Tag Travel

Ahoy Matey!

Michael 10 Comments

Okay, first things first. Do people really say that? Ever said that? It seemed an appropriate title because this post is about sailing, although sailing is a poor choice of verbs because the boats I am talking about don’t sail. I was on a sailboat once, in the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida coast and it was fun, lots of fun. But even that boat had a motor. I suppose if the winds died, those who paid for the privilege of pretending to be Blackbeard, or Bluebeard, wouldn’t die along with them. I don’t remember if I ever wrote a post for this blog about that experience. That’s the closest, and I’m sure the only time I will be even that close, to a real sailboat. And I dare say, will most everybody I know who has ever gone “sailing.”

But I digress. Let us talk about sailing, and the boats that do, even though they don’t. I have been on only a handful of boats: a 35 foot fishing boat in Lake Erie a few times, always to do battle with the walleye. I’ve been on the sightseeing cruise ships that ply the rivers around my town and a few others, although “cruise” seems as inapt a verb when talking about these vessels as “sail” does when we (eventually) get to the big boats I mean to talk about, which to be honest, really isn’t the real subject of this post but it makes a nice vehicle, or vessel. And then of course there have been the odd human powered boats including, row, outboard motor, canoe, and paddle. Oh and twice on the boating equivalent of public transportation to get from mainland to nearby island (ferry boat?). I guess that actually is four times because I got back each time also.

Now then, about that sailing I had started with, the one that isn’t actually sailing although they always say sail, which is I suppose more attractive sounding that telling someone, “I went dieseling last week,” when you return from a cruise. And now we got to the crux of the matter, or of the vessel. Those big cruise ships. I have never been on a “cruise” (unless you want to call any or all of those other boats cruising which only seems fair since the big cruise boats seem to insist that they sail) and although I honestly don’t believe I have missed anything, I now find myself considering one but a very specific and particular one.

You should have read enough of these posts to know I am close to fanatical when it comes to old movies, as in older than me, which means movies from the 30s, 40s, and some of the 50s. The definitive stops for old movie buffs for routine viewing are television’s Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and The Criterion Channel. Of those, TCM also sweetens the cinephile’s pot with an annual film festival and – drum roll please – a cruise. The cruise alternates coasts and this year it “sails” from Florida. Not in my backyard but at least on the same side of the country.

I have never considered splurging on a TCM festival either on land or on sea, and I started thinking, I should go ahead and splurge on a vacation I would truly enjoy (because if there are old movies involved I will enjoy it) and on something I’ve never done (which is sailing on a diesel powered floating hotel). You know, I’d not be so reticent about big cruise ships if they weren’t so big. What ever happened to the Love Boat? So I thought I should consider it, fear of floating hotels notwithstanding.

Well let me tell you something! I always thought I was one of sufficient means. To paraphrase the dialogue of what I consider to be world’s greatest movie, Casablanca, when Rick tells Sam that Ferrari would pay him twice as much if he were to work for him, I don’t have enough time to spend the money I do have. Then I got a look at what it costs to watch a couple old movies while bopping along the Caribbean Sea and/or Atlantic Ocean. It doesn’t sail until October and already the luxury and not quite that fancy cabins and suites are sold out. The only space left are mostly interior cabins and a few small mid-ship ocean views and they are going at better than 5 grand a cabin! Do you know how many movies I can see at the local theater showing classic films for $5,000? About 500 – with popcorn!

Not to be all Scrooge-like about it, I could still be talked into considering it. If anybody out there would like to “sail” the Caribbean and/or Atlantic and watch some old movies, presumably in swim and vacation wear (I’ll bring my tux for dinner just in case), please let me know in the comments. We can discuss financing.

Can an egoist be redirected to a more sharing and caring lifestyle? We say yes, you, and they can be someone’s sunshine. Read how in the latest Uplift, Out of the Shadow.

