‘Merica! Day one, take two … dispatches from The Seasoned Mariner

After more than 14 hours of constant flights I’m back in ‘Merica! While it’s been less than 24 hours back on the Yankee side of the pond I’m not going to spend an entire blog update bitching about life in the states (yet) but I am going to say it’s always so fucking weird coming back.

While it’s not a good view, it’s an interesting view.

Currently I’m at a bar/restaurant called The Seasoned Mariner overlooking, well I’m not really sure what this particular body of water is, nursing a few bottles of Rolling Rock beer.

My wife and her kid are out doing ‘stuff’. Really just stuff, boring stuff that I won’t bore you with because it’s boring, to me at least. I asked them to drop me here, hell they kind of asked if they could drop me here so I’d be less of a pain in their ass and I of course happily agreed.

With the exception of a party of five, having some sort of business meeting turned bull session I have the place to myself.  All in all not a bad deal, it has Wi-Fi, the waitress helped me find a table with power and doesn’t seem to mind serving up endless rolling rock beers to a dude that was overly concerned about having Wi-Fi and a table with power while fiendishly pecking away at a laptop without expressing any interest in ordering food.  Seriously, while I can’t speak to the food, if you’re looking for a place with atmosphere, you could do a lot worse than The Seasoned Mariner in this neck of the woods.

This serves as a great reminder that perhaps my mind does get a little over active

Dagmar said specifically when I was dropped off, don’t pick up any hookers and don’t get crabs. So that options out.

when I imagine returning to the U.S. from Europe even if it is only for a quick two-week vacation. American perhaps isn’t as draconian and weird as I remembered after all.

Still though there are some of the things I always find strange upon returning. I can understand every literal word of the business meeting-turned bull session across the room. Sure on base in Germany that’s perfectly normal but anywhere else it’s more the very-rare exception. It’s been a constant eavesdropping session since I cleared customs yesterday. I can’t help myself actually. As a dear friend once told me when we flew back to the U.S. for work after I remarked that we could understand everything anyone was saying he replied, “that’s true Todd and no one is saying shit.”

So prost to that m’friend, prost to that!

So I don’t have too much to say yet about this trip yet. It’s too new, less than 24 hours old as I said.

On Monday we take an overnight trip to a, I hope you’re sitting down, water park! Much like that last time I posted from America when you leave decisions to teenagers, as my step-daughter and wife are keen to do, you and by you I mean I, suffer the consequences.  If there’s a foul mouthed diatribe that endlessly repeats the phrase “MOTHER FUCKING FUCK FUCKERS!” posted sometime on Tuesday you’ll know that trip was a success.

There are few things in America I wish to do, apart from visiting friends and family I mean. Someday I’d like to see Yellowstone National Park and Mount Rushmore. I would, with great enthusiasm, tour any historical civil war battlefield. Alaska, you might be shocked to learn, has an allure to me and maybe someday that’s will be checked off the list.

Water parks, with their throngs of screaming children, are almost literally at the bottom of the list. Truthfully they do not even belong on the list at all. They’re near the top of the list of shit I don’t want to do anywhere in the world, ever. But that’s a different list all together isn’t it?

But I know, I shouldn’t be such a selfish bastard and I won’t be. I won’t be such a selfish shit because, and thanks to the internet this has been confirmed, the park has a bar which I’ve been assured I can have full and unfettered access to. Seems even America has the compassion to be merciful to dipshits such as myself.

Well anyway the business meeting is breaking up and heck, I’ve learned a lot listening in. One of them knows someone that has an antique chair in their basement that’s worth $300. One of them thinks the water bills here are too high and another is married to someone that works for “an agency” on Ft. Meade. He’s so mysterious.

A pleasure boat also just docked and two men are enjoying a corona while a 3 or 4 year old girl plays in some sand nearby. It look utterly peaceful, that’s an afternoon I would enthusiastically embrace if I moved back here.

More in a bit, this rolling rock isn’t going to drink itself.