In case any of you are looking to do any upcoming travel, I’ll share a few thoughts and experiences from my most recent escape.

Coming from Massachusetts where a lot of places are closed, and a lot of restrictions remain in place, I was very curious to see what else might be going on elsewhere in the country.

I did a fair amount of reading and research as to what states began reopening and wanted to visit somewhere to get away from my home state lockdown.

So, Thad and I settled on Atlanta … The airports remain relatively quiet and there are only a scarce amount of businesses available for airline passengers. Traffic is still pretty low, but has increased from the articles and news stories about airline flights with a passenger count in the single digits. Face coverings are mandatory, and the middle seats on the plane remained vacated. It was announced that there were about 75 to 80 people on the same plane as us.

Hello Atlanta … The initial sights of seeing businesses open and people out and about was cool. Perhaps we actually are advancing to a “New Normal.” Although, I found it a little worrisome that MANY people were not wearing personal protection face coverings, and there were many, many large social gatherings. I even felt sort of outcast for wearing my mask out in public a few times. I get a little feeling as if Covid-19 never even existed down there. I guess if I hear of a spike in Covid-19 positive cases, I have an eyewitness account of how that could be possible.

The visit to Lenox Square had me a little nervous. It looked as busy as a normal afternoon in a mall would be, and maybe only ten to fifteen percent of the shoppers were wearing masks. Some stores were still closed, and a few stores were limiting how many people they would allow into a store at one time, it left lines outside the stores of very congested social gathering. A little nervous for what my shopping experiences happen once the malls reopen in Boston.

After arriving to Hartsfield-Jackson airport to return home, a TGI Friday’s was open to where we ate lunch, and even got to have a few cocktails. (It is located outside of TSA checkpoint though.) It was kind of nice to experiences a “normal routine” I usually have as a traveler, so that was cool.

So perhaps I might visit your city if it has more creature comforts than my hometown … I also wouldn’t recommend visiting the surrounding Boston area anytime soon still … for starters almost everywhere for hotel accommodations either won’t allow reservations at all, or will reject your reservation due to current state guidelines, but that just annoys me so I’ll leave it alone for now.

I recently attended the service awards dinner from my employer. All employees with five years of service and up, in five year increments, were invited to attend dinner, receive a gift, in my case two, twenty years of service and higher received an additional gift, and take pictures. (I could have went without that.)

My award was for twenty years of service. It feels a little surreal to me in a way that, one, it has definitely felt longer than that most of the time, two, that it is twenty years, and I am thirty-eight years old, and three, that I am still working at my first job. I know many people who have had multiple jobs, a lot of them even significantly younger than me.

I guess I really am just a creature of routine. Cheers. 🍺

Ok, so I have been having an ongoing issue with the Meteorologists … During the Weather portion of the news, it was said that tomorrow (Wednesday) is the ideal nice weather day of the week, then in the next few statements mentions a possibility of a rain shower tomorrow.

Which one is it?

Your only job is to look at a computer and track your radar. Get it together.

Until then … Partly Cloudy, chance of showers.

Or I can just look out the window and see for myself.

I recently got to visit Disney World with two of my favorite young gentlemen … My great-nephews Jaidyn (7) and Jerry (6), along with their mother, my oldest niece.

I don’t get to spend a lot of two-on-one time with them, and I get to do that here. I don’t see them that often, and when I do, it’s usually some sort of event, or group gathering when either their attention, or my attention can constantly be pulled in two different directions. Sometimes I can barely even get a conversation with them.

And no, them dragging me into a bouncy house to use me as a personal jungle gym doesn’t count. I love it, but it doesn’t count as “time.”

This past trip had some cool elements to it. Most importantly I got to hang with my nephews together and separately. Go on rides to share time sitting with both of them. Hang out at the pool, or just take a decently long walk to refill my drink cup. They are now old enough and tall enough to go on all the rides but one. Jerry was slightly too short to go on the Aerosmith Rock N Rollercoaster at Hollywood Studios, so I took him to get his face painted while Jaidyn went on with his mom.

I always try to go to Disney AT LEAST once a year, and have for the most part done so since childhood. In the past I have visited some trips with family, some with friends, and yes I even took one trip alone and visited Epcot, my favorite of the four, for a weekend, then turned around and returned home … and yes, I would do that again.

As the actual number of my age gets higher, there’s always that first question and thought:

Is that right? I’m thirty-eight?

Wow, I have thirty-eight years of life experiences.

People keep saying that you are only as young as you feel. This begins a little bit of mental warfare between mind and body. As young, and as youthful as I can often feel, my body is less cooperative from time to time.

Why do my feet hurt?

Well, Mike. You have been standing and walking for the last ten hours.

