A half-dozen middle-aged women just flew in from two weeks vacationing in Europe – and boy, are their arms (and feet) tired. Being abroad with these broads was a blast, swollen ankles and all. Divorced, widowed, partnered and hailing from various cities, we converged in France earlier this month to experience an AmaWaterways “Taste of Bordeaux” river cruise on the AmaDolce. This elegant ship holds 144 passengers, but we had just 98 guests on board. Sort of like a family reunion at my sister Sandy’s lake house but without the jet skis. And more wine — a whole lot more wine. Ninety-eight passengers to 45 crew members. A nearly 2:1…
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International coverup
BORDEAUX, France — More men have seen me naked on this trip than in my entire life. Monday’s one-hour, full body massage with David the masseur from Romania was at 11. Rebecca had had one at 9:30. Our paths crossed briefly, and I asked her how it went. “Oh, you’ll see,” she said. Hmmm. The last time Reb said something like that to me I wound up on my stomach straddled by a Chinese woman who called me a whiny American baby. Good times. The full treatment was 60 minutes for 60 Euro. Not bad for a fancy add-on cruise perk. Before David stepped out of the room, he handed me a…
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Alpha bits
Andrew sounded a tad annoyed even though it was his 10th birthday, a momentous occasion for most 9-year-olds, to be sure. “Man, it takes sooooo long to go from 8 to 9 and then 9 to 10,” said my thoughtful great-nephew with surprising dramatic flair. He was decidedly relieved to join the ranks of double digits earlier this month. The dude is wiser than his years, a small but mighty soccer player who reads hardcover books and can tell a knock-knock joke with the best of them. Born in 2009, Andrew is considered to be a member of Generation Z, whom demographers say were born from the mid-1990s into the…
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Dreams do come true
The 25th annual Woodward Dream Cruise jammed up 10 miles from Ferndale to Pontiac, Michigan, last weekend. My face still hurts from smiling so much. The third Saturday in August has been a national holiday in Motown since 1995. It began as an effort by Nelson House and a handful of volunteers to raise money for a children’s soccer field in Ferndale, just north of Detroit. They hoped to recreate the nostalgia of the 1950s and ’60s, when youth, music and Motor City steel roamed Woodward Avenue, America’s first highway. That year, 250,000 people participated, nearly 10 times the number expected. The rest, as they say, is history. Today, the…
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Friends for life
It took a rather large pour of Chateau Grand Traverse Late Harvest Riesling, but we finally decided the last time we saw each other in person was 25 years ago. My friend Jean was living in Washington, D.C., with her husband, Joe, and their 6-month-old son, Patrick. I was living in Delaware, between newspaper jobs, barely earning minimum wage at a small medical office. It was August 1994. The debut of ”Friends” changed TV’s landscape forever. America Online offered a gateway to something called the World Wide Web. A first-class stamp was 29 cents. Regular gas was $1.11 per gallon. 1994: Patrick and me in D.C. Now St. Louis residents,…
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Thumbs up
I knew we’d left too late in the day to make it to Mackinaw City when signs for Frankenmuth sparked this thought: “Rebecca, when is the last time you had chicken?” That’s right about the time we spotted billboards for Bronner’s, the world’s largest Christmas store, and Jellystone Park Camp Resort, about two hours north of Detroit. But we kept driving. Yogi Bear wasn’t going to steal food from these savvy tourists to restock his pic-a-nic basket. Sorry, Boo-Boo. Yogi Bear Now who’s smarter than the av-er-age bear? For decades, Frankenmuth has been known for chicken and Christmas, as well as the Bavarian Inn and Zehnder’s, two of the nation’s largest independently owned restaurants. Driving through…
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Be still my heart
Around this same time a year ago, I was celebrating eight weeks’ post-op from heart valve repair surgery and about to start cardiac rehab. Everything turned out fine. Again. I had been under the knife for open-heart surgery once before, in summer 2001, to remove a cardiac tumor nearly the size of a tennis ball. Today is my 18th anniversary. Resembling a sinister collection of red blood cells, this silent monster growing inside my chest looked bad, almost certainly a secondary cancer that had originated somewhere else, according to my doctors, who shared that tidbit only after my surgery. Thank God it was benign. And thank goodness for Dr. Kevin…
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Family reunion
Every family has a story. Welcome to ours. Twenty adults, nine kids and five dogs spent a long weekend in one big house on the lake. Sounds like the makings of a sitcom. We have reunions with relatives from my mother’s side of the family every couple of years. It helps us know what’s going on in each other’s lives, and reminds me again why I don’t have children. This year most of us managed to be free the second weekend of July to come together for a few days of fun, food and family at my middle sister’s place in Lakeport, Michigan, just north of Port Huron. We were…
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Ewe never know
“Is there recess in college?” asked the prepubescent boy on the green and white shuttle bus taking us back to our dorm. “That depends,” his 70-ish grandmother said with a grin. Her response took me back to my undergraduate days at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, about 40 miles north of Detroit. My college experience involved commuting, working summers to earn money while living at home to save money to do more commuting. It took me a little over four years to earn my journalism degree, but I did it. Not the most fun I ever had. If I could do it over again, I would have somehow gone away…
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‘Beauty-full day!’
For my paternal grandfather, there was no such thing as a bad day. “Beauty-full day!” he’d say just like that to anyone within earshot, as he puffed on his unfiltered Camel cigarette. With glasses and a thick mustache, he always sported a ratty beige cardigan sweater, even in summer. I don’t remember him wearing anything else. Above, Jiddu, in his later years. Top, Esper in his 20s. More than 100 years ago this month, Esper John, my father’s father who was known as Jiddu (grandfather in Arabic), fled Damascus, Syria. He had his reasons. From the many stories passed down through the generations, Jiddu mostly wanted to avoid being conscripted…