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Revisiting the Middle Seat

Michael 4 Comments

Back in July of 2020, July 9 to be exact, I published “The Middle Seat Hump Syndrome,” a clever little ditty if I say so myself wherein I compared the then fairly new encounter with the coronavirus, which we don’t even call it that any more. Toward the end of an honest to gosh true tale of summer family vacationing, I said with much assurance that we will all be fine in the long run. Guess what? I was right! Politicians, social media “experts” in-laws, naysayers, leftist, rightists, centrists all aside, I was right! We are pretty much okay as long as you don’t ask the 6.35 million people who lost their lives. Yes that number could have been smaller had we paid less attention to the politicians, social media “experts” in-laws, naysayers, leftist, rightists, but we’re stupid so we didn’t. Maybe next time we will.

Because today is the Fourth of July, which of course everybody knows is officially American Independence Day, and because the entire country is out there burning gas we don’t have to pursue their right to a family vacation, I thought I’d regale you again, with “The Middle Seat Hump Sydrome,” with that pesky typo corrected even!

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You need to be of a certain age to remember summer vacations in the family car with enough family that it filled all the seats, three across, and the middle seat made the leg room in coach on Delta look generous for there, right where your feet wanted to be, was “the hump,” the growth in the floorboard that rose nearly to seat level, to allow whatever it was that transferred the up and downs of the engine to the round and round of the rear wheels to make it’s way from the motor to the where the rubber met the road. I am of that age and had been on those vacations and I got that middle seat.

It wasn’t always like that. For a while there were just two of us in the back and we would each get out own window seats with plenty of room between for the picnic basket and cooler that were only opened at planned stops along the way. Then the third one came along. At first it wasn’t such a big deal. She started out in the baby seat in the middle of the front seat (yes, that’s where we put them when we used them back then). After she outgrew that space, she shifted to the back but because those short, stubby legs didn’t even make it off the seat, the hump was not impediment to her comfort. Eventually though, she grew and with that, so did the complaining. “I don’t want to sit on the hump!” And the word came from the front, “take turns.” From then on, whenever the car stopped, the back seat crowd reshuffled, and everyone got a turn being uncomfortable where we decidedly didn’t want to be.

That’s a little like what’s going on in the world now. Each time it appears to be stopping, or at least slowing enough to risk opening the door and get off this crazy ride, the virus comes back, and we have to reshuffle. Do we limit contact, should we close down again, does this mask make my nose look big? Regardless of the answer, some bodies are going to end up decidedly where they don’t want to be doing what they’d rather not be doing or not doing what they’d rather do. Think of the world as an early ’64 Chevrolet and were all taking turns sitting on the hump.

I’m going to spoil the ending for you. It all works out. Nobody was permanently damaged from sitting with a leg there and the other one there. We climbed out of the backseat a little stiff and a little sore but we made. We’ll make it through this also. Maybe a little worse for the wear after this ride that you are certain we got lost on because no way it should be taking this long, but eventually we are going to climb back out into the world.

Middle seat hump syndrome was never that horrible and may have been the inspiration for some future engineer to design SUVs with higher cabins that clear all those mechanical doodads or to shift the driving wheels to the front and obviate the need for a hump running down the middle if the cars interior. Along those same lines it could be someday we might even get to go out and not have to check that we have our masks with us. We just have to wait for the right expert to come up with the right solution. They are out there. There will find it.

In the meanwhile, Happy Motoring!

roamcare_logo-3If you haven’t had a chance to visit ROAMcare yet, stop by, refresh your enthusiasm and read our blogs, check out the Moments of Motivation, or just wander around the site. Everybody is always welcome.

Flying in the face of convention

Michael 2 Comments

As vaccination totals continue to climb and gathering limits are lifted just in time for the start of summer, people have been commenting on returning to normal. During an interview on a recent local television newscast, a party planner proclaimed, “Now we can get back to planning June weddings and graduations like normal,” and a vacationing couple interviewed at the airport said, “It’s good to be travelling again like normal.” “Like normal” is becoming the latest soundbite fodder, much in contrast to last June’s oft referenced, “Flatten the curve.”

