It's been a while. What is your New Year's resolution? Mine is that I am going to let the little things go but to mumble 'fucking idiot/dumb shit" under my breath.
We returned to town on Monday and can never predict when jet lag is gonna be bad, but am having a tough time sleeping through the night still. Whatever the adage is that it is better going east to west or west to east, doesn't matter when you are staring at the clock at 2am. Plus, as the earth is round, don't you end up meeting yourself whichever way you go eventually?
Not gonna dig into the trip this week cause I'm still out it, have been busy with the usual stupid stuff and still have to go through all the photos. Betty has been on me to credit her on many of the photos in this space. She does take good ones so if you see high quality snaps, they are hers. Another thing about her photographic skills is that she is prolific. I took 66 pictures this trip and hers totaled over 1400. Going through and curating them for the family albums requires patience. Not my forte.
At baseball practice the Tuesday before we left, a kid got tagged in the nuts with a baseball. I tell these young men about the virtues of wearing a cup at almost every practice and they always look away and make me feel like a perv. They make cups way better these days, with inserts going into boxer/brief style sliding pants. The kid that got nailed was one of the older ones and he was wearing a cup, but without the rest of the apparatus and it must have shifted cause it was a clean direct shot. I've seen, and painfully experienced, several of these hits in my time, but this was the worst reaction I had ever witnessed. Kid was down for 30 minutes and when he was able to sit up, was close to vomiting and crying over an hour later. Us coaches all knew the pain while his teammates, who have never taken one to the nads, tried poorly not to laugh. As we are a fancy school, there is a nurse in attendance at almost every practice. She offered ice but as every fella out there knows, there is little anyone can do to help ease that particular pain. Good news is that he was better and that he should have full function should the occasion ever arise.
I was kinda traumatized and am at the Center the next day and relate the story to the two ladies that work there. They are both married, one older and one younger than I, and would say that they are both conservative morally so related the details above in as clinical a manner as I can muster. They listened and the older lady asked honestly if this particular pain is any different or worse if you are older or younger. I told her that the pain is the same but for us older guys, the target is bigger. They laughed knowing exactly what that meant.
One article to share this week. Have mentioned Taiwan's recycling program a few times and how they went from "Garbage Island" to one of the highest recycling nations in the world in a couple decades. This article from Smithsonian Magazine does a deep dive into how they did so and provides a road map for other countries in this area that suffer from chronic waste issues. Not sure if it'll work everywhere as a lot of the success here is due to the culture and not wanting to be publicly shamed for recycling incorrectly.
One personal note. Heard over the break about the passing of Blake Nordstrom and saw an outpouring of grief over that by my old colleagues on social media. I did not have a personal relationship with the guy but I never heard a bad word about him and the people that did have interactions told their stories with such passion that I have to think we lost one of the good ones. One thing about him that I will always remember and have tried to emulate in my life was the way he clapped. We would have quarterly recognition meetings for our department and someone from upper management would always be in attendance. We were Logistics, which at Nordstrom is not the sexiest department. Blake would be the one that came to join us from time to time. He always sat right up front and when the awards were presented, he would be clapping the loudest. Never thought it was a put on but rather a genuine display of appreciation for the work that was being honored. Ever since, whenever I am in a similar situation where clapping for someones achievement takes place, I try to always be the loudest and most enthusiastic in the audience. When I see people making half hearted efforts at applauding someone else's kid or looking at their phones, I see red. I tried to relate this life lesson to the kids in the car the day his passing was in the news and got a bit chocked up.
Okey dokey...gotta get back to looking at pictures and hope to get started on the travelogue next week, but will share one story to frame how the overall trip went. For this one, we begin at the end (which I think is an REM song).
Our last stop was a few days in London and we were able to meet up with our good friends from Taiwan that moved back to the UK a couple of years ago. We see the husband periodically as he comes here to work but it was the first time we had seen the wife in almost 2 years. We love these folks to death as they are the rare couple that we like both partners equally and I can be my raw self with them, which is very rare. The wife can match me for inappropriate scatological comments, although she hides it way better publicly.
The four of us are sitting in a pub the second afternoon we are there. Side note, the dude says we should go to an authentic pub cause they are so great and we go to the one local to our apartment. It was a bar that had sticky tables and played American butt rock music. I had a Kentucky bourbon on the rocks...so English. Anyhoo, we're chatting away and the topic turns to the last two weeks we have spent touring the UK. The dude notes that I have organized the itinerary and made all the plans and he asks Betty what rating would she give my efforts on TripAdvisor. "Out of 5?", she asks. She pauses for (less than) a second and states, "4.0".
Really?
I then tell the table that I wasn't going to mention something earlier but in light of this new information and rating, will now, We are in London for four nights and the 6 of us are staying at an Air BnB that has a kitchen and such. We got in late the day before, ran to a dinner and a show and by the time we are done, the grocery stores had closed. Since we want to save on going out for breakfast, we want to get stuff to make in the morning. We learn that the market around the corner opens at 7am and I say that I will go then and the other moms said they would go too.
7am comes around and I am up but everyone else is sacked out hard. No biggie, it's around the corner and I can get the stuff we discussed. It is still holiday season and the market is empty save for the folks stocking the shelves, me and a pack of nuns. Get the groceries and they are there for when the gang wakes up. The moms make the breakfast and everyone seems happy. Did I hear anyone say thank you to the moms for making the breakfast? I did not. Did I hear anyone thank me for getting up early to make the run when they said they'd come along? Nope. The only thing I heard was from Betty who said, "you forgot the butter."
I am not in this life to be thanked for anything. I understand that people forget to say thanks all the time and include myself in that category. Like I said, I wasn't even gonna mention it, but getting a 4.0 out of 5? How dare you?
I found it very funny and leaned into my new rating. More than a decade ago I gave myself the moniker '360' for giving such great customer service, Named my youth soccer team the 360's and my email is Imbro360. I am now giving 4.0 service? A couple of people have said to me in the past after hearing of our yearly trips that I should start a travel planning service as a job and now I have a name for it. 4.0 Travel...when you want good but not the best. I can see the reviews now. The hotel we had was clean and in a good location, but the pillows/mattress were too hard/soft...4.0. The play was well acted and had a an original storyline, but the acoustics in the theatre were sub-optimal...4.0 Breakfast was great, but they forgot the butter...4.0
The refrigerator does not lie. I will answer to 4.0 from now on.
No comments:
Post a Comment