Holiday Season 2011

Holiday Season 2011

It was Picasso who said, “It takes a long time to become young,” and now I understand exactly what he meant.  I travelled and visited a lot of places during my first year of retirement but finally it hit me about a month ago, I’m beginning to feel young again. I have more energy, feel healthier and have no trouble walking three miles along whatever nature trail I happen to be on.

I'm filling my living room with rainbows almost every morning thanks to the Florida sun.

 A hanging prism does the trick.

Tea, toast and rainbows every morning while I count my blessings.

This Christmas I took more care with decorating the front of my house and this year I decided to bake bread for the first time in five years. 

This bread tastes surprisingly good.

The reason I’m having a surge of interest is because my time is more relaxed, I’m not in a rush to get everything done before Monday morning looms around, and I feel free of all the restrictions that have been imposed on me over the past years. Most likely the restrictions were self imposed but the restrictions were there in my brain nonetheless.

Live Tree #1  outside the front of the house.  

It’s the week of December 25^th through December 31^st and there are three important events to celebrate this week.

Sunday is Christmas day and I like all the hoopla involved. The street where I live is all lit up and it’s a cheery sight. Also I got word that my friends from Wales will be visiting in February, my son and one of my grandsons will be visiting in January and my daughter and her family will be visiting in February. The great thing about living in Florida is that people like to visit because there is so much to do and the weather is usually sunny.

It's Christmas in Florida and my geraniums are still blooming.

Tree #2 in the TV room. I plan to keep this lit up year round.

Tree #3 in the kitchen because that's where I spend a lot of time

Wednesday is my birthday and for the first time in my life I actually baked a Birthday cake for myself, and it’s a very tasty piece of confection. I don’t think there’s such a thing as growing old with grace but the truth is, either you die young or you grow old and I didn’t want to die young. I can’t believe that I actually thought I was old when I turned forty. I’d cut off my right arm to be forty again.

 This is a Paula Dean lemon cake served with blackberries, peaches and ice cream. It's a good tasting cake.

Saturday is New Year’s Eve, we call it Hogmanay in Scotland and I haven’t thought about counting my blessings or making New Year resolutions for mega years.

New Year’s Resolution #1	Eat Japanese food more often and drink some hot Saki with it.
New Year’s Resolution #2	Listen to more classical music; Strauss, Ravel, Beethoven etc. Listen to some Puccini arias once in a while.
New Year’s Resolution #3	Walk further before eating ice cream for lunch.
New Year’s Resolution #4	Wear more perfume, light more candles and get a new hairstyle.
New Year’s Resolution #5	Take a trip to Montreal, I’ve never been there.

I purchased some new toys this year and must say that I really like them.

I like this Sansa Fuse MP3 player better than the Ipod.  I use Rhapsody which I think is better than Itunes because for $10.00 per month I can download as many song tracks as I want. So far I've downloaded 500 tracks.

I love my kindle and I may never buy another book again. E-books are the way to go. I can read all the classics again and they're free.

This is a TomTom GPS device for the car. May I never get lost or take a wrong exit again. The thing I like  is that the device tells you what lane you should be driving in so that you don't miss your exit.

My next project is to update some of my household electronics. The trouble with getting older is that your possessions age along with you. My TV, DVD Player, Stereo and Cell phone look as if they came out of the Ark. The question is since they all work and work well, do I really need to replace them even if they’re old?

By the way: My grass looks greener because I spray beer on it. I found this beer recipe on the web and not only does it fertilize it seems to keep the bugs at bay as well. Mix 1 can of beer (not light), 1 can of soda (not diet), ½ cup of mouthwash (any kind), ½ cup ammonia, ½ cup dish detergent (don’t use antibacterial). Put it in one of those sprayer containers that attaches to the hose and spray over the grass on a hot day. It actually works.

Since my grandchildren may possibly read this one day after I’m long gone, I decided to insert a few photos of my favorite things. These give me a sense of my own ancestry and although they’re probably not worth a whole lot of money, I like having them around.

