Lonely Days and Lonely Nights

This is the end of another long week alone here at the Average Hotel for single people. Why so you are thinking. If you ever really want to be alone and get away from all of the hassle of your household try sending every one away for a month and see what its like.

Brrrrrrrrr, its cold outside today. Jennifer my lovely wife has been in China for the past 3 weeks visiting her parents. She has not been with them for the New Year celebration in at least 5 years now so her trip this winter was planned well in advance. I would have gone too but we were both in Shanghai for the month of October this year and with the new job I just could not get away. So its been lonely here without her. But I still have little JoJo to keep me company until these last several days.

As you recall JoJo is our little Brussels Griffin puppy. He has been such a wonderful little dog full of piss and vinegar most of the time with a hart of Gold. All he wants to do is be with Jennifer and when she is not here I settle as second best. He has been my constant companion while I have been at home but my long days has meant that he was alone for long stretches while Jennifer has been in China. This is not good for him. This week I have been working days in a row and did not want to leave him alone so to his friends house he went on Monday afternoon. The kennel that we keep him at is really great. He runs around the office with all of the other little dogs all day long and has a ball. When I dropped him off he was in heaven for a time. I know at night he misses us and will look for me sleeping fretfully without us around but I left his favorite blanket the one with our smell on it to remind him of home. Tonight is the second night that I have come home to a really empty house without him and I miss seeing him so excited when I show up. Our nightly walks will resume this Saturday when I pick him up.

So, its lonely here at home without the hustle and activity but the telephone is a great invention and I talk to Jennifer twice daily. China time is ahead by about 14 hours or so. I call there when I wake up at 4:30 which is there 8:30 in the evening and when I get home at night which is there afternoon so that works. All in all Jennifer being gone to visit her family has been a good thing for her parents but they tell me in their broken English that they “miss me” and wish that I was there to play Mahjong with them. We have great fun with those tiles.

I will end today’s pensive thoughts with a poem that I have often read and hear frequently in my head – one of Robert Frosts masterpieces:

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
and be one traveler, long I stood
and looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden back.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
and that has made all the difference.

Enjoy your road that you have chosen!