WHAT DOESN'T KILL YOU ONLY MAKES YOU FATTTER

 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (09-19-24)

     Is it my imagination or is it getting harder and harder just to maintain my current weight? As I get older I have to watch what I eat, because if I don't I might stab my fork into a vegetable by mistake.

     I weigh myself every day before my shower, and I subtract a couple pounds for my pants, a pound for each sock and one for my tee shirt, My hair is long right now so that's another couple pounds, and 50 pounds for my knapsack. If I notice an uptick in my weight, I just take a couple more things out of the knapsack. After the subtraction I weigh 120, which pretty good for a woman my weight.

     I never want to go on a diet because my doctor tells me I have to, especially if he's overweight, too. And if he tells me I need to go on a low sodium diet, I take the advice with a grain of salt. But if it turns out I need to alter my approach at the table, how to go about it?  Each diet has its pros and cons. With the paleo diet you eat the same things someone from the paleolithic era would have eaten, such as vegetables, fruits, possibly a Glyptodon. The pros are, you eliminate all processed foods, and it's simple to follow. The cons? Name me one person from the Paleolithic era who's still alive. Also, Glyptodons are chewy.

     There's the keto diet which, by starving the body of carbohydrates, "tricks" the body into producing ketones, which then fuel the body instead. It may be effective for short-term weight loss, but also has its pros and cons. Pros: You can eat all the Brussels sprouts and cauliflower you want. Cons: You can eat all the Brussels sprouts and cauliflower you want.

     There's the Mediterranean diet, which tries to emulate the eating habits of countries that use olive oil, fish, potatoes, fruits and vegetables. Cons: It's expensive to eat healthy. Pros: The Mediterranean is really nice this time of year.

     There's the Mayo Clinic diet, which is high on foods with a lot of mayonnaise. I didn't actually look that one up but it seems pretty obvious.

     The doctor is just going to tell you not to go in for any fad diets, simply cut down on portions, eat sensibly and exercise more. And you start to think, well, that makes sense, maybe I can do this. Then he says all that stuff that they say really quietly at the end of a commercial, only it's so fast you can't really make it out, and you just hear fleeting snippets, like, "use responsibly," "do not take during pregnancy, or before, or after," "not liable for your problems," "don't be such a baby," "suck it up," "may cause death" and "you do a lot of other even dumber things." And you say, "What?" and he says, "Oh, nothing." Yet they always take your deductible in advance in case you don't make it through the consultation.

     My wife drives me nuts because she can order a salad with just about anything in it, and then rave about how great it was for the rest of the night, and she never puts on any weight. She could order a salad made out of bar bells and never gain a pound.

     I am a hound for chocolate, and I smuggle it away like a dope addict and eat it in private. We had a dinner party and Margaret and Gene brought this great chocolate cake with a ton of chocolate frosting on it. The fact that I could have my cake and eat it too was just the icing on the cake (Okay, I'm done now). When I finished the last crumb there was still icing all over the plate, so I waited until my wife went into the kitchen and started licking the plate. I glanced over at the doorway and there she was, with a smug look on her face where the shocked and disappointed look usually is. She said, "I bet myself five dollars that you would do that and you did." I said, "Well, if you use the money to buy more cake we can do this again and eventually you'll have a million dollars. That's why they describe cake as 'rich.' By the way, exactly which rule of etiquette says that you can't lick icing off a plate?" I doubled down. She said, "The rule of etiquette that says you can't lick icing off a plate."

     I feel like restaurants have my back by making it so expensive to eat out that you could lose a couple quick pounds every time you go, just from your wallet. Recently I ordered a chicken sandwich and asked for extra mayonnaise. They cheerfully provided a tiny cup of it, and even more cheerfully added an extra .75 cents to the bill at the end. If they start charging me when I ask for a straw, that will be the last straw. And in New York there's a bar I go to that when I ask for a beer, they won't tell me how much it is, as if such things aren't discussed among civilized people. Instead they bring the check in a little tray, as if I'm going to try to deduct it on my tax return.  

