Turning mirrors to the wall......

Here's a question for you: If you hang a mirror with the glass toward the wall, will it reflect backwards, too?

Oh, stop laughing. I'm serious. I'm asking because some parts of my life today look so much like a very long time ago.

Remember when we were teenagers and we had finally made contact with that hot new crush from school? Maybe a few dates later the two of us needed a more private place to go, because....well, you know why, right? Holding hands and a quick kiss on the front porch after a movie just wasn't going to satisfy us any more. We needed some ALONE time.

But mom and dad simply insisted on being home, and things like closed bedroom doors with a non-family member of the opposite gender or staying out all night weren't even part of the cultural conversation at the time.

So, we made out in cars, both front and back seat, or went to a friend's house after school where maybe there was less supervision. Sometimes we really pushed the envelope of the era (and believability) and lied about spending the night at that friend's house and never went near the place at all.

Such was the life of a teenager in heat.

Well, deja vu just sauntered into the party! Those of us who have worked our way through marriages in a variety of ways--divorce or death (the widow/widower kind, not murder, although it might have been merited)--find ourselves single after 60 again. And if you younger readers out there think that all that hand holding/kissing/making out stuff is over after 60, you are in for a lot of fun when you finally get here.

But there's a strange little crack in the mirror. If you recall from previous columns here, many of us are also taking care of elderly parents. Or returning adult children. So, many of us are cramming our clothes--and selves-- into smaller and smaller spaces in our own homes to make way for all these people.Which has snatched our privacy away, as surely as if we were......teenagers!

We can't throw these people out. We don't WANT to throw them out. We just need some privacy again.

Somewhere. Anywhere. It's like that mirror turned to the wall is seeing the past and bringing it forward into the present.

I really don't know what to do with that mirror, but I do know that hotels get really expensive. And people still want to know where we went when we get home.





It's hard to just kinda get some privacy and do your own thing.

Shaun White





Hotel rooms by the hour....

Here's a silly question: How many hours are really in a day? I know as we get older it seems that they fly by, faster and faster, as we march to that day (there's that word again) when it won't matter any more. I'm not trying to be morbid here.....the "day" issue is bugging me.

Oh....you want to know why it's gotten under my skin? Well, you know me: I'm about to share that with you!

It seems that in hotels and other such places, a "day" is defined by some strange calculation that has to do with cleaning rooms or something. Towels washed, maybe? But NOT with accomodating guests who might want to stay an actual DAY in that lovely place.

Recently I was calling around, trying to find a room for an upcoming wedding in another city. Which starts at 5 PM. Now stay with me here: I am driving for about 2 hours to get there and would like to check in, shower, dress, get made up, (which, let's face it, takes longer as we age, right?), and catch my breath before we head off to a location that is unknown to me. So, age having provided me some wisdom, I leave time to get lost and then find my way to the wedding venue, park (you never know what that's going to be like, either), and to the right location for the wedding INSIDE the venue. (We all know how big some of those places are. You can walk forever just to find a bathroom.)

Check in times ran from 3 PM to 6 PM. Yep, 6 PM. Oh, no problem, I told my mother. They'll let us check in earlier to get ready if we only explain the situation. Wrong. They didn't care. "Sorry, we can't guarantee that any rooms will be cleaned any earlier from the night before."  Really?

Especially considering that check out time at that same hotel is 11 AM.

So, let's count: Check out time is 11, check in time is 4. That gives them 5 HOURS to turn that facility around, and yes, I understand that some of them are huge. HIRE MORE STAFF! Who are you in business for....your housekeeping staff or, God forbid, your customers??

Which leaves a 19 hour day for the customer who pays a "DAILY RATE" for that room. And that's just using the hours I've indicated above. The one that really blew my mind was the 6 PM check in time, with a noon check out.  And that was a Bed & Breakfast with 6 rooms total! That's 6 full hours subtracted from the length of a day's stay. Even if the innkeeper has to clean all 6 by herself, I could do it in 6 hours. And those of you who actually know me know that would be a painful sight.....but I COULD do it if it meant paying customers on the other end of the agony.

I guess one solution would be for all hotels to charge by the hour, just like some of those, well, you know.....

So, how many hours ARE there in a day? There are 24...unless you enter a time warp of hotel accomodations. Then they suck some of them right out of you at the front desk upon check in.

Time is making fools of us again. ~J.K. Rowling