Name this...

“Puedo hablar con Sr. Lopez?” I asked.

“Su nombre, por favor…quien me habla?” She asked…wanting to know who I was. I gave her my name. It’s not an easy name for anyone to understand…it’s a bit unusual. As I found out living in Paris and in the Dominican Republic, it’s a tongue twister for many Americans, but impossible for others.

Que? She asked.

I gave it again. To no avail.

“Habla espanol?” She asked.

Well, I was speaking Spanish at the time, so I answered, “Si.”

“Cual es su nombre en espanol?”

Home for Sale...

This spectacular custom-built masterpiece was created by acclaimed builders as the builder’s personal masterpiece. Inspired by a custom designed home in the Hamptons that was commissioned by the Guggenheim family, this incredible house combines French Eclectic Styled architecture with an array of special materials bought at Home Depot.

An extraordinary floor plan encompasses over 1600 finished square feet features both embassy-sized (if you are in Albania) formal rooms and warm informal rooms. Highlights include an exceptional living room with floors, a gourmet chef’s kitchen with running water, and a dramatic master bedroom suite with a ceiling and luxurious "his" and "her" baths, as long as they don’t mind sharing.

The exceptional lower level (crawl space) boasts spiders, bugs and the occasional snake. There is a spa/treatment (water pik shower head) area, exercise facilities (mostly walking outside), and fabulous electricity. A private fenced-in rear yard is enhanced by trees, a wood pile and gravel driveway.

Well, we like it. Actually, it’s nice. Go to www.thecoxconnection.com

Ask for the “friends of Cayenne Lemonade” discount….

From Dubai to Des Moines...

This ethanol thing is wonderful. Using corn to produce fuel will solve all our problems.

Wrong.

Last I heard, you could use corn for FOOD. Have we solved world hunger yet? Send THEM the corn, if we’ve got so much of it. You want to go tell a kid in Africa he can’t have lunch because someone’s SUV needs to have their tank filled?

Also, what else can you use petroleum for? You can’t eat it. So, I say, use the food for food and the fuel for fuel.

The ethanol scam is an attempt to transfer wealth from Arabs to people who own land in Iowa. I’m not necessarily against that, but don’t tell me you are growing corn to make ethanol to save the environment…you’re doing it to make money.

Pretty soon, we’ll be talking about the price of a barrel of flour.

NASCAR culture...

As a kid, you stood in line a lot. Single file usually.

In the grocery store, I’m usually the guy afraid to go over to the candy aisle (if someone is behind me in line) to get a Snickers bar, for fear of losing my place. It seems fair if you leave the line, you lost your place. That’s what they said at Lincoln Elementary School.

At Lincoln, you couldn’t just let someone cut in line, with the permission of the people behind you. And you couldn’t “save” a place, it just wasn’t fair to the others. There was a code.

(you often did the “double cut”…you let them in front of you, then they do the same…it was a way around the “no back cuts” rule that some kids made…a lawyerish move)

In Latin America, there is no code. In the grocery store and in the street it’s every man for himself and there is no line to stand in, just a mass of people trying to fit through a small space. It's a culture of bullies and con men.

At the grocery store yesterday, I saw a 80ish year old woman elbow a kid in the ribs to get a plantain out of a basket before he could. There were probably 500 plantains in the basket. But she wanted to get there first…she did.

At checkout, you have to make sure there aren’t items in the cart in front of you, even if there are no people…people regularly put their cart in line, go and get more things, then reclaim their spot in line, saying, “I was here first.” Or they put a friend or beleaguered husband in line with a few items while they fill up their shopping basket and then cut in line in front of you.

The only rule seems to be “whatever you can get away with.”

What I did last Thursday...

The sticks crackled under my feet as I walked under a tree next to the 13th hole. I had tried to hook it around the Tea Olive that guarded the front left of the green, but I quit on it and pushed it right. The sea-salted wind blew off the ocean like a hair dryer set on high.

EVEN IF I LOSE THIS HOLE, I’ll still be okay, I tell myself.

I knew differently. I had to get this one up and down. A three-up lead might not be enough, with all that was going on in my head. My opponent played poorly early, but now was mounting a charge. It had started to wear on me on the 12th, when my tee shot found the bunker. I flicked it on to the green and made par, but my hands were shaking the entire time. My golf swing had stopped working.

STAY IN THE PRESENT, I tell myself. Don’t think about anything but THIS shot.

The club championship was open to everyone. I won it last year, but the boss didn’t play. He hadn’t had a tough match, crushing his first four opponents. I had had nothing but difficulty, coming from two back with five to play in the second round and winning the last hole in the quarterfinals to advance.

And I needed to beat this guy to make it to the final to play the boss. STOP THINKING ABOUT THAT, I tell myself.

I decided to try to lob it up over the grassy patch that lay in front of me. If I hit it crisp, I could make it sit like it had a parachute attached to it. Anything else, I’d lose the hole. And maybe the match. Simple as that.