     That reminds me of the 1040 diet which, every April, when you realize much you're going to lose, spoils your appetite. You think I made that one up? We'll see in seven months.

PLANE TO SEE

  ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (09-12-24)

     This year we attended an air show over the beach in Ocean City, Maryland. I'd never been to one before, and it was quite spectacular. The hardest thing to get used to at an air show is looking up and noticing a huge A-18 Growler silently flying disturbingly close to you. A second or two later an Earth-shattering noise rolls through, unaccompanied. 

     There were stunts, intricate formations, aviatrics (I made that word up) and a lot of really cool hardware. The dedication and precision of man coming together with machine was awe-inspiring. It's a demonstration, a symbol of and a tribute to the brave men and women working to support us in the air as well as on the ground. Present were aircraft like the F-22 Raptor, a supersonic fighter that went straight up into the air and let out an array of glowing, smoking flares. An A-10C Thunderbolt is a twin-engine jet designed to support ground missions. It can fly with high maneuverability at low speeds and low altitudes. For this particular operation it caused a high degree of anxiety as it buzzed about 200 boats viewing the proceedings from off shore.

     The C-17 Globemaster transport plane is a behemoth that looks like it just came from the all-you-can-eat smorgasbord at Shady Maple, then ate the Shady Maple. It's made to carry people and materiel during combat flights as well as humanitarian missions. The highlight of the event was a performance by the Frecce Tricolori demonstration team of the Italian Air Force. Painting the sky with plumes of red, white and green smoke, they performed tight maneuvers in crowd-pleasing patterns.

     Who exactly is in charge of discovering just how far you can push these nimble giants? I'm glad it's not me. "We tested out some great new stunts at the lab, and I have some good news and some bad news about how it went. First, the good news: There's free coffee at the commissary until 1400 hours. The bad news is we've lost a couple of planes. Fourteen, to be exact. They were flying in formation, but the formation they were flying in was the 'infinity' symbol, which we've never actually tried before. We're pretty sure they're still out there somewhere. They're solar-powered, and it's taking forever to find them."

     I couldn't help fantasizing that I was a stunt pilot in the air show. I'm not sure why I was chosen for this fantasy, someone who is as vehicularly-challenged as I am: when I was younger, in my parents car, I thought we would get in trouble for passing a sign that said, "No Passing." I also suffer from motion sickness. Even if I'm watching a courtroom drama on television and somebody files a motion I get a little queasy. But in a fantasy, you can do a lot of stuff that common sense, law, and the rules and regulations of the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleading squad would normally prevent you from doing.

     In the wild blue yonder I perform a perfect "barrel roll." The plane goes up and continues upside down, before righting itself in its original direction. Picture the path of a corkscrew, but don't forget to take the cork out before I do this thing. Next I do an aileron roll, which turns the plane 360-degrees on its lengthwise axis. Then I fly straight up about a thousand feet and go into a stall. That's because the keys fall out of my ignition and land somewhere in the back of the plane, and I have to dig around and find them in the rear. Some of my internal organs are also back there so I collect those, too. I can almost hear the cheers on the ground. Wait until they find out that I did all of this by mistake, trying to land.

     Soon it becomes apparent to Air Control that I don't know how to fly a plane. I should have received at least the bare minimum of training for this fantasy. The boys in the tower are going to have to "talk me down," like they do in the movies. An Air Force colonel grabs the microphone and calls into my earpiece. I had taken off the headphones to listen to my iPod, but now that I hear him chattering away I put them back on. The Colonel yells, "MELÉN: You're too high." I reply, "It only seems that way." "Back off the throttle. NOW." I grab the only two things that move and pull them back. One of them is my knee, so that does nothing. The other, luckily, is the throttle. The Colonel yells, "I don't like the  attitude of your fuselage." "Me neither," I reply, "I'm grounding it for a WEEK if I ever get it on the ground." "Bring your nose up, NOW." "You're right, that's better- now all I can see is the ceiling." 

