Oh, I hear a voice
That says I'm running behind
I better pick up my pace
It's a race and there ain't
No room for someone in second place
I'm in a hurry to get things done
I rush and rush until life's no fun
All I really gotta do is live and die, but
I'm in a hurry and don't know why
-Alabama, I'm in a Hurry (But Don't Know Why)
Up well ahead of the alarm this morning, staring into the iPhone and musing over the weather between here an Florida.
I'll be flying through all that a little later, the fact that I'm not sure exactly when just adding to the stress. The later in the day, the nastier it gets this time of year. And I'm still trying to figure out when I'll be able to hand off the keys to the Mighty Columbia so someone can fix the radio issue that mysteriously emerged after Van Bortel performed an annual that would've given them access to the cabling under the cockpit floor. They have, of course, disclaimed any responsibility.
And I need a nap after our relaxing weekend up at the condo.
[Grrrrr . . . interrupted as my sister texted me just now to ask "am I cut off?" when I didn't pick up the phone immediately when she called last night as P and I had just turned off the lights for bed. Allowing a state disability fund to pay for cigarettes and days spent watching conspiracy theory videos on YouTube, her job as near as I can tell, breeds a certain solipsism. My response of "you should get out more" wasn't particularly kind, but I'm sick of being guilted by people who don't work].
I digress.
Last Friday I figured we'd be celebrating a successful mediation of a big case I have scheduled for trial in October, but the other side was utterly unreasonable so we rode up the hill with the full complement of active cases I was handling when the day began. I have two trials in September, back-to-back, one in October, and two in December. P needs to start loading up on reading material for all the solitary time she'll be spending. I can't settle a case these days to save my life. And I'm starting an LLM in tax in a few weeks, just as all those professional commitments hit a crescendo. The balance of this year is going to be simply brutal.
So we weren't celebrating much of anything when we arrived at the yacht club for supper, but the view was great and the service well above par, as always with them. The food wasn't bad, either.
The plan Saturday had been to trudge up to the gym mid-morning for Peg's body pump class, but when we woke up it was 9:30 and that ship had sailed. Have I mentioned how exhausted we both are lately? Midday arrived within a couple hours, right on schedule, and we rode down to Hammondsport for an antique boat show on Keuka Lake. The goal was to learn from seasoned wooden boaters about what we'd gotten ourselves into with the old Chris Craft, but the place was mobbed and very few of the boaters were actually there with their boats, choosing instead to gather incognito in the shade of the trees in the park next to the dock.
There were, however, some awfully lovely boats out there.
Afterward we ventured into the New Orleans style restaurant and bar there on the square in Hammondsport. We've stayed away for a little over a year, following an unfortunate attempt to reargue the merits of the War of Northern Aggression after too many Sazeracs ("How did we lose to you p***ies?" "Maybe because we're smarter than you." Touche). We sat at the bar and watched the British Open, and no one commented on the previous idiocy. Maybe we'll be back for supper. Their chopped liver was superb.
After another couple stops along the way at the Grand Hotel in Naples and the Sawmill in Woodville, we managed to weave up the hill to the Cliff for a gourmet pasta supper concocted by the MacGyver of the kitchen, my lovely P, and a rewatching of Forrest Gump. We needed a little kindness and innocence during this awful political season, but all those live oaks draped with Spanish moss also made us both awfully homesick.
The next morning we figured we'd go to church but didn't set an alarm, and predictably we awoke fifteen minutes after the service started. During the summer the local Episcopal Church offers a single 9 a.m. Rite II, which would not have been a problem but for the bottle of wine with supper. And did I mention we're completely exhausted all the time?
So it was a lay about Sunday. Sort of. First, P had a light switch and outlet she wanted swapped out in the bathroom, which entailed an hour of me swearing and dropping screws in the dark. Finally we got it done, as always with an apology from me at the end for my flashes of anger at nothing in particular except my own technical incompetence, and it was off to Point of the Bluff to hear the Marshall Tucker Band in concert.
We love POTB, a winery and event venue perched high above the western shore of Keuka Lake. The wine selection is abysmal, but there's always a fun vibe with lots of scruffy old people like us there to see a band that's been performing together for 52 years.
The concert was way too loud, so we ended up sitting at a picnic table out on the lawn where we were soon joined by a couple other scruffy old couples from Buffalo. As we swapped stories about our lives, it all sort of flowed out as it always does.
"You're an anesthesiologist"? (close enough--P's given up trying to explain her actual job title).
"And you're a lawyer?" (I'm afraid so)
"So you live in Corning, but have a condo up on the lake?" (not exactly)
"Your office is in Florida? How do you get there?" (the existence of the Columbia is revealed)
"You have a place down there as well?" (two, actually)
"What do you raise on your farm." (Hay. And a few scruffy cows. We're never actually there)
"You two have the best life."
It sounds like bragging, answering questions about this weird existence we've built. But mostly I'm just worn out, and wishing for a simpler existence than this. And the idea of moving overseas to escape DJT II, shifting our retirement savings into crypto before his idiotic fiscal policies drag us into Weimar style debasement of our currency, maybe keeping the farm and turning it into a real farm so at least we won't starve when society goes full Mad Max---I just don't have the added bandwidth for all this. Every time I'm faced with another research project for the next phase of our lives I just want to crawl back in bed and pull the covers over my head.
There I am digressing again.
The afternoon ended with us looking surprised as security shooed us off the picnic bench and out the gate--what we'd taken for an intermission had in fact been the end of the show. I reckon when you're up there giving it your all at 76, and doing something like a hundred shows a year, you need to pace yourself. A marathon and not a sprint.
I hugged P for the last time this week as she headed out the door a couple hours ago, having forgotten that I'd likely be at the airport or in the air by the time she gets home from work today. Again, I'd just as well not live this way, despise and resent the thought of being apart for work when we're in that season when finitude makes it all precious and sad at the same time. I just can't figure out how to change it, and everything is in such a flux right now all around us that prudence dictates we keep doing what we're doing, and not make any bold moves until we know what happens in November.
So I'll shower and get ready for this Zoom hearing in a little bit, then dive into a Zoom mediation as the mediator before slipping the surly bonds of earth to pick through those looming storm clouds to the south. It's going to be a hell of a week.
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