As far as graduations go, June 2020 decidedly was not normal. My friend’s daughter graduated from high school last year in an on-line ceremony that may have truly been the only unprecedented moment during the early months of the pandemic. But was it “not normal,” or was it “not expected?” Years before the pandemic wreaked havoc on graduation schedules, my daughter graduated from college a semester earlier than typical, and her December commencement, although not broadcast on a streaming video platform, was recorded and made available for those who chose not to attend the small, indoor ceremony in contrast to the thousands who would fill the outdoor stadium the following spring. Broadcasting the ceremony was, for the winter graduates, quite “normal.”

In the half-dozen or so weeks that air travel has sort of started its return to normal, I hope its not what we will eventually come to expect whenever we get on a plane. So far this year, the FAA has identified over 400 cases in violation of its Zero Tolerance policy that states any passenger who “assaults, threatens, intimidates, or interferes with airline crew members” can be fined, jailed, or both. For comparison, the FAA recorded 146 violations in all of 2019. The rate of incidents has climbed dramatically since early May when the CDC relaxed mask wearing requirements but maintained the requirement for air and other public transportation.

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The cited incidents do not involve only mask controversies. People have attempted to open aircraft outer doors while on taxiways, refused to surrender open alcohol brought on board, and brawled over who gets to use a shared armrest. Many incidents devolved to violence, at least one resulting in a charge of felony battery, that when a passenger refusing to follow cabin instructions violently attacked a flight attendant caught on video, a video that went viral shortly after the incident. In May, the FAA announced that it was proposing penalties as high as $15,000 against five passengers for violations that included allegedly assaulting and yelling at flight attendants.

In an interview with CNBC, Sara Nelson, International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, relayed that unruly behavior are more than 20 times higher than what’s normally recorded in an entire year.  I’m not sure this is what we all meant when blithely referring to the new normal. New it may be. Normal? Let’s hope not.

In case you are wondering, Monday’s poll results were 100% in favor of me writing every darned day if I could. There was one write in vote for weekly. That made it a tie! I noticed that the poll was displayed on the post on the full site. For whatever reason, which I’m sure is an absolutely dandy, it was not included on the e-mailed or WordPress Reader versions. (No, me neither.) Anyway, I’ll stick it here one more time. If you really really really want to answer it, make sure to click through the blog site because I just know for sure, that wasn’t a one-time glitch.

Where to Bub?

Michael 7 Comments
An increasingly common topic on social media is the first place people will go once people can go someplace. Considering how much food is talked about it is not surprising that the answer often is a restaurant. I don’t think that will be the first non-essential place I want to go after weeks/months/eons.
 
I have nothing against restaurants. Some of my favorite places are restaurants. Diners specifically. With an occasional dive here and there. And not to infringe on a certain food show, one drive-in. I love a good sandwich and a better breakfast. A good sandwich breakfast is heaven on a plate. Or in a wrapper. Yes, a restaurant is a solid suggestion but just not for me.
 
Other non-essential places that get mentioned are casinos. Again a good suggestion, certainly high on the non-essential list, but not on mine. There are two casinos within an hour drive, one complete with a horse track, and another three casinos just a bit farther. I’ve been to 4 of the 5 and truth be told I have enjoyed the live races on many Saturday afternoons, but I’ve gone years between visits before, I can live with years between visits again.
 
Various stores that don’t have food get mentioned quite a bit. Furniture stores, flower shops, car dealers, and flooring specialists (perhaps somebody whose remodel had been interrupted?) have all been mentioned as places to high tail it to when released. You know I love a good dollar store and there’s an Italian market right around the corner where I would stop at at least once a week and will again when it re-opens but shopping isn’t what I’m putting at the top of the list of things to do that I can’t do now when I can do them again.
 
Sports are on a lot of people’s minds. Not spectating but playing. There are a lot of golfers, bowlers, even archers holed up and just dying to flex their muscles in some area bigger than the average living room. Likewise are gymnasiums and swimming pools high on some people’s lists. I didn’t realize just how energetic and athletic the average American is. But then, I’m not sure the average American realizes that either. I’m not. 
 
