Choice Vacation Spot
After months of traveling, I have two full weeks at home. This is the first time since March that I have been home for more than a week.
This is my vacation spot, and for the first week I am doing NOTHING but watching Buffy, reading Virginia Woolf, looking at porn, taking short walks and catching up with friends I have not seen all summer.
Last night Patrick and I went to Tisane for drinks and dinner.
Patrick, a potter and a surgical nurse, spent his summer in a contemplative space, creating pottery in his home and at Wesleyan Potters, where he is a member. He showed me a batter bowl he designed. Such a pleasing design and beautifully practical.
A lover of music, Patrick played me some Rickie Lee Jones and
Liz Wright.
Today I went to Middletown, CT with Patrick where he fires his pottery. After a tour of the place, I walked to Main Street to my favorite restaurant in Connecticut, It's Only Natural aka ION.
I then met with Karen, a fellow teacher from Watkinson School. Karen is skilled in theater as a director; she also writes theater reviews for the Hartfod Advocate, our local weekly paper.
Karen told me about her nearly month-long trip to Japan as part of a teacher education program. She visited half a dozen cities, stayed in Japanese homes and ate meals that not only tasted wonderful, they looked like works of art.
She had been warned about three questions most US visiters to Japan hear.
1. What is your age? (This is to establish her Chinese zodiac sign)
2. What is your blood type? (It is a common Japanese practice to determine personality traits through blood type)
3. Do you own a gun? (Organizers told her that many Japanese believe that folks from the US all have guns)
Karen is the kind of person I can sit with for hours. Intelligent, insightful, playful, affectionate, wise, knowledgable and passionate. The few conversations we get to have each year keep me fed for months. We can somehow speak and hear each other deeply.
So filled from fun times with Patrick, deep times with Karen, and good food from ION, I return home to hang with Buffy, drink raspberry leaf tea and enjoy my choice vacation spot--home.
posted by Peterson Toscano @ 8:07 PM
4 Comments:
When I worked in England, all the kids believed all Americans owned guns, too. I enjoyed debunking that. The boys also thought all American girls looked like Pamela Anderson. I explained that the remaining human parts of her are Canadian. (Sorry Pam, the joke is just so there.)
Sounds like a nice vacation. I'm planning something similar in October--an extended weekend, basically. Reading, TV, and porn--I like your idea of a vacation. :D
Peace
Clint
You mean some Americans don't own guns? Thanks for explaining the Japanese obsession with blood-types to me. They're often included in profiles for the characters of a Manga and such, and I never got that.
Glad you're enjoying your holiday (sorry, vacation). I guess, when you travel all the time, the need to leave home to relax diminishes.
I've always been terrified of guns. A kid in my class shot off his brother's arm when they were both young. I've heard too many stories like that and worse.
Why we don't have better gun control in the US is a mystery to me. It is absolutely crazy.
Second Amendment! Second Amendment! Don't analyse it! Don't question it!
(Hm, I've heard similar approaches to the Bible.)
I was just reminded that you can find out the blood types of Street Fighter characters too. Even Blanka, and I'm not 100% certain he'd have a blood type like us. :-D
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