Red Sky At Night

 Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

I was actually starting to hate taking vacations. I know, I know, it’s weird, but it never failed. Five whole work days off, flight out on Saturday, return flight on Sunday. And once they were booked, I would start planning diligently. (Secretly I thought the planning part was what I loved best).

As the vacation approached, I would get more and more excited. All the things I was looking forward too, the amazing restaurants I had found, the awesome museums, the spectacular hikes, the photos I couldn’t wait to take. Then the vacation would be there. Of course, the flight would always seem too long, and the baggage claim took forever, but finally would come the moment where I deposited my bags on the bed of my hotel room and I would hit the city for my first dinner out (always something simple, since I would be tired from traveling.)

The thing that never failed though, the one constant of every vacation I had taken since I could first afford them on my mediocre salary, was what happened the morning after my first night in a cozy down comforter bed in a brand-new city. I would, inevitably, wake up with a stuffy head, sneezing, achy, and fevery body. I would wake up sick.

My theory was it had to do with stress. Work was so fucking over the top, on all the time, bullshit that when I actually got the chance to relax my body would just give in to all the illness it had been saving up over the months. It never failed. Every vacation would be spent a sniffling mess in a hotel room in some city far away from home. Oh yes, I would still drag myself out to see the sights, as long as I had plenty of Kleenex in tow.

This year, though, I knew it was going to be different. Now, I didn’t have any actual plan to make it different, but I hoped really hard. I also took a lot of vitamin C and drank a lot of Elderberry tea.

The flight to Hawaii actually wasn’t too long, and the thickly perfumed air that greeted me in the terminal felt restorative. I went to bed that night on a pillow of cool down; I was filled with excitement for the days of hiking, and snorkeling, and body surfing I had planned for the days ahead. But of course, when I awoke the next morning, I could barely raise myself out of bed. My body was weak, my muscles were aching, and I was seized with heated chills.

I lied in bed for two days, barely able to touch the fresh squeezed pineapple mango juice and coconut mochi cakes I had picked up at the farm stand on the way to my hotel. It was the third day (I think) when I awoke to the most amazing sight. My bedroom was lit up a deep red. I thought for a moment I might have actually relocated to Mars. Slowly I pulled myself out of bed, and with still aching muscles I pulled open the blinds to find the most spectacular red sunset I had even seen. I couldn’t explain it, but at that moment I knew the rest of the vacation would be alright.

 

Measure Twice

 

Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

Thankfully it only came once a month, that much we had figured out. The first month had been a surprise. We were fast asleep in our little dilapidated ranch house. We’d moved in 19 days before, and had just barely started fixing the old place up. There was so much to do! I hadn’t even gotten around to admitting to myself how much there was to do (let alone to my dear spouse Anne, whose arm I had to twist into all sorts of unnatural shapes to get her to agree to going in on this place with me. Let me tell you, her “money pit” jokes never get old.) But I digress.

We closed on the house, which was more ruin than house, set squarely in the middle of 12 acres of gnarly apple orchard in the middle of Potter Valley. By early summer we were all moved in, and ready to start renovations. By the time we hit mid-June, we were well on our way. The wood floors and plaster walls on the main level had been stripped bare, and we were working our way up the stairs with the sledge hammer.

It had been another dusty day, just like the 18 before. The summer heat hadn’t quite set in, but with all the hard work during the day we welcomed the cool evening breeze that came in through he holes where the windows had been (before we ripped them out). We’d been soundly asleep when a strange noise woke us up. It was an unworldly cry, echoing though the acres of trees that surrounded us. We tried to ignore it, but the noise kept growing and growing until it was right outside our window. I leaped up from the bed and looked out, but all I could see was effervescent shapes looming about in the darkness and fog that had formed in the soggy bottom of the orchard grasses. Needless to say, we didn’t sleep well that night.

It was a month later, to the exact date, when it happened again. Another long day, this time spent stripping the tile from the upstairs bathroom, and another night were we tumbled exhaustedly into bed, only to be woken up at midnight by those forlorn cries and strange shapes looming in the dark, circling around our house.

The next morning Anne demanded I go to the hardware store and build shutters to close the still gaping windows. Although whatever it was didn’t seem to want to get into the house, Anne didn’t want to take any chances. I did as I was told, of course, but it seemed our haste was unnecessary, the next night was quiet. In fact, we didn’t have another visit from our strange little howling ghosts for another month. But then, just as we were starting to get comfortable again the noise returned. I ran to secure the shutters, only to find I had cut them too short. There was a perceptible gap between the wood. As Anne and I stared through at the strangely crying shadows beyond, a face emerged in the darkness.

“Why hello there,” a voice said, “I’m sorry, didn’t mean to scare you, I thought this place was empty. I turn my peacocks out here once a month as a little treat, to graze on the grubs. I’m Gary, by the way, I live at the ranch next door.

“Oh, hi,” I replied, opening the shutters a crack, “nice to meet you neighbor.”

An Ounce of Prevention

 

Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

I decided not to bring my umbrella. I know, its England, and its December, but I figured if I brought my umbrella, then we were sure to have rain, where as if I didn’t, then perhaps we would get lucky.

“What do you mean you didn’t bring an umbrella!” Missy exclaimed as we walked out of Terminal One of the Heathrow Airport into a wall of water pouring from the dark clouds above the late December day.

“I already told you about my theory.” I replied as I stuck my hand out from underneath the taxi stand overhang.

“Well, that’s fucking stupid,” she replied, “you obviously got it backwards. If you had brought the umbrella, then it wouldn’t have rained, thus making your carrying of it all the way from California useless, but because you didn’t bring it, we are now cursed an entire trip of nothing but rain!”

I couldn’t do anything but shrug. She might’ve had a point.

I’d always wanted to visit London during the Holidays. After years of seeing amazing light displays and festive holiday windows on my Insta feed, I’d finally saved up enough money. The only thing that remained was to find a travel partner, and I managed to entice my best friend since 4^th grade into coming along, with tales of spectacular parks all dressed up in red and yellow leaves, and streets sparkling in pure white snow. Now, though, it looked like we would not be having a white Christmas, so much as a wet Christmas.

We’d been in London for 3 days, a time that had been defined by cozy cafes, fascinating museums, and a constant barrage of water from the sky. As we emerged from our cozy little B&B, all stuffed full of fried eggs with a side of beans and rich black tea, Missy rolled her eyes at me.

“Oh look Liv, it’s raining again!”

“Yes, but how cute have we looked romping through the puddles in our wellies?” I replied as I jumped into a rather large one that had formed in the gutter.

“Ug,” she sighed, “can you at least promise you’ll buy an umbrella today? It’s the only way to break our curse.”

“Fine,” I replied, “whatever will make you happy.” By this point I was pretty convinced that giving in and buying an umbrella would only seal our fate for the rest of the trip.

The morning was spent at Tate Modern, where we found the only thing that reveled the artwork was the architecture of the building itself. By noon it was still pouring outside, so we decided to grab a coffee and a bite at the little café. As we finished our meal I ducked out, claiming a need for the restroom, but I had something else in mind.

When I returned, Missy had apparently steeled herself against the weather and was ready to head outside again, but as we walked through the front doors, we saw our world had changed, instead of a soggy grey landscape, we were greeted with the soft white world of the season’s first snow.

“Well, how about that” I said as discreetly hid my brand-new gift shop umbrella deep inside my purse.