For some the first stop after being set free will be a theater, moviehouse, or concert hall. It would be nice to see a movie on a screen bigger than one that fits in my apartment but I’m not sure the first place I want to be is in a small, closed room. Speaking of small enclosures I’ll also pass on joining those whose first venture is “anywhere far from here.” Wherever that here might be, far away from it probably means travel on a plane, train, bus, or [shudder] boat. Eventually … but not top of the list for me.
 
wheredowegoOne place I haven’t seen anybody write as a candidate for the first place to go when going to places will be all the rage again is church. Church, synagogue,  temple, mosque, Stonehenge. Any site of worship. You would think anyone still alive after weeks/months/eons trapped with family, very very close friends, or ourselves and emerging still alive we would want to thank the Almighty. To be honest, as much as I would love to say I’ll be on a beeline for church as soon as the all clear is sounded, I didn’t think of that as the first place I’d go either. Maybe we aren’t as evolved as we think we are.
 
So where will I be heading when the heading can be any heading I choose? I think for as much as the conversation is starting to take root I haven’t been thinking of it. I suppose anywhere I can be closer than 6 feet away from anybody will do for me.
 
And where will you go? 
 
 
 

Why We Eat

Michael 8 Comments

It’s the time of year that posts are flying all over the Internet with main dish recipes and cookie recipes and appetizers that don’t require cooking recipes and make ahead dessert recipes and the world’s best ever side dishes recipes. I gain weight every day just opening my tablet.

Seriously, I am gaining weight every day. I know because I weigh myself every day. There might be a little vanity in there. After years of avoiding scales because my weight was approaching numbers usually reserved for poor credit scores it’s refreshing to step on a scale and see a number more closely associated with IQ test scores. (Not my IQ but I’m ok with that. The world needs average people too.) Anyway, I get on the scale every morning and I see a number just a little higher than the day before. Over the last week I’d say a couple of pounds higher.* And I know why.

It’s not because of all the cookie pictures Facebook. Although they certainly aren’t helping. I would go through this unexplained weight gain when I was working, specifically anytime I was about to go out on a business trip.

Regular readers with good memories and occasional readers who visited just the right posts know that back in a different day when I was working I worked for a national health care company. An extra duty as assigned was visiting other facilities to do operational reviews. Unlike McDonald’s or Wendy’s which have the same food from coast to coast, our hospitals did not share that familiarity. There were some pretty bad cafeterias in those places. So I think subconsciously when I knew I was going away I’d eat a lot. Why ever it was, I knew that whenever I was going somewhere I was going at least two pounds heavier than the week before.

So, if we are to believe that a) there are no coincidences, b) the past is a harbinger of the future, and c) I historically always use three examples, I am gaining that weight for a reason and it has nothing to do with water weight gain and/or Christmas cookies in the kitchen. I’m going on a trip! Now since I haven’t planned anything on my own and since neither my bank balance nor my credit score is sufficient to finance a trip much farther than 12 to 15 miles down the road**, somebody is giving me a vacation for Christmas!***

Boy I hope it’s somewhere where sun block is recommended.

*For those of you of the metric persuasion that “couple of pounds” would be about a kilogram if you subscribe that a pound is 2.2kg or 1kg=0.454lb. I used to know why the abbreviation for pound is “lb.” but I don’t remember right now and it’s not all that important anyway. Probably more important is if you are somewhere that requires me clarifying the relationship between pounds and kilograms, do you also require clarification of the American credit score (or debt score as some would insist)? If you do, well, there is no reasonable explanation but the lowest FICO score possible is 300. In the VantageScore system the lowest score is 501. See. No sense at all. Just like the lowest SAT score is 400 but the lowest PSAT is 320. Oh. What’s SAT? This is going to take another post. My weight approached the lowest FICO score, not the VantageScore.

