Stay-cation Chronicles 2019

At 5:00 on a Friday afternoon in August, I fled the office with the next full work week plus the following Monday scheduled as vacation time. Including the weekends, that’s 10 consecutive days of doing whatever I want. Some colleagues and I kicked it off at a restaurant/bar near work for appetizers and drinks. The place features a decent fancy cocktail and craft beer menu, consistently good food, and a portrait hung in a bathroom stall of a woman who reminds me of Olympia Dukakis watching and judging the toileting business. I half expect to hear commentary that I’m wiping wrong, but I promise, that is the only weird thing about this place.

After the drinks and snacks it was time for this year’s winner of the vacation destination lottery – “The Bungalowell” in the occasionally beautiful, frequently annoying and traffic-congested neighborhood of Pawtucketville in Lowell, MA. It’s also my everyday home and not anywhere I would go on purpose if I didn’t happen to live there. It’s not my favorite neighborhood or even my favorite house on the street. It’s a place to keep my stuff and eat and sleep, and after paying all the bills, the taxes, and the flood insurance, plus other life expenses, there is very little left with which to eat or sleep elsewhere. This is a direct consequence of desperately needing a place for myself and two dogs to live, and shopping for a house in a time of low inventory, low mortgage rates, and rising prices. What I pay is still less than renting, so I have no idea how other single people manage. Most of my money and energy for the past three years and likely the next 27 years or until I die are sunk into the place, so this particular week the place will double as a vacation home.

The Bungalowell is nothing like the Jamaican resort that was the site of my last proper vacation in 2017. No waiters. No buffets. No housekeeping team. I am the waiter, the cook, the maid, the gardener, and the caretaker of two dogs. The fur-beasts are a key reason for forced stay-cations, thanks to the ongoing wallet-emptying expenses of daily medication, doggy diapers, and vet care, never mind the added expense of dog boarding to allow leaving the house for several days at a time. Life with the fur babies happens in eight-hour increments. In my imagination I am carefree and wealthy but real life clearly has other plans for me.

Before the scheduled time out a list of activity options was drafted that included the beach, hiking, antique shops with my Mom, dance class, yoga class, make a tomato pie, paint the bulkhead and maybe also the house foundation. Also, make a stained glass piece to go over the storm door on the enclosed porch, do some photography, write, read. They were deliberately called “options” so I could pick and choose or easily opt out without guilt. Because I know myself.

Last year, I stay-cationed at the same hovel and spent one entire day and night painting the kitchen which had been stripped of wallpaper a full year earlier. The next couple days were spent hobbled by the leg tightness earned climbing up and down the stepstool 10,000 times during the taping and painting activities. There was a fun visit from my Mom plus some other forgotten activities, meaning they were neither outstanding nor horrible. It was just a week that was.

The first Saturday of stay-cation 2019 had a successful morning visit to my gym’s yoga class. The rest of the day’s loose plan was to shower and dress in something fun and summery to go to the monthly open house at Western Ave Studios, a massive mill complex of artist studios. I showered, realized I don’t own anything “fun and summery,” and pulled on some androgynous camo patterned capris and a tee shirt. Then, I sat on the couch to think great thoughts. There’s no room for more art in my house filled with windows and doorways and little wall space, so the strongest reason to go to Western Ave was to maybe flirt with a tall, handsome painter who lives and works in one of the studios. The several previous times I’ve gone there with that intent, he’s been already deep in conversation with someone the whole time I’m browsing the studio. After looking at every single one of the paintings at least twice and signing up for his newsletter yet again, it would feel stalkerish and I’d panic and flee. So, I didn’t go. I didn’t do anything but sit and think and half-watch TV/Netflix/Prime Video and look at Facebook, making it just like any other Saturday except that I went to the grocery store, which I usually do on Sunday.

Sunday was a successful vacation day spent with a friend at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts for the last day of the “Toulouse Lautrec and the Stars of Paris” show. This was not on the original options list and would never have happened without her. For starters, shame on me, I didn’t even know about this show. When she mentioned on Friday over drinks that she was going on Sunday, I enthusiastically and opportunistically invited myself along. The weather was perfect, as in, not too hot, not too humid, partly cloudy and breezy, and we did a healthy amount of walking between the museum, a lunch spot, and the parking garage. The show was interesting and cool and moderately annoying thanks to a few people who insisted on standing three inches away from every piece of art to take a cell phone picture of it. Cripes, if remembering all the artwork is that important to you, buy the  professionally photographed exhibit catalogue sold in the gift shop you’re forced to walk through when exiting the gallery.

Monday and Tuesday were quiet. There was some writing and playing of online Scrabble with total strangers while the dogs softly snored on the couch. Monday featured a magnificent salad followed by undoing all the healthy benefits by finishing off the ice cream and potato chips bought on Saturday. The free weekly outdoor yoga class not attended all summer was forgotten about until it was already over. Tuesday’s highlights included procrastinating until it was too late to attend a morning dance class, and making and eating kale chips and kale soup before cancelling the healthy deed with a cheap grocery store brand chocolate bar and corn chips with cheese sauce and salsa. I mowed the lawn and sweated like I was in a sauna, which is the closest I've been to a sauna since childhood when my family had a membership at the YMCA. Grown up vacation drinks from a selection of wine, beer, soju, and hard liquor were considered both days, but the service in this place really sucks and every time I wanted a beverage I found myself holding a habitual glass of ice water.

