I walked into my office today at 7:20 am. It looked the same, smelled the same. It was exactly as I had left it eleven days ago. Thirteen hundred miles to the south, someone else was taking a morning run on my beach, someone else was swimming out to the float, someone else was saving a couple of chairs steps from the water.
I rummaged through the 84 e-mails, deleting all but 7 of them. I checked the real, old fashioned stack of mail, throwing away all but two pieces...both bills. There were a lot of voice mail messages, but none of them were urgent. I took a few notes, then wiped them clean from the log.
I made some coffee. It was the only thing better in Short Pump than the Cayman's. The water there isn't the best, making the coffee quite pedestrian. Plus, all the coffee down there came via a Keurig machine, that monument to capitalism and marketing whereby millions of otherwise bright discerning people become convinced that tiny cups of coffee produced individually by a machine so poorly calibrated that it cannot properly fill a mug, is somehow better than coffee brewed by the pot-full using freshly ground beans. But, I digress.
I returned to my desk and began preparing for my first appointment, due to arrive in 2 short hours. Somehow, I was going to have to wipe the silly, self-satisfied grin from my face and manage to look both professional and serious before he showed up. I went to the bathroom only to discover that I had forgotten to shave. Sigh....
My neck is killing me. While on vacation it started acting up mid-week, but I was able to manage the ill-effects because I was in the most beautiful place on earth...and the daily consumption of mudslides and pink sand beaches serve as excellent pain management therapy. Now, there's just Advil. There are a couple of bulging disks back there and the beginnings of arthritis so once every six months or so it blows up into a hot mess of discomfort.
I turn on the iPod and dial up some Caribbean music. It's horrible. Listening to steel drums on a beach in the tropics is one thing, but in Short Pump it sounds silly, childish. I quickly switch to Frank Sinatra since there is absolutely nothing silly about Frank.
The appointment goes well. By noon, I have checked off seven items that had warranted immediate attention. I glanced at the market and noticed that the Dow was down 200 points, clearly just to piss me off. The phone rings a few times. Clients with questions. I answer them. I hang up the phone and it occurs to me that exactly four days ago to the minute, Pam and I were hanging from a parachute 300 feet above the ocean. The neck is getting angrier by the minute, a raging mess.
I pay a few business bills, prepare for a couple of reviews later in the week. By then, I'll be over vacation withdrawal. I will, right?
I rummaged through the 84 e-mails, deleting all but 7 of them. I checked the real, old fashioned stack of mail, throwing away all but two pieces...both bills. There were a lot of voice mail messages, but none of them were urgent. I took a few notes, then wiped them clean from the log.
I made some coffee. It was the only thing better in Short Pump than the Cayman's. The water there isn't the best, making the coffee quite pedestrian. Plus, all the coffee down there came via a Keurig machine, that monument to capitalism and marketing whereby millions of otherwise bright discerning people become convinced that tiny cups of coffee produced individually by a machine so poorly calibrated that it cannot properly fill a mug, is somehow better than coffee brewed by the pot-full using freshly ground beans. But, I digress.
I returned to my desk and began preparing for my first appointment, due to arrive in 2 short hours. Somehow, I was going to have to wipe the silly, self-satisfied grin from my face and manage to look both professional and serious before he showed up. I went to the bathroom only to discover that I had forgotten to shave. Sigh....
My neck is killing me. While on vacation it started acting up mid-week, but I was able to manage the ill-effects because I was in the most beautiful place on earth...and the daily consumption of mudslides and pink sand beaches serve as excellent pain management therapy. Now, there's just Advil. There are a couple of bulging disks back there and the beginnings of arthritis so once every six months or so it blows up into a hot mess of discomfort.
I turn on the iPod and dial up some Caribbean music. It's horrible. Listening to steel drums on a beach in the tropics is one thing, but in Short Pump it sounds silly, childish. I quickly switch to Frank Sinatra since there is absolutely nothing silly about Frank.
The appointment goes well. By noon, I have checked off seven items that had warranted immediate attention. I glanced at the market and noticed that the Dow was down 200 points, clearly just to piss me off. The phone rings a few times. Clients with questions. I answer them. I hang up the phone and it occurs to me that exactly four days ago to the minute, Pam and I were hanging from a parachute 300 feet above the ocean. The neck is getting angrier by the minute, a raging mess.
I pay a few business bills, prepare for a couple of reviews later in the week. By then, I'll be over vacation withdrawal. I will, right?
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