     But then I land the plane perfectly, and as my fantasy would have it, beautiful actress Catherine Keener is in the tower. I ask her to dinner, and she says, "Thanks anyway, but I have a date tonight with the Colonel. He's quite a man!. OH- also, some other great news! I won your fantasy football pool!" I'm woken out of my daydream by a voice coming over the PA at the Stunt Flight Test Lab- turns out they just invented a new version of the "barrel roll," and this one has poppy seeds AND sesame seeds on it!

THE APPRENTICE

 

 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (08-24-24)

     I guess that when the television industry has had enough of me, I'll need to find something else to do with myself. Maybe I could work in a trade, since I like to work with my hands. Is acupuncture a trade? I think I could kill at that job. Glass blower? How hard could it be? Even if you blow it, things went pretty well. Yoga instructor, as long as I can just explain what to do rather than showing you. When we discuss the cat pose, I demonstrate by sitting on a newspaper and knocking all your pens off the table. Maybe I'll get into consulting, if there's a business model where I ask the questions. How about horse groomer? "You look fine, but you could do with a little horse-scaping. That will be $40.00."

     I had to hire an electrician to come over and re-wire the ceiling fan that I hooked up using a YouTube video, and I realized that being an electrician would be the perfect job for me. Besides electrocution, what's the worst that could happen? My idea was to apprentice at the craft by having him come back several times after I try to fix things. If you watch enough YouTube videos, you feel like you can do anything.

     I was pretty much relegated to setting up the ladder. Let me pick his brain- I need to know more about the business structure. "So is there a corporate ladder or do you need to provide your own? What's the quickest way to get to the top?" "Well, I work for myself and I slept my way to the top. Could you set up the ladder vertically?" I was learning so much already.

     "Is that a jumper wire?" I asked. "Actually, yes it is." "I thought I saw it move." He says he needs to plug in his cordless drill, and this guy is supposedly the expert. "You have an outlet?" "I have an outlet, but I'm not sure we want to get into that here."

     He had his nose inside the circuit box, so I was basically his eyes and ears to the outside world. He said, "Can you find the ground?" I felt this was a test. I said, "Isn't it right down there?" But he was still looking inside the box. While I was thinking, outside the box, he said, "Yup, you're right. There it is. Good! Hand me those pliers?" He was twisting some wires. I thought this was a good time to bond. I said, "If you want to see the ground, come out drinking with me, and you'll see it at about 1:30, 2:00 on a good night, 12:15 on an even better night." "There's a pair of strippers over there." He was pointing somewhere. "Oh, so you know the place? I'm like a fixture there. That's an electrician joke."

     I think I had his attention. I said, "Listen, I've been writing some television scripts. One involves an electrician and an apprentice, and they are also private detectives. The apprentice is actually the smart one, and the electrician is always getting into trouble, and screwing things up, and the apprentice is always talking them out of a jam, but the electrician stumbles upon the answer to the crime without knowing it, and it's the apprentice who actually puts 2 and 2 together, because the police have already zeroed in on the ex-husband, but he didn't do it." "Mmm-hmmm. But if the apprentice was the smarter one why isn't he the electrician? Make 30 dollars more an hour." "I can set it in a post-apocalyptic world, if that makes you feel any better. Wait- you're paying me $40 dollars less than you?"

     I can explain the basics of electricity to you right now, if you'd like to become my apprentice's aide. It's an unpaid position, but people do a lot worse things for a lot more money. You can think of electricity as if it were water. Pretend a wire is the hose. Amperes, named for physicist André-Marie Ampère, represents the amount of water flowing. Voltage, named for Alessandro Volta, is the water pressure. Ohms, named after Georg Ohm, are like a sprinkler at the end of the hose, causing resistance to the water's flow. 

     The rickster, named after myself, is a unit that measures the amount of water you would need to stand in while working on an open circuit before becoming electrocuted. As you can see, everything is named after the guy who invented it. So to solidify my legacy in the field, I need to discover something. What I've discovered is that it seems like a lot of work to be an electrician.