Wednesday began with the amusement park rush of a pajama-clad slide down the back stairs on my butt while letting Winston out to do his potty business. No idea how this happened. A bonus jammed right hand and wrist were included. The morning was spent sitting on an ice pack, and after the pain of peeling and cutting vegetables for salad, the afternoon was spent resting, icing, and elevating the Ace-bandage wrapped wrist. Luckily, there are only three steps or it might have been worse.

Finally, on Thursday there were actual plans outside The Bungalowell with my mom, sister and nieces for lunch and a visit to a new consignment shop. Mom gave me a card with a picture of a young girl dancing on a beach and said it reminded her of me on our trips to the beach every summer. That made me sad, because I don’t remember being that happy frolicking girl and have no idea where she is hiding or even when she disappeared but I really wish she would come back. I think I would like her. Before heading back home we attended the wake for a dear friend’s dear mother who passed away earlier in the week.

On Friday, with the remaining vacation days dwindling, the theme for the week and my life in general was apparent. There’s a line in a song by They Might Be Giants that says, “Now it’s over, I’m dead, and I still haven’t done anything that I want. Or, I’m still alive and there’s nothing I want to do,” which pretty much sums it up. This stay-cation, like most of my time outside work, has been spent doing a whole lot of nothing, which feels like either the pinnacle of solitude and luxury or a shameful waste of time and life. Time and perspective will tell.

Yoga Class

One Saturday morning in July I managed to get to the gym for yoga class. It’s a great class, offered several times during the week, but 9:30 am Saturday is the only time that fits my schedule. Sadly, even that is not a sure thing, and it’s been more of a once-a-month cycle for yoga class due to heavy competition for my attendance at various Saturday morning appointments including the maintenance of health and vanity, dog care, and family stuff. 

I carefully chose a spot in the second row of the group fitness studio, behind and to the left of a man who has been in the frontmost row every class I have attended, and not blocking the view of the mirror for the several people already positioned further back in the room. I knew they weren’t blocked because I checked. That’s basic studio courtesy.  I unrolled my mat and started to stretch in the few minutes before class started.  

During this quiet time, a silver haired woman in violently pink leggings marched in and unfurled her mat in the front row. Although the row was occupied by only two people on the right side, and nobody for about ten feet to the left, she chose to set her mat a few inches from the man to the right and directly in front of mine. She aligned herself to thoroughly block my view of the instructor and the mirror with such pinpoint precision it would appear deliberate if she had seemed even remotely aware anybody else was in the room. I heaved a sigh, stood up, and moved my mat several inches to the left, checking behind me to not block a view while regaining my own.  

Meanwhile, the instructor was making the rounds, dabbing citrus oil on the wrists of everyone in the class except for me, who she somehow bypassed. First the mat business, now the oil. Maybe my invisibility cloak had accidentally activated, which happens with depressing frequency. It’s a fabulous feature of middle age to become invisible to nearly everyone, which, I will confess, is not always a bad thing.  When she arrived at the front row to anoint people with her fragrant oil, the instructor looked at Lady Silver Locks, camped perilously close to the man next to her, and suggested the dear Lady move over as there was imminent danger of a physical mishap.  

Her royal highness seemed surprised, got up, and moved her mat. Despite there still being a solid six feet of space remaining before the next mat to her left, she edged over only a few inches and once again parked herself directly in front of me. There was no space in my now full row to move my mat again. Fine. I huffed and accepted the sad fate of a view of a vivid pink ass for the next hour.  

The scent of everyone else’s citrus oil lingered in the air, wafted about by the breezes from the open windows and I tried to shake off my annoyance at being blocked in the mirror.  Twice. The world will not end if I can’t check my alignment. It is a small thing for me to move on. Of course, it is also a small thing for old pink pants in front to pay the tiniest bit of attention to those around her. 

We started the class on our stomachs with heads turned to one cheek. It hurt my neck, so I turned to the other cheek which, while feeling somewhat biblical, was still hugely uncomfortable. It also hurt my lower back to be on my stomach and I felt like I couldn’t breathe, so I propped myself on my forearms to wait this part out. Unfortunately, that aligned my sightline with the crotch of old Lady Pink Pants whose legs were splayed. Not cool. I stared down at my mat, wondering what the valuable life lesson was for this particular class. There had to be one, right? 

We moved from stomach to table top to standing and the glorious yoga landscape changed with us. As we transitioned through the hour, the vibrant pink pants of Lady Front Row transitioned with us. They eased down a bit, and a bit further, ultimately revealing a majestic view of a solid three inches of elderly buttocks cleavage.  

Not once in the entire hour did she hike her pants up or her shirt down. I know this for a fact because the sight of her royal grand canyon blocked my view of everything else. Did she not feel the air upon her exposed derriere? Apparently, her range of blessed obliviousness was broader than initially suspected. I don’t think I’ve ever been so grateful for a yoga class to end and sprinted out of that room like I had someplace to be, which, in actuality, I did not. Maybe the next time I should consider a spot in the front row. 

