(re-run, pre-pandemic)
The week after Christmas is a dead time for scheduled activities. Chorus rehearsals are cancelled. The city building where I exercise three times a week is closed. There’s a lot of extra time during the day. So . . .
. . . for the first time in two and a half years, I went on vacation. I’d taken many two-night trips to my little beach house in Monterey county, but this would be five nights/six days away from my regular life. Now that’s it’s done, I’ve got to say, it was a nice change of scenery.
I had company all five nights, which is unusual. But it was easy company, the first two nights being a worker/Girl Friday/friend and her ten-year old daughter. That meant bike rides and dog walks, a trip to Point Lobos and me taking photos of a happy girl running down the trail, her unzipped jacket flying in the wind.
They left the same day that the next round of company arrived.
For the next three nights it was two girlfriends, eating, drinking (not me), being tourists, playing poker, and thrifting. There were lunches out and dinners in, lots of laughter, a sad movie (Australia), and a spectacular tour of a dead poet’s house in Carmel.
We had one overlap meal with the five of us, the traffic on Highway 1 too terrible due to an accident. Suanne whipped up a casserole and a salad, with plenty to spare.
The weather was all over the place, one day sunny, the next foggy, some days warm, one too cold for standing around listening to a docent. But a trip afterward to the Hogs Breath restaurant, a bowl of clam chowder, and a table by the fireplace thawed us out. Some wine for my girlfriends helped, too.
No one fought over shower times, everyone pitched in on food and dishes, and some even brought their own bedding. Only the house temperature was an issue. It was either too hot or too cold for somebody at all times. I have lots of colorful throws. When everyone wrapped herself up in one, I’d turn up the heat. When others threw open the windows, I turned it down.
Part of the week was supposed to be a writer’s retreat. That never happened. But we saw ten week-old puppies, Aussie mixes, that reminded me of the best dog I once had, and I wrote three blog posts over two mornings before my guests got up.
I haven’t visited my sis in six days. She will be angry when I return. I can’t blame her. My visits break up the monotony of her day. Hopefully our mother called her on their new Alexa screens so that they can see each other and get some face time. The caregivers will want the sports pages from the last six newspapers. The wife will have a list of meds for me to pick up. The husband will do a dance for the newspapers I give him. He has a monotonous life, too.
We all do. It’s good to change things up every chance we can get.
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 