Is any condition more aptly named that jetlag? Quite a bit is lagging at this particular moment…such as the day and my consciousness. I rolled up to the desk quite prepared to begin my morning blog, then tilted my wheelchair back, ‘just for a moment.’ And half an hour later woke up, only to find myself no better rested. Time for something else, I decided, and headed out the door for Sunday morning errands. This included my fortnightly manicure. And, gosh, it was handy to find Glen Park’s row of Vietnamese nail salons open at 10 AM. And, despite the horrendous drought, there was no shortage of peaches, cauliflower and berries in the farmer’s market. The only shortage is me. An unaccountable fatigue keeps hitting me in waves. This is what you get for traveling 6000 miles in 11 hours.
It’s like one of those old roadrunner cartoons. Remember how the coyote is forever running off cliffs, then pausing in midair until the realization dawns…and he plummets hundreds of feet? It’s like that. I left my heart in San Francisco. I left my pineal gland in London. It’s probably waiting for me in Heathrow’s lost and found, and I would reclaim it…if the flight wasn’t quite so long.
Ours is a strange country. In boom times, look at what people do. While getting my nails buffed, dammed if I wasn’t treated to a husband and wife evangelical team, whooping up a storm in front of 3000 of their closest friends. Where could this be? The evangelist didn’t sound southern. Does this sort of thing happen anywhere else? Doubtless. While my cuticles were getting a workover, California Kitchen Remodels Incorporated took over the television. I vaguely know that people watch infomercials. Doubtless this is what I was witnessing. Problem is, I am so old and watch television so infrequently, that I gape at this sort of thing. ‘It’s all inclusive,’ an anointed customer kept saying. Free consultation. And this company comes right to your house and gives you, you guessed it, a California kitchen.
What is a California kitchen? With both hands out of action for fingernail improvement, and therefore reading impossible, there was nothing to do but watch. Interestingly, the ‘before’ kitchens looked quite acceptable. Okay, so the cabinets were dark, and there were refrigerator magnets pinning photos and shopping lists. So what? Imagine, after the free consultation, the same food preparation room becomes light and airy, not to mention soulless. Act now, and you’ll get 30% off, if you are one of the first 10 callers. This advisory was still in place when I was into the hand lotion stage. And since the show was broadcast on ABC, nationwide, the first 10 callers must have come in 0.5 nanoseconds. So who were they kidding?
Besides, I wanted to grab the microphone and explain to everyone that not having a California kitchen is a very first-world problem. There is a woman in front of the local subway station who doesn’t appear to have a California home, already. Get a life, people. Never mind. I paid the manicurist and headed out the door.