Last Hurrah By The Sea

Next week at this time, I'll most likely be leaning on the rail of my room's deck, just having seen the sunset over Morro Rock, pulling on a Cohiba and sipping a glass of port. I'll be able to flick my ash on the gangplanks to a number of commercial and recreational vessels without effort. The patrons of the neighboring restaurant who've paid dearly for their view will wonder if I'm on my own deck or if I've doled out a sucker's dollar to take my stance against the darkness that falls on the Western Shore. They'll be wrong on both counts. For I will be claiming Unit B of Grey's Inn as my own. It's likely that their dinner bill came close to a night's stay at this funky old place and I did not pay ten bucks more than the maroons up the street that have to see the water through power lines, trees, and rooftops.

I'll battle with the glitter-sized tobacco bits that stubbornly march their way to the back of my tongue so that I have to rake them forward with my Upper Central Incisors, just to spit them into the Pacific Ocean's rocky shore. I'll give the seagulls as many crackers as they want, so long as we keep certain Poop Treaty clauses in effect;

Law 1, clause 7: at no time will said poop land upon the givers of bread-based sustenance, especially in their hair.

Law 2, clause 9: in the spirit of the aforementioned treaty between humans and flight-gifted shit-rainers, efforts will be made to avoid deck furniture and open containers of alcohol.

The breezes from the bay will chill me to the bone, but I will be warmer than I'd be at home in Fresno's brown haze during the day and misty fog at night. Odds are good that I'll have sunshine at some time each day, but I don't even care if it rains.

A round or two of golf over in Los Osos will sandwich a day of CD shopping in San Luis Obispo's awesome record stores. I usually experience a little serendipity at least once in Boo Boo's and while Cheap Thrills takes a little more patience because of the huge selection, the payoff is usually worth the grief from Mary for taking so much of our trip flipping through musty old records and CDs. Usually a round or two of craft brew from Downtown Brewery or maybe a tall draft of Firestone before shopping keeps her from looking at her watch every few minutes as I frantically scan thousands of CD spines, looking for familiar or interesting bands at rock bottom prices. Maybe this time over, I'll take her wine tasting first. Who could rush a music geek in paradise with a nice and warm glow from dozens of tiny glasses of wine?

We'll probably catch the BCS game Monday night at Legend's, our favorite haunt in downtown Morro Bay, walking distance from the hotel (and anywhere else we need to be). It's a really cool local bar and once Mary found the last drops of a very limited production of Jameson's Irish Whiskey that really rung her bell and she hasn't been able to find a place anywhere else in the world that has even heard of it. Talk about serendipity. The bartender that we usually see reminds me strongly of the late John Entwhistle and I always punch up some Who on the jukebox in his honor, a little inside joke for Mary and me.

When we return to the real world after a few days of slow life on the coast, it will be a new pace for me as I actively looking for work for the first time since I quit last June. I'm anxious to say the least, but I'm excited at the wide open prospect of not even having the slightest idea of what I'll be doing for a living. Months from now, when my new job is not so new anymore, I'll look back to this time and smile, remembering what it felt like to be on the brink of the complete unknown. I'll also probably wonder if I thought I'd ever be doing "this" for a living, whatever "this" is.

But for now, I look forward to that cigar and port. Oh, who am I trying to kid? It'll be a bottle of Firestone Double Barrel Ale. Port! Sheesh....