There’s nothing like a summertime heat wave, followed by thunderous storms and refreshing breezes. In our experience of late, insert “loss of electrical power, causing one to stumble around in darkness and suffer through a sweaty, steamy night with pounding head and drenched pajamas”, instead of any cooling relief.

I generally like to sleep with a small light on. It helps to inform me if one of the dogs jumped on the bed, rather than perhaps a baby lion cub wandered in and wanted to snuggle for awhile. Then there was that time in a foreign hotel when a worker popped his head in the door in the middle of the night. I was glad that a small lamp was burning the midnight oil and I could report this sorry specimen of a security guard to his superiors.

So when the lights go off, I’m a bit at a loss. Particularly when it’s nearing 100 degrees inside and out, with humidity about the same. It takes me back to any of a number of uncomfortable places, probably the worst of which was in Uganda, sleeping under a mosquito net, soaked with equal parts perspiration and bug spray, hungry dogs gnawing the bones of something outside our open window all night, and the joy of pit latrines lying just beyond. I didn’t sleep for the entire sultry, sticky, seven days we were there.

Our latest loss of power went down something like this: we arrived home at 6:00 pm, to discover that the electricity had gone off during a late afternoon storm. The a/c was on before that, but the temperatures were already soaring. We scooped up the Scotties and headed to a meeting in another part of town that still had power. Returning home at 8:30 pm, everyone quickly grew hot and tired. We resorted to bringing in Chinese carryout, dining by candlelight, and then trying to sleep.

Did you know that there are summer nights when the temperature really doesn’t decrease at all at night?

It was hotter than hot and darker than dark. Unless you’re used to darkness, it’s uncomfortable. You can hurt yourself. Danger lurks where there are no lamps.

Our whole neighborhood was dark. Nary a candle burned anywhere. There were a few neighbors seen strolling on nearby streets, walking to cafes, trying to find a market that might still have ice for sale. We glimpsed others in garden chairs, sipping cool drinks in their backyards, imagining themselves to be in the Adirondacks, no doubt. I hoped for their sakes that the votive candles on the tables were packed full of industrial-strength citronella, to fight off the meat-eating mosquitos-on-a-mission. It was nice to see people making lemonade out of lemons, shall we say, while my husband longed for his namesake sparkling ice water, San Benedetto.

Many of our neighbors were gone, poof, vanished, checked-out like a resort abandoned just after the season’s close. I think they all headed for hotels in other sectors of the city. Because of the dogs, we were stuck.

Misha and Grisha groaned in the heat and finally went into a sleepy, hibernation mode. I gave them water and checked on them repeatedly, Benedetto drawing the line at my putting a cool cloth on their furry foreheads. I heard the kids get up and down out of bed to splash water on their faces through the night. Personally, I tossed this way and that on top of the bed, my sinuses swelling and throbbing, no sleep in sight.

And I don’t even have sinus problems.

At 2:30 am, I approached Benedetto, who was out cold. Well, “out”, in any event.

“I think we’re all going to die.”

“Huh? What?” he snorted awake. “What do you want me to do about it? I’ve called the electric company three times. How about we all go sit in the car?”

“Fine,” I agreed, and it took practically no time at all to saddle up the troops and head ‘em on out. Anyplace had to be better than “here”.

Most everyone fell asleep as soon as the frigid airconditioning hit their faces. Pasha, of course, did not. He went into his pretzel-boy routine, twisting long arms and legs this way and that, restless enough to keep me awake for hours, even in the cool. Which made me hot under the collar and defeated the whole auto adventure.

At 4:30 am, we returned inside and the interior temperature of the house had dropped slightly. At last, I was able to fall to a fitful sleep for a couple of hours. As the sun began its ascent, so did the heat.

We were going out of town that day, anyway, so I instructed everyone to take cool showers and pack their things. I looked in the mirror in the dim and semi-dark bathroom, spying my puffy eyes and bright red cheeks, and shuddering. Weren’t we a pretty sight?

Somehow we made it through the day, sleep-deprived, but cool. By the time we returned to the city late at night, there was still no power. It was time to leave for the dacha and call it a day. A very long day—and night.

This was my second experience in as many weeks to be without electricity. The first time it was imagined that our home had been struck by lightning—yes, only us—out of an entire metro area of millions. It made me wax philosophical during those sleepless, silent hours on end.