**19 to 24 kilometers (We really need to universalize weights and measures.)

***Holiday (We really need to universalize English too.)

What to my wondering eyes…

Michael 14 Comments

A couple of days ago I had remarked in a comment that I don’t have a Bucket List. I went on to say that I mostly take things as they come but that there might some places or things I like to see or do if circumstances get me part of the way there. Of course I couldn’t give myself an opening like that without then starting to think of some of the places circumstances happened to lead.

Where I am, just off Chestnut Ridge in the Allegheny range, there are several small commercial caves including the only catacombs type cavern on this side of the country (or at least I’ve been led to believe). It’s a place I’ve been to enough times that although I wouldn’t go out of my way to explore a cave, if I happened to be around one with a particularly effective marketing plan hawking its presence, I might stop by. Thus it was that I happened to be sitting in my then living room with my then wife at my then house for the few years way back then in the middle of Texas looking for something to do the upcoming weekend. Then we realized we were only a half dozen hours’ drive from the cave of all caves, Carlsbad Caverns.

Going to Carlsbad was going to see a natural wonder. And the caves are pretty neat too. Yes, for as wonderful as the Caverns are (and they were) (then and I’m sure still), getting there should be on anybody’s bucket list and it’s not even the most scenic part of New Mexico. And if we hadn’t decided to see how the big western cave measured up to our back yard caverns, it was a scene I’d have missed.

NiagraFallsFrom the first time I saw the picture of the Niagara Falls on the can of spray starch on my mother’s ironing board I knew I had to see it. If I had thought of doing a bucket list when I was 6 years old that didn’t include a new bike, ice skates, and an never ending jar of chocolate covered raisins, “see Niagara Falls” would have been on it. And see them I had. I’m not sure how many times I’ve been to the falls but it’s been “some.” But always from the Canadian side. There is the spectacular Horseshoe Falls and the most spectacular views – including the one on the can. Until the time I ended on the American side. It was a long weekend gifted me and my then She by her offspring. And it was in winter!

Never would I put “see Niagara Falls from the puny American side in freezing temperatures” on any bucket list. Even one so insane as to include chocolate covered raisins. Spectacular is an understatement that even a picture can’t outdo a thousand words’ worth. (If the picture looks familiar it is from my last post in addition to that weekend.)

I can run through pages if places that I’ve been (THE house of seven gables -surprisingly not scary) and things I’ve done (rappel from a helicopter – surprisingly scary) that I never planned but just happened along. I guess I’ve been a victim of circumstances.

 

Packed Man

Michael 5 Comments

Thanksgiving is a week away and that means that many families are preparing for their week away. All those people that come home for the holidays and the homecomings and the reunions are coming from somewhere. And that involves travelling.

I don’t travel. I only have to go about 12 miles to get home and if anyone wants to return to my nest it’s still only a dozen or so mile markers only from a different direction. No cots or sleeping bags will adorn my living room floor next week, I’ll need not make any hotel reservations to visit anyone and at the end of the day everyone can use their own pillows without having to pack them.

A friend of mine doesn’t share the same travel stress-free holiday as I and it brought up the subject of packing. And not just pillows. Although I have never had to pack to enjoy a weekend with loved ones, I have over the years packed billions and billions of times for work, leisure, both, and sometimes in retrospect, neither. And all our talk brought up memories of packing and even unpacking that I have lodged in my memories vault.

Packing for vacations was always a harder than it should be ordeal for me. I wish I could be one of those who spend a summer backpacking across Europe and actually manage to spend an entire season crossing an entire continent while surviving out of one actual backpack. I needed an entire three suiter sized suitcase (plus my allotted two carry-ons) to spend 7 days on Puerto Rico. Just for me. And I’m a guy!

