"Rancho La Puerta - The Arrival"

This was written a while back, but so what?  It’s not cheese.

“The writing turned green.”

That’s not going to happen.          

It’s just that I get ahead sometimes, and virtually every time I try to move stuff around, I invariably mess up.  Two posts that were meant to follow each other do not.  Additionally, they are in the opposite order than they were intended to be.  

It’s like, “Following up on what I wrote yesterday” and “what I wrote yesterday”, which I mistakenly moved ahead so I could insert something requiring immediate publication will not be available for two weeks.  Everything’s out of sync and you are essentially reading the punch line before the setup, which if you learn nothing else about writing from me is a terrible idea.

Generally speaking, there are two ways to fix something you do wrong.  You can learn how to do it right.  Or you can avoid being in a position where you will inevitably do it wrong again.  Since the first way involves changing your character, which, you know, never happens, I have decided to do things the second way.

My first two new cars, I crashed both of them while I was showing them off.  Now, you know… I could have learned to stop showing off my new cars.  But I knew that I wouldn’t.  So instead, I discovered an alternate strategy.  I would continue to show off my new cars, but I would not do so while I was driving them.

The adjustment was doable.  And my cars were spared the embarrassing “I don’t even have license plates yet” trips to the Body Shop.

This post arrives two-plus weeks after it was written.

But at least it’s not dented.

Okay.  Here we go.

I had requested a room near the lounge.

I had learned – from previous visits – that a room near the lounge, from which the morning hikes I went on daily departed, would not only allow me to stay in bed longer, it would also shorten the hike, because the distance of the walk to get to the hike would be diminished. 

Do the math:  Long walk to the lounge, plus the hike – short walk to the lounge, plus the hike.  I know you are supposed to be exercising.  But there’s no need to go crazy. 

You are doing the hike already.  It’s enough.

By the way, the whole point of this hasty visit to the Ranch can be summarized in four words:  “My pants don’t fit.”  Plus, there is an imminent trip to Toronto.  I am already in trouble just for leaving Toronto; I do not need the added abuse of, “So you moved ‘South’ and you let yourself go, eh?” 

Basically, I had scheduled my Ranch visit to allow myself wardrobe alternatives to “stretchy jeans.” 

Some belated “background” to set the scene. 

And now, back to our action-packed adventure.

I am a complicated person.  I am eager to shed poundage.  But I still want a room close to the lounge.

The problem is, due to my last-minute decision, there are no “availabilities” close to the lounge.  Apparently, other previous guests were as savvy as I was.

Having no choice, I accepted an accommodation on the other side of “campus”, although, at my request, I was placed on the “Waiting List” for a room close to the lounge.  A long-shot possibility at best.  Someone would have to cancel their reservation at the last minute.  Or they would suddenly realize they were situated too close to the lounge and for reasons, inexplicable to me, request relocation further away. 

What can I tell you?  It takes all kinds.

I arrive at the Ranch.  I receive my room assignment.  There has been an ”adjustment.”

I am now close to the lounge. 

In fact, my ranchera – “Flores 27”? 

That’s the closet ranchera to the lounge! 

I do not know how that happened, but it did.  Sorry, “whoever got moved further from the lounge.”  Unless, of course, you wanted to be. 

I could not be more delighted.  A porter helps me with my luggage and I’m, like, skipping along.  I explain about the room change.  He appears less excited about it than I am.  Which is surprising, as his muted enthusiasm could easily affect his tip. 

I tip generously anyway.  I could be, he’s just tired.

Feeling giddily elated, I do not even bother to unpack.  First order of business:  I head straight to the place I had wanted to be close to and they’d told I couldn’t and it turned out I was. 

I arrive there in short order – it is not far away – and immediately discover…

They had moved the lounge.

It was a construction issue.  The once-and-future lounge was being repaired.  The current temporary lounge… was some ways from my ranchera.

This, for me, was a new and imaginative form of disappointment.

I had a room near the lounge.

It just wasn’t the lounge.