Micro-Vacay in These Foolish Things

Greetings from my vacation/staycation. I’m back from a few days of hanging out in a city three hours from mine. It was a wonderful couple of days, and alas, I’m back in [my city] to ride out today and tomorrow, then back to work after the weekend.

In addition to my mini-vacation, which I’ll write more about, a couple of pretty great things have happened since I last wrote:

First, I took the bull by the horns on Sunday morning when I went to take Martini for her morning walk. I sent a text to S.S. (previous entry) telling him that I was going on a dog walk and asked him if he and his dog wanted to meet us for coffee.

He actually surprised me by saying YES and so we met and coffee’d and walked together. It was a nice little treat before I had to run off to my parents for the day. I loved that he was so spontaneous. His dog was a little out of control, but Martini and I did our best to wear her out on the walk so she’d settle down.

He also asked me out for tonight so we could celebrate October 15th (the tax deadline and apparently, his biggest day of the year as a tax attorney). I know he’s been insane - we haven’t even picked out a place to meet yet, but I just got a hello text from him. We’ll figure it out later. Just soooooo nice to have something to look forward to during this week.

Secondly, remember my interview with Giant Corporation a couple of weeks ago where the hiring manager was not on camera and I was? She supposedly couldn’t get her end to work? I heard back from her after waiting over a week and a half to hear what the next steps are. Seems they want to talk with me regarding next steps which means I have been asked to work on a case study and then to present it to a panel next week. Don’t yet know what the project will be - I should hear tomorrow - that will give me a week to work on it.

Ugh. So that means, not only will I have to catch up with work, being on vacation for a week (with the exception of Boss calling me yesterday about some bullshit he got all screwed up in my absence and a bunch of other things going on today…including one of my items GOING VIRAL ON SOCIAL MEDIA!!!!!), but I’ll have this other project to work on. It’s going to be insane next week! I truly wish I’d known all of this last week so I could have prepared. I’m also going to have to lie to Boss because I’m going to be missing a meeting in order to give this presentation to Giant Corp.

But this is life, right? This is what we do.

So, my sweet little solo mini-vacay was just perfect. Easy three hour drive, stopped for a little lunch and walk around this outdoor shopping area with the dog. Didn’t buy anything - it was just nice to ramble around in the sunshine and warm air. Noticed that even though I was in the same state that this particular city seems so much more careful and stringent when it comes to the coronavirus. Everyone was wearing masks - even just to walk outside. Here in [my city], nobody wears masks outside. Yes, they will wear them to go into a store or office building, but the second they are outside the mask comes off. But there, I felt as safe as can be noting that most places take your temperature before you can step foot inside their establishments.

Checked into the lovely boutique hotel. I’d gotten myself a beautiful poolside suite - just because. Martini loved it because I could open the sliding glass doors to a private poolside patio! She had her own little sunning area! And I had more than enough room with a giant living room, separate bedroom and HUUUUGGGEE bathroom complete with a soaking tub that I never even used. Wah!

Went out walking again and didn’t stop until dinner where I sat streetside al fresco at a sweet little Italian restaurant, finally chit-chatting it up with these two guys who were dining next to me. They ended up being some kind of video producers, telling me about needing to get up and out by 5 the next morning so they could film some kind of train video they were working on.

They told me that I should go to the springs the next day as they are only open on certain days.

It was a lovely little chat - again, almost like old times. So fun to meet people no matter where and no matter the situation, pandemic be damned!

Back to hotel and to bed in the fluffy cloud of a bed.

Next morning I was up and walking again in the morning, but first to stop at the coffee shop next door. I got in trouble for bringing Martini inside but then explained that she was a service dog and they were cool.

Now here’s where the crazy part comes in. I decided to take a stroll down the street the other direction from where I was thinking we’d go first and somehow…somehow literally almost ran into Bob, my friend who lives in this town! Now, he knew I was coming to town, but I didn’t realize that he lived only a 10 minute WALK from the hotel where I was staying!

So, he was driving down the street and I was preparing to cross the street where he was sitting in his car and we were both like…OH!! HEYYY! Looking directly at each other! Crazy!

So he pulled over and we chatted for a second and he told me that his sister was in town and she was making dinner and his nephew would be there and he wanted me to come over for a visit and then he’d take me to this amazing wine bar after dinner on the way home.

And that’s what we ended up doing after I went to the springs and did some more wandering the town.

So that evening was just wonderful. Dinner was totally casual in Bob’s kitchen with his sister and nephew and their big German Shepherd dogs and my teeny tiny Martini (that introduction was WILD) and the walk home was even more fun because we were talking all of these photos and sending them to Best Bud.

I suppose I should explain.

Best Bud and Bob used to be a very serious item. They dated off and on for years and years and years but never got to a point where they wanted to be together forever. They will always be close (except for the fact that Best Bud’s husband is insanely jealous) from a friend perspective. And I was on the periphery of that for a long time when Best Bud lived in the doctor bachelor pad. This is a whole other story for a whole other entry. Long story, but this is also the group of guys who went to med school with Doc D, which is another reason why I fell in love with Doc D…

I don’t think I explained that right at all, but the bottom line is that Bob is like family just like Best Bud is like family and it’s kind of a wacky family at that.

And Bob is a psychiatrist. And we had an amazing talk about getting old and friendships and how they don’t just come to us as we age - that we have to work at them - and that working for our friendships is WORTH IT.

I really appreciated his words. Damn, that man is smart and of course that’s why he went into psychiatry (even though he’s pretty crazy himself). There was more, but that was the gist of our conversation.

Anyway. We talked about getting together in the morning to have coffee and hang for a bit longer, but when 9:00 came and 9:15…I knew he’d gotten busy and wasn’t going to make it, so I shuffled the dog out to a different coffee spot (there are about 125 different coffee places within walking distance) and began day 3 which essentially consisted of more walking, checking out of the hotel and going out to another patio spot for some lunch and a glass of bubbly.

And then the drive home…which was uneventful again.

All in all, a sweet micro-holiday.

Back now at home and other than going for ANOTHER long walk (are you sensing a theme here?) I’m just straightening up at home and kind of catching up with work so that I can use some of my work time next week to work on the case study for the Giant Corp Interview, Round 2.

So that’s what’s been going on for the past few days. I better get moving again. Much to do before I do something with S.S. tonight (like shower…haha!).

Scrub, scrub, scrub,
GS