Haven't had much to say for the past couple of years... not on here anyway. Will vent from time to time on facebook groups and pages, but it's nearly impossible to have an intelligent discussion on social media. Most people on there have nothing intelligent to say anyway, and feel free to be as rude as they like from behind a screen. I'm 71 now, probably look it, and will get some snarky comment about wearing a toupee or such whenever someone disagrees with my point of view. Keep forgetting--and can't really help it--that the average person on there is either a thirty-something bald-headed prick or one of those types that wear a shower cap all the time because they know their hair is ugly.
I digress. Am still reveling in the fact that I'm retired, even six years after the fact. I love the monotony of my current lifestyle, waking up and going to sleep whenever I want to, and doing pretty much the same things (nothing much) whether hangin' on 7.5 acres in rural Prescott, at my modest waterfront condo in Miami Beach, or at my equally cozy SDSU area condo in San Diego. I work with the HOA in San Diego, and can do so pretty easily even while out of town. When in town, I'm active with the local community council, and occasionally get invited to events at SDSU by virtue of being a lifetime alum and a legacy donor. There are huge swaths of downtime, but it sounds impressive and keeps me busy enough.
This little slice of life entry is about January 29th, the day I left on a redeye flight for Miami after spending the time since Thanksgiving week in San Diego, and the month before that in Prescott. Was going to do a deep cleaning of the San Diego condo on getting back in town, but put it off until the day before leaving for Miami. This is because it's a 575 square foot place with a lot of stuff, being my home of record and, by default, primary residence. It's a pain in the ass to clean, as you have to move everything to another place in order to clear out a space to clean. The whole process takes about five hours, and I hate every minute of it.
Therefore, I did a quick tidying up and set up the Christmas decorations for a little less than two weeks, then took them down on the 29th while finishing up the deep cleaning. Meanwhile, I'd gone in for a doctor's appointment on the 9th because my doctor never sees me and was curious to see how I was doing. Well, my pulse and blood pressure are like a teenager's, but my bloodwork was basically toxic waste. She told me, in essence, that I had to stop drinking or I was going to die soon.
This wasn't really a surprise, and once again I convinced a primary care physician to give me three months to lose weight and get things into a more normal state. It isn't that hard to quit drinking, as I don't really miss it when I don't. Diet Dr Pepper and soda water in my fancy glassware works fine, and here in Miami Beach I've been pretty content to restrict my diet to black coffee or tea, fruit, granola bars, soup with a little extra meat and vegetables added, and whole wheat bread. Maybe I'll splurge on a real meal once a week. Am making some pretty dramatic progress, and will continue to do so.
As for the 29th, I got up reasonably early and spent much of the day getting the condo spic and span. Then I showered and shaved, put on the sweat pants and shirt that I always wear to fly, and set out for the airport via public transportation. There are several ways to do this. Often I'll walk a couple of miles to the Alvarado trolley station--which I think is now named for UCSD Medical Center East--and then catch the free shuttle from Old Town right to Terminal 2 at the airport. This time, though, I decided to walk a half mile down to College and University to catch the 7 bus to Balboa Park. The plan was to take a look at the Christmas displays, then walk down Laurel Street to catch a shuttle at the rental car center by the end of the runway.
There was all the time in the world to do this, luckily. I stopped at the Taco Bell at College and University, which I almost never frequent. When I was a little kid in the early sixties, there was a man who walked his dog up and down the drainage ditch behind our house on College Avenue. One day he told his dad that his house had been taken by eminent domain. The Mobil station with its Flying Red Horse was razed, and the Taco Bell went up. The man's house was knocked down to put up a parking lot for the Taco Bell. It seemed pretty stupid then, even to an eight year old kid, and my dad was so infuriated that he refused to go to that Taco Bell for decades.
Being over sixty years ago, I decided to let bygones be bygones and have one of the combination meals I'm familiar with from going to other Taco Bells. Trouble is, this one had one of those self-service kiosks that I can NEVER figure out how to use the first time. After a half dozen aggravating experiences, I finally figured out how to get the one at the local Burger King to work, as long as I'm ordering something familiar. Otherwise, I avoid self-checkout; someone always has to assist me anyway and ends up almost as aggravated as I am by the time it's done.
Well, I tried three times to order my combination meal. The third time, I thought I'd got it; it took my name and gave me an order number. There's always a half dozen employees scurrying around in the back, and I managed to flag one down to ask if I could have my drink cup while I wait. She said the order didn't go through... I'm not one for screaming at minimum wage workers or acting out in public places, but I did turn on my heel and walk out the door with an emphatic "Aw, fuck this place!"
Then the bus comes, and I manage to get on the wrong one, ending up on the north end of Colina Park instead of along Park Blvd where I planned to take my long walk among the decorations. The driver actually tried to be helpful, but I was already pissed off over my latest misadventure with self-service kiosks . I just told him, more abruptly than I probably should have, that I knew my way around this neighborhood where I'd grown up, and just needed to get to the airport without a lot of complications.
Well, after walking down 54th Street to University, it was easy to catch a 7 bus and get off by the Natural History Museum in Balboa Park. Here, this mundane and mildly aggravating day became memorable and even precious. There was Santa with his nine reindeer along the grassy path to the organ pavilion, looking just they did when I first saw them in December 1957, shortly after I'd turned three and with my brother all of two weeks old. Then the booths with the dioramas of Jesus' birth and life, reassuringly familiar. I lingered a bit, a cynical adult with a mild case of the ass over the day's annoyances, yet misty eyed with nostalgia and longing.
From there, it was a brisk walk down Laurel Street, which goes down an abnormally steep hill to the I-5, and then on to Harbor Drive and the airport entrance. From there by the end of the runway, near where the original terminal once stood, it was an uneventful shuttle ride to Terminal 2. I sat for a short wait and recalled how we used to take my maternal grandmother, Mimi, to that little terminal for her return flight to Indiana after she'd spend the holiday season with us every other year throughout the sixties.
The airport is rather festive with its holiday decorations, and Phil's Barbecue within the security area provided me with a satisfying meal and none of that self-service kiosk stupidity. The flight was delayed an hour, but I was back to a reasonably good mood and counted my blessings that it wasn't cancelled altogether with all the weather delays. Though I had a nice window seat on the flight, I didn't sleep at all that I can recall. We got in to the familiar Miami International Airport around 7AM.
Then the airport express bus to Miami Beach, and a second bus to within a couple of blocks of my condo in the northernmost part of the city, just a five minute walk from where that complex in Surfside fell down in June 2021. Didn't see any of my neighbors for the first couple of days there, and spent most of the 30th asleep anyway.
That's a life highlight nowadays, traveling to the other side of the country so that I can hang in another beach town and spend most of the time doing nothing. Gotta love it!
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| Balboa Park, much as it's always been at holiday time |
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| Day before Xmas 2024 in Borrego Springs (yeah, a year ago) |