We’ve probably all tried to live life without power and without light. I can tell you, it’s dangerous in many ways, and not a lot of fun in others. People in other parts of the world can manage to get-by on no power if they’ve never experienced it. They may scoff at what they do not know.

All I can say is that when the lights at last came on again, I might only describe it as pure and utter relief, and the sense that all was well with the world again. There were no longer any plaguing, paranoid thoughts of banditi robbing the block blind, Scotties stumbling down the stairs, food rotting in the fridge, or kids crying from heat exhaustion. We definitely did not need such drama.

I am going to live with power. It’s possible to survive without it… but why?

We give a lot of repeat business to the rental car companies whether at home or abroad. Problem is, we can rarely figure out how to classify the cars, as well as how to drive them.

“Why do you keep washing the windshield?” I asked Benedetto just a minute ago.

“I’m not trying to!” he informs me as we speed down the highway. “I’m looking for cruise control.”

It happens another five or six times as we laugh and have one of the cleanest, most bug-free windows possible on a hot, cloudless day.

They like to confuse the customers in foreign countries. It’s hard enough to figure out that 140 kilometers per hour is equal to something like 25 miles per hour, but I have had the good fortune of not knowing how to roll down the window. Try getting out of a parking garage by paying at the toll booth… and the window won’t roll down. I finally get other foreign office mates to come and inspect the car. Several men can’t figure it out, which makes me feel good. We look at the door panel, the dash board, everywhere and anywhere that a window could be activated. Nothing. At last, I take it back to one of the car rental offices and ask them. They think Alexandra is an idiot, since it’s so simple: right there on the center column between the two front seats, BEHIND THE GEAR SHIFT. Anyone sitting in the back seat can easily lower the window, but my arm does not extend back that far. Makes for an interesting week….

These are the minor glitches that come with most rental cars. It all begins when making the reservation. In many countries, the cars are classified by Sub-Compact, Compact, Economy, Mid-Size, Full-Size, Luxury or Premium, Mid-Size SUV, Full-Size SUV, and Mini-Van. Most of these are designed for Little People of the anorexic persuasion, if not smallish children over seven and under ten years of age who do not need bulky booster seats, and who are not yet full-sized. Should doggies Misha and Grisha take up driving, they might be able to stretch out their legs in a rental car. We, however, cannot.

There are six of us, two dogs, assorted school rucksacks, and a couple of small suitcases presently squished into the minivan of the day. My purse, alone, can barely fit into the front passenger-side seat with me. (What, you thought I’m writing this from the driver’s side?) And yet, under my feet is placed another tote bag full of books, CD-player, sewing kit, file folders, and other travel necessities. It’s my overflow bag of sorts, and it’s overflowing, for sure, all around my feet.

“If I’m not able to stand up after this drive,” I say to the kids, “somebody pry me outta here….”

They were only too willing to volunteer sacrificing their schoolwork to be left behind.

“Thank you, we’re not taking volunteers today,” I squeeze their arms, and thus, by unvolunteering their legroom, I volunteer my own legs to be cramped.

In Italy, we always had excellent outcomes with rental cars.

“Alfa Romeo?” Benedetto would smile upon first glimpse of a car. “Bellissima,” he murmured as we roared off on the autostrada.

He was not smiling whenever he paid out for liter upon liter of liquid gold benzine. We were convinced that liters suddenly held the same amount as a small soupcan…..

Israel was also fine in terms of rental cars, until we started growing our family. Prior to that time, they constantly upgraded me. I liked “the smaller the better” there, good for parking in urban, postage stamp-sized spaces. Standard shift helped on the many serpentine and mountainous streets stretching to Jerusalem.

Instead, the rental clerks handed me keys to automatic mid-size sedans, which were nice until I got to the gas station and liters again shrank to the size of small shot glasses. The shekels were flowing like the sands of time.

Benedetto, Petya and I once landed in Tel Aviv, needing a car for a few days. We heard that a snowstorm would be heading into the capital soon. We planned for a car with heft, something heavy enough to keep us on the road, and big enough to hold a couple of suitcases and three travel-weary bodies.

They gave us a compact car. Not to be mistaken with a sub-compact, unless you had to ride in it. We walked several miles, it seemed, to the car pick-up and here we are greeted by a sardine-mobile. Even the suitcases wouldn’t fit in the trunk. Back we hike to the airport reservations counter.

