Back in the saddle

It is a Monday, 10 am, and I'm in the airport. I've just spend an hour on
the a conference call ( taking a break to get through security ) and still
have 3 calls and 40 emails to catch up on before the plane takes off.

It is also the week before the Memorial Day long weekend and everything is
booked solid. Foolishly I tried to get a coast to coast non-stop and
wrangle an upgrade with one of the infinite free vouchers I have that are
due to expire. Of course the gate agents just announced that the flight
is full and there will be no upgrades. I'm lucky I brought my own lunch.

I guess you can say that I'm back at work.

I was beginning to enjoy the break I gave myself. I took a week with no
phone or email, toured the wine country, tried to recall what a normal
life looked like and generally decompressed.

Of course, that didn't stop me noticing that some things, with
the right set of glasses ( e.g. my tired, stressed, bitter and twisted
pair) are interesting, annoying and or bizzare.

My Saturday was spent playing 'spot the tourist'. I was in the local dive
bar where an R&B band was cranking out classics like 'Dock of the Bay' and
'Mustang Sally'.

The locals were easy to locate, dirty jeans, grape skins under the
fingernails and drinking , well, either, domestic beer, margaritas,
tequila shots, or arguing the points of some new bottle of Cabernet
someone found.

The tourists: clean jeans, clean fingernails and drinking , well, either,
domestic beer, margaritas, tequila shots, or arguing the points of some
new bottle of Cabernet some found.

Ok, so maybe not so easy to spot.

It is easier to just wait a few hours, let the alcohol kick in and see what
happens. The locals just get a bit more belligerent or run away then the
tourists get rowdy.

the tourists, not only get rowdy, but, set free from their environment,
reveal wonderful examples of human behavior such as the group of desperate
housewives who were burning a hole in the dancefloor, and making eyes at
the drummer who had the whole shirtless, tattooed, cap on backwards thing
going for him.

I can only assume that this sort of thing happens all the time because the
next day I definitely got the hint that they wanted us to all leave.

It was Sunday, after 9pm, and all the restaurants were closing their
kitchens. So I was stuck at the only place still open and being
entertained by some swarthy latin wannabee playing smooth jazz. It is
almost beyond description and I'm not sure where to start.

His outfit was classic Banana Republic and would be predictably
non-threatinng except that he was enjoying his work beyond a point that
made me comfortable. He was actually humming along to the tunes, and had
this whole head bobbing 'In the groove' thing going for him. It was
really quite scary.

It didn't help that he was sporting a textbook accountant haircut and had
matching black glasses. This was not buddy holly thing , this was like
the High School Dweeb had a secret job as a musician but forgot to change
into the uniform.

To make matters worse he had a wireless receiver and was trolling the room
serenading the diners. I felt like I was trapped in a version of hell
where the only entertainment was Al Jarreau, if he was white, five foot
one and had put on about 20 pounds.

I accidentally made eye contact at one point (big mistake). He looked
back at me and nodded with an unsettling "I'm cool eh?" type smile,
changed key and tried out a solo I'm sure he had been practicing in his
bedroom for the last four weeks.

I guess I probably shouldn't mention he also had drum machine.

It almost made me want to go back to work.