Tag: #travel

  • ODDS and ENDS: Rain, Overwhelmed Already, and Frozen Turkey

    ( We’ve got stars directing our fate…)

    You know what? We got rain in NYC. In fact, we received two days of rain. Being that we went, like, two months with any rain, this feels like a blessing. The rain also helps put out all the brush fires that have been happening in the parks all over the City. No lie, it has been very strange to smell smoke, like camp fire smoke, everyday for the past two weeks. Though this rain is appreciated and needed, we are still in a severe drought, which is still a perplexing situation to be in for the Northeast. Growing up in Texas, going two months without rain wasn’t an uncommon thing. Normally, the rain stops at the end of July, and if we were lucky, picks up again in September. But around here… This is odd.

    Yup, yesterday I had my first feeling of being overwhelmed with the Holidays. I started thinking about all of the events, shopping, cooking, and planning we need to do for the next two months, and… overwhelmed. I wanted to go back to bed. I wanted to watch bad tv and eat ice cream. I wanted to shut off the lights and listen to the City. I wanted it to be April. No, no, no… Can’t do that. Too much to do.

    Speaking of which… There is a frozen smoked turkey in my freezer. When I open the door, that sweet wonderful smell of Texas mesquite comes rolling out, and it reminds me of BBQ’s as a kid, especially the ones in Summer. That is what is in my freezer, and I cannot wait until I can thaw that bird and warm it in the oven. Have I mentioned that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday?

  • Talking to Friends

    I had a friend come in town the other day (We’re back to doing that again. Awesome!) and we planned on going out to get a drink and talk. “You’re going to sit and talk?” my kid asked. “Pretty much.” “Why?” “That’s what grownups do.” She shook her head at me, “That’s boring.”

    Now, my wife’s birthday is coming up, and you know what she wants more than anything? To go out with friends and talk. Minus a husband and a kid. Our daughter was again disappointed that this is what her mother wanted to do on a birthday. “All you do is talk,” the kid concluded.

    She’s not aware that she does talk a lot, as she talks to me and her mom all the time. Soon, my kid will start talking and communicating with her friends constantly. I’m trying to value the conversation time I have with her, because it’s a cycle; she’ll form those life long important bonds and enjoy just talking to friends.

  • Coronavirus and Changing America

    Funny what the different a day can make.

    Yesterday, all was pretty normal in the City.

    Today, there is a decided change. I can see it with the people on the street. There are more masks out, and though this was always a town where people went out of their way not to come in contact with others, today everyone is moving as if there is a bubble around them.

    Trump’s address on tv last night didn’t help anything. Shutting down Europe access while leaving the UK alone doesn’t really help anyone. The problem is that the virus is here, and we need to start dealing with that. Testing, and limiting groups does make sense, but right now, I only see state and local governments doing that. The Trump administration isn’t really leading.

    I do think the NBA also made the right call, and other leagues should consider doing the same thing. These are mass gatherings, and it’s not that everyone who goes to these events will get infected, it’s that enough might take it home to parents and grandparents, who are the truly vulnerable here.

    I would hope, and this is hope not a fact, that 30 days of this, of people laying low, will slow the spread of coronavirus down, so it can become manageable. The only way for that to happen is to allow testing and gathering data. Let the doctors and scientists do their job, and that will take time.

    For the rest of us, let’s have level heads, and pitch in together. Should we help small business and workers; yes. What if there was a 30-day “Bill Holiday,” where no bills, rents, or payments are mandatorily collected? Everyone gets a break. This wouldn’t be a government hand out, but would be the people of this nation choosing to do this on their own. I have seen it happen in small towns that are hit by natural disasters. Why not everywhere else?

  • Traveling Observations

    It took us seven days to drive from New York to California. We pretty much stayed on the interstates, except for a pace in Texas and Arizona. Most of the travel writing I have read has always attested to the glory of seeing America on the two-lane highways.

    I guess that could be true.

    I did spend a time in my early twenties travelling the back roads of East Texas, to visit friends at the small universities they were attending. I would call that quaint travelling, and small towns are nice, but some of them were happy to see you leave.

    Being on the big interstates of the country, you do get to see how these highways were cut into the land. In a few cases, mountains that were cut in two, and valleys that were filled in. It was like looking at the result that civil engineering can have on the land.

    The other observation that I made was the number of abandoned barns there are in the country. From western New Jersey to the Big Valley in California; there was always a rain and sun grayed wooden barn that wasn’t too far from the side of the highway that had its roof coming in, or barn doors off. I guess these barns were the last monument of the family farm, or that’s what I liked to tell myself.