So my sub-head includes the words “easily distracted” and I wanted to share a roundabout example of the things I am so easily distracted by.
The Main Distractor and I went to brunch yesterday, a place close by as he is on call this weekend and liable to be called to the laptop for hours at a time, fixing mysterious things. It had recently come up, prompted by my looking at a map (DANGEROUS!) that if we had, you know, all the money we could want and all the free time that would magically materialize if we had all the money we could want, we’d like to go on holiday to somewhere in, say, the South Pacific or Indian Ocean or something, one of those palpably foreign kinds of places. There was an ad on the TV for some Julia Roberts movie that had a tie-in contest to go to Bali, and so I started exploring Bali destinations on my iPhone. This was all mode more tricky by the fact that I don’t care to go somewhere with chancy politics, likelihood of a coup, or that exploits its people like serfs. Complicated still more as my knowledge of the politics of this part of the world is sketchy at best :p (“Let’s go to Fiji!” “OK.” “Oh wait, their politics are terrible, we can’t go there.” “OK.” “Oh, let’s go to Tahiti! Gauguin! but you would fall in love with a beautiful woman and not care about me any more!” “They speak French there. I don’t speak the language.” “You could learn! I speak French!” “Let’s go to Hawaii. I speak English.” “Hawaii had a royal family who were treated terribly, I think.”) This all led to some semi-serious research in that while there are lots of $500/day hotels in Bali and environs, there are also some that are a little more accessible for the likes of us, although the airfare makes a trip to Europe look cheap.
One of the hotels I found had a pet elephant, and looking a little more, I found several hotels in Indonesia and in India that have either house elephants or proximity to nature reserve elephants or a sort of elephant show, which certainly startled me. I couldn’t and still can’t decide whether this is a good thing, I mean saving the poor loves from starving or being poached is clearly a good thing, but confinement and exploitation are somewhat in the eye of the beholder and potentially quite different from the POV of the elephants. So I’m not sure what to think, although I know I would be completely enchanted to meet an elephant. (There’s so much you can learn/when you’re on a pachyderm!)
Another bit of travel that we are unable to complete just now, but which I cross my fingers for a massive cash infusion more than usual just at the moment, is to go to London in early October in order to attend a William Gibson Board mass meat-up in celebration of the release of his newest, Zero History (available for pre-order now at the usual places! or go buy it September 7 at your local indie bookseller!). Friends met and unmet will be there, and I haven’t been to London in far too long. So I looked at London hotels, and came up with a good few that I would love to stay in. It’s always tricky with the budget-no-object places though, since while I have a certain tolerance for frou frou and baroque whatnot before my eyes start rolling, the Main Distractor’s uniform of choice–baggy shorts and a concert t-shirt–tends not to fit in snooty surroundings, and there’s a limit on how often I can ask him to wear long pants, basically. Not that my wardrobe is stylish enough for 5-star London hotels, either! but I would be willing to upgrade if the need became apparent 
In any case, if the gods smile on us and we’re able to suddenly take off first class to LHR (between $5K and $15K per person, depending on airline and desirability of the itinerary), we have a choice of two suitable suites available on the desired dates (one at £6K or so for the week, and one at £11K or so). I will let him choose without showing him the prices (The thing is, they’re far from the most expensive digs available. The other thing is, that if the many zeroes in my bank balance all appeared to the right of a whole number, rather than to the left, I would be perfectly fine with spending practically a year’s salary for a week in London in order to catch up with friends 
but I’m crazy that way, I guess.)
And that’s how I end up knowing things like the fact that there are elephant hotels, and the Savoy won’t re-open from its 2.5 year renovation ordeal until just after we would want to stay there (I took my parents to tea at the Savoy a few years ago, and loved it), and the Dorchester will prepare you a Champagne picnic basket so you can dine al fresco, and Brown’s (where I have also had tea) is really terrifyingly expensive to stay at although proximity to Smythson’s makes it a seductive location nonetheless, and the really top shelf places don’t check you in at a front desk, but apparently whisk you directly to your room (to spare you the inconvenience/humiliation of queuing in public, perhaps?), and while I don’t mind the Paddington Express, I think it would be rather nice to ride into town in a fancy car from Heathrow sometime, as I’ve never done it.
Because one should always be prepared for any eventuality, however remote.