“That is the class car that you reserved,” the young lady at the counter insisted. Fresh from the army, she didn’t take any flak.

“How could it be? We didn’t reserve a sub-compact. We need a car that will fit three people and two suitcases. I mean, you guys are always upgrading me when I’m here by myself,” I explained. “The one time I need more space, you can’t help me? You don’t have anything bigger?”

“You already have a big upgrade,” she told me in Hebrew.

“I do? It couldn’t be. Have you seen that car?” I pressed.

“Here is our chart of cars,” she pulled out a laminated sheet. “You have G-class. G-class, do you understand?!” her voice starts to rise and I did not like her tone.

“You can call it G-class or Z-class. If it doesn’t work for us, we need another car.”

“Lady, you already have six levels above our most basic car. You don’t know what G-class means? A, B, C, D, E, F, G…” she ticks off for me as I grow more ticked-off.

“Thank you, I’m familiar with the English alphabet,” I say to her.

Turning to Benedetto I ask, “Should we go with another company?”

“No,” he replies, “we just need a decent car.”

“Let me speak with your manager,” I turn back to the clerk. Mentally, I am calculating how in the world this car could be anything but the most basic. What were “extras” these days? A radio? Power windows? Airconditioning? Paint? Wheels? A glove compartment?

The manager emerges and she’s just as hot under the collar, reciting the alphabet. I don’t bother revealing how many foreign alphabets I can recite, too, but eventually, I wear her down, pulling out story after story.

“Were you around when your company first started?” I ask. “I remember the tiny one-room office with a sink next to the King David Hotel, the determination to hustle and grow the company, the commitment to the customers’ satisfaction….”

I went on…and on… and on….

“I remember the time we had just rented a car from your company and were going up and down the hills of Jerusalem. The car was losing more and more power. Finally, we made it up to the top of Har El and coasted to a stop at the shopping mall.

“Har El!” I exclaimed. “The Mount of God! How can you lose power on the Mount of God? So we waited a couple of hours and eventually one of your guys came and rescued us….”

Long story longer, we finally got our car that day. I wore her down. The three of us drove to Jerusalem where we were snowed in for three straight days. All shops, restaurants, museums, and places of business closed, the snow was so deep.

I got extra trash bags from our Russian maid, doubling as boots attached with rubberbands so the guys could go out to photograph and play. I had work I needed to accomplish… which we didn’t. One slippery night we ventured out with the car, slip-sliding all the way to visit friends on Mount Scopus.

Several days later, we returned the car, virtually unused. I refrained from reciting alphabets, times tables, or the Periodic Chart.

Once upon a time, another rental car there received a boot, which in Israel they call a “sandal”, appropriate for the Middle East. It was our last foray into the city, Benedetto and I had a lovely dinner and were heading back to pack and head to the airport.

The car was clamped on the wheel, unable to be moved.

We walked up and down the street, checking and rechecking the street signs. On the remote end of the block was a sign that appeared to indicate that it was forbidden to park here during the exact time we were there. Great. The ticket on the car was written in teeny-tiny Hebrew and said we could present ourselves at a certain location to pay the fine and they would then issue the truck to come and release your car. It wasn’t my car. It was a rental car. I thought briefly about just leaving it, but knew that they had my credit card on file.

“San’daleh!” a woman exclaims as she walks past. “Do you need any help?”

She joins our pity party as I pour out our tale of woe. She helps us mentally locate the office of their boot headquarters, which is in an underground parking garage, of all places. I complain that we’re trying to get to the airport and she confirms that it might take them an hour or two to release our car.

“Listen, I can come with you to your hotel and help you pack,” she offers. “It will be no trouble at all–.”

We decline her offer, but are warmed by her friendliness freely given in a time of need. Somehow, the car is released and we are able to make it to Ben Gurion Airport in time.

Such fond memories of rental cars…as we zip down the road today in yet another squish-mobile. Bigger car, but much bigger family.

“Mama, our legs hurt,” the kids moan.

“Be thankful we have a car. Did Papa ever tell you how he went to work by camel in the desert…?” They stop complaining lest I regal them with another long adventure story.

Just then, the wipers squirt and swish for the hundredth time.

“Benedetto!!!”

I don’t know if anyone in Italy has ever tried Dr. Atkins’ diet. I doubt it, since carbs in that country reign supreme: pasta, pizza, e pane.