This is a horn from a breed of Scottish cattle. It belonged to my grandfather and is over one hundred years old. He was a Forrester.

This is a ruby and pearl (really small stones) engagement brooch that belonged to my grandmother. It's over one hundred years old.

This is an original pen and ink drawing of the crest of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, my father's battalion. It's the Royal Regiment of Scotland, the artist was my father and he drew it while serving in the army during World War II (1944).

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.
Buddha

Retirement

Retirement

After working for all these years, retirement is a strange experience. It takes getting used to. It took about six months before I stopped thinking that I should jump out of bed and get ready for work each morning. Of course it’s a nice change being able to sleep later and wake up naturally without an alarm clock clanging in my ear at 6.15 am. However, retirement takes a lot of planning otherwise you end up with too much time on your hands. The days go by slowly, but the weeks and months fly by at what seems to be an accelerated speed.

I joined a gym (gave that up), brushed up on my cooking skills (gained weight), fixed my house inside and out (spent a lot of money), then decided to explore the Orlando area. Instead of walking three miles on a treadmill I prefer to walk two or three miles along my favorite nature trail. This place is nice and I feel peaceful when I walk. I’m amazed that I can still walk three miles without feeling any strain at all, probably because there are a lot of trees and wildlife to look at.

 Favorite walking trail at Celebration

I’m delighted by the family of sand cranes that live near my house. I don’t mind at all when they block the driveway because they really are magnificent to look at.

The family of sand cranes that visit me from time to time

In fact I like the cranes so much that I painted a purple crane that I never get tired of looking at, on one of my walls.

Next to the walking trail at Celebration I like to visit the town of Winter Park. There is an awesome museum in Winter Park and I go there quite a lot. It’s called the Charles Hosner Morse Museum and the display of Tiffany glass there is beautiful. The tour of the museum is good but I like to wander around solo so that I can soak in the beauty of the place.

This is 'The Tiffany Chapel' made out of marble and glass and it's beautiful. Religious or not anyone can appreciate the artwork here.

There is a great scenic, boat tour on the lakes and canals at Winter Park, and it is especially good if the pilot picks up speed on the lake. I became a fan of photographic art after visiting the Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College, and there are still some more places of interest that I intend to visit in Winter Park.

The Museum of Art in Orlando is not so great but strangely the Mennello Museum of American Art right cross the road is more interesting, especially if they have art on loan. The last time I visited they had a display of art by Cuban born expressionist artist Jose Bedia, and his art is awesome. On display were some of his pieces depicting the pirate situation in Somalia and I was glad to be the only visitor in the museum so that I could spend time viewing his art.

I visited Leu Gardens in Orlando and that was nice and I plan to go back this week.  They do have a butterfly garden, semi tropical and tropical gardens and the Leu House Museum is worth a visit. It’s a turn of the 20^th century house that has been beautifully preserved. The walking trails are nice and the place is well maintained.

The Holocaust museum in Maitland was a ‘must visit’ for me. It‘s small and there is no entrance fee. I had already heard most of the testimonials that they have for visitors to listen to, but there was one exhibit that blew my mind. They have one of the original blue and white striped pajama (pyjama) tops from Auschwitz in the museum. I stared at it for a long time, noting that it was well made, sturdy and scratchy looking. I’m amazed that anyone held on to such a reminder of their time in Auschwitz but am glad that they donated it to the museum. I might go back there again just to look at that odious article of clothing as a reminder of what the human race did so recently. Does it ever stop?

Disney World is an okay place to visit until the time comes when you’ve seen everything and done everything that Disney has to offer. I feel the same about Sea World.

I visited my family in New York and enjoyed a walk around the New York State Museum in Albany. There is a ‘World Trade Center’ exhibit which I was glad I had the chance to see and there was a full size Carousel that my grandchildren and I took full advantage of.  This is another place of interest that I would like to visit again.

