Three. Days. Off.

It is difficult to convey how tired I am of working in the hospitality industry for the past several years and how tired I am of simply working.  Six days a week, all year long. From December 8 until yesterday, January 23, I have had 4 days off. Two were spent driving to Sacramento to visit my Mom and two were spent being at home.

But now I have three days off. Today, tomorrow and Monday. After juggling shifts, filling in for my comrades at the front desk, making sure the three days were covered, I am in Daly City at Gabe's house, just me and my dog and theirs.  And a cat.  No. One. Else. It's very quiet. It's very nice. I do not need to be hospitable to anyone, answer no questions about where to eat, where to drink, where to shop. It is very, very nice.

Today I met a friend at the Cliff House, where I haven't been in 25 years. It has changed in those years, of course, and because the weather in SF is incredibly lovely this weekend, it was packed.  But we snagged a window table in the off-side bar and had a glass of wine and some potstickers and talked for two hours. We eventually felt guilty enough to give up our table to the hoards who were waiting but honestly, I could have had another glass of wine and stayed for hours. 

I came back to this house and pretended to read but really took a nap on the couch for two hours. I am reading some books and walking the dogs.  That's it.  Tomorrow I will make dinner for my friend Pat and we will eat and drink and talk and talk some more.  On Monday my plan is to walk the dogs and read.  And read.  And read.

Three days are not enough but three days are a good start.  Or at least they are a good break. We all try to take days off while staying at home but that is never a real break. Staying at home means you can sleep in but instead of being slothful and spending the day reading, you end up doing stuff like cleaning or raking or reorganizing.  You need to get out of Dodge in order to ..... well ....  get out of Dodge. Step away from the vehicle, as it were.

And I am miles away from the vehicle right now. And again, it is very, very nice.


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It's been a while ....

....  and I was hoping this year would be better, more writing, more witty quips, more fun. So far it isn't working out that way. But I will still strive to write here more often. Maybe if I wrote here more often I would feel better. (Huh.  Could that work?) I hesitate to think writing will help because I don't want to write about all the crappy stuff and that's what's on my mind lately. But life is strange and perhaps the writing will be cathartic, to use a big word.

Different topic than crappy stuff:  "Let Me Be Frank With You" is the latest book by Richard Ford starring his main man, Frank Bascombe.  It's a novel broken into 4 connected chapters. Frank is now 68. If you followed him in "The Sportswriter" and "Independence Day" then you know he (Frank) is smart and sort of a wise-ass and yet sensitive.  But now, in his older years, he is trying to be less of a wise-ass out loud. He still is, in his head. And he is smart but he is trying to not that get in the way of anything.

Plus Frank is feeling his age and that's a good thing for us readers, us older readers, who are also feeling their age. He is funny and not often wise but I would love to meet up with him and have a cocktail or a coffee.  He's that kind of guy.

This book made me want to go back and re-read the other Richard Ford books and I will, eventually.  I don't remember much about Frank Bascombe from those books but I do remember that I really liked the books.  (Selective memory, old age, ha!)  And I really like this book.  "Let Me Be Frank With You" is a good book and you should read it.

Another thing, a movie:  "Skeleton Twins" is available for rent from Amazon and so I rented it.  Not a happy movie but not sad either. Maybe it's my current frame of mind (slightly warped and crooked and dusty) but I liked it a lot. The characters are in a bleak part of their lives and aren't handling it very well.  (Well, who does?)  They say cruel things (who doesn't?) that they regret and yet they very rarely apologize for what they say because they are family and hey, that's just family talk. (And we all know about that.)  Their internal dark demons try to smother them and those demons almost succeed. Check it out.  It isn't a weeper, not sad in that way, and there is one great scene where the brother and sister (twins) do a dance and a lip-synch to an old "Starship" song from the 80's.  That alone is worth the price of admission.

That's all for now but I will try and expand the frequency of these blogs. 

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Oh, the places you want to see but probably won't.

