GlossyVeneer

While visiting my parents and brother/sister-in-law/niece last weekend, we sat down to watch the movie Stranger Than Fiction. This is a movie that Kevin and I have watched several times, it never gets old to me. In fact, it gets better and better on each viewing. May I present to you a scene from the movie that struck me with particular poignancy on this viewing:

Harold: Dave, can I pose a somewhat abstract, purely hypothetical question?
Dave: Sure.
Harold: If you knew you were gonna die, possibly soon, what would you do?
Dave: Wow, I don’t know. Am I the richest man in the world?
Harold: No, you’re you.
Dave: Do I have a superpower?
Harold: No, you’re *you*.
Dave: I know I’m me, but do I have a superpower?
Harold: No, why would you have a superpower?
Dave: I don’t know, you said it was hypothetical.
Harold: Fine, yes, you’re really good at math.
Dave: That’s not a power, that’s a skill.
Harold: Okay, you’re good at math and you’re invisible. And you know you’re gonna die.
Dave: Okay, okay. That’s easy, I’d go to space camp.
Harold: Space camp?
Dave: Yeah, it’s in Alabama. It’s where kids go to learn how to become astronauts. I’ve always wanted to go since I was nine.
Harold: You’re invisible and you’d go to space camp?
Dave: I didn’t pick invisible, you picked invisible.
Harold: Aren’t you too old to go to space camp?
Dave: You’re *never* too old to go to space camp, dude.

For some reason, right after that I blurted out, “Oooh… I’d got to the San Francisco Baking Institute and take their bread classes. And I’d take a photography class. And I’d go to Greece.”

It kind of surprised me that I knew immediately what kind of things I’d want to do if I knew my life were coming to a close. But then, I shouldn’t let impending death be the impetus to actually take action. Now, maybe I can’t afford to send myself to all these places RIGHT NOW because I’d probably have to quit my job to have the time for these. And if I quit my job the cash flow would cease… but I think I should probably make these things an actual priority in my life. You know, goals to work toward at some point.

My husband on the other hand, doesn’t have a list. He totally identifies with the scene from the movie Office Space:

Peter: What would you do if you had a million dollars?
Lawrence: I’ll tell you what I’d do, man: two chicks at the same time, man.
Peter: That’s it? If you had a million dollars, you’d do two chicks at the same time?
Lawrence: Damn straight. I always wanted to do that, man. And I think if I were a millionaire I could hook that up, too; ’cause chicks dig dudes with money.
Peter: Well, not all chicks.
Lawrence: Well, the type of chicks that’d double up on a dude like me do.
Peter: Good point.
Lawrence: Well, what about you now? what would you do?
Peter: Besides two chicks at the same time?
Lawrence: Well, yeah.
Peter: Nothing.
Lawrence: Nothing, huh?
Peter: I would relax… I would sit on my ass all day… I would do nothing.
Lawrence: Well, you don’t need a million dollars to do nothing, man. Take a look at my cousin: he’s broke, don’t do shit.

No, my husband wouldn’t want the three-way. (Well, maybe he would.) My husband would choose the ‘nothing’ option. My husband’s sense of responsibility would fly out the window if he had to make a decision on how to live out his life. In fact, if presented with his deathbed, he would probably choose to play video games, eat fatty hamburgers and candy all day and make a perma-dent in the couch. I told him he should come up with some kind of life goals, because I’m a naggy spouse like that!

So what about you guys? Do you have any life ambitions, or things that have always “sounded cool” but you’ve never pursued? If so, what are they?

Friday:
The morning was gloomy and cloudy as we woke, pretty early so we could get some breakfast before packing up, checking out and catching a shuttle back to the airport. And on the shuttle ride back to the airport, fat drops of rain started to fall. It was a little bit easier to leave when we knew the weather was turning sour.

We got to the airport plenty early. Way early. We didn’t have much say in the time we arrived because the shuttle company determined our pick-up time based on our flight departure time. I had to trust them because I didn’t know how long things would take. But once we were checked in, I couldn’t deal with just sitting in an uncomfortable chair for a couple hours. Thus I spent the time wandering the airport. The tiny little Cancun airport. I sniffed perfumes in the duty-free shop, I looked at magazines in foreign languages and perused jewelry and Mexican handicrafts in a little store. I wandered through the food court and even briefly contemplated ordering a hamburger from the Burger King, but decided against it since it was mid-morning.

We had a flight to Mexico City, where we had a two hour layover before the final leg back to Las Vegas. If I never, ever spend time in the Mexico City airport again in my life, that would be perfectly fine with me.

By the time we landed there I was getting pretty hungry. Unfortunately I wasn’t smart enough to have enough food in our carry-on to sustain us, so we wandered through the airport to find something to eat. Surprisingly, they had no chain restaurants in the airport; even little Cancun had chains. So we were forced to pick up some food from a little deli type place. This is where the day really started to go downhill.

I chose a packaged salad and a pear. My hubby got a sandwich and a yogurt. And of course, the ever-present Coca-Light to wash it all down. After paying and finding a place to sit, I opened my salad. I picked up a bunch of the cheese to reveal a couple of decent looking pieces of romaine and a bunch of brown pieces. I tried eating around the brown stuff until I spotted the “surprise inside”. Nestled amongst the brown lettuce were scraps of paper. Ew….

The salad was out at this point. I moved on to the pear. It tasted good, but having two things of produce was probably the beginning of my intestinal troubles. I started to feel queasy as the day went on. My husband was already feeling pretty sick and both of us were pretty miserable on the flight back to The Vegas.

It was a huge relief to be back in the states and to know that we could be in our own home soon. However, it was raining in Vegas and our luggage was returned to us all wet. And then we had to stand outside in the rain, wind and 55° F weather (wearing our shorts and t-shirts) as we waited for a shuttle to take us back over to the parking garage.

We got home, made some steel-cut oats for dinner and crashed early. And no… the intestinal troubles are not completely gone. We’re both still feeling a little sick. It’s probably a bacteria (like E. Coli or Salmonella!) and since we’re not exhibiting any of the deadly symptoms, we just have to wait the 8-10 days for it to completely work through us. Blech…