     You need a license, which I already have, with only a few speeding tickets. And you have to be certified in your state. People have often said I am certifiable, so I'm just about ready to go. But I might just become a YouTube electrician instead, and make videos right here at home. I have the camera all set up and ready to go, but I can't get it to play back on the TV, so I'll probably have to call the electrician back.

LEFT OUT TO DRY

 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (08-01-24)

     I was riding my motorcycle the other day, one hand on the throttle, the other hand on the brake (not at the same time), and it dawned on me that an estimated ten percent of all people in the world have to ride a motorcycle the other way around. I guess this means that left-handed motorcyclists stop when they should go, turn to when they should turn fro, go back when they should go forth. Are there motorcycles for left-handed people? Or are they cast adrift, like left-handed Jimi Hendrix playing the National Anthem upside down on a right-handed guitar, proudly hailing at the twilight's last gleaming from the other side of the fretboard?

     I don't want to imply anything about left-handed people that you don't already know, but the word in Latin for "left" is "sinistra," or sinister. Yes, I took two years of Latin in middle school, and if Latin hadn't already been a dead language I would have killed it right where it stood. But even back then, when people were saying things like, "ubi est agricola," they knew southpaws were different, maybe because they had paws.

     There are so many things a left-handed person has to learn to do backwards that the rest of us take for granted. At every meal at the restaurant, their knives and forks are on the opposite sides. So instead of eating what's right, they're stuck with what's left.

     Using a pair of scissors is a frustrating undertaking for left-handed people, and I can only imagine what it was like before they were sold in pairs. Taking a picture with a traditional camera must be a real pain in the aperture for lefties, who have to reach over the lens to push the button. It makes me shutter every time.

     I made the mistake of buying a jacket once in Europe, where the zipper is on the opposite side. This is also true of the buttons on women's blouses, and that's one of the things that makes cross-dressers so cross. I once read that the reason that women's clothing has the buttons on the left side was because it was easier for their dressers to dress them from the front. But what if their dresser was left-handed? You just can't win.

     A tape measure pulled to the left means whatever you're measuring will be calibrated in the metric scale. Objects may be smaller than they appear, apology accepted.

     These days you can thank goodness that Google was invented, so you can order left-handed versions of many things right-handers take for granted. And while you're thanking goodness, thank it for inventing a keyboard to replace an actual typewriter, where the carriage return is on the right.

     Having "two left feet" is considered an insult. It means you can't dance. But really, dancing is actually one of the few things where it doesn't matter if you're right-handed or left. My dog has two left feet, and she can  do the foxtrot if the music is right and there is romance in the air.

     The idea of two distinct hemispheres of the brain came to light in the 1960s, when Nobel winner Roger W. Sperry's research detailed evidence that the right side of the brain controlled artistic functions, while the left side managed the analytic operations. This led to a belief that there were "right-brained" and "left-brained" people. This theory has since been disproven, but if the scientists who published the study were right-brained, who knows how accurate it was.

      Last year I broke my right foot right after we had bought tickets to "Prairie Home Companion," but nothing was going to keep us from that show. Not even my wife injuring HER right foot. So there we were, driving through New York City traffic. My left foot is usually only used for depressing the clutch pedal in my car, but now on my wife's automatic it was called upon to depress the  accelerator AND the brake. Which was much more depressing. All the while my right foot was making smug and unhelpful comments like how "reckless" driving is a malapropism if you get into a wreck.

     How hard could it be to be left-handed in a right-handed world? I got hold of a left-handed guitar and played it right-handed, through a loud amplifier. And the sounds that came out were surprisingly similar to those made if I played it left-handed. Or if I ran over it with my car. While driving with my left foot. My wife said that if I really wanted the true Jimi Hendrix experience I should burn the guitar like he did at the Monterey Pop Festival. "Great idea!" I said. "Maybe after my next-" "I already burned it," she said. Well, I'm sure it was great. Anyway, here's to you, left-handed warriors of the world, you are modern-day heroes. Although that might be a bit of a left-handed compliment.