After the visit to Albany, I visited my family in Virginia. They live on a farm at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains that is picturesque and mostly quiet. The best things in life are free and I believe that my four grandsons fit that description. It is an awesome experience being a grandmother and a visit to the new Legoland is must in February when they come to visit me here in Kissimmee. It’s only a few miles south of where I live.

It's nice to visit with friends and family. These are my friends from Cambridge, England. They own a vacation villa here in Central Florida and It's great to see them whenever they come. Even though it's November, the weather here is beautiful.

Sayonara AGAIN

Magic Moment 4

Magic Moment #4

It seemed as if JetBlue Airways had a contest for their employees (crewmembers) every week, and I entered most of them. The prize was usually two tickets with confirmed reservations on any JetBlue route. Bear in mind that the tickets weren’t totally free because it usually cost about $100 per ticket for airport fees, on any overseas flight. I won a movie trivia contest that motivated me to visit Columbia.

The strange thing is that when I mentioned to various people that because JetBlue had just announced a new flight route from Orlando to Bogota, I intended to use my free ticket to go there for a visit. Most people advised against it. The one exception to this was a pilot instructor who had married a Columbian girl. He encouraged me to go.

I visited Columbia with a Spanish speaking friend and it was a marvelous experience. I researched the trip carefully and we took all the proper precautions. On the advice of another friend, we booked a suite at the Hilton Embassy Suites, centrally located in Bogota. The suite was half price because of my airline discount and I’m glad that we didn’t pay full price, because the suite wasn’t that great. Coincidently the first officer on our flight between Orlando and Bogota was the same pilot instructor who encouraged me to go, and he made the trip special. He welcomed us on board over the speaker system and told the cabin crew to take good care of us. It was nice to feel special.

The airport at Bogota can only be described as a nightmare. You need a lot of patience for standing in long lines. I was glad that my friend understood all the instructions that were being shouted at us, and knew which long line to stand in. When we finally located our suitcases, I could see that my lock had been broken and I assumed that the suitcase had been searched, but nothing was missing. To my dismay I was singled out to be questioned and to have my suitcase X-rayed but since I don’t speak Spanish and the questioner didn’t speak English, I was waived through. It’s safe to say that I stood out like a sore thumb because of my Nordic look and my leopard skin suitcase.

We took a taxi to the hotel and were glad that we had taken some advice off the internet to keep a roll of dollar bills in our pocket. There were a lot of people with their hand out for a tip.

For a Hilton, the room was adequate but it had seen better days. Fortunately the beds and bathroom were clean. Other than that the hotel was good, it was really good.  Breakfast was included in the price of the suite and the breakfast was excellent. There was an array of food to suit anyone’s taste and eggs to order were always available (give a tip). They had a large selection of freshly squeezed fruit juices and I used to mix fresh guanabana juice together with fresh blackberry juice every morning. It was delicious. The breakfast was so satisfying that most days we didn’t need to buy lunch.

We usually returned to the hotel around 5pm for happy hour which was also included in the price of the room. They served hot hors d’oeuvres at the bar and unlimited free alcohol from 5pm until 7pm. Every evening we met up with a friendly group of business men for two hours of talk and camaraderie. The hotel food was so good that sometimes we ate dinner there, especially if we were tired out from a long day of sightseeing. But across the road there was a very fine restaurant where we could spend the evening in comfort while the resident pianist played soft music.

With the help of the hotel staff, we hired bilingual, private guides because they were inexpensive and it’s the easiest way to get around. Our first guide spoke excellent English and gave us a good historic tour on our way to the Salt Cathedral of Zipaquira http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_Cathedral_of_Zipaquir%C3%A1, a journey of two hours. The Cathedral is a Roman Catholic Church built in an underground salt mine, inside a mountain. Bogota is about 8612 ft. (2625 m) above sea level and we could feel our lungs heaving a little as we climbed up to the entrance of the salt mine, but it was worth the effort. Fortunately we were there on a week day when there are few visitors, the salt mine was relatively empty and we loved it. The Cathedral is magnificent and it is amazing what the salt miners created. We spent about three hours in there and it was like magic. I could have stayed there the whole day. Visitors are very welcome in Columbia and I found the people to be quite gracious (except at the airport). A visit to the Cathedral is a must for anyone no matter what religion a person practices.

