I NEED A VACATION...

...and, dammit, I plan to take one.

I am logging a lot of miles on the Great Silver Aerial Bus this week.

Monday it was dinner in Manhattan. Then, at what the Mistress calls the “Butt Crack of Dawn,” it was off to Sweat City – Houston – for a couple of days’ worth of meetings at the Headquarters of the Great Corporate Salt Mine.

As I write this, I’m off to Chicago to meet with another customer, accompanied by another one of our Crack Sales Reps. By which I mean he is a skilled and talented sales rep...not that he actually sells crack. Just in case you were wondering.

It’s not a bad flight, I’m on, really. I’m sitting next to Terry Brechtel, former City Manager of San Antonio, a pleasant enough individual. She’s on her way to spend a few days in the Big Windy to attend a Library Foundation shindig with her husband, who’s following her on the next flight. She’s banging out some consulting stuff for one of S.A.’s neighboring communities...while I’m writing more Bloggy Crap. Difference is, her laptop computer is a newer model Dell, about half the size of this one – and hers is running an up-to-date OS while I am stuck with the Salt Mine’s NT 4.0 and Office 1997. Holy Crap...that’s so eight years ago!

Tomorrow, after an early meeting with Mr. Customer, it’s back to O’Hare for the trip home. And that’s when the week will really get interesting...because that’s when the precious, long-awaited Summer Vacation begins.

First: several of us will pile into our assorted vehicles for an evening drive into the wilds of Opelika, Alabama, there to begin a tour of four Robert Trent Jones golf courses. Four different courses in two days - seventy-two holes - as we wend our way towards Montgomery. And, as evening activity, as we soak and soothe our tired muscles (after rinsing off the Crust o’ Accumulated Sweat), there will be poker, fat cigars, and Whiskey Drinks.

With my bottles of Wild Turkey Rye and Herbsaint, my Peychaud Bitters, and my cocktail shaker, I can make enough Sazerac cocktails to bring visions of N’Awlins to shuddering, lurching life. It’s that or the Macallan Single Malt. Decisions, decisions.

Did I mention that this part of the trip is “Boys Only”?

She Who Must Be Obeyed enjoys her a drink now and again...and again, but the golf, poker, and cigars put her off. So I will hook up with her Saturday night, down in sunny (at least, when it’s daytime) Destin, Florida. That’s when the real vacation begins...and by that time, having spent a grand total of only fifteen hours with me over the past two weeks, she might even be extremely happy to see me, if you catch my drift.

I figure a few days of lying around on the beach, eating fine meals, drinking to excess, and catching up on our reading, will be just the ticket to recharge our saggy-ass Mental Batteries.

And by then my mental acuity may rebuild itself to the point where I can answer the question I always ask myself, year after year:

“Why in Gawd’s name do we go to Florida during the hottest fucking month of the year?”