It begins in the morning at the corner café with a capuccino and cornetto. The coffee’s milk is frothed to perfection, often with decorative swirls across the top, reminiscent of a bookbinder’s carta marmorizzata, or marbleized paper. Combined with the caffeine, the cornetto croissant gives me the first carb crescendo of the day.

Misha and Grisha share in the moment, tails wagging wildly as a saucer of warm, white milk is placed before their tank-like black bodies. The Scotties could not love this morning snack any more than a self-respecting cat, but then they don’t care about any kind of diet plan.

No matter where I go for lunch or dinner, pasta, pizza, or pane will be found somewhere on the menu. But even the pizza in Italy is well beyond pedestrian, whether thin potato slices on dough drizzled with EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) and sprinkled with rosemary, or a cheese pizza with shavings of truffles and mushrooms… ahh… tartufi e funghi.

Che buona! Who can think of Atkins at a time such as this? Take three bites and call it a day. Everyone knows that walking on cobblestones burns twice as many calories as normal.

Make no mistake about it, I’ve been numbered among pazza (crazy) people counting carbs in Italia: eggs for la prima colazione, salad for il pranzo—how many carbs are there in la mozzarella di bufala, anyway?, and sole, veal, or bistecca alla Fiorentina for la cena. Problem is… the ubiquitous bread basket beckons.

Whether sliced Italian rustic bread, or the hard and crusty white rolls, or the long and snappy Grissini breadsticks, one form or another would be sure to be lying in wait on the table.

Most of my life is spent on the run, wherever we are. And what does everyone gobble on the Italian autostrada? Panini—sandwiches—usually made from focaccia bread, and grilled in a flat iron. Unless I bought a salame and stuck it in my Prada purse, fascinating and fragrant an idea as that may be, there’s no hope to dodge the carbs.

Arrivederci, Dr. Atkins. The perils of Italian pane fresh from the oven have proven too strong to resist.

It was a normal day at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport. Up before the crack of dawn, through ticketing, security, and customs, we presented ourselves at Passport Control.

“Dokumenti,” demanded the bored, matronly guard.

We were adopting our first son’s friend. It took us four years of official red tape, adoption agency scams, governmental denials, and regional shutdowns. In a matter of an hour or two, he would at last be exiting off of Russian soil.

Not so fast.

“Adoption decree and court papers,” the border guard insisted, eyeing our family of four, noting that only the two kids had Russian Passports.

This was a new one. Why not just the passport? I slid the packet under the plate glass window, upon which she settled down to a long morning’s read.

Ten minutes passed. Twenty minutes passed. She, no doubt, enjoyed the more sordid parts of such a horrific history, chronicled for the sake of court testimony, not the prurient interests of a bored border guard.

“Eezvehnite, pazhalista—“ I interrupted her concentration. “Yest problema?” Is there a problem?

“Nyet,” she went back to her reading.

I felt my blood boiling as the preteen boys shifted from foot to foot. Her coworker in the next booth asked her why the slow-mo treatment of the tourists. She shrugged her off, as well.

At forty minutes standing before the little glass booth, I’d had enough.

“Excuse me, please, but why are you reading his court papers?”

She looks up, obviously irritated at my interruption. The sleeping bear awakened.

“Ohn russki grahzdanen,” (He is a Russian citizen) she testily explained. “I must make sure that his documents are in order.”

So I figure if we’re ever going to get out of this holding pattern and make it to the Golden Land of Duty Free, I needed to insert my two rubles.

“Da, and here is his Russian Passport… and it’s in order.”

She goes back to reading.

I go back to talking.

“I mean, let’s think this thing through… Doomahyete,” I encourage, feeling as though I’m instructing Dorothy in her ruby slippers to concentrate. “What’s the likelihood of us finding a child on the street with the same last name, having all of the paperwork to obtain a passport, and making him agree to come to America with us???”

“We have to be sure,” she sneers, not amused, not impressed, not in a hurry.

About an hour later, she comes up for air and asks for our first son’s court papers.

“Nyetoo,” (He has none) I affirm. “He’s been our son for over five years. You already have his Russian Passport and here is his other one.” I considered calling for a supervisor, but that struck me as less than a positive Russian chess move. Might cause us more problems to make too much of a stink. If she had missed the “Service With a Smile” seminar, there was not much I could do about it now.