You’d think that would have been easy. Swimsuit. Flip flops. Done. Pack in a day bag. Still have room for a toothbrush and some sunscreen. I had that covered. It actually went more like this.
-Swimsuit and flip flops into the case. A whole week? Just one pair of trunks? In goes another.
-If I want to walk anywhere but along the beach I don’t like flip flops. Sandals, into the case.
-Can’t have dinner in swimwear. Shorts, tropical print shirt. Times 7.
-Gotta go to a nice dinner at least once, maybe twice. Maybe more. Slacks. Nice shirts.
-One even nicer dinner. Add a blazer. Wait, now we need real shoes.
-I’ll want to go to the casino. Bond, James Bond always wears a tuxedo to the casino. I’m not Bond, James Bond. No tux. But something nicer than shorts and a t-shirt. For a few nights. Ok, all of them.
-And something for the work out room. I never use the work out rooms but just in case that means work out clothes and shoes.
-Don’t forget pajamas. Even if you don’t wear them at home you have to have them for travelling in case there’s a fire at night. Don’t forget slippers.
And that is why I have paid overweight baggage fees.

SuitcaseBusiness trips weren’t less painful. The last few years of work I traveled a lot to other hospitals to do operational reviews. These would take me one or two days each and I usually did 2 or 3 hospitals at a time so I was mostly gone for 4 or 5 days. Because these places could be located almost anywhere in the country and there are only 3 airports in the world that have direct flights between them, business travel meant more time in and between airports than at productive work. Somehow I managed to get a week’s worth of shirts and ties, laptop and files, and the requisite book, phone and flight snack crammed into one approved sized carry-on. Heavy, but within the limits of the underseat and overhead compartment areas.

No matter if it was a week-long vacation, a long weekend getaway, or the puddle jumping business treks, each time I’d check in to a hotel I’d empty my modern day steamer trunk and/or little carry-on, iron the wrinkles out of the shirts, then hang everything up and load the folded stuff into the dresser drawers. When I’d go anywhere with anyone else I’d get the questioning looks that said “what the heck are you doing?” and that included the ex who should have already known I was more than a little on the “over organized” side of things. (Does anybody else do this also or do all those hotels put in closets and dressers and provide irons and ironing boards just in case I happen to show up?)

And that’s why I’m looking forward to next week and one of the things I am thankful for. No matter where I end up for the holiday, no suitcases will be involved in the travel.

Travel Size

Michael 2 Comments

Friends of mine are traveling this week. My sisters were out on the road last week. My daughter is planning a trip in a few weeks. Everyone is traveling.

I always liked traveling in the fall. You don’t have the summer crowds or its heat and humidity to deal with. It’s well before the holiday travel seasons so those crowds are avoided. The weather is still warm so you’re not stuck packing multiple layers and trying to figure out what to do with that heavy winter coat when you get unbearably hot in either the plane, train, or car. And if you catch it at the right time for leaf changing, it’s a pretty trip. All in all, fall is the time to go.

But there’s one thing that fall vacationing isn’t noted for. Unless you are travelling far south (or far north for the Southern Hemisphere crowd), hotel swimming pools are not an option.  Oh there are certainly those high class establishments that sport the heated indoor variety of aquatic recreation facilities, but even in my best year those places weren’t within my travel budget. No, the places I visited were of the kind that sported the tarp covered outdoor variety of aquatic recreation facilities.

GymIf you are looking for exercise while vacationing around the autumnal equinox your choices are limited to the indoor exercise room or sprinting across the hotel parking lot to the neighboring bar and grill and back. Now, about those exercise rooms. They are almost universally labeled “Fitness Center” on their door signs and the hotel floor plans but they aren’t likely to be mistaken for your quintessential, full service YMCA. You’ll find no sauna, no juice bar, no Pilates classes. These “centers” do not boast of juice bars or healthy living cafes. And they have no indoor pools! There are, at best, travel size “fitness centers.”

Still, the “fitness center” was always the first place I would seek out on my arrival at an unfamiliar hostelry. I went not to exercise but to observe. No, not to observe others exercising. That would be creepy. I went to observe their cleanliness. I liked to see how clean “the fitness center” was so I knew if I could feel comfortable using the bathrooms. No it’s not like you can’t use a bathroom while you’re traveling, but at least you should know if you could feel comfortable doing it.

See, those travel sizes do come in handy.

