an ordinary life

I get up early to attend a BAFTA Board Meeting at 8:30.

Before leaving, I weigh myself. Up 2.8 pounds from Cape food.

The suffocating heat requires a Via ride home from my Board Meeting. Within two minutes of requesting one, I am sitting in an air-conditioned car, listening to some smooth jazz. I can now take "having a personal driver" off my wish list. Private cook has replaced it.

Come home and spend the morning returning calls, answering emails, and handling the very small amount of non-digital mail I received while on vacation.

See Madhu at the local nail salon and for $31, get a manicure, pedicure and 10 minute massage that feels like 60. I sometimes try new colors but always return to the reliable combo of Ballet Slippers under Vanity Fairest.

And through all of my commonplace activities, I keep thinking about John McCain.

His life altered in a second. A small surgery to remove a blood clot becomes a devastating diagnosis. 

Blogging about the insignificant is what I do most days. I complain about small annoyances. Whine about incompetence. Get angry at some unfair work practice. Or describe some nice night out with family or friends. All of it quite ordinary.

I watch a lot of Dateline — simple lives upended with murders and disappearances from the most unlikely of suspects. Enough to have 25 years of stories to tell. Children go missing. A college student comes home brain dead from North Korea. An innocent bride-to-be is shot and killed by a police officer. Bad things happen all the time to people like the ones we know.

Yes, I need to create more adventure in my life.

There is so much I still want to do. And see. 

I hope to expand my experiences. Do the unexpected. Take advantage of sleeping opportunities. Make a difference. Do more good. Blah blah blah.

But the truth is, I am lucky to be living an ordinary life.