YOU SHOULD BE IN PICTURES

 

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (07-18-24)

 

     Last week was National Camera Day, when cameras get together to celebrate, get drunk, make fools of themselves and promise not to take pictures of each other. I couldn't really call in sick and take the day off work to celebrate, not with all those cameras around. Since hardly anyone even has an camera anymore, I guess you could call it National Phone Day. There's a website that follows all these "National Days," and it offers a timeline of significant events in the history of photography, and invites us all to celebrate the camera as a way to tell our story. You should always tell your "story" while you're living your "truth, especially if you're on a "journey." Usually if I'm telling a story I pretty much made it up, and that's my truth.

     I was always fascinated by photography, starting in my teenage years, and my Dad even bought me a camera for graduating something he was surprised I graduated, like the 8th grade. It was a very nice camera, too, an Olympus SLR. I made a darkroom in my basement and actually printed photographs. I had an enlarger, and all the chemicals in various trays, and a "safe" light, so you couldn't really see how unsafe all of it was. It was definitely much safer than when I had a chemistry set down there. You were supposed to perform experiments like testing for pH or seeing how crystals form. I was focused on mixing the chemicals together to see if I could make them blow up. But I did learn some useful things, like cats hate having their pH taken. My Mom wholeheartedly welcomed the transition to photography, but she did get nervous when I told her was down there blowing up my photographs.

     I fantasized that my Dad and I would bond through our photography. My Dad had a Nikon, which was considered the Cadillac of cameras, just as Cadillac was considered the Nikon of watches, and Rolex was considered the Dom Pérignon of shoes. We could go out with all our camera gear, automatic winders, extra lenses and batteries, waiting for that once-in-a-lifetime subject to come along. I was nervous about seeing a once-in-a-lifetime subject at my age- what does that say about the length of my lifetime?

     It's just a matter of time before we're going to find something rarely seen in nature to photograph. You have to be patient. I'm very patient, but I'm also getting very hungry. Finally we see it: A woman wearing a shower cap in broad daylight. Dad says, "Let's get a picture of her and put it on Facebook. We'll cube out her identity so she doesn't sue us." "Dad, we're going to put her on Facebook without her face? Also, Facebook is not invented yet." He says, "I know it's not exactly nature, but at least it's human nature." "Cut her a break, Dad, maybe she just came from  baby shower. Hey, Dad! Isn't that a passenger pigeon over there?" "A what?" "It's a bird thought to have been extinct since the year 1900!"

     "Okay, this is good. First, let's figure out your depth of field. Walk off in feet the distance to your subject. Now, adjust your aperture accordingly. What's your F-stop? That was a trick question- aperture's the same as F-stop. Now take a reading on the light meter. What does it say? Really? It must be nighttime. Wait- you have it upside down. Okay, set your shutter speed based on the light reading. Low light, so we'll need the tripod. What's your ASA set at?" "Dad, the bird's been gone about 10 minutes." The passenger pigeon had hopped on the local.

     My friend Georgia is always posting a fantastic photo of an amazing scene, like a beautiful castle at the top of a canyon on top of a mountain, with a sheer 1,000-foot drop on all sides. First of all, I'm not scaling that cliff to come up there and conquer you in your stupid castle.  When you finally come down for pizza, and you will, because the pizza guy's not going all the way up there either, I'll slay you then. I might even smite you also, just out of spite. My point, if there is one, is that I can no longer believe that any photo is real. There is photo-shopping going on, there are filters, there is retouching.

     I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that I may be one of the most photographed people in America. That's because I've taken the train into Manhattan for 44 years now. And when I arrive it's like Grand Central Station there, and every tourist is running around with a camera taking pictures, and I must be in the background of quite a few of them. For that reason I'd also like to point out that any photo taken of me may not be real, and may be altered or retouched. And if it is real, please take a few moments to alter it and retouch it, because I'm much better-looking in person. And don't retouch it in an inappropriate place.