Fast forward a couple weeks to early August and my return to yoga class after missing a couple weeks due to various conflicts, both legitimate (dental appointment) and manufactured (trying to decide what to wear to a music festival later in the day). Remembering the sights of the previous class, I grabbed a spot in the front row. 

Soon after, Lady Silver Locks arrived and unrolled her mat on the floor barely the span of a yoga block from mine. Are you kidding me? I shifted my own mat a couple inches to the right, nearly violating the space of the guy who is always in the front row.  

During a spinal twist, when our right leg was supposed to be over to the left, she nearly crashed her leg into mine. This was because first, she was too close to my mat, and second, she was on the wrong side and putting her left leg over to the right. I wanted to kick her. Hard. Before I could finish imagining shameful and aggressive bodily harm upon my yoga class neighbor, the instructor told her she was on the wrong side and she corrected herself. 

Throughout the class, when we extended arms or legs, I made sure to fully extend. Just because she is unforgivably unaware shouldn’t mean I have to minimize my movements. And if she happens to catch my hand in her throat, let that be a lesson, darlin’. 

The back of the studio always fills up first, so unless I get there early enough to take the class before yoga and grab my spot then, I will likely always be at the mercy of the space in the front of the room. Maybe next time, instead of putting my sneakers out of the way in the corner, I’ll line them up as a little boundary marker. It’s worth a shot. Maybe my lesson is to learn to define and own my personal space.

Sock it to Me

I haven’t been able to close my sock drawer. Not easily, anyway. Not without forcibly shoving socks down and back and further into the space. It's a mess that needs to be emptied and reorganized, but that ranks pretty low on the fun meter, even with my rock-bottom standards, so it hasn’t been done. 

Instead, I regularly paw through the jumble of socks bought for special activities like hiking, skiing, and roller derby; for winter warmth and summer sweat; for dress pumps and oxfords and booties and gym shoes. I rifle through socks that are stretched out, too small, or too grungy, in search of the missing mate to that favorite pair that is perfect for those specific shoes that will complete whatever outfit was chosen for the day.  

Once upon another lifetime, in a different dwelling with different furniture, the sock drawer was a different story.  It was a tale of socks neatly rolled and arranged by color to provide a pleasing appearance when the drawer glided open. I imagined myself a shopkeeper in a tiny boutique with a lovely sock display ready for my imaginary customers to marvel at. It felt artistic. It was probably more the case that I was strung a bit too tight that I cared so deeply and entertained such delusions over the contents of a private space that no one would ever see unless they were really doing some snooping. I mean, I certainly didn’t invite guests in to see my sock drawer.  

In any event, it’s quite different now. 

Somewhere along the twisting and turning path of life, my sense of sock drawer design decorum was lost. The drawer no longer serves as a creative outlet. It probably doesn’t help that I sold that particular piece of furniture with the wonderful deep and inspirational drawers before I moved from Tennessee back to Massachusetts. 

The departure from caring about my sock drawer was roughly around the same time as a tragic loss of sense of humor and interest in once pleasurable aspects of life like creating stained glass, sewing, photography, baking, and social contact with other humans. Maybe it’s a case of some of these things being abandoned by me rather than “lost,” which seems to imply it was more the result of chance than my own neglect (apologies to my former friends and social contacts for the disappearing act). Hard to say. Maybe it’s just a solid six-year run of ennui or depression or “don’t give a shit-itus.” 

In any event, the current overcrowded sock conditions have recently been compounded by a strange desire for more socks. I’m not saying I shop with the intent of buying (ok, hoarding) socks, but when out to restock dog biscuits, granola bars, ramen, and makeup remover wipes, there is often a trip down the sock aisle of Family Dollar, Ocean State Job Lot, or Dollar Buy (I’m a very fancy shopper) to see what is available.

There is rarely disappointment, especially at Ocean State Job Lot, which boasts a full wall of socks, tights, and leggings and where a nine pack of Nine West low-cut socks was recently bought. NINE PACK!! For $4.99. That’s just 55.4 cents per pair! These beauties were in a range of neutral tones including light gray, blush, tan, tan and blush, tan and gray, and of course, the obligatory one pair of white. C’mon, how do you pass that up? I surely couldn’t, especially after running the usual calculations and evaluations including “how long do I have to work to pay for this,” (about 12 minutes), “do I really need this” (well, maybe not really, but the colors are nice), and “how will this improve my life” (more socks means fewer times doing laundry just for clean socks!).

Since arriving home, the nine-pack of low-cut socks has languished atop the dresser, still bound in the manufacturer’s wrapper for at least one, and likely closer to two or three months (but really, who is counting?). They don’t fit in the drawer already in need of reorganizing. And apparently, I didn’t need them that much, or even at all. Not right this minute, anyway. But when the sock shortage that will define a generation happens (and we know it’s coming, probably precipitated by a trade war) I will be ready (for a while) with my still new nine-pack of low-cut socks, and all the other socks for every occasion and shoe style.