Vacation: Ageing Not Raging

You can be a lot of things on vacation. Irresponsible, unhealthy, lazy, calm, active, inspired, stupid, smart, etc. But this is the first vacation that I couldn’t be one thing: young.

GD, people, I am old. I know they would have you believe that 40 is the new 30, but that adage was made up by some young 22 year old. If 40 is the new 30, than 38 must be the old, well, 38. While not getting too much into this (it can be a Klog for another time), I have been feeling old this year. I’ve only been 38 for a scant 5 months now, and this is really the first time in my life I feel old. There’s stuff cracking in my body that never cracked before. The grey hairs have been staking their claim lately. I just can’t seem to move like I used to. Like when I was 37. I can tell you young whippersnappers now of two things that will really make you feel old as you age. Sleep and alcohol. It’s a sick, twisted relationship.

I guess it was an unconscious thread of this vacation to have this fact hammered home to me. I look back now, and see so much evidence. Keeping to our 2 main themes, I was up ‘early’ almost every morning. And also, this is the first vacation I can recall where we actually brought beer BACK. Shit, man, where’s my AARP card? Going down, we had what I thought to be a borderline supply. 2 handles (1.75 liters for you old farts that don’t know that term) of coconut rum, 1 each smaller bottles of lime and banana rum. 2 cases of Corona (I know, I know, it’s mostly marketing or at least a law to have Corona at the shore. Whatever, I think it’s a good beer. Fucking shoot me, OK?) and 2 cases of “session” beer: Lionshead. John and April were also bringing down a case or 2.

So what came back? Part of the coconut handle, a few stragglers of Corona and a majority of the Lionshead. Pansies. I have a simple explanation, though.

We’re all fucking old.

The first day we were there-Sunday-I think we just killed a few beers and went to bed (Old.) Come Monday (hey, that would be a cool song title) afternoon, I declared it Malibu Monday as we dragged avowed beer drinkers J&A into our happy placed called Rumania (yes, I just made that up). The experimentation was basic at first, just a few straight up coconut rum and cokes (aka CRC). After that whet their appetites, we mixed various variations of coconut, lime and banana rums with Coke. But that was surely unhealthy, so we started adding real limes. I believe it was April who started mixing CRC slushies. And then I think real bananas got into the mix. And then….

Yea, that’s how Malibu Monday went. It was good clean fun as the rum flowed like the urine later did. Much laughing and talking about I really can’t fucking remember. I am sure I whasn’t schlurring me sppech too mush. I didn’t get Cate Donnelly drunk. (It’s OK I use her in this joke. I know Cate. Plus it’s not like she reads this blog, so I can get away with it.) And Malibu Monday let directly to Sleep It Off Tuesday. I got up about 8 or so, ate something, petered around the living room a bit, then went right back to fucking bed and slept till like 1. (Old.) I do regret that I did waste that much of a day down there.

And here is an irony to vacation. Even though you bring down an assload of booze, you still go out to drink. A lot of nights we wandered up to the strip to try to blend with the locals. Not too much exotic beer is available down there, so you’re stuck drinking Sam Adams Summer and the like, which is fine. The bars were good clean fun-even walking in the rain. The girls had enough beer to attempt line dancing. Me and John had enough beers to keep our asses at the bar at mock the girls. The nights out weren’t out of control drunken affairs. (Old.) We were probably back home by like 10 or 11. (Old.) The drunk busses they have down there sure are lively after 10 or so. That shit should be a reality show. Cash Cab and Trashed Bus. Back at home, T would start a fight between J&A, we’d watch and then go to bed. Nothing like winding ‘em up and letting ‘em go. Good night everybody.

Next to us was a condo that I believe housed 20 young kids. They weren’t a problem or anything, but fuck if it wasn’t like watching a clown car every time their porch door slid open, and more kids came piling out. One night they were quietly drinking outside. Two of ‘em passed out. We even went down to check them out. Maybe I shouldn’t admit this, but deep down, part of me was thinking, “Shit, why couldn’t that be me?” And then the rational side would say, “Because 1) you’re thirty fucking eight and 2) if you ever did, April would so put that right up on her Facebook. I would even recommend to her that she title the picture ‘ShitFaceBook.’” Even my rational side hates me.

There are other reasons for the inexcusable crime of bringing beer home. For the first time since I can remember, we didn’t play any drinking games. Any. (Old.) No Three Man. No Beer Pong. No Drinking Jenga or Asshole or Flippy Cup or Fuzzy Duck or even my favorite game to play, Porch. (Which is inevitably followed by my next favorite game, Whizzing in the Bushes.) Instead we spent our leisure time in such adultly pursuits as ‘crossword puzzles’, ‘word games’ and some bullshit thing called ‘reading’. (Old, old and old.) We would end our exciting evening of activities by ‘going to bed’. To make it worse, we would usually get up ‘early’. Egads.

Funny as how you get older, the concepts of sleep and alcohol intertwine. To wit, on earlier vacations, night wasn’t for ‘sleeping’, it was for ‘alcohol’. Now, the nights are barely for ‘alcohol’, but mostly for ‘sleeping’. Shit, I can do that at home. If you drink too much ‘alcohol’, you seemingly never get enough ‘sleep’. In fact, if you drink too much ‘alcohol’, you are advised to ‘sleep’ it off. Sometimes if you’re smart, you might ‘sleep’ before a night of ‘alcohol’. I think you see the cycle.

Part of me did grow rather comfortable with this new cycle. It was refreshing to wake up, and face J&A not wondering if a made a drunken ass of myself the night before. Or wake up to a camera full of pictures I don’t remember being taken. And running in the 90 degree sun is far easier when my gut still isn’t chewing through a liter of swill. Especially for then poor saps behind me.

Next year, I am bringing the party. I’m brining a funnel.

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Yes, yes , it’s after Labor Day, and I’m still getting vacation Klogs up. I guess I am trying my best to extend the summer. I have one more just about finished, then possibly a wrap up piece, then back to non-vacational rantings.