comfort zone

It is definitely true that my comfort zone does not overlap perfectly with the comfort zone of my occasional traveling companion. And here’s another truth: the older you get, the higher the brick wall gets around that comfort zone.

Mine and his are pretty high.

It’s lead to an interesting discussion as to what should happen this year on New Year’s Eve.

Since I don’t know when, I’ve celebrated the end of the year with a dinner that is special. In leaner years, much saving took place so as to support this meal of all meals. It was an evening for the best – the evening when I first ate at L’Etoile in Madison. We would take daughters and when midnight came, we’d almost always be licking the last bit of flavor off of a plate, totally content.

This has not been Ed’s path. New Year’s Eve? A Cousins sandwich – two for $5, preferably.


For the first time, I am not eating with daughters this New year’s Eve (they’ve flown the coop so to speak) and Ed and I are trying to find a way to solve the New Year’s Eve quandary.

Let’s get burritos from Chipotle, he tells me.
Let’s not.
Okay. You want to go out somewhere that’s not fussy?
No. I don’t mind the not fussy, but it needs to be special.
We really haven’t had Chipotle for a long time. It’s special.
Let me buy a lobster and make lobster rolls.
No.

Two stubborn people, with very high brick walls. Where will be the opening? I’ll let you know tomorrow.

In the meantime, I find myself at an unlikely place today. True, I am in the neighborhood. But you don’t usually find me wandering into Henry Vilas Park. To glance down at him, with the mustache.




I have very mixed feelings about zoos. But somehow today I have warm thoughts about animals, even if they are, unfortunately, in captivity. Maybe it’s because I am having all these musings about comfort zones. Because surely these two, nuzzling away at each other, are outside theirs.




Though I later read that Bactrian camels -- the two humpers – actually can handle snow covered terrain. And here’s another thing: most every camel on this planet is domesticated, so I have to shed my images of herds roaming deserts in the wild.

So maybe these nuzzling beasts aren’t outside their comfort zones after all. Maybe it’s just me. Struggling with middle ground.