cabo says what?

Confession: my creative process has hit a block in the last six weeks. I have sat down to write several different posts and they just don’t pan out. I had an idea to write about a system I want to use with my husband where I post our relationship status like they do at state parks: low, medium or high fire danger. I have not workshopped this program yet so I didn’t have much to say beyond presenting the concept. My other attempt at writing this last month included the details of two very strange Uber rides: the first was a male driver in New Orleans who was very creepy and believed the universe was intervening on his behalf because he was receiving voice mails from his estranged brother even though he had blocked him and a female driver in La Quinta, CA who had a “Simba” stuffed animal on her lap she was actively petting while driving. We have all had weird Uber of Lyft experiences so that post was vetoed after about three paragraphs.

Last week, I did finally find something to write about. My husband and I were included in his company’s “Club” trip to Los Cabos, Mexico. Their Club trip is a free trip for all of the top sales earners from around the globe. My husband is not in sales but he has gotten the nod to attend these work vacations twice, once in spring 2019 and then this month. When we went in 2019, we were fairly anonymous. While my husband knew far more people than I did, we spent most of our time with the handful of people he knew well from the San Francisco office. This year, I decided that I had two options for this 4-day expedition: I could lay low as I had done previously or I could immerse myself and try to meet as many people as possible. Laying low usually translates into a lot of reading, online shopping and texting friends. Because sales people are generally very outgoing and easy to talk to, I chose option #2. 

Over the course of the weekend, I met a number of couples in their late 20’s and 30’s. Here are the highlights:

* There was a cute couple from SF who had gone to St Mary’s College together and been dating for over seven years. I spent about 20 minutes explaining to the guy that it was really time for them to get engaged. Clearly his career was going well if he had earned the Club trip for a second time and now that they had moved into a new apartment in Pacific Heights, he needed to put a ring on it or let her go. Based on his response, I could not tell if he had already made a plan to propose and did not need me to push him forward or if I had started a conversation that was going to end with the two of them breaking up. My husband was, of course, very uncomfortable with how directly I spoke to the guy.

* The couple we met from Atlanta, GA was entirely refreshing. She is 30 and her boyfriend is 28. The two of them spent the first night partying with a group of Australians until 4 am and were happy to slum it on the second night with the older couple from SF (us). I loved their energy. She commented several times how sweet and adorable her boyfriend is in front of him which I thought was super cute.

* We had a lot of fun talking with an American couple who live in Melbourne, Australia. He is originally from Napa, CA and she is from Florida but they met and started dating while living in NYC. They moved together to Sydney, Australia, then to Melbourne and, as of last week, are moving again to London, England. She is in her late 30’s and he is 40 and they were thinking it was time to start having kids but were deeply in love with their labradoodle. We each shared photos of our dogs and realized we were all in Queenstown, NZ over the holidays. He told a detailed story of his Queenstown paragliding accident where he ran off the cliff and the wind did not pick up in time and he fell 30 feet down the mountain side. Injured and shocked, he climbed back up and had the courage to try again. After a successful second attempt, the paragliding operator still made him pay for price for the tickets plus $80 for photos.

* On the last evening, we had assigned seats and my husband sat next to a couple from Paris and I sat next to a couple from Madrid. The French couple were mesmerizing. I could not get enough of their accents and style but I was seated too far away to really dig in. I went all in on the Spaniard sitting next to me and was also able to speak with his Swedish wife. Like several of the other couples, they had met and started dating while working together and were both working in sales. They have lived in SF, Shanghai and London and strongly recommended visiting Madrid and Stockholm.

* We bonded the most with two couples from Denver and Toronto. The Denver couple has two young kids and she and I hit it off right away by sharing shopping links. The Toronto couple each reminded me of celebrities but I just could not put my finger on exactly who. Their dog George and our dog Moose both have anxious tendencies and we are both employing similar mitigation tactics. We had tons in common including sports, dogs and binging the same Netflix shows. The only thing we don’t have in common is that we are almost 20 years older than them. Optimistically, I would like to think that we could be solid friends if we lived near each other but it would be super awkward if we were out together as a group of six and people were to ask why they brought their parents out bar hopping with them. 

Besides these couples, we met fun people from Amsterdam, Dublin, Sydney, Jaipur, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Ohio. It was energizing to be around so many people from different cultures and lifestyles and I felt inspired and stimulated. The fact that we have lived in the same house for 21 years (excluding three months in NY last fall), makes me feel so boring and simple compared to all of the younger people we met who have lived all over the world. The upside of this trip was that being amongst all of these interesting people pushed us to firm up plans to be back in NYC in the fall. As I sat in the Cabo airport googling available, short term, furnished apartments in the West Village, I was really glad I had gone for the big social option, made new friends and gained a few blog followers as well.