No Resolutions until February!

As a world-weary sexagenarian, (why does that sound better than it is?) I feel fully qualified to give the advice in the title.  I no longer make resolutions of any kind – it just puts too much pressure on poor old January and me.  It’s a dark and miserable month unless you live in the equator or upside-down world beneath.  Many of us have struggled through dysfunctional family get-togethers or excruciating company parties.  We need to give ourselves a break in January.

I had an otherworldly experience when I was working a corporate holiday event in December.  It felt like Christmas Present looking at Christmas Past.  The executives had the lackluster expressions of people who had been to one corporate function too many, aspirational middle managers were wearing expensive togs and eager to please faces, the bottom rung looked nervously excited but ready to party.  There were spray tans, tight fitting outfits revealing too much flesh on a perishingly cold evening and the inevitable Holiday Sweaters.  Some were not ugly at all…and at least they were warm.

When Teddy and I first moved to Houston, he was on the aspirational ladder.  Our first company ball was downtown and it was formal dress.  We floated in a sea of unfamiliar faces until someone we knew appeared.  They seemed eager to interact with us until a more important executive appeared.  Then they rudely ditched us like hot potatoes.  We sat at a table of strangers, drank too much and had fun.  That was the last Holiday Formal that we ever attended.  When Teddy retired, we donated his tuxedo and my long dresses to the thrift store.  I hope they made good Halloween costumes.

This Christmas I watched the folks at this fancy corporate event blithely drink until they reeked of liquor.  The wee devil on my shoulder thought, ‘enjoy that hangover’ but the angel said, “Merry Christmas!”  I write with the smugness of a newly converted Catholic (substitute Mormon, Buddhist or Wiccan) who has signed the pledge.  Too bad it took me until now to figure out that alcohol is not my friend.  Ever since Teddy’s various cardiac events we have been on the straight and narrow.  Our regime has been so successful that our black work outfits were hanging off us like elderly crow feathers.

I still cringe with memories of drinking or eating too much, then feeling terrible.  Sometimes I said something deeply inappropriate or blacked out (don’t take alcohol with psychiatric medication).  Every January I would sign up at Weight Watchers or at least think about it.  Lists would be written with instructions to myself on how to make my life better.  If only I could be slimmer, prettier or smarter then life would be perfect. Next year I would find the right career (substitute house, partner or friend) for me.

Who says that January is the start of the New Year?  Pope Gregor has much to answer for… We  could celebrate Persian New Year, Nowruz, in March.  January is a good month to just – BE.  Relax, eat a few more chocolates and have that glass of wine.  Allow yourself to wallow a little.  In Scotland we embrace maudlin thoughts of Auld Lang Syne on New Years’ Day.  Use January to slowly form embryonic goals that are realistic.  Read a book and listen to old records.

By the time it comes to February you might feel ready to embrace a new routine.  A planned vacation might inspire some language skills. My least favorite phrase is ‘hit the ground running’.  It brings back terrible memories of the colleague from hell who also plastered our office walls with those ridiculous aspirational posters.  There is no rush in life; it all ends the same way so why hurry? 

The last thing I wanted to do in retirement was cook meals from scratch.  I envisioned long boozy lunches with other retired friends, sometimes in exotic places.  Then the Pandemic happened.  Life seemed to stop and after a while I stopped drinking too much, ate properly – and felt much better.  Who knew?  Some years ago, I wrote and published a book.  It was my lifelong dream but I still felt dissatisfied.  But life’s good enough.  For the first time in ages, I feel content.  I went to a tiny holiday party in our street and probably talked too much but who cares?  ‘I yam what I yam’ – quoting Popeye, the great philosopher. 

I am thinking about learning to knit properly, use my sewing machine and painting Christmas cards for next year.  If I do any of those tasks, it will because the psychiatrist suggests a fancy new drug that makes me as high as a kite…  I will settle for trying new recipes, a couple of short trips away, a contract or two and life will be good.  Look after yourselves in the deep midwinter and may 2023 be gentle on us.

The strange man at the bar…

State Liquor Store #1
Salt Lake City

This is the beginning of my series of travelogues about Salt Lake City. I bet you weren’t expecting that title or the headline photograph! I have many beautiful photographs of the city and temple so worry not. I thought I would give you a funny story for the Sabbath.

Kerry in front of the Temple, SLC

So, I arrived in Salt Lake City and took my hotel shuttle from the airport. Joining me were a flight crew (my hotel was full of them) and the lady pilot told me I had a lucky escape from the airline that wanted to interview me for a flight attendant job. It is always nice to start a vacation with a bit of gossip! My hotel was across the road from the Sheraton (President Obama stayed there on a state visit) but it was also right next to State Liquor Store No. 1, along with most of the other hotels. I have been to State Liquor Store No. 4, in Moab and they look like stores from the Soviet era. Barely functional with many bottles of alcohol; they stock many shelves of quarter bottles which gives you an indication that it is a illicit pleasure.

For anyone that doesn’t know, Salt Lake City is the capital city of Utah and the majority religion is Latter Day Saints or Mormonism (they don’t like that term so much). Additionally, my family is half Catholic and half Mormon with a few atheists and ‘lapsed’ thrown in for fun. I went into State Liquor Store No. 1 and as in Moab, felt like a very bad girl leaving with my brown bag and quarter bottle of vodka! It’s slightly ironic that I couldn’t find caffeine free coke given that caffeine and alcohol are forbidden in the Mormon Church. Now that I think about it, the State Liquor store in Egypt was just the same but you had to get a permit to use it.