BEATING THE HEAT

 

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (07-03-24)

 

     It was above 90 degrees for three days in a row last week, and that's the definition of a heat wave. If I could not keep from crying and it was tearing me apart, that's the definition of a heat wave burning in my heart, and luckily it didn't come to that. But it was really hot. The city opened over 500 cooling centers so that people who didn't have air conditioning could get a little cooler. I tried one of these centers, and when I emerged I was into Radiohead, I now never wear Crocs for any reason, I lasered off my tattoo that said "I heart my poodle"  and I no longer own a sweater-vest, so it worked.

     What are the rules at the cooling center? How long can I stay? If I'm visiting New York and I'm too cheap to get a hotel room, can I go to the cooling center for a couple days? Can I bring a date even if her apartment has air conditioning? If I bring a girl who's super hot, what's she going to look like when she comes out?

     I still can't believe that when we moved into our house the previous owners had not installed central air conditioning, and were relying on a hodgepodge of window units of varying effectiveness. I guess they were counting on the pool to lower their body temperatures. That pool in our backyard, oblivious to the hazards of global warming, maintains an average summer temperature of about 40 degrees. I thought it would be warmer if I measured it in Celsius, but it's even worse. "Rick Melén was hospitalized yesterday for hypothermia, and is expected to fully recover, but only to his previous state."

     So we did what anyone with a questionable understanding of geography would do, and that's go south, where it was cooler. Just traveling down the Garden State Parkway is always an experience. My Android Auto GPS map informed me that 10 miles away was a 20 minute slowdown. To me that's not a transportation problem, it's a math problem. How fast to I need to go NOW to make up for the time that the slowdown is going to slow me down? I calculated that If I got to the slowdown in two minutes, I could make up the time. I will need to go 300 miles per hour.

     Let me know if you've seen this: Sometimes the GPS will offer an alternate route: "17 minutes slower, tolls." Are there other fine qualities of the route that they're not telling me? OMG it's SO WORTH IT! Everyone seems like they're in such a hurry I feel like the entire parkway is a race track. People are jockeying for position and even old ladies are cutting me off when I try to enter the fast lane. It's like there's ONE parking space at the end of the parkway and no one can stand the thought of anyone else getting there first. I have to go 78 miles an hour just to gain access into the left lane and immediately people behind me are flashing their lights for me to pull over into the right lane because it's too slow for them. But in doing so I would be aiding and abetting the crime of going 79 miles an hour in a a 65 mile-per-hour zone, and I would have to place myself under citizen's arrest.

     I'm bouncing these ideas off my wife, but she's sound asleep, so I'm bouncing them off parts of her body that I know won't wake up. Should I pivot to the New Jersey Turnpike? Might be faster but there are so many trucks. I feel safer if I get behind one that has a sign that says "How's My Driving?" and a phone number I can call. "I'm behind one of your drivers and he's making a face in the mirror like he's going to cut me off. Could you ask him if that's his regular face?" 

     We finally get to the shore, and I have a few minutes to relax and unwind before I start thinking about how bad the traffic's going to be on the way back. We stroll the boardwalk. The offer of an ice cream is readily accepted. Heroically I only order a kid-sized ice cream cone, but I tell them to make it a fat kid. There's an Escape Room place with a line out front. If it takes that long to get in I'm probably just going to stay there.

     It's Father's Day weekend, and Dads ride free at the amusement park. It's also Pride Month and Juneteenth. If I was a gay, black Dad I bet they would pay ME to ride the rides. There are only a couple I can go on that won't make me sick. There's one with helicopters that roll around slowly on a track with small hills on it. I think I could go on that, but my wife won't let me because she thinks it's for babies. Then why do the helicopters say "POLICE," "RESCUE" and "MARINES" on them? I'm an elite performer in that chopper, in service to my country. Plus there are other Dads riding in it. "They're holding their kids in," my wife points out, so I look around to see if anyone might let me borrow their kid for a few minutes.

