Why Can't I Find Time To Do This?

How is it that all the time I spent coaching cross country for all those years is now filled with other stuff? It's not as if I've taken on any extra projects, I haven't. What is the saying about time and a vacuum? Anyway, here is the next installment of "A Fisherman and the Rolling Stones."



This is when the tough negotiations start. Not between, Rob, Lili and I, but between Rob and Toni. Toni, who has never been further away from Peniscola than Barcelona, (an hour and a half away) wants to take the train to El Ejido. He wants to be able to smoke all the way there and they (I guess) have a smoking car on the train. So the negotiations begin. Rob has spent big bank on this rental car and it’s silly for it to sit in Peniscola while we spend money on train tickets. Rob is absolutely adamant that we use the car. I am too for that matter, who wants to take the train when you can sit in a car with a man who doesn’t stop talking for seven hours. Not me. Anyway, we go to the information booth on the beach to find out about the train from Peniscola to El Ejido. This is after we have been to the mini bull fight in one of the small plazas in Peniscola. I’m just not really sure of the appeal of the bull fight. I guess I get the masculinity thing, but I find it kind of awful all the same. We finally find Toni at the bull fight and we go to the info booth. The woman running the booth has a map of Spain and really the trip by train would be too long. It would be faster to take the car.
Toni, never really happy about it finally relents and says he’ll go in the car. Rob has to lay down some ground rules first. 1. No smoking in the car. It’s a rental and Lili is in the car. 2. Shawn has to sit in the front seat and navigate. 3. We can’t be up front at the concert because Lili doesn’t like the noise and we have to make her comfortable. Toni agrees, but you can tell he’s hoping he can sway Rob to stand with him at the concert.
Now I would never say that Toni had a surly attitude, because normally he’s a bright and cheerful person. But Friday morning Toni had a surly attitude. We had decided to leave mid morning. Toni though, not wanting to miss the concert, was up two hours early and waiting for us two hours early. We don’t move fast in the morning at home, let alone on vacation. As we are talking about the seating, Rob mentions that the seats are general seating. Toni pitches a fit. He’s not sitting in general seating and he’s not going, and thanks, but no thanks. So, I go to the internet, where I had ordered the tickets the night before and email the vendor and ask if we can turn the tickets back in and get a refund if we aren’t going to the concert. They reply telling me that it’s no problem. We can return the tickets. So the big question now is, “Have we returned the tickets or will they be waiting for us at the Carrefour (think Costco, Sam’s Warehouse, only better) in Valencia.”