Feast or Famine
Posted on July 26, 2014 under Storytelling with no comments yet
Life is one giant buffet
The other day I was chatting with a friend who had just survived a wedding.
And, no, she wasn’t the bride or even the mother of the bride. She was a wedding guest, which is not normally a stress-inducing event. That is, unless the marriage of your own daughter is right around the corner. She commented that there is so much activity during a wedding week that there is scarcely time to actually enjoy everything. A year or more of planning is jammed into a few frenetic days of bridal showers, rehearsals, rehearsal parties, a “get to meet the in-laws” party, the wedding, the wedding reception and a gift opening breakfast the day after.
It almost seems excessive. Like an “all you can eat” buffet.
I remember going to a Sunday brunch at an upscale hotel in Los Angeles back in the 80’s. It cost $25. I had never before (or since) seen such a staggering assortment or volume of food. If you were a seafood lover there was everything imaginable: lobsters, scallops, mussels, salmon and several species that I could not identify. There was prime rib, turkey and ham and a mind numbing selection of vegetables. And the dessert table was such that I prayed I would see it again at the gates of paradise.
There was only one problem. There was too much food and too many choices.
After eating a few dozen jumbo shrimp, there was hardly enough room for anything else.
Sometimes it seems like life is like this. You go through long stretches that border on the hum drum. There doesn`t seem to be any excitement and you go through your paces day after day. This is interspersed with periods of hyperactivity where you can scarcely catch your breath.
Yes, life by times seems to be a feast or famine.
How about the two weeks leading up to Christmas? Ah, yes, the Christmas party season where an entire year of socializing is squeezed into a handful of days. It is not uncommon to get more than one invitation on the same date. By the end of the holidays you absolutely detest shrimp rings and shortbread cookies, not to mention Mariah Carey warbling “… all I want for Christmas is you …”
When January arrives, everyone goes back into their shells and hibernates during the winter. Like a whiny child you complain, to anyone who cares to listen, that you are bored. So bored in fact, that after the fifteenth consecutive blizzard you go out on the street and stand in front of an oncoming snow plow, playing the game of “chicken”. Maybe we should cut down on the Christmas parties and continue the revelry into the New Year with “Board Games and Beer” on those long winter evenings.
Our home town is famous for the longest continuously running Highland Games in North America … 151 years and counting. It is quite the spectacle. Young highland dancers, men in kilts and the ever present skirl of the bagpipes. The week long program is chock full of concerts, competitions and cultural events that would make your head spin. If there was nothing else going on in the community things would be just fine. But it seems like every other organization wants to capitalize the influx of expats and tourists and stage its event at the same time. On any given day of “The Games” there are at least three other celebrations where visitors can spend their time … and money. One couple I spoke to wished that they could be cloned so that they could attend two events going on at precisely the same time.
The week after the Games, we are sitting in our backyards watching the grass grow and counting mosquito bites. My wife prefers to describe this as stopping to smell the roses. There is still plenty to do and see, maybe at a more reasonable pace. I think I’ll plan a trip to the beach before I’m handed the chore list that I saw on the kitchen table this morning …
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