     I tell myself that the Garden State Parkway is much more fun than any old ride here, and I keep telling myself that until Juneteenth fades into Julynth.

PORTUGUESE EXPLORERS II

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (06-13-24)

 
     Madeira is an autonomous Portuguese Island famous for its fortified sweet wine, and a short flight from Lisbon. We strolled to the waterfront area of Funchal, stopping for ice cream along the way, which I was able to convince my wife was an ancient fishing custom. In the evening we ventured out into the Atlantic with 5 or 6 other couples on a sailboat sunset cruise, where we met a pod of dolphins with the same idea. We stopped for a dip in the ocean, which even in May is not bad once you get used to it. I figured I would be used to it by August. The sunset that followed was made even more gorgeous with the flattering effects caused by a potent concoction made readily available on the trip.

     We were up before the crack of dawn the next day to see the sunrise, and the crack of dawn has never been so lovely as it was from where we saw it. We were shuttled by van to the summit of Pico do Areeiro, the second-highest mountain on the island, above the cloud that is forever parked around it. The sun rising from beneath the clouds is an other-worldy experience. While I was there I checked around for my data, which I'm told is somewhere in the cloud. 

     We had signed up for an e-bike tour along the North Coast of the island the next morning. What's impossible to know from a brochure description is that the topography of Madeira has its ups and downs. Mostly ups. The extreme hills of the north make it a pretty but pretty challenging ride, even with a motor-assisted bicycle. Once our motor became angry that we were not assisting it more, we cut our ride short to get some coffee at the local cafe and head back to the scenic overlook to meet up with the others on their return.

     The next day we flew to the island of Sao Miguel. I can now say that I've been to the Azores, but we were really just on this one Azore. Sao Miguel is a lush island, rich with friendly people and beautiful trees and flowers, none of which are original equipment. When the volcanic island was settled in the early 15th century, it was essentially uninhabited and bereft of anything but a subtropical forest of laurel-related shrubs. The beautiful flowering plants you see today were all brought to the island, notably the colorful hydrangeas, whose fast-growing root structures were important in containing erosion as it became more populated. 

     We stayed in the city of Ponto Delgada, which is completely tiled, both streets and sidewalks, with an artistry unknown in America. If my bathroom was in the streets of the city it would be re-tiled by now.

     As we relaxed by the hotel pool we were spoiled by the sunny weather, which comes and goes in the Azores. The next day we embarked on an all day tour in the misty rain that took us to various important locations around Sao Miguel. Our first stop was the Gorreana tea plantation, the oldest in Europe and the only one left on the island from the historic era of tea as one of its major exports. Some of the drying and sorting equipment from the old days is still used today. Which makes me feel pretty good, as I myself am one of the things at my job from the old days of the television industry that is still being used today.

     After stopping at a scenic point overlooking the caldera of Furnas valley, we traveled to the fumaroles, where the Earth blows out plumes of steam as if breathing on a cold day. The bubbling natural cauldrons provide a unique way to cook a lunch. Buried into the ground in a large pot, the traditional meal of Cozido das Furnas is a gigantic stew containing just about every meat and vegetable that could be corralled in a 20-mile radius. It is a hearty repast, but could cause vegetarians to faint. 

     The highlight of the tour was a dip in the ferrous pool at the lush Terra Nostra Park, a botanical garden brimming with horticultural and arboreal wonders, founded in 1780 by the American Consul to the Azores. The pool is man-made, spring-fed, 108 degrees and completely orange, due to the high iron content of the water. Bathing in it is unique and disturbing at the same time, and not to be missed. Don't wear a light-colored suit, and don't let your president bathe here, as either could be permanently stained orange.

     We left our final day free for a bike ride along the waterfront to the fort of Sao Bras, a 16th-century military installation that also houses a museum containing a collection of World War II Howitzers that would be able to meet your every Howitzing need. We took in the views of the harbor, then returned our bikes.

     Then it was back to New York, due in at work the next day, at least fortified with the memories of having conquered another foreign country....