"Travels with Charley: In Search of America"
-- John Steinbeck
It is now t-minus 8 days and counting until The Big San Francisco Vacation.
We are into the *single digits* on this Vacation Countdown. Woo-hoo! It is looking a lot more real, but I will still be pinching myself when I get there.
I have my agenda for those two weeks all set up. That is to say I know what I *believe* I will be doing each day of my trip; but, there is always a random element to each journey.
I expect that. I welcome it.
Here’s what I mean: I had all the restaurants for this trip picked out, and I had them all assigned to specific evenings during the trip for specific reasons. In my mind, they were arranged to correspond with what I did that day, and to enhance the ending of each day.
However, when I logged onto Opentable there were a couple of restaurants that couldn’t accommodate me on a specific day, or at a specific time, and one I couldn’t seem to get into at all on the days when I thought it would work. The net is, I had to rearrange three of the restaurants onto different days, delete one restaurant, and add in another one.
Guess what? Instead of messing up my “best laid plans”, the situation enhanced them. It turned out the re-arrangement of restaurants forced upon me was better than my original plan!
Following Mr. Steinbeck’s advice, I’m not thinking I can control this journey. I'm planning the journey, and then it's planning me a bit - but, it's not such a bad bit.
The random piece of the journey is the exciting part (see also Riding the Dream World Wave). I make the best plans I can (so I don’t waste a lot of time on the ground trying to figure things out); but, when it doesn’t quite work out as planned, I roll with it and see how it shakes out. I know it will probably take me somewhere fun. At a minimum, it damn sure won’t be boring!
The randomness - the things that will bring surprise to me each day - the things that don’t involve decisions I make - these are the things that get me *jazzed* with anticipation for the trip.
Which segues into this next topic about me not doing so much, but having stuff done for me.
For instance, I'm getting excited about seemingly silly stuff, like this: ordering breakfast the night before, and having it brought to my room at a specific time the next morning. This thought is making me very, verrrrry happy right now. **sighhhh** :)
I'm terrible at waking up/getting up in the a.m. It makes me cranky.
I. Am. Not. A. Morning. Person.
SO, when I have to drag my sad behind out of bed early in the a.m., I grab a bottle of Odwalla Super Protein Vanilla Al'mondo, stop at the Starbucks and get a Quad Grande Soy (dairy doesn't like me AT ALL) Cinnamon Dolce Latte - and that's breakfast.
Got NO time to cook, and absolutely NO inclination for it - especially in the a.m. Hell, I need Scotch tape for my eyelids just to function until 10:00 a.m.!
So, a real breakfast? Yeah! Brought to my room on a little rolling table, with white linens, and lovely coffee service (I'll be sucking down the whole carafe - I *will* pause long enough to pour it into the cup first), and juice, and perfectly prepared food. :9 Yuuuummerssss!!
Then there are all the lovely dinners I have planned each evening (and which in part planned themselves) - nice restaurants, great service, high-quality food, nice wines, lovely atmosphere.
Hey! There's a common theme here - it's all about being waited on, and having other people bring things to me, and create a nice environment for me. In other words, IT'S ALL ABOUT ME!
Bring on that vacation, baby!! Hand and foot wait service - that would be what I am talking about! From what the journey itself will bring to me, down to what the wait person will deliver to my table - it’s all part of the excitement and the adventure.
Two weeks without someone asking *me* to do something for them.
[Them]: "Hey, could you possibly pull out your magic wand and make this nasty little annoyance go away for me."
[Me]: "Sure. Just let me attach the harness for this freight train into my teeth…"
Yeah, so none of THAT for TWO WHOLE WEEKS!!
T-minus 8 more days, people …
Polla Filia,
J.F.
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