 It was cold inside the salt mine

We stopped for coffee and Yucca bread at the little café inside the salt mine and I was served the most delicious cup of Columbian coffee that I had ever tasted. In there, I think the air, the salt, and the sulfur fumes clear the lungs and whet the appetite. I felt healthy, my eyes were clear and I had energy. Before returning to Bogota we visited the small town of Zipaquira http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipaquir%C3%A1 and it was a place that I’d like to return to. Zipaquira is quaint, interesting, full of indigenous people and a place waiting to be explored.

motorable road”, in Columbia of all places.

The following day we visited the Gold museum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Museum,_Bogota. This is a three story museum filled with Inca gold. Again, it was magnificent and I could have stayed there longer. It’s worth my while to mention that in Columbia, seniors are given free admittance to any government owned museums, art galleries etc. and there’s also a special line (queue) for seniors at the airport. The senior line is a lot shorter than the other lines. I went to buy a ticket for the museum and an old lady who was standing behind me shook her finger and indicated that I should not pay. That was nice of her. The Inca (pre-Hispanic) gold is interesting and worth a visit. The museum is ultra modern, the facilities are extra clean and it was one place where the toiler paper was free. Other places required a coin in a slot if toilet paper was needed.

I don't think photo-taking is allowed inside the gold museum but we weren't stopped from doing it.

The gold museum was followed by a visit to the Botero Museum of Art. Botero is a famous Columbian artist who is himself considered to be one of Columbian treasures. He donated about 200 million dollars worth of his paintings for the museum. The entrance is free for all and it was an interesting show of art. He’s famous for representative art and he paints fat people and fat characters. There are other fine collections for viewing, as well as an adjoining coin museum.

The next incredible moment occurred on a visit to Monserrate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monserrate, a mountain that dominates the city of Bogota. Monserrate is 10341ft (3152 m) above sea level, therefore by necessity we rode up the mountain on a rather rickety looking funicular. Again, it was worth the ride because the view from the top was magnificent. It washed over me all of a sudden that I was standing in the Andes Mountains, and the clouds were right in front of my nose. We climbed up a bit higher on foot to where a church had been built. It was peaceful, picturesque and we were there at the right time. There was not a single tourist in the place and we were able to stroll around and take in the magnificence of the place.  

 Looking down from the church at Montserrate

I was standing on top of Monserrate when I took this photo.

On the way back we visited Bolivar square http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bol%C3%ADvar_Square. There is a lot of history connected to Bolivar Square, located in the heart of Bogota historical district. We were there at the same time the President of Columbia was visiting, and the square was lined with rifle carrying military soldiers.

“Don’t worry,” the guide told us. “Their rifles are only loaded with rubber bullets.”

True or not, it was a scary sight and we were surrounded on all sides by fierce looking soldiers.

On impulse we decided to visit a beauty parlor located near our hotel. Any kind of service is relatively inexpensive in Columbia and the hotel receptionist even walked with us to the place. I believe that the Columbian people want to keep their visitors safe and after the beauty parlor visit we walked around the city for a while, ate Red Snapper in a city restaurant and felt perfectly at ease.

I’ve never had anyone work on my hands and feet that well. The manicurist/pedicurist was an expert. She spent a lot of time perfecting my nails, giving a foot massage, a leg massage and then she brewed a special kind of herb tea for us to drink. The tea was so delicious that my friend asked for the recipe but to no avail. It was a secret recipe that they referred to as Mano tea with a blackberry juice base.

