Recently my good friend, S and her husband came down for a visit. They hadn't wanted o inconvenience us, so where could they stay? I protested but they would not be swayed. It turns out that he is allergic to cats, so it all worked out.

But before reserving a room, they needed to know what is around here? Bed and Breakfasts, I answer, and endearing little venues with great views. “He” responds that I should send literature on what is available locally but the room MUST have a refrigerator, the room MUST be on the ground floor, absolutely no stairs. On my walking mornings I stop in at several, phone several, one, in particular has everything they want and is only 20 minutes walking and 5 minutes driving from our place, is on the water, beautiful bay view from their bedroom, and is very reasonable, even during the season. One suite, in particular, you could live in all year, like a small apartment. The sweet man who manages it gave me a tour. They don’t have literature but have many pictures on their website. I sent the web address.

After days of silence I E mail my friend because even endearing little venues in this backwater get filled up. It is a resort area, homely, but nonetheless, for those who want to fish (listed as one of the best fishing areas in the country) and kayak and take wildlife walks and dig in the Calusa Indian mounds, and visit little art shops (island art) and buy neon flamingoes for kitschy décor back home, this is THE PLACE, not to mention that the main reason for their coming (presumably) is to visit US.

Well, thinking, maybe HE is not sharing all my information with HER, I sent her a separate E mail. She responds that he needs to stay at a chain, could I send literature. I write back that chains have 800 nos. he could call and they will mail him literature and I would have to make these same calls on their behalf, so why doesn’t he just pick up the phone? I do snail-mail tearsheets from the Yellow pages on motels and hotels. marking the very few I am familiar with as being not totally in the next county or in the next state or on a major industrial road.

I also say the nearest chain anything is 45 minutes away and if that is what they are going to do it will make cozy get-togethers awkward. She does the driving and does not like to drive at night, so that means if we all have dinner, she will be forced to do just that and on unfamiliar roads and trying to go around the SMOPS (local acronym for "Slow-Moving Old People"). Lest you jump on me for being politically correct, I am one of them. Don't honk at me for obeying the speed limit.

It turns out they weren't planning on renting a car, so that would mean we are taking an extra 90 minutes getting them back to their motel and returning to our place. Or we go out there and eat in the motel café (gross) and look at the highway for diversion. My solution, unoffered, was that he rent a single, she stay with us, and he can keep in touch by phone while watching semis from his motel room. Oh, bad girl, me. It did seem he would not be happy renting in the same county.

I reminded S, that another friend, M, who was our friend and colleague when we all worked together, sometimes joined us for lunch after we had already made plans. She was always welcome. We would start out and on the way, M would re-invent our lunch plans. Why don’t we THIS instead of THAT? We would go along. Half way to the new place, M would change her mind. Again, we’d go along, reverse our path. We would get there. Too crowded, too this, too that. M was never happy. And we would spend most of the lunch “hour” just looking instead of eating. So I asked my friend, are you sure M and your husband were not separated at birth?

Incidentally (and I still love her for whatever convoluted masochistic reason) M won’t stay in touch with us. I believe she thinks of it as “moving on” whereas I think of it as turning away from people who care about you. Or maybe we were never on the same page.

I am also reminded, on the perfection issue, that another dear friend has the sense that life owes her more, particularly if it is a special occasion. So it was that on her birthday one year, her sis and I took her to lunch and a movie. After the movie we were planning on a dessert. Where? Well, you know, New York City, the place that has everything, did not have the perfect Mozartian café with zither music, as they do in Vienna, with the wonderful little pastries, where you would nibble and sip delicately while rubbing shoulders with the elite peerage of the region engaging in clandestine assignations at little hideaway tables set on cobble-stoned patios. This country wasn’t Europe, and could life be any more awful than that she couldn’t visit the perfect café on her birthday? She indulged in an anti-American tirade that lasted the rest of the afternoon. Oh, help

I refrained from saying to S that her husband gives neurotics a bad name. I did tell her that she couldn’t fill his cup because he keeps punching holes in the bottom

But this story has a happy ending. In a phone call S and I brooded that perhaps we had damaged our relationship. We were both worried. But she said she had persuaded Him to stay at the place I suggested nearby and they did and were happy. Yes he was happy too because they are nature lovers and they had big water out their rear window and could look at pelicans diving and egrets meandering under their windows. You can't hardly get that in your average chain motel.

And S and I are cool.

xx, Teal