Crossing That Bridge

Well, our time at the Staybridge is winding down - time to start cleaning our own bathrooms again. No more overchlorinated swim-time; no more questionable, but free, breakfasts. We're moving into our new house in 4 days, and we're ready. What a strange summer it's been.

On the up side, we've done lots of carefree (summer) things this year - played Marco Polo in the pool, watched the fireworks over a lake in New Hampshire on the 4th of July, gone to the beach and eaten fried clams.

But it's time to resume the happy bone-tired-ness of homeownership once again. I'm going to rest up and wait for the movers and the cable guy. And the asbestos guy. And the refrigerator guy.

And I Quote...

"I've been keeping this fucking blog for a year and a half!"
-- Yours Truly, 10:42 p.m.

Plot Summaries of Elvis Movies, #1: "The Trouble with Girls," 1969

Elvis plays head honcho Walter Hale, manager of Chautauqua - a travelling show of performances, entertainment, acting and lectures in the 1920s. But when the show-business hopefuls' acts are disrupted by small-town prejudice and politics, will it be curtains for everyone involved?

Denizens of Places Named by Marketing People

Like many who have made their living as consultants, I find myself ensconced (literally, surrounded by sconces) in the liminal place between home and home, the not-this, not-that of the suitcase existence. For some this is a comfort zone, anonymous and noncommittal; for others, it's a trial. I'm somewhere in between these two extremes, in my hovel at the literal-mindedly-named Staybridge Suites.

The cats climb on piles of boxes while I self-medicate with a pint of (low-fat!) Ben and Jerry's. DVDs of Ben Stiller films and last week's issue of Rolling Stone cover the veneered coffee table. I take two baths and one shower per day, plus swimming in the pool. I am waterlogged and desperate, giddy and exhilarated about the future, all at once. I am overloaded on fresh berries. I have flipped too many channels. My bed is ridiculously large. I have too many pairs of pants, folded up in drawers in the spare bedroom.

My fellow transitional tenants act out too, in poolside tantrums, fitness-center snits, and laundry-room tiffs. We eat too many paninis at the sundowner hour on Tuesdays through Thursdays from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.. We imagine ourselves in the next, similar transitional existence in which cereal is dispensed in large hoppers with turn-crank doors - that of the nursing home or rehabilitation center, where we will spend our own sundowner hours, days, weeks. Frightened by this spectre, we dry off our chlorined, pruney legs and toss our towels in piles on the commercial rugs. We leave our trash in the halls. We eat french fries and wait, wait.