We visited a few other places and enjoyed Columbia very much but were rather dismayed to find out (thanks to the hotel personnel) that we needed to allow three hours minimum in order to catch our flight home. They weren’t wrong. We rose at 4 am, rode to the airport in a taxi and knew what to expect. We stood in long lines again. We stood in a long line in order to get a ticket to stand in another long line. It was mass confusion and the airport was choked with soldiers carrying rifles again. All passengers leaving Columbia are searched and my friend was searched twice. The food in the airport was bad but the duty free shopping was incredible inviting. There were a lot of fabulous shops in that airport once you got through to the departure area. Shopping in Columbia was expensive therefore I didn’t buy much but I would love to return one day with more money. The leather goods are very fine quality.

There’s an irony here. The one place that so many people advised me not to visit is one of the places that I’d love to return to.

Magic Moment 3

Magic Moment #3

Costa Rica

I used the tickets that I won from the JetBlue contest, to travel with a friend to Costa Rica. We flew from Orlando to San Jose and were glad that we had made transportation arrangements beforehand. There was a four hour ride from the airport to our Hilton resort on the west coast (two hours without traffic-four hours with traffic).

As soon as we stepped inside the minivan, the driver presented us with a cold beer, although water and soda were available as well. The ride cost us $100 each way but I viewed it as an opportunity to see part of the countryside. It was a short five day visit, but well worth the effort. The Hilton all-inclusive resort in Puntarenas was situated right on the beach, although the beach was usually empty. It was a brown lava beach and impossible to walk on unless your feet were protected from the searing heat of the lava, but I was glad to have experienced both brown and black lava beaches. The waves were high and although I went in up to my knees, I decided that it would be too risky to try and take a swim in the Pacific Ocean.

The resort was beautiful, the queen beds were fantastic and the food was excellent. In fact there was such an abundance of food everywhere, at all times, that it wasn’t possible to sample all of it. There was also an unlimited supply of drinks, including alcohol and everything was included in the price of the room which was half price because we booked on line. We hired a private guide which is always the best thing to do if you’re visiting a country that has a reputation for being slightly dangerous. Whenever we went down to the beach, there were security guards at each end of the strip who prevented us from taking a long walk or from disappearing out of sight. They followed us closely to ensure that we were safe. The Costa Rican people that we met were extremely polite, helpful and eager to please and I felt perfectly safe with them.

Our guide together with a driver showed up in a minivan and we drove to the Rain Forest. It was a long drive that provided us with another view of the countryside and when we finally reached the Rain Forest, I was impressed by the efficiency of the tour guides. For two hours we went zip lining on a canopy tour through the rain forest, and for me it was magical. We flew high above the treetops. It was amazing and stunningly beautiful. At the beginning I went tandem, safely strapped to the guide right behind me but at the half way point he asked me if I would like to go solo, and I did. That was an accomplishment.

At the end of the zip-line tour, we took a stroll through the forest and ended up having lunch right there among the trees, together with some other tourists. The food tasted especially good because I was hungry after all that exercise. I tasted Guanabana juice for the first time. At first glance I thought that they were offering me milk, but the white milky looking drink was something different and delicious. The food was typical Costa Rican food and was also delicious. This was a successful trip although the volcano was shrouded in mist and we couldn’t see it. I shipped home a wood and leather rocking chair that I bought on impulse, because I liked it so much. The chair sits in my bedroom together with the Columbian hat (that I will never wear) that I purchased on my next vacation. I like the combination of wood and leather. That’s it.

Magic Moment 2

Magic Moment #2

Two years later I signed on as an employee at JetBlue Airways. I worked in a beautiful, modern building located on the perimeter of Orlando international airport (MCO). This is where JetBlue pilots, flight attendants and technicians come for training and my job was to maintain and audit the pilot training records. There are full flight simulators and cabin simulators in the building for both fleets of aircraft, and it was in the simulators where I had the most fun.

This is a JetBlue simulator used for pilot training.

JetBlue has two fleets of aircraft, the A320 airbus and the Embraer 190. My favorite was the Embraer 190 because it has a yoke for steering. This is an aircraft that is manufactured in Brazil and carries only one hundred passengers, as opposed to the Airbus that carries one hundred and fifty passengers and has a joystick for steering.

