Reality Check

Reality: The quality or state of existing or happening as or in fact; actual, true, objectively so, etc; not merely seeming, pretended, imagined, fictitious, nominal, or ostensible.

I was on vacation last week. Some of my "friends" wonder what it is exactly that I have to take a break from, seeing that most of my time is consumed drinking coffee and staring into the distance. This is an attitude I find a little less than helpful while still conceding that they're pretty much on the money with their observations. It's annoying and funny all at the same time, kind of like my friends.

Be that as it may, we were fortunate enough to be able to go someplace warm while dodging a nasty cold and snowy week at home. I will admit that a lot of the attraction was being able to roll out of bed and put on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and drink coffee and stare into a distance totally dominated by waves crashing on a Caribbean beach. That alone took the edge off of almost everything.

One of the things I enjoy so much about breaking my routine of sitting slack-jawed and thinking about myself, is that I get to see how much effort it takes to maintain such a complicated life style. I don't want to be idiotically short-sighted about this, as attractive and comfortable as that is for me -- we all have to work if we want to eat and I do enjoy my stuff from time to time -- but I really get to see how overly complicated things can get if I'm not careful.

I had about 2% of the clothes that I own with me and wondered what exactly is filling up my closet at home. I had no car so I took the bus which was fine because I didn't have anywhere that I had to go. There was nothing to clean or fix or organize. I had a banana and bowl of oatmeal for breakfast which I was able to prepare without using any of the seven thousand kitchen utensils that I own.

And that damn espresso machine didn't fit in my luggage despite my best efforts to get it in there. I tried to sneak it into SuperK's carry-on but she noticed the extra weight right away. We managed to rig up the little coffee maker in the room and made perfectly acceptable cups of coffee.

I could feel the aches and pains and headaches ebb away.