No Lifeguard – No Diving – No Worries

On By cjx07sterIn Simple Stories, TravelLeave a comment

Hotel’s have rooms numbered so you only have to remember your room number and things are cool.  Actually your room number and your last name.  You have to remember both.

‘I lost my key !’ – ‘OK sir, what room number ?’

‘Ah… I think it’s 337’.. yes.

‘Whats the last name ?’

‘Jones,, perhaps’

At which point you always get a kind of funny look, like you might have forgotten your last name or even worse, you may have forgotten the last name of the person you are hoping lives in room 337.

‘Sir, we don’t have a room 337. Are you sure that’s your room number ?’

So you know when you get older and seen several rooms in two weeks it can get a bit hazy. But you know it’s not that.  It’s really a kind of mild sense of anxiety.

Anyway – having finally recalled the room number and confidently stated your name – you get a new key.

Coming up to the door, however you check again the number.  Its not actually written on the blank key.  So you cannot check it.  If only they had keys like the old hotels where the key had a tag with a number on it.  Easy to remember and you just left it at the desk when you went out.

So you come up to the room and and knock carefully.  A confident person  wouldn’t worry.  Anxiety however leads to a lot of doubt about things and maybe you knock.. just to be sure.  Sure that no one comes out of your probably vacant room.  You finally breathe easy when the green light allows you to go in.

You get your things and decide to go for a swim in the hotel pool.  It’s 5am so no one else, no screaming kids, no anxious mothers, no fitness fanatics will be there.  How futile to try to get fit in a hotel pool of merely 12 yards length.  No.. on arrival the pool is still and quiet.  Not a ripple.  It’s indoor and gradually your anxiety fades.  Start swimming up and down in the well lit pool and after a few laps, you stand to let the now big standing waves subside and the pool to quiet down again.  After a while you notice that the tiles on the side of the pool, the depth marker tiles.  The ones that say 3ft, 5ft,6ft embedded under the lip of the pool edge… those tiles.  They say 6ft, but it’s not is it.  The water is barely 3ft 6in depth and it says 6ft.  How can that be ?  You stop swimming and start worrying. Check the 3ft end.  It cannot be more than 2ft 6 deep.  How could all the engineers and lawyers with all the signs and clauses on the wall, No lifegard ! No Diving !. get it so wrong ?.  There can only be one answer.  Something or maybe even someone is buried in carefully repainted concrete at the bottom of the pool.  Anxiety mounts.  Should you tell the front desk ? No Worries.  You’ll let them know after breakfast. Now what was the room number again ?

 

Brick

On By cjx07sterIn TravelLeave a comment

Color contrast there – lines all of green but then black white and with red lip gloss in the light of the wall tv’s obver the bar.

The Patriots are 14:3 to the Cincinatti guys – you know – the team with the red and black tiger stripes.

Although the beer is cold and there are 20 varieties on tap / the taps are quiet. It’s a Sunday night.

Brady makes a run to the 3 yard
line – then a touchdown, a field goal and suddenly it’s 20:3 at the half time hooter.

Jetlag Kitchenette

On By cjx07sterIn TravelLeave a comment

Dear Blogubarra readers,

Jetlag Kitchenette.

I got in late to Texas IAH from London and jet-lagged, wrote down a few thoughts on ‘rope-stone-hook’.  – not really finished – just practice.

Awake ! – I also plan to default on a crazy Facebook alphabet pyramid scheme and now – cause its 4.30am, thinking food perhaps ? The tiles on the floor at the end of the room should have been a clue, as should have the sign on the hotel itself, as should have been the booking in the itinerary.  Yes – this room has a kitchenette with a big fridge in it.  Switching on the light, it also has Red themed decor and blank walls save a few paintings prints and a travel poster from the Gatsby era looks like.