The New York Times has a list of the places we should all consider visiting in 2015.  52 places. Here it is: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/01/11/travel/52-places-to-go-in-2015.html?ref=travel

Fifty two places to go.  Fifty two. I looked at the list long and hard and immediately dismissed about 15 of them.  I do not want to go to Korea or to a lovely town in Syria.  Some just seemed silly, like Baku in Azerbaijin, which is probably very cool but it takes three days and a bucket of money to get there and lots of unusual visas and checkpoints and then after two days you are done seeing everything and you must reverse yourself through those checkpoints and the guards look at your visa and probably say something like "So, what, you didn't like our country?  You are leaving so soon?" and they keep you there for a little while until the American Embassy rescues you. No thanks.

But there are lots of places that I want to visit.  Cuba, yes!  Burgundy in France, well, duh.  Mais oui!  New Orleans, oh please, yes, yes, yes! 

I will go anywhere, anytime, if I can afford it.  That's the kicker, of course, the $$$.  The do-re-mi.  The greenbacks.  It's why I buy a lottery ticket every Saturday.  I don't think I will win the big score, as much as I want to. But maybe $10,000.  Or $5,000.  Enough to get me two weeks off, a plane ticket, a nice hotel room and destination: Wherever.

The NYT article is inspiring in many ways.  Lots of places in the US.  Check it out.  Plan a trip.  Take me along.  I am a very good traveler. I don't whine, I don't complain, I don't have time for jet lag, I never miss a flight, a train, a bus.

Deep sigh.  I think every day of living in Paris for 6 months, something I have thought about almost every day for 30 years, which is how long it's been since I first stepped out of a taxi onto the Rue Cambon in the 1st arrondisment in Paris.  I don't even mind airplane travel because it's the only way to get places far away.  I love hotel rooms. I never mind living out of a small suitcase.  I like washing my socks and shirts and underwear out in a small sink and hanging them over the radiator to dry. I don't mind strange food and if it's too strange, I can always find bread and cheese or some cultural equivalent.

I am ready to go.  My bag can be packed in 15 minutes, my passport is up to date.  52 places to see this year.   Bring it on!



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Well, how's it going for you so far?

Seriously, how's this new year going for you so far?  Working out OK? No dead birds on your doorstep, no letters of eviction, no bricks tossed on your car?  Good. Maybe you are having a really good start and have made a new friend or tried a new recipe that didn't make you gag or managed to get your clothes out of the dryer before they all wrinkled.  Those are fine accomplishments in the first week of the new year.  Those can bode well.

New year resolutions are often about trying to change a negative into a positive: eat less, drink less, get off your ass and exercise, use your brain by learning a language, save money instead of squandering it on things like alcohol or fast food or mind-numbing movies.  What if we had resolutions that were positive: walk the dogs more, eat more kale, quinoa, bone broth, roast chicken, laugh out loud more, dance more while driving in your car.  Check it out, all of the above have the word MORE in those resolutions. Which means you can just do the things you do now that give you pleasure but do more of it. Who doesn't like walking the dogs or dancing in the car or eating delicious roast chicken? 

We need to do more of the things that make us happy while at the same time aren't going to kill us.  (If your list is "eat more pork belly" and you already eat pork belly five times a week, then perhaps you need to rethink that.  That could actually kill you.)  Think of the things that make you happy, other than eating more fat pig (but I do love bacon!) and do it.  I could make a list right here but it would be my list and thus boring to you but I need to heed my own medicine.  Read more books, walk more dogs, drink more water, buy more fish and cook it, discover a cure for grief, prevent hurricanes, go to New Orleans, generally travel more, make more money, smile more and say "please" and "thank you" more.  Make really, really good lasagne (the kind with bechamel sauce) and take it to friends' houses.  Perfect (verb) shortbread cookies.

Oh, my. I must stop.  The year is not yet ten days old, we still have lots of time to do the things that make us happy and better.  Find the thing.

AND THEN DO IT. 

xo

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