Part of the job. Get through it.

I’ve also noticed with other people as well, as some people even publicize, that a birthday has become a birthday week, or even birthday month.

Remembering childhood, it was a single day, one party, one day of celebration. In retrospect, it’s because everyone came to me, came to my party to celebrate. As an adult, I do attend the celebrations of younger birthdays as a schedule.

As an adult … wicked different. Everyone can’t get together all at once, so birthday celebrations have to stagger a few days, maybe even longer for some. There’s just an understanding that people have work, family, and other commitments that they have to work out their personal schedules.

As for me this year, it became a birthday week. I was unable to celebrate the weekend proceeding due to work. My boyfriend came into town to celebrate with me. I want to spend as much one-on-one time as I can, as it is a long-distance relationship. I had to attend the two nights of Pool League, mainly due to being Team Captain, and the duties that come along with that, and also so that my teammates could wish me a happy birthday. Then the following weekend, to catch up with friends I didn’t get to see during the course of the week, and with some even longer. Like I said, Conflicting Schedules … I definitely understand. Too well.

Then when I look back on it all when Monday rolls around, yes, it has been an actual full week of celebrating my birthday.

Cheers.

A co-worker has become upset about another person name calling and bringing up someone’s personal business.

How does EVERYONE know?

The question that gets asked. Well …

In my opinion gossip is gossip and your ears always take notice to something that you want to listen to. There’s also that added feeling when you are within the group of people in the know, that kind of relief that attention is focused on somebody else and not yourself … well, at the moment at least.

I do find it the easiest, and most recurring when it comes to co-workers. Almost as if it’s just common routine to hear, talk about, and then repeat anything about another person.

The reason why? Or so I think?

Well, unless you have actually formed for-real friendships with your co-worker(s), I think there’s more likelihood of gossiping simply because you don’t have much else to talk about with them. Small talk really only goes so far, so if you’re spending five days a week with a person, in relative close quarters, that you wouldn’t necessarily classify as an actual friend, you need some topic of conversation to avoid awkward silence. I think it’s just bound to happen.

So be careful of what your co-workers can learn about you, because quickly they might all know.

“He likes it! Hey, Mikey!

Melrose Place … I miss you. As a pre-teen/teenager of the 90’s, I did partake in group viewings of Melrose Mondays.

Every week, I couldn’t get enough of the trashiness and campiness that made the show so great. At least these were actors and characters, and not the actual people that invade reality TV these days being even more obnoxious.

Although, there was a huge cast turnover towards the end of the series, I was a loyal viewer all seven seasons.

Favorite character: Sydney. The most entertaining in my opinion. Schemer, vixen, victim, comic relief, she is all of it. Even through her bad decisions, there was just something about her, to where I would totally smile and forgive her. I would have totally been friends with her.

Least liked character: Kyle. Boring. Wallpaper. A prop for the female characters. Enough said.

Character that annoyed me most: Billy. Even through times of him attempting to be a good guy, or a stand-up guy. I pretty much always saw him as a jerk. I was constantly hoping for any character to hit him every chance possible. Too bad Kimberly never had the chance to really torture him. I would have loved it.

Favorite Couple: Michael and Jane. I know I’m in the minority, but since they were there at the beginning, and at the end, I really did want their reunion in the final season to last more than five minutes. (Though their final breakup was pure comedy) I did want them together at the end.

Couple I could have done without: Jake and Alison. I never could figure out what gave the writers the idea to put these two together. First off, the two characters never seemed like a good fit. So much that I think in the real world I don’t think these two would ever really even interact other than your neighborly greeting in passing. To me what made it even worse was their pregnancy/family storyline. I didn’t buy into it one bit, and was in a huge rush to break them up and put them out of their misery. I am happy that, since both actors left the show at the same time, they didn’t write them off together.

Most memorable moments: So many to choose from. Any of Amanda’s one-liners, A catfight at the pool in a wedding dress, the apartment building blowing up, anything having to do with Kimberly. For me, well, it was the moment Sydney got run down by a car on her wedding day. I completely crumbled.

I miss all of the characters, but most of all I miss you Melrose Place. Any time I can watch an episode, I will smile. 😁

The toy that creeped me out the most as a child … To this day, I still can’t put my finger on what it is specifically. The read-along voice didn’t sound comforting. Teddy’s slow moving eyes, maybe? Perhaps. Or the way it just seemed completely possessed

when his mouth would randomly move when the cassette tape wasn’t playing … Yeah, that’s it. That’s definitely it.

I’m convinced he must be a friend of Chucky.

We always hope that this year will be better than the last, right? Wishful thinking, great experiences, and perhaps a little bit of luck can be part of the contribution. Happy 2019 to you all. Cheers!