The Melted Pot

Michael 4 Comments

Yesterday I made French toast for breakfast and I asked myself once again that question I ask every time I make it: if you want French toast in France do you just ask for toast? Of course the answer is no. French toast in France is called pain perdu which actually means lost bread and I assume it makes no more sense to Paris diners than it does to me. And it would indeed make no sense to breakfasters there since it’s likely to be served as dessert not as breakfast. Where did we Americans go wrong?

To complicate my breakfast matters I actually had Canadian bacon (not really bacon) and Florida orange juice (all Florida, all the time) with my French toast. (I really should refrain from tart juices with such sweet breakfasts and not challenge my taste buds so dramatically in the morning.)

In America we often herald the origin of a dish in its name because we came from so many different places. Even food classically American is prefaced with its originating locale except in said locale. Although it may be a Philly cheesesteak anywhere else, in southeast Pennsylvania it’s just a cheesesteak. Nashville hot chicken is on Tennessean menus just hot chicken, and Wisconsin brick cheese can be ordered just as brick cheese in Milwaukee. But it doesn’t always hold true as even in Buffalo if you want their classic version of the buttery hot wing you probably need to specify Buffalo wings.

Some of the modifiers make sense. When someone on American soil decided to make an eggy potato salad, the vinegary version had to be differentiated so calling it German potato salad made clear it was of the sort a Bavarian immigrant brought over the Atlantic. And that’s surely also why Irish stew kept its identifier to distinguish it from other stews. Although that doesn’t explain why Swedish meatballs kept their moniker but Italian meatballs are now just meatballs nor why we still call Hungarian goulash Hungarian without knowing any other goulashes. It’s no wonder we have such schizophrenic menu choices.

So those of you elsewhere and those who have traveled elsewhere, what are these and other Somewhere Somethings called in their home-wheres?

 

You’ve Got Mail. ish.

Michael 5 Comments

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve had three friends go on vacation. One to the other side of the world, one to the other side of the country, and one to the other side of her back porch. I don’t know if any of them were where sloths are indigenous but I do know that all of them swore off electronic communication of any kind while they were out of country, state, and office.

I also know that upon their returns, all of them swore they will never do that again. Apparently it took each of them as much as a full week to sift through email, Twitter and Instagram feeds, and Facebook posts. Email the worst.

I’m not a big vacationer. Other than a couple of longish trips over the last 45 years my vacations were mostly long weekends or 2 days jaunts. Before that my parents were responsible for recreational trips and mostly I remember being in the back seat of a large Chevrolet with no air conditioning during the two hottest weeks of the year. Probably why I now tend to vacation in the fall. Now by the time anybody realizes I am gone, I’m back home. The long trips that I did take were so long ago that snail mail was still a catchy way of denigrating the US Postal Service and my catch-up phase amounted to retrieving the mail and newspaper from the next door neighbor and dropping off some salt water taffy, moon pies, or beignet mix in exchange for being my personal drop box for a handful of bills and a flyer advertising the local department store’s weekend long one day sale. Catching up on hundreds of hundreds of emails wasn’t part of my routine. (The thousands of thousands of work generated emails accumulated over the rare day off don’t count. And they were easy to sort through anyway. Unless it came from someone who signed my paycheck or annual evaluation, they were quickly deleted.)

So the thought of having to take vacation time so I could catch up with correspondence that came in while I was off using vacation time is not something I would entertain. But it’s not something I would scoff at either. I wouldn’t entertain it because I haven’t had to entertain it. I’m not sure that I have that large of a friend base. But if you can accumulate a few hundred unanswered emails and again as many messages on this or that feed in a few days that means someone wanted you at least a few hundred times over those few days. I think that’s very cool. And pretty positive too.

SlothFor me though, I’m probably pretty safe going off grid and coming back to not much more than a full spam folder with which I’ve had lots of practice in dealing (see work emails above). I will offer my mail and newspaper pickup services to anybody planning a trip if you still get hard copy papers and mail sent with a stamp.  But if you expect me to pick up your mail and papers while you’re away for a month in the Brazilian rain forest I’m going to want more than a box of chocolate mini World Cup candies. You can at least bring me a mechanical sloth.