The Incredible Lightness of Being (Someone Else).

How many times have you glanced , either wistfully, or disdainfully, at pictures of some really fancy hotel room, situated on a cliff jutting out into the sea, where the fixtures in the room are just SO, not a wrinkle out of place on the sofa covers/bedsheets etc, flowers in a carefully orchestrated careless array in something that resembles a pen stand, but is actually a vase , and a lady relaxing in a sunny balcony, totally oblivious to concerns about rising insurance premiums, flood insurance, saving for childrens educations , and other "boring" things ?

It has always been a running battle with my open dropping mouth and a consequent loss of words, whenever, I have had an opportunity to look at glossy tourism magazines, which , actually give a new opportunistic meaning to the phrase, "Virtual vacations" !.

(They better be virtual, what with hotel suites at $2100 a night ,(ONLY), free tropical fruit basket in the room, bottles of wine gratis (they better be, after all this), entry to the spa at subsidized rates, a David Hasselhof clone moolighting as the resident lifeguard, and complmentary trips downtown so you can have a look at FINE jewellery, gourmet foods (like I was just dying to eat snails; actually the snails are dying for me), designer clogs and what have you...)

Sometime in November, one's friends start talking about the approaching holiday season, the 7-8 days shutdown at work, and one of my secret urges has always been to say to someone, , "Oh, we'll be away this Christmas, visiting " some x/y/z island.....

Well, life is short, so are the vacations, and I am not likely to get out of this rut of doing the basement, repairing the driveway, worrying about childrens SAT's , the growing international fares , gas prices and other depressing stuff.

But technology has come to my aid. Yes, the cellphone !.