Water water everywhere, and we're not only talkin' all the Crystal Geyser you can drink, but hot tubs, cool pools, oversized showers with jets staring haughtily, coming at you from every which way, assertive sprays thoroughly searching out and cleansing your nooks and crannies, baptizing your weary feng shui from every angle.
I'm floating in the morning rays twinkling on the aqua surface of the peaceful albeit chlorinated heap of H2O in the pool, looking up at a perfect blue sky and binging on the scent of nearby lavender bushes recently watered.
Soon I will alight to the dining area, float into the room swan like as the vaguely rippled though unbowed cellulite queen that I am, and partake of the perfect omelet- truly a repast almost too delicate to eat, yet oddly not sufficiently filling- then wash it down with a large goblet of melted ice cubes that holds a single slice of lemon in the glass. Amid the low buzz of breakfast chit chat I catch the phrase "perfect beach day" and am fully expecting some young, rubber-suited stick of energy to charge in at any moment and yell surf's up! even knowing this usually only happens in the movies.
Later on in the afternoon I stop at the neighborhood drug store to pick up some bottled water. The sign advises me that this is no ordinary mini CVS- no indeed- but an "integrated pharmacy" calling itself "Pharmaca." Register and stock folks are identified by badges stating their particular specialties- a message that tells you clearly these people have not been put on this earth simply to punch keys and take your money. Vanessa is a "wellness educator." Luann is a(n)? "herbalist." The door person is an acupuncturist. I pay for my water and leave before I am quickly surrounded and subsumed by this coven of health fascists.
My thirst for adventure thus slaked, eventually I will return home to the east coast- frequently and annoyingly referred to by the happy west coast zombies as "back east." There I will neglect to drink anything at all during the day for days on end, immediately become enveloped in glorious, adrenaline manufacturing stress- it's like riding a bike, you never forget- and fast walking through the streets "excercise." I will complain about the weather, yearn for more sunny days, and quickly transform back into the wizened, dehydrated, skeptical, wisecracking little New Yorker that I am.
And in this manner I will welcome the transition to dry land joyfully, contentedly gazing at the banks of the storied Hudson from afar, until perhaps the next time. . . .
I like wisecracking little New Yorkers!
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