VACATIONS AT HOME

THE ROADS NOT TRAVELED

I would like to be reporting from a tranquil beach, or a yacht, or an unfamiliar city, or a new promontory, or a crowded bar. I’d settle for a movie theater, or a restaurant, or a museum, or, well, anywhere other than this middle-class garret we now call home in Collegeville, Pennsylvania.

That ain’t happening anytime soon though.

Your favorite traveling tandem has been knee-capped. Oh glorious and faithful readers,  you have followed us for over a decade now, living vicariously through us as we sashayed around the world sipping adult libations in romantic locales espying new vistas and reveling in our good fortune of being a perfect couple, but we have been humbled and remain homebound.  For a long time now, we cannot be called Vacations From Home… BUT Vacations AT Home.

PERMA-GLOOM

This unending pandemic, this incessant doom and gloom, that despite the good news about vaccines the fear-mongering news about mutations and death from COVID being almost certain if one drives through a town with an asymptomatic carrier going past in the opposite direction has grown so debilitating that our pub crawls now consist of having a drink in each room of the house.

We do go out, we do walk our dog, but even our favorite route at Ursinus College, just up the street from us, has been taken away as the school has asked everyone to avoid the campus now that classes are back from the winter break. By the way J.D. Salinger, of Catcher In The Rye fame, went to Ursinus for one whole semester in 1938.

With inspiration through osmosis now taken away we are left to walk incessant laps around the block.

We go to the market, our glasses fogging as we meander the aisles looking for more bread flour so Janet can make MORE bagels, and cinnamon rolls and chocolate babka, all the while perfecting her sourdough bread baking techniques.  

Heeding the sage advice that “It’s not what you weigh, but what the weight looks like ©,” we go to the gym. Janet is off to her semi-private Pilates studio while I gauge the Planet Fitness capacity by the number of cars in the parking lot before I enter. I have to say I’ve gotten used to running on the treadmill while wearing a mask.

Though intrepid in spirit, we remain sequestered and close to home.

We are safe, but long for somewhere else. Hopefully this sadness will end soon and we can get back to the business of making you jealous we’re traveling somewhere exotic.

Love, Janet and greg

©2021 by greg dunaj

IS IT SAFE?

HAPPIER NEW YEAR?

I try to write something when the calendar finally says it’s time to add a number to the year. Sometimes the missive is a teary-eyed nostalgic look back at the past year, or it offers some jumbled ideas and advice about the future and the best way to proceed. 2021 is different, because 2020 was so ungodly awful. When the New Year struck, I ducked, I winced, I flinched, unsure if there WOULD BE a future. I didn’t want to write anything. I was scared.

Yeah, I can puff up your egos and say that at least you’ve come this far and you have survived and you made the best of what was offered, but you know fair reader this has crippled our collective soul. Our resiliency has been sorely tested, but we have not been defeated. Even if it means reporting from our basement, Vacations From Home Central will continue operations. So, be assured, as we kick the tires on this new spin around the sun we'll let you know if when it will be safe to come out again.