses, grabbing a Coke at a local store.  I cannot wait to get back to biking.)

Uh, yeah.

But then I wonder about filling an entire day.  How do I do that?  “Careful what you wish for.”  I can’t bike 12 hours a day.  I cannot watch movies all day long.  I cannot exercise more than about an hour.  So what do I do with the other 14 ½ hours each day.  Oh, sure, eating takes up 2 hours, if I stretch it.  So that still leaves over 11 hours a day to fill.  And I don’t want to just fill them.  I want to DO something. 

I have never been the type to sit around very long.  Don’t get me wrong, I can potato a couch like no one I know, but even I get tired of sitting. 

(Unless it’s for a binge-watching session of “Grace and Frankie” or “Scandal”, my new guilty pleasure.)

My new goal is not to diversify, but to concentrate on one or two things and try to be as good at them as I possibly can.  Can I write 4-6 hours every day?  Will my fingers allow me to become the pianist I never was?  Long story short (I know, too late), is that I will never, really completely retire.  I will have to have something to work on…something to build - create.  And I already have my next start-up in mind.  I’ve begun the financial prognostications and am working on what it will take to bring it to fruition.  The only difference is that there will be no pressure to make it an instant success.  I will be retired.  I will be able to take my time.  Mold it. Research it thoroughly.  I may be soon asking my friends to join me on my new venture – hiking tours through Italy.

So as you can see, I have no answers, really.  I just keep trying new things in the hope that one will stick and that it will continue to challenge me and keep me interested.  I mean, I really love hiking.  It's the one thing I don't get to do enough.  So perhaps that will be my answer.  Maybe I'll spend my 60's and 70's walking as many of Italy's hiking trails as I can find, and along the way have another great business, peace of mind, and a fulfilling retirement.

And if it is a complete failure, just wave as you pass me on my bike.  

The First Jump is the Hardest

Like anything you do in life, practice makes perfect.  And so it is with your life jumps – the first jump is the hardest.

            My first jump came at age 32.  I had been in a relationship for 2 years, finally completed my college degree, and gave up a 3-decade life in my hometown of Louisville to follow my partner to Washington, D.C.  Looking back on the move, it now seems like nothing.  But it was a big change for me at that time.  I left my family, friends, and all that I thought I knew to explore life elsewhere.  What if I didn’t like it in D.C.?  What if the relationship fell apart and there I was all alone in a strange land?  What if I failed?  Of course, none of that happened.  Since then Steve and I have made many jumps, in our geography, in our careers, and in our outlooks.  And that’s the thing about jumps: Over time they become easier and easier until you are able to take subsequent jumps without all the questioning and insecurities and make them with joy, excitement, and a vision to the future. 

             Our lives in Washington were fun because things were so different there.  I never had it on my radar to live in the nation’s capital, and the plethora of opportunities to work and enjoy life were exciting to me.  But ultimately neither of us was satisfied with our careers – Steve’s work writing speeches for a Congressman left him disillusioned, and I was fired from my hotel restaurant management job for being gay.  Three years into our D.C. lives we “discovered” Key West on a vacation trip.  Here were many more people like us – open and clueless.  So like so many people who return from vacationing on that idyllic little island, we talked about making another move and relocating to the Florida Keys. 

            In August 1992 we made like the “Beverly Hillbillies” and loaded up a truck and moved to Cayo Hueso.  Our second life jump saw everything we owned locked in a U-Haul behind the old green and white Key Wester motel, where the Beatles once stayed.  We know because the place was festooned with photos of the iconic band in Key West and in their rooms at the motel, with plenty of placards explaining it all to us.

            We found a house rental and jobs, in that order, in the first two weeks, and stayed 15 years, with one two-year break in Chicago, where I worked for the best business leader I have ever met.  To this day I always ask myself, “What would Rich do?”.  That life jump to Chicago, brief because we missed Key West, was one of my best if for no other reason than meeting and working with Rich Melman.

            When we finally were able to tear ourselves away from Key West, we decided our next life jump was to be either to Tucson or St. Petersburg.  We scoped out both with visits, and decided St. Petersburg afforded greater opportunity for house flipping, which was what we wanted to try next.  We had a great time until the recession hit.  We saw the writing on the wall and ceased flipping and went back to “real” jobs. 

            Hated our jobs, hated our lives.  So in 2010 it was an easy decision to make a huge life jump – for certain the biggest yet.  We had wanted to open a Bed & Breakfast for a number of years, but found it impossible in the U.S. due to the high costs.  Then it hit us: Italy is affordable, and what a fabulous place to live!  So in September we moved to an old farmhouse we purchased in the Le Marche countryside, fixed up the house ourselves, and had, without doubt, the time of our lives.  We ate cherries, figs, grapes, persimmon off the trees on our property, and enjoyed fresh vegetables from our garden all that next summer. 

            But the recession soon came to Italy, as well, so we were forced to modify our B&B dream and make another life jump.  We sold the house and found Merida, and that has been the best thing that could have happened to us.  The B&B has been a dream, business is great, Merida is fantastic, and nowhere will you find finer people. 

            Now we talk about life jumps as easily as we talk about going to the grocery store.  What and when will be our next?  Who knows?  But once you jump, you won’t look back.

Reflections

Okay, I get it.  I finally get it.  Took me a while, but I finally understand why everything in the Yucatan made of wood is so highly varnished.  And I’m finally on the bandwagon, desperately trying to keep things from rotting.

When we moved to Merida I would see many brightly varnished wood pieces and wonder why they wanted to ruin the look of the beautiful wood with those tacky, glossy finishes.  I hated that look.  When looking for furniture I would pass by the varnished pieces in favor of those with more natural finishes that brought out the natural beauty of the wood.  I thought it was just about the way the local denizens liked their wood.  But after four years of refinishing, revarnishing, replacing, and repurchasing furniture, doors, and windows, I have finally seen the gleaming light reflecting off the high-gloss furniture.  It’s not about beauty or any aesthetic, it’s about protection.

We have replaced wood wall hangings, furniture pieces, and every door in the house – in only four years!  So now I’ve come to realize how much I really, really like highly varnished wood in my house.  I have gallons of Spar urethane at the ready, and I slap that goo on every piece of wood I see on the property.  Now our wood pieces glow with the reflected light of the sun by day and security lights by night.  Our furniture can be used as mirrors.  I stood in front of one of our room doors for 20 minutes before I realized I was talking to my own reflection!

And it doesn’t end with the wood.  Our concrete floors in the garden glisten with acrylic sealer.  The painted window sills are now sealed to guard against dirt, water, and mojo.  Even our little diablo had to get a couple of coats of varnish to protect him from the elements.  All that’s left to varnish is Steve; don’t know if it will stop the deterioration, but I’m willing to give it a shot.

Now I LOVE the look of highly varnished furniture.  It looks so rich, so upscale, so protected! 

Living in a different country really does broaden your horizons.