A Dog of California

Even though it has been a month since I last blogged, I have not been sitting around! I went to and spoke at the First Fractional Fusion event in Newport Beach, California, where fractional yacht, jet and destination club sponsors came and networked. I have left SoCal long ago, so, returning to a neighboring city is always an interesting exercise in understanding my ambivalence about the region. Yes, there's a lot of plastic surgery results walking around, and yes, many of the women are so perfect looking they do NOT look real at all, but then again, so what? I have grown old enough to accept perfection as well as idiosyncracy. I still could look out to sea, drink (only in California) Pomegranate Mojitos, and talk to people who were very interested in spending a few hundred thousand on fractional interests -- all without feeling superior or angst-ridden about anything. This is how they live their lives; I have grown older and do not want to change them.

There was a a woman at the event -- she had just had work done, and was talking about it. I looked at her, she was impossibly slim, had a youthful figure, shiny blonde hair but had a kind of lattice work of facial wrinkles; thus, a kind of anachronism: a youthful figure, an elderly face. I overheard her telling her friend, " As far as the surgery goes, my doctor is working his way UP!" She also had a growly little white poodle in her arms. I was listening to her, and began to pet the dog. She turned to me, and in a very kind voice said, " You know how old he is? He's 18: deaf, blind but he still keeps going!" I found this to be symbolic, funny, ironic, witty, everything rolled into one. The dog should have been called California, but he was called Puffy.

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