Once upon a time, almost 20 years ago, I started working with a new personal trainer here in Flagstaff and we immediately connected. I think we were Yin and Yang to each other; I admired his free spirit as a corporate healthcare dropout and he appreciated my choice to stick with it. I often refer to my friend, Ed, as “the prince of play” because the boy within the man is still alive and well if you know what I mean. Our blossoming friendship, not courtship for obvious reasons, was cut short when he up and moved to Thailand. What started out as a plan to learn some Thai health modalities to add to his bag of wellness tricks quickly turned into a love affair with the country and its culture and he was off on a new adventure. He returns to the states now and then to visit family and friends and hosted us during our 2016 trip to Thailand turning his high rise condo in Chiang Mai over to us for several months while he and his Thai girlfriend toured the country on his motorcycle.
This month Ed spent two weeks with us at the end of his three month US soiree and it was great fun to have him around. I thought I would share what I observed when two men who are fun loving active early risers live together. First off, they like to chat it up when they rise, which would be fine if I weren’t sleeping several feet away from their gab-fest. Yikes! Next I got a new appreciation for adult “boys and their toys.” All manner of outdoor gear was brought out with features thoroughly discussed, passed back and forth and exchanged with new Amazon products arriving regularly. I remain convinced I spend a fraction of what my gearhead husband spends each month. Another new and eye opening experience during Ed’s visit was my first trip to a local weed store which is a rapidly growing industry with state legalization. The numerous products through which to inhale, ingest or absorb CBD/THC are mind boggling.
I’ll move on to their meeting of basic bodily needs which in this case included massive amounts of food and adult beverages. Paul ramped up his time in the kitchen and they consistently planned next day restaurant trips that I somehow missed out on. To their credit, they often returned home with leftovers I made fast work of. I guess you can get away with this if you hike every day like Paul or snowboard which Ed did most days. I can’t even tell you the number of beer bottles I took to the recycling bin every day. They both enjoyed consecutive daily plunges in the hot tub and you haven’t lived until you see, not one but two, naked male backsides emerge from the water slightly bent over right outside your lounging window. I won’t even get into the doubling and one-up tripling of bodily noises coming from these fine aging male specimens. Double/Triple Yikes!
Ed has chosen to use our Big Stone City address as his U.S. residence and let me just say he would be one in a million if he actually lived in our rural zip code or state for that matter. Some of our neighbors might have seen his toned tattooed form engaged in walking or standing meditation on our lake road or in our front yard when he made his way to his “home away from home” several years back. God only knows what they thought? Anyway, Ed flies back to Thailand later this week where his fun filled expat life picks up again on the open road and isolated beaches of southern Thailand. Paul’s ready to join him next winter but I think I’ve aged out of all this fun and frolic and am more than ready for a girl’s weekend!