My first experience in a simulator was when the security instructor asked me if I would like to participate in some security training. The training was to take place in the cabin simulator and some Federal air marshals were going to demonstrate how a flight crew should handle a high jacking. This was an interesting experience, because when I was a flight attendant with Pan Am there was zero security training. I was interested to learn that the Federal air marshals travel incognito. They only identify themselves if there is an on-board circumstance that needs to be handled. The demo that they gave was brutally efficient and seemed to be very real. I was acting as a passenger along with a group of flight crew who were also acting as passengers. These air marshals meant business and I was duly impressed.

The best part about my job was interacting with the pilots and pilot instructors. These were a great bunch of mostly guys, but there were a few very proficient female pilots and one female pilot instructor as well when I was there.

One day after work I was exiting the building when I bumped into one of the Embraer flight instructors. He was leaving early because his two pilot trainees didn’t show up for their simulator training. M   had reserved one of the Embraer 190 simulators for two hours and now it was sitting empty. All of a sudden M  asked me a question.

            “Have you ever been inside a simulator Morag?”

            “Only once,” I responded. “I was given a short tour by one of the airbus instructors. He allowed me to sit in the left seat and try a take-off but that was all.”

            “How would you like a real lesson on the Embraer from me?” he asked, and without hesitation I said, “Yes, I’d love it.”

It was one of the best experiences that I had at JetBlue. Not only did Mike  allow me to sit in the left seat (captain’s seat), he allowed me to take off, fly the aircraft and practice landings. He gave me two hours of flying instruction and I loved it. I learned how to taxi on the runway, how to park an aircraft and how to line up in front of a runway for landing. It was truly magical.

Later that year, JetBlue announced a contest for its employees. Each entry had to be a five hundred word essay nominating one JetBlue employee who exemplified and demonstrated the JetBlue values of safety, caring, integrity, fun and passion. I wrote an essay about M  and my experience with him in the Embraer simulator. I nominated him as my choice and I won the contest. The prize was four round trip tickets with confirmed reservations, to anywhere that JetBlue flew. I used my tickets to travel with a friend to Costa Rica and M  used his tickets to take his wife on vacation to the Caribbean.

One of the other instructors G  gave my son and his wife a similar experience when they visited me here in Orlando for which I am truly grateful. And just before I left Jetblue Airways, another instructor C  did the same for my friend who came over from England for a visit. S  is a recreational pilot and it was a fine experience for him.

C  allowed me to try my landings again, although this time I was in the right seat (first officer seat). I was able to land the aircraft twice without wobbling off the runway. It seems to me that if I was a passenger on board an Embraer 190 and both pilots became incapacitated (something that would never happen of course), I could take over and land the aircraft, not easily of course, but perhaps I would be able to at least keep it on the runway.

Magic Moment 1

This is my collection of vintage matchbox airplanes. Circa 1973. These are all in perfect condition.

Magic Moment #1

After working for seven years as a schoolteacher and ten years in the nutraceutical industry, I moved from New York to Florida. I sold my house on Long Island, purchased a condominium in Florida and decided to relax for a while before returning to the work force. Eventually I did find a job with vitamins and minerals, but after a few weeks made the decision that since I had changed my lifestyle, I also wanted to change my career path. Aviation was calling me back. Airplanes are one of my passions and I wanted to work with pilots and airplanes again.

Soon I found a job as a dispatch manager for a flight training school at a nearby airport. It was a great job while it lasted. I liked wearing a uniform again and it was my first experience with single engine and twin engine propeller aircraft (other than flying on them). I learned a lot on the job. The school offered flight training to students of all ages from around the world, but the bulk of the students came from the United Kingdom. The flight instructors were pilots who already had their commercial license and were logging hours in the hope of eventually finding a job with an airline.

Sometimes after work, trainees who had already earned their commercial pilot license invited me to go flying with them. That was a lot of fun. I used to grab my headset, climb into the back of a Cadet Warrior III or a Cessna 172 and go soaring over Central Florida late into the evening. I never made a sound but just sat back and enjoyed the ride. Most of the time the pilots whom I accompanied, were working on their instrument rating and needed to concentrate.

