russellrhodesblog

Honestly, it’s something I have thought about. Flying with my two Frenchies, Coco and Josephine. Could be fun. Right? I was in the Newark airport over the holidays. (Don’t even get me started on that airport. Oy vey!) The number of dogs in that airport was incredible. We sat in a restaurant waiting for a flight and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Do all of these people really need support dogs? Probably not. It appears the airlines are figuring it out too. Maybe it was Dexter the peacock that tipped the scales. Seems a passenger tried to board a United flight with Dexter at the Newark airport. Emotional support, she said. United said, nope. Now, the airline is rethinking its emotional support policy. It’s time. While I love my dogs and I usually love everybody else’s dogs, flying with them is probably not a great idea. I mean, I love Coco and Josephine more than I love most people. They make me happy. They make me feel good. They calm me down. They are truly emotional support for me. That said, I don’t need them on vacation. While I can’t wait to get home and see ’em, I think they enjoy a break from me. I’m pretty needy. Coco and Josephine need emotional support too.

It was one of those moments. One of those watershed moments. This, for me, will define the Donald Trump Presidency. Besides everything else he has said and done, this one thing, for me, defines it. Yes, I know, who among us hasn’t said the word when referring to something? It is however, that the President of the United States would say it referring to other countries. Not acceptable on any level. Even the Trump voters seem embarrassed by this one. You can’t explain this away as his “plain spokenness.” President Trump, I think, knows he went too far. Now, I don’t expect an apology. I expect nothing except that this will die down and we will move on to something else awful. We elected this. Not me, but “we,” as a country. I voted for Hillary. Perhaps the only candidate so bad that people would rather vote for Donald Trump. That’s on me. So, in a way, I helped this happen by not realizing early on that we needed someone else to run against him. I do think Hillary Clinton would have been a great President. At the very least not an embarrassing one. She just wasn’t a very good candidate. Here we are, then. I gotta get through this. I will. We will. I just worry how much uglier this is going to get?

Finally, on a plane headed for New York. It’s been a great trip to Spain. An extended trip by two days because of bad weather back home. As nice as this has been, I’m ready to get back. Back to real life. Back to work? Well, maybe. Gotta think about that. Ready though to see my dogs. Coco and Josephine. Love those little girls so much.

Ouch. Just put on my seatbelt. Didn’t need the extender, but almost! Another reason to get outta here. Too much jammon. (Ham, but not really). Undo the damage. Working out everyday next week. Look out Newark. I still have one more day of eating! I need a burger. The American kind.

My good friend Chad said, “There are worse places to be stuck.” As this monster winter storm named “Gregory” beats the hell out of the East Coast, we are stuck in Spain. New York is closed. We can’t get a flight out for two days. Yes, Chad, there are worse places to be stuck. Madrid is a beautiful city. After being here for a few days, I have noticed something about the people too. They take things much more slowly than we do back home. Dinner, even breakfast and lunch, tend to be an event to savor. The ham. The bread with tomatoes on top. The fried eggplant with honey, a personal favorite, are enjoyed slowly. The coffee is consumed at the table. Not in to-go cups. There is something to be said for all this. And that said, I’m ready to go home. Two extra days in Madrid is nice, but it’s time to go. Worse places to be stuck, indeed, but still stuck.

Let me start here by saying you can get really messed up taking the train in a foreign country. Even if you are with someone that speaks the language…that’s you Enrique… things can go bad quickly. Case in point, our trip to the monastery in El Escorial. As Maxwell Smart would say, “Missed it by that much.” We did get there, but what a comedy of errors.

Now, that we have that out of the way, the trains in Spain are a great way to go. The high speed ones are the best. Anytime you can walk around while traveling 150 mph on a track, that’s pretty amazing to me. I wish we had a better rail system in the US. So, many times in my life I would rather take a train than a plane. It’s just a lot of easier. Oh, gotta go. My train is pulling into the Madrid station. There’s two of them, by the way. If we had just known that sooner. Oh well…

It was a surreal kind of evening. After a great dinner, one of our friends suggested we go to a flamenco show. Now, in my mind, a flamenco show is something you go to with the hopes of seeing people in costume dancing. Not here. Not this night. As best I can describe it was “open mic night at a flamenco club.” Musicians on stage for anyone wanting to sing or dance. Now, there were some very good ones. I would say a few even looked professional. Then, let’s just say, if I had wanted to do flamenco, I would have been just as good. That said, it was fun. No one judged anyone’s talent. Everyone had a shot. We are rounding the bend to our last days here. All that stuff we had planned to do and have not, is being crammed into today. Flamenco lessons are not on my list. Ole! Okay?

So, in Spain, the New Year’s Eve party continues into New Year’s Day. I did not know this. We left our hotel around mid-day. The streets were deserted. Stores closed. Restaurants open, but moving slowly. Our waiter proudly said to us, “I’m still high.” When asked what he was going to do about that, he said, “When I get off work, I’m going back to the party.” As the day wore on, the party resumed. We spent hours at a food hall. One of the restaurants had only olives. Glorious olives cut in half to make sandwiches with ham and cheese and anchovies. Amazing desserts to. Champagne was flowing. I love the attitude here. Not sure I can do it 365 days a year, but very nice for a couple of weeks. I’m just about ready to go home and face real life again. Miss the dogs terribly. But for a couple more days, I’m living like a Spaniard. My new friend said to me last night, “In Spain, we eat and drink. Then, do it again.” I can do that a few more days. I’ll fix it when I get back home.