To Enjoy That Story

I was up at 2:00AM.  I didn’t want to be “up.”  But when you’re up, you’re up.  I seem to live jet lagged.  I went to the bathroom and my stepson was in there with the door locked. Last stop before his evening’s rest.  Not unlike back in New York, I’m on a completely different shift from the others in the house.  At my desk, I scanned the New York Times, and I scanned the Washington Post and I scanned the Huffington Post and I took a look at Slate.com.  I’m not sure what I was looking for.  Closure, certainly.  That long-awaited article, that some final piece of evidence had finally come to light which was so unquestionably incriminating that the Republican senators, led by Lindsay Graham had all been forced to say: “I can no longer support the President.”  But it wasn’t meant to be.  To enjoy that story I’d need to return to sleep. 

It was still Friday afternoon, in the U.S.  Emails kept coming in and I had plenty of work to do, end of the month bills to pay.  In the building across the street, all the lights were out.  I wondered for a moment if anyone was looking over at me, on the thirty-first floor, typing away, in my boxers.  Boxers and a hoodie, as this room is chilly.  I’ve been told the aircon seconds as a heater and I’ve got it up full blast, but the air that is blowing out seems room temperature.  And the temperature, as I noted, is cold. 

Youzi!  A.k.a, pomelo.  Haven’t had that in a while.  The rest of the house is up by ten-thirty or so and when I get dressed go out to greet them, my daughter-in-law pulling apart a big pomelo with pink fruit inside.  Do they even sell pomelo, back at the super market in New Paltz?  The fruit was a perennial favorite of mine here.  I realize, starring at the tremendous fruit that it hasn’t even crossed my mind, when I’ve pushed the cart through the aisles at Tops.  She’d made a smoothie with bananas and blueberries and my stepson had a fresh pot of coffee and we all settled round the kitchen table to talk. 

A new project.  We’ve won the deal.  Wins are good.  We’ll work on this together and we review the proposal and precisely what it is we’ve committed to.  As suspected, many of the things we’d agreed to research, seem accessible there, on the Chinese web.  And as we research this project, I notice that one of the events we’re supposed to promote will take place in the Republic of the Congo.  Characteristically, as I suppose I shall always do until my terminal breath, I begin to daydream and wonder just how I might be able to attend this event, located as it is, in a place I have never been to and keenly wish to see. 

Saturday, 11/02/19