The best moment came when on one of the night flights, Air Traffic Control (ATC) allowed us to do what is called a “touch and go” at Orlando international airport (MCO).

The two student pilots had filed a flight plan starting in Kissimmee (KISM), touching down at Orlando executive airport (ORL), and then returning to KISM. We took off and it was about 7 pm. Soon it became dark and the student in the left seat started his instrument training. I was on very friendly terms with the advanced student in the right seat who was monitoring the less advanced student in the left seat. We chatted and I listened in on the communications between the two students and ATC. We were on the approach to ORL but something wasn’t right. We could not pick up the localizer.

The localizer is one of the components of an instrument landing system, and it provides runway guidance to pilots. We were doing an instrument landing and it was pitch black except for the runway lights.

The senior student advised that we should abort the landing and try again and so we circled out to try the approach one more time. The localizer failed again and suddenly the small cockpit was filled with the sounds of cursing and swearing. We tried a third time but failed to pick up the signal on the third attempt. The senior student thought that the instruments on board our single engine Cessna 172 had failed, and he was worried. The aircraft was a long way from home and if the instruments had failed we would be flying blind. Possibly we would need to make an emergency landing and make our way home using another form of transportation.

I loved every minute of the drama. I knew this student could get us home because he was a superb pilot.

All of a sudden, he cursed again and yelled into the mike. Air Traffic Control, did you send us to the wrong airport? This doesn’t look like ORL; it looks more like Sanford (SFB) to me. There was dead silence for a few minutes and then ATC confirmed that although we had filed a correct flight plan, ATC had made the mistake. They had indeed directed us to the wrong airport. Our on-the-ball pilot was very quick to request a “touch and go” at MCO. This was something that was rarely permitted at such a busy airport, but because of the error ATC agreed. How could they refuse us now?

It was magic. There we were, lined up with the huge jumbo jets and ready to do our “touch and go” landing. ATC let us skip the line and it was fun knowing that we were being allowed to dart in front of a Boeing 747 just to practice a landing. We swooshed down and went right up again. It was magic. We made our way home safely and had a great story to tell.

Eureka 1

Eureka Moment #1

In 1985 I became a single parent which necessitated finding a job. After a long search, I found a job as a Home Economics teacher in a private, catholic high school. 

This is a photo of me and one of my 12th grade students (middle left).

The problem was that I was not a New York State, certified school teacher. I only had Scottish certification to teach Domestic Subjects at all grades. On investigation, I found out that I had earned enough credits to obtain a provisional certification in Home Economics from the state department of education. But it came with a stipulation that in order to become permanently certified, I needed to obtain a Master’s degree within five years. I attended the State University of New York (SUNY) from 1988 until 1991.

After a lot of arguing, pleading and paying for my Scottish credentials to be translated into American credentials, I was finally admitted into a special graduate program for schoolteachers. There was one stipulation. My first course had to be in one of the mandatory disciplines, and I needed to obtain a B average for both the first and the second course, before I would be allowed to matriculate. Since I was teaching full time and had two teenagers at home, I could only attend the university on Saturday mornings or during the summer vacations. It took three years.

I registered for “American Literature and Commentary on Slavery”, and I found it difficult. I had studied “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and “Tom Sawyer” when I was about fourteen years old, and these were books that I didn’t want to read again. Also, although Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize winning novelist, her books were not to my liking back then.  Recently I read “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,” by Harriet Ann Jacobs. I’m glad I finally read it but it did not expand my knowledge on the history of American slavery. I managed to read “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” but the whole experience was tedious.

I knew I was going to fail the course, but one of the other students in the class who saw me struggling gave me some advice.

            “This professor doesn’t want to hear your opinions, just regurgitate what he says right back to him, and you should get better grades on your papers.”

