Cretan Odyssey

Part the Sixth

It is 1027 on Friday 1 May, and I have entered into the last third of this visit. The day has a bit of a gloom about it, but my weather app suggests actual rain won't arrive until this evening. As I had not consulted the app beforehand, I made it over to the Stadio this morning for a run, which I believe will be the extent of my movement today.

A gloomy May Day

This morning's trip to the lovely digital scale provided here in my “Penthouse" (as it is advertised) revealed an 8.5lb weight loss since my arrival date measurement, so the exercise and diet approach seems to be having the desired effect. Pretty much every meal here comes with fried potatoes (otherwise known as French Fries), and while I sneer at them at the meal's start, I will invariably eat a few before getting up. I am weak. I have though, not consumed more than half of what was provided me at any sitting, so I remain generally on track with the no sugar/low carb/hi fat/hi protein diet.

I don't have any real plans today, save to write here, maybe a bit on my book, a Hallmark movie, a nap, and a walk to dinner. One of the great joys in retirement of the start of a new month is the process of financial reconciliation I go through to analyze my budgeting, so the arrival of monthly interest and dividends, savings draw-downs, and fixed expense allocations will be another pursuit, but because of the seven hour time difference and the varying itervals at which my accounts report their status, this will likely be something I come back to often during the day.

If you had told 30 year-old Bryan that in 30 years, he would be utterly micromanaging his finances, he would have laughed at you. If I had money in my checking account then, I was ok. Four months into things, I am spending less than I planned, but I have determined to let things run for a full year before I decide to mess with the drawdowns. One choice I made that I think is working out is funding all travel from its own account, an account created by the money I inherited from my parents. Travel is the only purpose to which that inheritance will be applied, unless the wheels fall off everything else. In addition to it being just one more wonderful thing my parents have enabled in my life, each transaction from the account provides an opportunity to be grateful to them.

I had an interesting conversation last night with a special friend who grew up as a State Department kid, a life that included two separate tours in Greece. When I recounted to her my surprise at the limited friendliness (at least as measured by the admittedly superficial tendency to lead or follow in “good morning) of the people here, she opined that she would never travel to Greece again and that she was not a fan of the Greek people. I can't go that far, but she seemed to understand some of the things I was kvetching about. She told me that during the second tour when she was in college, whenever a friend came to visit, they took the train to Turkey. How about that?

I am pondering this trip as it plays out, and I am coming to conclude that a good bit of my situation stems from inadequately knowing myself before I left. This may sound strange for readers of this substack and its annoyingly self-centered focus, but I've made errors both strategic and tactical that I SHOULD have seen coming.

First, while things are lovely here, I removed myself from a life that provides me with the highest satisfaction and contentedness of any previous period. Things would have had to be pretty fantastic here for me NOT to have experienced some drop-off. Had this trip come a year ago while I was still very busy with work, maybe things would differ. But since I issued my final invoices on 30 November, my satisfaction with what was already a pretty fair existence has skyrocketed.

Second, my monomaniacal desire not to live out of a suitcase did not mean I had to choose a place that was relatively cut off from other places. This lovely little city is one of many lovely little places much like it along the coast of this island, with the interior being spiny and mountainous. Catherine's “so we can make day trips" discussion a year ago--the one that led to this choice--thunders in my ears right now as I think about how nice it would be to hop on a lux Eurotrain and pop into some other great European city. The “all or nothing" (burrowing in vs. moving every two or three days) approach I took in bedding down in one place for 29 nights seems unwise, especially one place that is not easily connected to other places.

What I'm slowly arriving at is a sense that while Catherine's approach had merit, some version of a hybrid would be preferable. What I mean is that when I do cut loose for an extended travel period again, I will not only do it absolutely in company with my inamorata, but it will be planned for two or three months, so that we can attempt something of a burrowing in at the same time we are able to have little adventures elsewhere.

I have floated a trial balloon with Catherine about spending much of 2028 out of the country, thereby providing us with both the wonderful opportunity for extensive world travel and also to absent ourselves from the country during the presidential election, as we have both so thoroughly soured on our nation's politics. She is considering it.

Sunday Evening

I have eaten wondrous meals here. Goat, lamb, rabbit, chicken, and pork all have graced my plate, but until this evening, I have had no beef. One of my go-to's has a “Beef Stifado" on its menu, and I looked into the dish online and figured it would be a good choice tonight (and I sent myself a video of it being made so I can have a hack at it at home). Well, it was not on the menu tonight, but I had gotten myself excited for beef and so I ordered a steak. I'm pretty picky about steak. I buy really good steaks at home, and ordering one out in the States is something I reserve for high end steakhouses. But with none such about me here, I decided to have a go at it. Turned out to be a good decision, as it was tasty and acceptable.

It rained a bunch today, but I did get a run in. The weather for the remainder of my visit looks pretty darn good, and I have a few visits to make this week to a local art gallery, a folk life museum, and the house of a famous Greek politician who apparently survived some interesting assassination attempst. Oh, and one more massage. I will keep up the two-a-days and mindful eating, as I had a goal to leave here 10 or more pounds lighter and I am squarely on track for that.

The Beard

Well, based on the poll in the previous post from this series, my suspicions about the impact of this beard are confirmed. Dudes seem to think I ought to keep it and the ladies (though precious few of their voices were heard) think I shouldn't. There was never a question as to whether I'd keep it, as there is a consituency of one on this subject, and I already know that answer.

My parents once bought a little cabin in the woods in Bucks County PA. They did not seek my input or permission, and it was never a big object of interest for me. I think they owned it around the time my father was about the age I am now. I'll never forget…he obtained permission to go and hang out by himself there for a couple of weeks, and he came back with a beard that looked a lot like the thing I'm carrying around. I'll never forget him walking in the door--I though he looked AWESOME, almost Hemingway-esque. My mother's words to him, and I quote. “I hate it. I told you I would hate it, and I hate it.” It disappeared soon thereafter. I wish I'd gotten a photo of it.

Spring/Summer

Before making the acquaintance of the Widow Murphy, I was a fall/winter guy. More to the point, I really disliked spring and barely acknowledged summer. But when she rescued me from the middle-aged pound for unmarried men, I was introduced to the world of wonder that she presides over at our place. She has so craftily seen to the placement of shrubs, bushes, and trees that there seems to always be something blooming almost year round. Before her, I knew not what a “peony" was, except to snicker like an adolescent every time I heard the word. Here are a few she cut today. There will literally be scores, if not hundreds of these during the season, sorta right up until the magnolia trees flower. I'm looking forward to spring and summer in the magic land of the Eastern Shore. Every year I say I'm going to paddle board, and then I don't. I need to fix that.