She glances at the dual passports, while meanwhile, I can picture Petya passing out in a cold sweat as he understands every word spoken. Perhaps one day he would come back to study in Russia, but for the present, he wanted to go home. Pasha had never been home, but even he knew that it was better than this. At last, the stern woman, who was probably younger than me, but appearing and acting much older, slowly slides the stack back to us.

“Horoshoh,” (Alright) she waves us through, an indelibly harsh reminder to our sons that you don’t mess with Mother Russia. Escaping her clutches, we make a mad dash for the plane.

Which reminds me of the time I was heading to Israel, a regular shuttle I traveled for some years. A sting operation was underway for diamond dealers.

I boarded the transatlantic flight in New York, and there on the jetway, leading to the plane, were Federal Agents stopping most every Hassidic man, right next to the stacks of Yediot Aharonot and Ma’ariv newspapers. I put mine back in the pile and reached for the Herald Tribune, instead.

“Do you have any diamonds or large sums of money to declare?” the agents inquired.

The men tried to brush by, mumbling something in Yiddish.

“Yiddish?” the agents pursued them. “No problem. Read this,” they said, presenting a printed card with all of the laws stated in their own language.

I strolled past, pockets bulging with rare stones and stacks of foreign currency.

Alright, maybe in my dreams….

But I should have known the bubble security cameras were in full operation. It wasn’t until exiting the country that they nabbed me.

Once again at Passport Control, this time in Tel Aviv, a guard examined my passport front to back, or I should say, back to front, Hebrew style. Flipping it closed, the young twentysomething female soldier met me eye to eye.

“Go to the police, please,” she said, as though this were an everyday exchange.

“Ha’mishtarah?!” (The police?!) “Why? Where? What?” I wanted to know.

“The police. In the corner room.”

And thus I made my way to the Border Police, like one of the old fashioned “Alt!” border gates had just lowered in front of me. Could family dogs visit incarcerated persons? was uppermost in my thoughts.

“Shalom,” I introduced myself to the chainsmoking blond in charge.

“Darkon, b’vahkahshah,” (Passport, please) she smiled.

Hmmm… everyone so interested in the small document stating very little and with a less than ideal photo prominently featured.

“You come and go a lot,” she noted in Hebrew.

“Ken….” (Yes….)

“And do you have an Israeli Passport?”

“No….”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes….”

She checked back in her computer and tried a different tack.

“Think back, maybe a long time ago….. Did you ever declare citizenship here?”

“No….”

“Maybe you forgot…” she tried to help, at which I burst out laughing.

“I think I’d remember something like that…. Is there a problem?”

“No, no problem.”

Gee, I’d heard that before. Maybe this was some joke being played on me by my Israeli lawyer. With my demographic, I couldn’t imagine that they’d want to draft me for the Israeli Army. I mean, they didn’t even offer high-heeled infantry boots, plus, entering the paratroopers would result in too much windblown hair during the jumps. The navy might make me seasick. They would have to make me… a border guard!

No, their interest could not be the draft. The only thing I could think of was tax evasion of some sort. I wondered if they served felafel balls in prison. I could survive.

At last, the policewoman decided to take my sweet face at face value and believe my story that I didn’t play fast and loose with my citizenship, spreading it here, there, and everywhere at will.

“Okay, look, I’ll let you go, and I’ll mark that all is okay,” she reassured me.

I assumed she was entering our Important and Enlightening Conversation into her computer. Again, I was missing out on sampling the fine eau de parfums of Duty Free.

She returned my passport, wishing me a nice trip and I hightailed it to the bank to exchange my remaining shekels.

Taking the currency and my passport, the clerk gave a small gasp and turned to look me up and down.

“What happened?” he inquired. “I’ve never seen such a thing!”

“Mah zeh?” (What is it?) I asked.

“FREE TO DEPART BY ORDER OF THE MINISTRY OF THE INTERIOR,” he read the stamp and handwritten permission penned in Hebrew all around its edges. “Did you do something?” he laughed.

“Not that I know of!”

I took the money and ran for the plane, a recurring theme in my life. The only comfort I received in these inconvenient airport interrogations was that, while being detained, at least I was staying out of any more trouble. I didn’t need additional International Incidents. With all of our international travel, there were bound to be bumps. Yet with a fast-paced lifstyle, the small bumps could develop into major speed bumps, resulting in one big careening crash of a learning curve.

No time for that. We had places to go, things to do, people to see. Best to fly below the radar and leave the big bags of diamonds at home for now.