A severe decline in travel is being predicted for this summer due to the high cost of gas and related price increases. Hotel and airline reservations are down; cruise bookings are slow. Many families are finding their budgets tightened to the point where vacations simply aren’t possible.

But with just a little creativity and an open mind, it’s possible to have a vacation experience without ever leaving the state. For instance, you can duplicate both the look and feel of a week at the beach by purchasing five sessions at a tanning salon and using all five sessions consecutively. (More realistic touches can be had by placing a beach towel on the tanning bed to achieve a one-sided burn, or by wearing your sunglasses while lying in the bed.)

To more fully simulate the beach vacation experience, sprinkle sand in your bed sheets, towels, swimsuit bottom, short pockets and shoes. (If no sand is available, clumping cat litter is a suitable substitute.)

You and the family can replicate the amusement park experience by setting a timer to ding every four minutes for an hour and a half. Each time it dings, have everyone in your family take one step forward. At the end of the hour and a half, have everyone exclaim that it was worth every second. Repeat.

To achieve the amusement park aroma, spin in circles until you and/or your children have regurgitated six to nine of your previous meals. Allow resulting mess to simmer for two to four hours. For maximum effectiveness, add hot grease, tanning lotion and bug spray.

To further the amusement park experience, go to McDonald’s and request a hamburger with a stale bun and no condiments, then give the cashier a 10. Don’t collect any change.

Other inexpensive ways to feel you’ve have the vacation experience:

Cut strips of paper and write “Sanitized for your protection” on each one. Every day, slide one of the strips diagonally across your commode. Maximize the effect by folding the end of the toilet paper into a neat “V” shape. Place a Gideon Bible in your nightstand drawer.

Wear something hideous or grossly skimpy in public while insisting it’s OK because no one there will ever see you again.

Produce the feel of world travel by assigning each family member a different accent they must speak in for the entire week.

Wear a wet bathing suit.

Park both family cars end to end in your driveway. In the front car, turn on the right turn signal. Sit in the car behind it. For 10 hours. For complete experience, add children who alternate saying “Are we there yet?” with “I have to pee” and an adult who intermittently threatens the children that if they (a) “don’t stop immediately” or (b) “don’t keep your hands to yourself,” then they are going to (a) “leave you by the side of the road” or (b) “strap you both to the hood of the car.”

Slice soap into small, rectangular slivers and cover with paper. Leave a stack of white hand and bath towels next to an ice bucket on your bathroom sink.

Wear wrinkled clothing and a camera around your neck.

Or you could share a rental cottage with friends. Visit relatives. Look at a map and find all the places within three hours of home that you’ve been wanting to see (or see again).

Or you could just buy a cheap hammock, stock up on books and stay home.

Here’s a shot of me and Lucy, my daughter’s rat.  Ethel, the shy one, is a little harder to see since she kind of blends in with my hair.

 And here’s Lucy again, in what’s become her favorite place to hide.

Last week, I was on the phone with a friend who lives on the West coast.  

“Do California politicians stand on street corners, holding up signs and waving at traffic?” I asked. 

“Do our politicians do what?”  

“Stand on corners, waving at cars. Usually they’re dressed really nice, even if it’s raining.” 

“No way,” she said. “That’s bizarre. What are they trying to do? Lock up the reckless driver vote? Our politicians just shake hands and kiss babies.”

I like the friendly politician thing we have going on. It has a charming, small-townish feel. But in recent weeks, when they’ve been on darn near every corner in town, I’ve had a strange urge to join them. If you see a woman standing on a corner, holding up a sign that says, “Not running. Just friendly.” That’ll be me. 

I might get my daughter to stand with me. Have her hold up a sign that says, “Honk if you support honking.” 

We have several months before the general election nears and they start gathering on the corners again.  

Time to make signs.  

I’m not sure why political season stirs me in ways that aren’t normal, or why my attention is so often focused on political signs. I tire of seeing the same names over and over, grow weary of their use of only red, white and blue. I resent their blatant disregard for the unwritten rule limiting poles and trees for posting yard sale and lost pet notices.  The nerve. I expect I’m not the only one who is tired of the signs, but six months remain for us to endure. I was thinking it might be fun to make up some other signs, too. Mingle them intermittently with the others. 

Taylor for Sheriff. Fife for Deputy 

Your candidate for Agriculture Commissioner–Woody Harrelson 

For Supreme Court - Judith Sheindlin  

Board of Education - Bresch 

I suppose there’s a message the politicians believe they’re sending the public by standing roadside, rain or shine, day in and day out. Perhaps they believe they’re demonstrating how determined and serious they are about the position for which they’re running. This is what I’m willing to do to impress you.

 It’s scary to think there are some among us who might actually choose their candidates based on waving skills. 

Wow! Nice use of the wrist. He’s getting my vote!

There are times when I’ve suspected some voters completely disregard a candidate’s qualifications, voting record, and smile-and-wave skills in favor of the all-important entertainment factor. They believe our politicians aren’t merely in office to serve. They’re there to entertain. (He looks like a womanizer–bet he’ll stir some fun scandals!) 

It would be refreshing to have a candidate straight-shooting enough to say, “Look, no matter who you vote for, you’re probably going to regret it. With me in office, you might still regret it, but at least you’ll be entertained.” 

Although it isn’t the strangest gift I’ve ever assembled, the box I filled for my mother-in-law, Louise Lamar Fuller, was certainly odd. 

