Hot and Muggy

I was welcomed at Dulles Airport by a surge of hot sticky air yesterday afternoon. You know - that moment after you step off the plane, but before you're well within the air conditioned safety of the terminal.

The weather in Monterey was an average 67 degrees most days. I stayed at the Spendrift Inn and was there for 5 days on business.

Most of the time I was in meetings at the aquarium. (very cool venue) In my spare time I brushed up on John Steinbeck and started reading Cannery Row on the beach outside my hotel window (sigh).

But now I'm back in hot, humid, DC. It's amazing how many email messages, all urgent - of course, can accrue in 5 days.

The pace of life on the west coast, or at least in Monterey, was infinitely slower than here on the east. I felt like the rude city girl, tapping my foot as the cashier slowly rang up my items on one of those antique cash registers. In between items, their heads would pop up, smiling at the customers roaming the aisles, starting up conversations about, well, just about anything and everything.

At the Ghirardelli Chocolate Shop it took almost 30 minutes to order and receive my hot fudge sundae (which was decadent and not advised for anyone on a diet). That was well worth the wait though.

I would stand in line/at the counter/on the sidewalk and think to myself - "Okay slowpoke, speed it up... No, no, no don't talk to that person.... Ugh.... Any day now before the next millennia would be GREAT.... Why are these people so S-L-O-W... &*@#^&!)$^#!&)@!!!..... this isn't rocket science people, let's move things along." And so on and so forth.

How did I get so uptight?