The advice worked and I forced myself to learn American grammar, punctuation and spelling so that I could get the precious B and earn that Master’s Degree. My time at the university was mostly uneventful except for two courses: these were “Family and Troubled Adolescents” and Chemistry in Human Culture”, both of which affected the course of my life to a large extent.

Dr. M  , although very controversial, was a marvelous teacher. He was a family therapist and he and his colleagues had decided to follow a different course of therapy for their private practice patients. They felt that they were getting better results with the new therapy than they did with the usual the prescribed course of therapy for troubled families. The American Medical Association (AMA) disapproved of these therapies but Dr. M  was quite open about the fact that although his therapies raised a lot of eyebrows, he didn’t care. He believed that his patients needed to relive the tortured events of their childhood by proxy, in order to effect a cure, and it worked.

The first eye-opener for me was when he introduced the class to something called a Genogram.

Excerpt off the web http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genogram

A genogram (also known as a McGoldrick-Gerson study ^[1] or a Lapidus Schematic ^[1]) is a pictorial display of a person's family relationships and medical history. It goes beyond a traditional family tree by allowing the user to visualize hereditary patterns and psychological factors that punctuate relationships.^[1] It can be used to identify repetitive patterns of behavior and to recognize hereditary tendencies.

The class was instructed to construct their own Genogram but he didn’t want to see any of them. They are too personal, and I was glad, because after looking at mine I was shocked. The Eureka moment came when Dr. M  explained that each person is the result of all that we had listed on our own Genograms. We don’t evolve by chance; we are the result of all that has happened to us. We are the result of all the people we have ever known and we are the result of the people and the history in our families going back through the generations. Wow! My Genogram had a lot of red on it. It was an eye opener because it was only then that I understood what had happened to produce me. Deaths, pandemics, wars, diseases, alcoholism, etc. At that moment I felt glad to be alive and totally amazed that after all of that history, I was at now sitting in my right mind, with a healthy body in an American University earning a Master’s Degree. 

I’ve used Dr. M ’s therapies on myself over the years and they do work, although I’m the only person who knows what issues I’ve managed to resolve with his help from so long ago.

The second Eureka moment occurred in the chemistry class. It was 1989 and I was anxious to finish. By that time I had a better job working in the public school system and as soon as I finished my degree, my salary would increase by $5,000 per year. The only thing not yet completed was one of the compulsory science courses. The only available compulsory science course on a Saturday morning was chemistry, but there was a prerequisite. Only those with an undergraduate degree in a science discipline could be admitted to this graduate course in chemistry. I registered anyway because there was nothing else available and nobody checked my qualifications. I knew that I had the option to drop out if chemistry turned out to be too difficult for me as I was sure it would be, but I thought that I would give it a try anyway.

The whole experience was surreal. I hadn’t studied chemistry since high school and I never liked it. Chemistry at high school was sheer torture for me. Once more the professor at SUNY was an outstanding teacher. I liked him and I liked his teaching style. The professor was Indian but he had been educated in the United Kingdom. With a sigh of relief I realized I might be able to handle this, because the professor taught British style. He gave us homework every week and the requirements for passing this course were three one hundred question exams, plus an oral presentation together with a 20 page report due the last week of the course.

Sixty people signed up for chemistry and three months later there were only twenty of us left in the class. I managed to pass because the test questions were multiple choices and I could usually figure out which answer was the correct one. The professor liked my oral presentation because I made props. I drew large colorful diagrams for my presentation and at the end of the course he gave me an A.  After receiving the results of the first written test, I had my eureka moment.  I had managed to answer all one hundred questions correctly. Were these lucky guesses or was I really good at chemistry? I did study hard for those three months but even with study how many people get an A in graduate chemistry? This was proof to me that I had some kind of brain and it changed my attitude about myself forever.

Later when I decided to give up teaching, I saw an ad for a job.

“Wanted, a nutritionist with a background in biochemistry for a company that manufactures nutraceuticals.”

I applied and got the job because I was able to produce a transcript proving that I had received an A in chemistry, an A in botany and an A in biology. Who knew!