i should quit while i'm this far behind.
Monday
We got up and out by 8am for our 10am flight to San Jose. LAX was a mess--huge lines for United, huge lines for United Express. I thought it unlikely we were going to get through the line by the time we had to get to the plane--oh, such naivete--but then one clerk called up people whose planes were leaving relatively soon, including ours. We got our boarding cards and headed to the gate.
Problem: the plane had been delayed until 10:30.
We got seats--not easy; the terminal's being remodeled and there are too few seats for the waiting passengers. Darin and Mitch went off to find Cinnabon to get us something to eat while we were waiting. I sat and read The Pursuit of Happiness by David G. Myers, which sounds like yet another icky self-help book but is actually an interesting study of what happiness is, who's got it, and what people value.
When they came back, we discovered the flight had been postponed until 11:15. And then, after a while, we discovered the flight had been taken off the Departures monitor. Then it was taken off the gate sign. None of the clerks knew what was going on. Then one clerk announced that the problem was that the plane was there but the crew wasn't. Then the crew was there and the plane wasn't.
To make a long story short, we finally boarded a plane at 1:45--10 minutes after the 12noon passengers had boarded their plane--and got to San Jose at 3pm. If only I'd booked us on the 2:30 plane--I could have used that sleep.
Amusing: At about 1pm, United Express offered everyone meal vouchers to compensate them...and then said that everyone had to get ready to board the plane. (Everybody went to get food, instead, which turned out to be the right thing to do, because we had to wait another 30 minutes to board the plane.)
Laura picked us up at the airport. Originally Rob and Laura were going to pick us up--back when we were going to arrive at 11am, not 3pm--and have lunch with us. Eventually it became Laura picking us up after she had run tons of other errands. Sigh.
Darin and Mitch went to do some food shopping, which was the requirement Mitch gave us before we could take his car up to the City.
We went up to San Francisco to meet my parents for dinner at the House of Prime Rib and tell them all about our trip. Midway through dinner I started yawning uncontrollably, which I felt bad about, but there's nothing like traveling halfway across the world and back to screw up your internal clock. I told them I'd try to get up there again soon--this time, with pictures.
Tuesday
I woke up at 4am and knew I wasn't getting back to sleep, so I got up and surfed the Net for a few hours. I caught up on the Well and a couple of journals, which only served to remind me of how much I've got to do to catch up on this one.
Spies had been down all night, so I finally went out on a limb and actually called Greg Marriott--a phone? instead of e-mail?--who did want to see us but was going up to Macworld. So he came over, we went to have pancakes, and then Darin headed up to Macworld with Greg.
I spent an hour or so calling house cleaning services, because Mitch is in desperate need of a cleaning in his condo. It turns out not to be easy to find a place that will not only clean, but will a)do laundry and b)do dishes. I can almost understand the laundry thing, but dishes? I finally found one and scheduled an appointment.
Mitch came home after playing Ultimate and I told him what I'd done, and he thought that was most cool. I said, I told them you'd be interested in a biweekly cleaning, and he said, Yeah, that'd be about right...except if they did laundry every week, that might be worth having them come every week.
Then I walked to Coffee Society and ran into the owner, who said, "Hey, I haven't seen you around here recently." I told him I lived in LA now. He asked how my ex-boyfriend (with whom I used to hang out at Coffee Society all the time) was doing, and I said I hadn't seen him for 2 or 3 years. It was a remarkably strange conversation. I had a mocha and then walked back to Mitch's.
I waited around for Darin to come back from Macworld with Rob and Laura. I noticed that my stomach was feeling terrible. By the time we got to the airport it was full out nausea. I felt so icky I wondered if I should go to the bathroom and make myself throw up. I didn't, opting instead to have a Diet Coke on the plane in the hopes the carbonation would help me burp the discomfort away.
No such luck -- no matter how much burping I did, I still felt terrible. Mike picked us up at the airport and Darin wanted to get dinner, but I said I couldn't eat anything: I just wanted to get home and get to bed. So, at 6pm, I went to bed, thinking that I would sleep for 12 hours and everything would be better.
At 9pm, Darin came to bed. As he got in, I got out, went to the bathroom, and threw up. Darin went and got me some water, but I could only take a few sips.
At 11, I got up again to throw up.
And at 12. And 2. And 4.
I managed to wake up Darin every time I went to the bathroom, so at 4 he finally got out of bed and went upstairs to play Zelda 64. Yes, I feel guilty, okay?
Wednesday
I'm very hungry. But after a night like that, the idea of actually eating something seems somewhat dicey. I've spent much of the past hour or so eating a bowl of soup.
Yes, I have heard, thanks -- my joke in poor taste is that "The New Year's getting off to a fine start."
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Copyright 1999 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com