Panic was taking over my body. My pulse quickened as I made a couple of hurried practice stokes. CALM DOWN, I tell myself…CALM DOWN.

Somebody tell Bill Gates...

I have a rather simple cell phone, I’m told.

New phones now have all sorts of stuff added to them.

But, I’m not shelling out any cash until they get EVERYTHING in there.

People send emails from them, have music, GPS, web browsing, games, calculator, camera, and I’m sure some things I don’t know about. But I’m not biting yet. I’m holding out for:

- Universal remote for my TV and my stereo.
- Garage door opener.
- Keyless remote for my automobile.
- Baby monitor.
- Meat thermometer.

Just one remote for everything…I could do everything with this one “phone.”

Until I lose it.

The delicate balance of a healthy lifestyle...part one

When I first moved to the Dominican Republic, I played tennis a couple of days a week. I bought a racket and was really enjoying it. But, the friend I played with most of the time hurt his knee and we stopped playing for a bit, then we kind of forgot about it.

A couple of years later, I wasn’t playing tennis anymore, but I played basketball on Monday nights…just two of us, one on one for about an hour and a half. This was almost killing me…usually I was just happy to be alive afterward.

I played football (soccer) with the guys from the school a few times. I remember staring alot at the ground, trying to catch my breath.

I play a lot of golf, but that doesn’t count. The few times I have walked doesn’t count either. We play when we can and we are usually somewhat pressed for time. So we take a cart.

Last year, we started playing poker on Monday nights. No more basketball. No more tennis. Just drinking and gambling. Our poker host usually makes brautwurst or something equally unhealthy. The only exercise I get at poker is getting up to fix a drink or the calories I burn while sweating out a bluff.

And I never bluff…

If it were two weeks long, I'd want a piece of pumpkin pie...

It’s Holy Week here at Casa de Campo, which means we have extra security and the sane people are afraid to leave the house after dark, before lunch, during breakfast, or at any other time of the week.

There is no school, no work and no restraint. There is no law.

We went to the grocery store yesterday and won’t go again. Grace and John will not go for walks. We have to hide our golf cart in the backyard, if it is in the driveway someone will steal it.

People pay to play golf, then steal the cart for the week. Many of the stolen carts end up in the Caribbean Sea.

They steal range balls, clubs, trash cans, and anything else not nailed down.

They drive carts, SUV’s, four-wheelers, motor scooters, and motorcycles at break-neck speeds everywhere on the resort, including on the golf course. There will be tire tracks on a half dozen greens before the week is over. There will probably be a couple of self-induced speed-related deaths, if the average of the last four years holds true.

And to add to the chaos, I just got an email message that said the countries' pumpkin supply is tainted.

Halloween is more “holy” than this.

Do you have a minute?

My cell phone ran out of power yesterday while I was on the golf course and it kept beeping to signify a low battery.

This seems to hasten the running down of the battery, which it is warning me against. Seems counter-productive.

My computer does the same thing.

For life expectancy...we don't have this kind of warning...but if we did...

Pro: I’d know how much to save and spend (I’ve always thought those guys who died “penniless” must have known something) and I would be able to pro-rate the Lifetime Warranty on my Sears Craftsmen Tools to see if it was worth the extra cost.

You could spend your last days playing golf or fishing (well, not me) instead of doing your taxes or mowing the lawn.

Con: People would start asking you for your stuff and that would be a pain. You’d have to probably plan your own going away party and having people in your house would be a hassle and you’d know you couldn’t go trash their house or drink all their booze to get even.

So let’s skip the whole thing. Sorry to have wasted whatever time you have left reading this.

Things they don't tell you in college...

I retired from listening to new music around 1991. I just stopped being on the cutting edge, trying anything new. I’ve bought stuff produced later than that, but it is of the style consistent with what I already liked.

Before that, I listened to everything. Well, except country. I’ve begun to realize the irony in this.

(I’ve been listening to it to get ready for my career change. I’m up to thirty minutes at a stretch before I break down and cry. The one about the guy’s wife leaving him while their trailer was being repossessed during the tornado really gets to me. Today I'm going to try for 35 minutes.)

Anyway, one of the groups I liked in college was Erasure. I just liked the sound they produced, fast paced, and fun.

So last summer when they booked a concert here I got some tickets and we went.

Now either these gentlemen are very in touch with their feminine side or they are flaming homosexuals. I don’t care either way. The reason I say this is that one of them wore a pink jacket with a huge Marylin Monroe head on it. I guess that was what he grabbed from his closet when he came out of it. The other guy's attire was equally fancy.

And the music was not very good. They played none of the old stuff that I liked…in fact, through nine songs they hadn’t played anything I had ever heard in my life. It was like Frank Sinatra not singing “My Way” or “New York, New York” while wearing a Seguin gown and pearls on stage.

Well, kind of.