not that it’s
been a bad year. all things considered it has been a decently good year as my
best of 2013 blog/radio program will undoubtedly show. and i don’t like to complain
about first world problems because i know things could be a lot worse. i also know things could be a lot
better. so, though i can’t complain, i
might just a little.
i live in the
high desert. i am not, nor have ever been in any way, a fan of winter, or
extremely hot summers (though i prefer the latter to the former). not that
winters are bad in eastern oregon. they’re not much different than missouri
winters. but not a cold day goes by that i am not reminded of how much i can’t
stand missouri winters. and then there’s the driving. that’s the other thing i
have to do in eastern oregon. i walk to work every morning. and then spend
about half the day in my work car. and
everytime i get behind the wheel of a car, i am reminded of why i do not live
in kansas city.
once i start to
be reminded of life in the midwest, i am immediately searching for a way
out. more especially, here in eastern
oregon than if i actually lived in the midwest. at least in kansas city i know lots of people and have family. what do i
have in eastern oregon? i do know a lot
of people, but not in the same way. these are people i have known for a short time. here i have lots of acquaintences and
contacts, but not “friends” so to speak, other than panda. you know the kind of people you call on when
youre in crisis? or people you see on a
regular consistent basis, not just for work or some other such “active
lifestyle” pretense? and without a lot
of close people like that around, things like winter and driving, much less the
two combined, become extremely frustrating, more than any given day. and then pick one or two items from the la
grande complaint menu and it’s just enough to push you out of town faster than
you can count your money to find out if you can actually afford to leave town.
i am in a lucky
position, currently, that i can save a decent amount of money. that
probably is the biggest factor that keeps me in la grande. no, that is
absolutely the reason. along with the
fact that i haven’t found another motivating reason to leave yet, as in moving
away. but i did find a reason to go on vacation. and did i have the perfect
vacation lined up? a ticket to pasadena,
round trip, for under $300 in the beginning of january.
i “like” college
football to the extent that i used to like pro football. that interest wanes as
big money takes more and more control, but still i am with it for now. this
year, january 6 is the date of the national championship. pasadena is the
place. the plan was to see the missouri tigers playing in that game and to have
a gathering of friends from missouri congregate in pasadena. it would have been
the biggest stage mizzou has ever seen, a sort of incomprehensible feat. they
only needed to win one last game to make it to pasadena. they came about 17
points short of making it. and by 17 points, I mean 500-some-odd auburn rushing
yards in the SEC championship game. not that it’s fair to be pissed at
mizzou. they had a most impressive
season to even make it to the SEC championship game. but the mere fact that they sold out to join
the biggest money conference in college football two years ago is part of why
my interest wanes in college football.
that and the fact that the beavers can never beat the huskies or the
ducks, let alone good teams like stanford or usc. (fact check, the beavers actually do beat usc
every once in a while.) but enough about that, pasadena was within my grasp as
a warm winter destination with palm trees and all that. but it was not meant to be.
being that i had
already made up my mind to take the vacation, i went with the next best option…texas. mizzou, by way of losing that SEC championship, fell to a #8 ranking and ended
up with a somewhat lame predicament of playing oklahoma state in the cotton
bowl. not that it’s a bad matchup. it’s a perfect matchup, in that it puts
mizzou back in the big 12 conference where they belong. and dallas, texas, while not being exactly
the best vacation destination, was better than going to atlanta for the sugar
bowl like mizzou probably hoped for. it
is warmer in dallas than la grande, by at least twice the degrees. so, i think about this prospect for about a
day and am sold on it. the potential of seeing dealy plaza and the book
depository, as well as dallas’ proximity to austin clinched the deal rather
quickly.
i get some plans
sketched out. my mother likes any
opportunity to meet me somewhere. dallas
is not terribly far from kansas city and she has friends in austin, so it
sounds like a great new year plan to her.
buddha and t.s. could be talked into going to the cotton bowl on january
3. in sum, it was a pretty good thing
sketched out. day one in portland in
which faithless saints open for leftover crack (almost as good as having seen
them open for mdc on labor day weekend). fly to dallas, drive to austin for a
couple days, back to dallas for the cotton bowl, drive to kansas city for a
couple days, fly back to portland and back to work. a nine-day vacation, any more and i have to
surrender some pay… a decent plan when considering i have friends in dallas and
austin.
then i booked the
ticket to dallas. and i was working on
booking a ticket from kansas city back to portland when my mother texts and
says she isn’t coming to texas. well that’s a parade on an overcast day. at
least i have friends in texas… turns out one moved to pennsylvania and the
other is on holiday in mexico… well now
it’s starting to rain on the parade.
spending three days at new year in dallas by myself, waiting for buddha
and t.s. to arrive is not the idea of a vacation i have in mind. but, i had already spent $550 in
transportation costs, and was looking at $200 more for a relatively
insignificant football game in one of those wretched stadiums that all the
third world countries combined couldn’t afford to build and probably about
another $100 earmarked for new years eve since i am pretty sure i would not
skip seeing willie nelson and delbert mcclinton at austin city limits if i
happened to be in town. that’s a lot of
cash for a trip that i suddenly had lost most of my interest in.
with over two weeks to go, i was so excited i might have rather stayed in eastern oregon for another three years. or i could have let the trip suck my bank account dry enough that i
would be forced to stay in eastern oregon another three years. but i have been on a enough vacations to know
that they all turn out pretty decently.
it’s a first world problem obviously enough, but it’s still a problem no
less. how can i make the most of a less
than perfect situation?
hmmm. the answer to come ...
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