22h53-23h57, 08-March-2013
So no excuses. I knew that carving out time to write each day while on holiday in Iceland with My Missus and The Boy was going to be a challenge, what with our typically frenetic mornings, the fact that we are driving everywhere (and I am the wheelman), long days packed chock-full with take-a-picture-here-take-a-souvenir (followed at night by three sessions of upload/edit/admire), and blissful unwinding at the end of it all. So no excuses.
Even with the near-religious importance I have long put on food/feating/eeding I still find myself surprised at the sheer might that a good meal can brandish. And I’m not talking about a pizza salve following the loss of the Little League championship in the 10th inning on a walk-off-homer, nor am I referring to a big bowl of chips-n-salsa applied liberally by a pal to help shake off the fact that she wants nothing at all to do with you. There, there? No. NO. Not cross-over grub, but a meal capable of changing the conversation, able to take you from whinging about everything awful that made your awful day the awful day that it was to reveling in the splendor of flavor, the magic of taste combinations, to “Forget about whatever it was I was bellyaching over, you have to taste this bisque, what goes into that coulis, and, no, I hardly ever order dessert but considering how good everything else has been so far, who would’ve ever thought we’d eat like this out here in Wherevertheheck?” The power of love? No, Huey, that’s the power of food.
Talk of “getting away from it all”? Cacophonous. Taking time enough from toil to truly leave it behind? Cliché Cops in hot pursuit. Need a long break? Break this, buddy. So what, then? This: Book a holiday (that’s “vacation” for you ‘Mericans out there) to start at mid-week. Weekend-to-weekend holidays all come complete with a “Next Monday”, as in “I go back to work next Monday.” You cannot get away when you know precisely when you need to get back. “It’s Tuesday. Damn, I have to go back to work in less than a week.” “It’s already Thursday? Where did this week go? Man, that was fast. Tomorrow is the weekend, and next Monday…back to work.” But a holiday that kicks off on a Thursday and ends the following Wednesday? Not only is there reapable benefit to be had in the not-full weeks on the front and back end of your holiday, but the cracking of the norm is sure to levy confusion of the very best type. Take for example La Famille Kessel, which began its happening-now Iceland holiday two days ago (Wednesday, for those of you out there not paying close enough attention)…today My Missus must have asked me what day it was no less than three times, and no less than three times I had to stop and ponder and do a few nano-seconds of actual work to figure out the correct answer.
Next Monday has no hope of finding my ragged ass!