a change in plans

I know when I wake up that I have to keep to a schedule. I have a lunch date with someone from my old work. He wants some advice or wants to offer me some gainful employment. I'm hoping the former. I'm too busy to work. The engagement is kind of tentative but I have to be sure that I'm ready, clean and dressed by 11:30. It's funny, I thought lunch dates would be easy but it's hard to emerge from my life of sloth and be dressed and ready sometimes.

I get to the club early enough to make this happen. I take a different book along. It is a small novel: Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman. I'm not going to reread the essays book, not just now, because there is so much around here unread by me. It's a pretty interesting novel, especially considering that I just read Driving Mr. Albert the other day. In it, the author imagines dreams about universes with different time continuums that Einstein may have had, peppering them with sights around Berne, with interludes of imagined conversation between Einstein and his friend. It's a small book (less than two hundred pages and in a small format) and I'll be finished with it soon. I love finishing books and picking another to read. What a pleasure.

I do some upper body weight work. I know others can't tell, but my body's muscles are starting to feel different. Really. A little anyway. Surely I'm accomplishing something in my retirement and the exercise program is the only thing I'm really giving regular attention to.

Home again, I shower up and dress nicely for a change. Nice black slacks, a gray turtleneck, a hounds-tooth jacket. I don't need to be dressed this nicely for my lunch but I'm going to the Four Seasons for a reception this afternoon at 5:30. Might as well dress once so I dress for that.

My cell phone rings. It's the guy I'm supposed to have lunch with. He can't make it and resets for Monday. Sure, I say. Fine. Since I'm clean and dressed, I call SuRu and go pick her up and we go to Koreana. I've been thinking about this place and my favorite dish which is called Bi Bah Bam or something like that. (I call it Ba Da Bing.) It is rice with sprouts, beef, mushrooms, a fried egg and chili sauce. We eat and talk about travel. She's planning to go to Vegas, I'm planning New York. She wants to plan some other trip, have something to look forward to. I have others in mind but not in firm plan.

Home again, I decide to make some meal reservations for New York. I call Artisanal where I want to eat lunch with five of our NYC friends. I have to agree to recieve and return a fax and agree to pay if I don't show up. I readily agree. I try to call an Italian place called Babbo but I only get a busy signal.

I decide to finish up the menu cards and such for the party and iron the tablecloths so they will look better. I end up ironing some napkins and stuff, too. I decide to iron a different cloth for one table. Ironing is one of the hardest domestic tasks and yet one of the most satisfying when you are finished. I'm not very good at it. Soon it's time to go to the reception.

I leave home at five to get to the Four Seasons by 5:30. FFP can't go because he is going to a board meeting. He'll meet me at the bar there later we've decided.

I leave my car at the curb in the care of a bellman I know. I go to the ballroom for a party talking about the new Four Seasons property being built in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I've never been to Jackson Hole. Or Wyoming. I'd like to go. But I may never. But there is free food, free drink and a chance to say 'hi' to the former GM of this property who has gone to Jackson Hole to help prepare and market this property.

All the usual suspects are at the party. I'm early. I fill out a card to win a free stay at the property. When the room opens up I get some free Merlot and some free food (risotto, mini lamb chops, tiny two inch pizzas, etc.). We see a slide show of the fantastic property. (I don't ski. Did I mention that?) The drawing is held and a friend of ours wins. Not too surprising. Most of the people at the party were friends of ours.

I go to the bar and before I've found a table FFP is there. We get some tonic water (OK, I've had a couple of those glasses of Merlot already and I'm driving) and order some food for him. I'm stuffed with the free food. Rebecca comes in and starts playing. We are joined by a few friends from the party below. The ex-GM comes up and says 'hi' to Forrest. And then...our friends are all going to Donn's Depot.