An assortment of old rusted nuts and flathead nails, time-worn metal washers and knobs. Mismatched buttons. Costume jewelry with rhinestones missing. Earrings without matches, most without backs. A stack of old magazines and catalogs, some with pages torn out. A peculiar collection of odds and ends that most everyone would view as trash. 

Except for Louise.

Louise sees the texture and shape of each piece, and sees in them the potential for art. For decades, Louise has been able to see potential in drab lumps of clay. A master potter, she turns those lumps into fantastic, hand-built vessels and finishes them with such deep, warm glazes they glow as if the fire remains.

Recently, though, Louise has been taken with the art of collage, combining everyday items into gift tags and bookmarks. Her work has a charming wistfulness about it, like she’s combined jewelry and paper and an antique shop and a hardware store and your favorite page from a scrapbook all into one little thing.

The last time we visited them in Morgantown, she took me to her basement workshop and I watched as she put one together. She made it look so simple that later, back at home, I decided to try one myself.

I’ve seen preschool craft projects that looked more artistic.  

Dog nose art on windows that seemed done with more skill. 

It made me appreciate Louise’s talent all the more. And made me grateful to have a mother-in-law I so genuinely like and unabashedly admire.

I’m guess I’m just lucky.

For as far back as I can remember, my own mother has been my best friend. Yeah, I know. Some folks frown on parents who attempt to be friends with their kids, but Mom wasn’t that way. Her job as parent came first. The friend part evolved.  

Every year, I schedule to be off work the first Friday in May so Mom and I can hit the neighborhood yard sales in Putnam County. It’s been our tradition for at least 15 years. Throughout out the year, we go to other sales and do other things together, but that day is my favorite. It’s always just the two of us. 

Well, it’s just the two of us–plus all the people she stops to talk to. Mom has this way about her makes that makes everyone immediately comfortable and chatty. It’s a skill-or a gift- that I’d love to acquire.

Kind of like how I’d like to acquire Louise’s skill in the kitchen, where she can take any three ordinary ingredients and effortlessly combine them into an extraordinary meal. 

And how I’d like to emulate my mother’s ability to find humor in most every situation and her curiosity about darn near everything. 

And have as extensive a vocabulary (and the ability to correctly use that vocabulary) the same way as Louise. 

I want to combine the best of these two women so that I can be the kind of mom my daughter will have to work her tail off to copy. 

I’m lucky to have them. I know that.

And I’m lucky they both know me well enough to understand that gift-wise this Mother’s Day, this is pretty much all they’ll be getting from me.

Every year for Christmas, Mom gets me a new calendar. For years, she chose Far Side calendars, then Gary Larson retired and she had to find a new theme. Knowing my love for sayings (she’s the one who started me collecting them in the first place), it seemed natural for her to choose a Quote of the Day.

Although I’ve run across several keepers so far, one recent quote hit me wrong, prompting me to tear off the page, wad it up, and toss it in the trash. A few minutes later, I pulled it back out, curious about the reaction it had triggered in me.The quote came from a writer named Marcelene Cox. “A child can never be better than what his parents think of him.”

Total rubbish, I thought. (Funny how my thoughts come in italics and often sound British.) What anyone thinks about you can only hold you back if you let it.

Putting all the responsibility on the parents relieves a child from having to try. It says, It’s not up to you. You can blame someone else for what you don’t do. Sure, children whose parents believe in their abilities have a tremendous head start, but those who don’t-don’t get a free pass.

And thinking that way sounds suspiciously like rationalization.

Rationalization is, for me, a long-practiced skill. It’s what enables me to qualify French fries as a vegetable, apple turnovers as fruit, and pudding as dairy. It makes it possible for me to call getting passionately involved watching weekly ball games as participating regularly in rigorous physical sports, to unblinkingly blame the dryer for my jeans being too tight, and to feel comfortable about my solid retirement plan even though a good deal of it involves lottery tickets.

I know rationalization. We have a history together. And something about Marcelene Cox’s quote made me suspicious, hinted of some unpleasant truth.

I Googled her name. Up came more quotes.

“A vacation frequently means that the family goes away for a rest, accompanied by a mother who sees that the others get it.”

It was a quote to which many moms could relate, but also one hinting that some bitterness lurked. I read on.

“A sparkling house is a fine thing if the children aren’t robbed of their luster in keeping it that way.”

Another good one! And it was one that could feed right into my rationalizing way of thinking. If a clean house means you could be robbing your child of their luster, what kind of mother would I be if I risked something like that?

I was beginning to wonder if perhaps this Marcelene wasn’t a long-lost rationalizing sister of mine, but I detected a hint of bitterness in her luster quote that set my antennae to twitching. I kept reading.

The next one: “If at first you don’t succeed, blame your parents.”

Bingo.  The words of a person looking to point the finger away from their self.

Perhaps Marcelene had her tongue firmly in cheek when she came up with that last one, but for me, it tainted them all.

Yes, the failings of a parent can badly damage a child, but at some point, the child has a responsibility to try anyway. Accepting that they can never be better that what their parents think of them or that they can blame their parents if they don’t succeed isn’t rationalization. It’s a cop out.

For the second time that day, I wadded the calendar page and tossed it in the trash. I already had a different page in my collection that better framed how I feel.

“A man may fall many times, but he won’t be a failure until he says someone pushed him.” (Elmer Letterman)