On my first afternoon, I went straight to the Temple and Catholic Cathedral – much more about that later. I walked everywhere and noticed there were both panhandlers and mentally ill people who were obviously homeless. As I walked the short distance from the Convention Center to my hotel, I was approached by many of them. They were very polite, “You are beautiful. Can I have some money?” One young black man, who was not homeless, approached me and asked me if he could ‘show me around the city’… Despite having visited many dangerous places (and lived in them), I had a feeling of unease in one of the safest cities in the US.

With slight trepidation, I walked a couple of blocks from my hotel to a Vegan bar to eat dinner and have an (illicit) drink. The place seemed funky and modern and at the hostess’s suggestion I sat at the bar. It didn’t have the friendly feel of a place in Texas nor were they unfriendly. I had just started my meal when a very well dressed man came in, stood directly behind my bar stool and ordered a shot of bourbon. The barman urged him to take a seat and I said “hello” since he was in my personal space. He threw back the shot, put cash on the counter and left. Shortly afterwards two young men and a woman came in, I moved along one seat so that they could sit together but like the first man, they just stood and started ordering shots of Jagermeister and tequila.

I couldn’t help but stare in fascination at them tossing these shots back while still standing. The young man closest to me thanked me for moving along. I said, “You know, even in Texas, we don’t drink like that”. He started laughing and said that they were at a Mormon wedding just around the corner where no alcohol was served. Then I started laughing because I have been to a family wedding with no alcohol. For some reason, he asked me if he looked Mormon because he had left the church. In my head, I was thinking, ‘You couldn’t look more Mormon if you had a big M tattooed on your forehead’ but slightly more tactfully said, “You look very clean cut and wholesome”. Then he said to me, “Did you see a man in a brown suit, earlier?” I said, “Yes, he was drinking like you”. It turned out that he was the Minister at that wedding. How bad can a wedding be if even the Minister has to sneak out for a shot of bourbon?? At least I had the good grace to wait until my Mormon family wedding was over before heading to a wine bar…😇

More Salt Lake City stories to follow.

Eagle Gate Monument
Salt Lake City

The Scotsman on the train

This is the main train station in Glasgow. So many hearts have been broken under that clock. Before cell phones we had to have a meeting place for dates.

I briefly mentioned this fine gentleman in a previous post Sexual History through the Ages – Part II
A couple of years ago, I was on one of my regular trips to the UK and took some time to visit friends in Aberdeenshire. Scotland is a small country with an excellent transportation system. You can fly from Aberdeen to Glasgow but it is easier to hop on one of the frequent trains. I had to travel about 30 miles to the train station by bus and was perplexed by a young man wearing a kilt. Men do wear kilts in Scotland but not in everyday life unless they are a busker or going to a wedding.

When I arrived at the train station in Aberdeen, there were kilties everywhere! My heart sank – that meant they were travelling to Glasgow to attend an international soccer tournament and in this case it was Belgium. That is the other occasion when men wear their kilts. Drinking and soccer go together like a margarita and fiesta. We are fairly sophisticated in Scotland and the trains always have a trolley with food and alcoholic drink to purchase. As you can image, that is expensive.

We all rushed to get on the train when the barrier lifted. Sometimes you reserve a seat but usually you will find something. I managed to find an airplane seat (without a table) and ensconced myself in the window seat. The train was filling up very quickly with not just soccer fans but men returning from oil rigs. I focused on my Kindle but out of the corner of my eye, I saw a group of oil workers sitting at a table but one of them broke away from the pack and sat next to me.

Sigh! I am not usually this rude but I could already smell some liquor on his breath and I just wanted a quiet trip. His friends were sniggering like school boys about him sitting next to me. After a few minutes there was an out-stretched hand in front of me and a voice saying, “Hi, I’m Nick”. There was no alternative but to turn around and look at him. I probably gasped and my eyes might have dilated. Not only was he tall, dark and handsome but he was the spitting image of my psychiatrist. It was uncanny and I have always had a crush on my psychiatrist although it is fading after 11 years.

He misunderstood my reaction and immediately thought, “I’m in with a chance!” We started chatting and then he must have seen Kind Kerry hiding behind Sexy Kerry because he revealed to me that his mentor had just died in a terrible oil rig accident (that was all over the news) and he was devastated. I summoned up all my counselling skills and listened to him. It was fine to start with and then I noticed that he, and all the other men on the train, had their own supplies of liquor under the seat.

The steward came around with the trolley, totally out of his depth with some of the bad behavior that was already happening on this crowded train, and I ordered a glass of wine. ‘May as well join in’, thought I. As the journey progressed Nick got drunker and then noticed Sexy Kerry again. Oh dear… There was nowhere for me to go, he had lost all sense of personal space and determined to flirt with the first woman he had seen in weeks.

Coincidentally, we had been brought up very close to each other in Glasgow and I guess he thought we were the same age. He revealed he was 42 and I was about 53 then. He was convinced that we had met at one of the clubs and been intimate. More sighing from Kerry; trapped in a third of her original seat. If we had been intimate I would have been the worst babysitter in the world. 🙂

The water boarding was not yet over. Finally the drink made him aggressive and unpleasant. Swearing and talking about politics, very loudly. At long last the train trundled into Glasgow. I was stressed and irritated because I had just missed a beautiful journey by train with nostalgic landmarks. He was drunk and annoyed. I can only hope that his wife was able to deal with him better than I. I wish I could think of a moral in this tale but there is none! It was just another weird traveling story with Kerry.