Still Awake at 5 am… looking like the fridge is empty, save the rest of the toll-house cookie in the freezer.  Did I get that ?- eat it -? then forget it for the evening ?.. probably.  No critical judgement!  I’m reminded that even ‘Blended’ as a movie seems of interest at 37,000 feet, but then only after 8 hours of flying or so when you’ve see a few others already.  Google {Convenience Store} ! [So at 6.30am I’ll be down in the Fiesta mart — looking for ingredients for breakfast for a week].

Breakfast you say ? what about parties ?.  Not sure I’ll have time for that and The Office tends to take care of evenings with dinner meetings and conference calls. Now,  if I was in Oz – and there was a party – it would probably end up shifting to the kitchen with the host washing up and the guests drinking beer or perhaps coffee.  Yes, but I’m a hopeless host when it comes to parties on the road.  In fact I’ve never really hosted one. Some rock star agents probably host parties nightly for their rock god charges while on the road.  Engineering however seems to require rationality every morning.   Engineering outings in the evening tend to dinner with drinks – sitting down.  Perhaps I can change that this coming Friday.  It will be Gabrielle’s[my daughter] birthday by then – being a bunch of hours behind on the next day down under.

Still the FB pyramid scheme did mean i looked for a song starting with a G.  G for Gabrielle, ‘Gabrielle’s Message’ by Sting.  There’s a website Jango which is a great concept – but constantly suggests to me to sign up with facebook or else compels me to listen to loud Ads.  I liked the song but no -I won’t post it to Facebook to exhort my small group of friends and friends of friends to join in –  I’m not THAT jet-lagged.  Friends to join in? I would prefer a real event with real people,  even if there is an empty kitchen just behind me in the dark.

Hark ! – what dawn light now streams through the window and it’s now nearly 6am.  By 8am the fridge should have some oatmeal; milk;eggs;celery;carrots;bread;lettuce;OJ; and a few beers in it.  Sorry I forget – can’t buy beers before 12 noon from the supermarket in Texas at least.

The walls will have some postcards blue-tacked on to relevant metal surfaces.  I carry a collection of postcards around with me.  Helps remove the jetlag, since it reminds me of other places in other time zones and other great friends and family I have.

Story of Rope Hook and Stone

On By cjx07sterIn Simple Stories, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Alone again late, Sally sat at the the laminex table in the hotel room out of I10 on the way through Texas.  It was warm outside and the sun had set some time back.  The phone rang and Sally let it ring for a bit before picking up.

‘hello’ she said.

‘Hi Sally this is John.  Just wanted to let you know I went there, you know, to that place and the cellar door at the bottom of the stairs.  Locked it was.  Couldn’t open it.  Sorry about that. Left the key there.  What do you want to do ? ‘

‘Don’t know.’ said Sally putting the phone down.

Sally sat there feeling tired.  Her face looked fine but then tears started out tracking down and fell onto the table.  She tried to think but then thoughts scattered and she fell into a sleepy lake in the moonlight outside.  An own skidded past silently but screeched down on an eel in the lake and hooked it out like a wet writhing rope with its talons. The own screeched off in the night but turned and came around low over rocks at the side of the lake.  The eel snapped at a stone as it dragged along the shore and suddenly became heavier. Stretching the eel, it suddenly ripped the stone from the earth and the own sped off into the sky. Suddenly the water of the lake felt warm and salty. Sally stood up and walked to the shore and lay down on the sand.  In the morning she woke and grabbing the keys from the table, she went to the shed and picked up the rope and drove out to the house where John had been.  Opening the door she saw a massive hook in the wall to the left, and the stairs down to the cellar at the right. Stretching the rope of the wall hook she flicked on the light and went down to the cellar door.  There was the key as John had said.  Sally tied the rope to the door and went outside again.  Grabbing the rope she remembered the eel and the stone and pulled till her back hurt and the door gave way.  Rushing back in down the stairs she saw a small rock of serpentine greenish gray on the floor just inside the cellar. She picked up the stone and felt all her troubles flow into it.  The troubles created by the stone in the heart of the man she loved.