Wings!

I started my day at 5:30 this morning. Got up, rolled many delicious spring rolls for breakfast and went to work, where my program had a meeting. The competent people in charge led the meeting and I sat in the back and took notes. Smiled in the lobby and pointed people to the sign in sheets and the restroom.

The meeting that we held today in Northern California will be held tomorrow in Southern California, which is where I currently am.

I got to the airport early; way too early as it turns out, as my flight was delayed. We were moved from gate to gate, I'm not sure what was going on. Three times! Three gates! Not that it was bother, it's just moving across the room, but as the terminal grew more and more crowded with delayed and frustrated people I began to imagine a world where we were stuck in the airport... indefinitely! Like there was a horrible blizzard or civil war just outside the gates. Would starbucks start giving out free lattes? Would we get meal tickets like in that Tom Hank's movie, The Terminal? How long would we have to be there before we started getting free shit?

We boarded, and I sat down next to a woman whom I'm sure thought I was normal and then I'm equally sure later regretted that assessment. As soon as we took off I began to feel the fear (recently developed... I went skydiving a year ago. maybe that contributed to it). I closed the window that I was sitting next to. I saw her eyes searching, her head turning repeatedly to see out neighboring windows. "Would you like for me to open the window?" I asked, like it wasn't weird to plop down next to a window and then shutter the extraordinary views from the people with lesser seats. She was in the middle. Have some compassion Rachel!

She graciously said that she just noticed that a window was missing from the panel next to me, wasn't that odd? Indeed, my window was buried behind my shoulder. Yes, odd... as the flight went on I tried not to cough, because no one wants to sit next to a sick person on an airplane, where you're all sharing the same recyled air. I was marginally successful, sucking ice from my tomato juice (which I only ever drink in flight). Then as we went down, because my face is clogged, as I have been sick, despite my faking, my left ear began to ache like crazy. "Ouch!" I exclaimed. The people next to me didn't notice/decided not to acknowledge the crazy grimacing lady that had started massaging her face. In retrospect, they probably didn't notice. I wanted to cry like the babies who were having similar ear troubles, but healthy adult shame prevented me, even though I did worry briefly about going deaf. After I worried about the seams of the planes ripping open or the plane falling backwards at take off. In between these anxieties, I read.

Sweet reward though... when I got to the hotel to check in, airport Mexican food in hand, just wanting a bed and maybe a t.v. sitcom, the lady at the front desk told me that I got complimentary breakfast and wireless internet. Buffett style breakfast! Hotel breakfast is so expensive! This is great!
My room is fancy. I feel like it's fancier than the last time I was here, but really, if it's not the best western I'm pretty impressed. I'm losing my steam for writing this.

Free breakfast combined with my exhaustion/planning for tomorrow Mexican food means that I have gone from food worries to feeling like I will have too much food. Alright. I'm clearly done writing this. I'm tired. My room is fancy. I wanted to tell you that. But that's all I can write at the moment. Goodnight!

P.s. For the record, the room is fancy not because of some high rollin, high falutin business. It's all a set rate. I believe the complimentary goods come from me being the lady that books the meetings with the hotel. the end.

Billy Goat Gruff Came to Pay the Piper...?

Holy moly, I just got a ticket. I don't check my mail very often, so I'm pretty glad that I noticed it before the fine doubled. The graphic on the envelope looked so friendly that I didn't even realize what it was until I saw "violation enforcement" printed underneath.

I try to stay on the right side of the law. And I don't even own a car, which makes this so much more funny to me. From my mail, in one hand I had a check for the shares I had invested in the co-op (that I have since left and joined another) and a ticket for approximately the same amount (see my reimbursement disappear immediately! It's like a magic trick! Not the fun kind. like the lady getting pick pocketed while she's sawed in half. bad analogy.) Thank goodness it wasn't some $300/more bullshit.

A few months ago I was in Los Angeles for work (I'm going again twice this month. Ridiculous! Who is this lady?) and I decided to rent a car, like a big girl, since I am finally of age, and drive to San Diego to visit my cousin. I was driving at night, which is initially always a pretty terrifying experience-- my night vision sucks!-- and I missed a turn off for a toll rode. That's pretty sneaky Irvine; you have to leave the road to pay the toll. A cop passed me moments later and I thought, "I'm golden!" He didn't stop me! Upon my return driving towards LAX, aware of this process, I had the cash and the presence of mind to pay the toll.

So, this ticket is totally deserved. But what a bummer. And really, am I that terrible of a driver? I am in a car hardly ever (I can't even estimate) and a driver even less. And I got a ticket?!? That's so lame. This will probably temper my desire to make outlandish expenditures today (tattoos! long sleeved shirts to hide said tattoos!).

Today: I will work out at the gym that I am paying too much money for, but feel comfortable at, as there are no ladies wearing make-up or men who look like cartoon characters, as my friend caitlin described: they work out one particular part of their body, so all of their bits are disproportionate. Bits! I mean their arms, necks, torsos. It doesn't feel like a meat market. Neat. My mom is going to bring us my green velvet couch that she has been storing for me since I moved here, and also parts for my sewing machine (that she also got for me from my aunt). My mom, always looking out. Thanks mom! *I can guarantee she doesn't read this.

I've been up since 5 a.m. Happy Sunday. This might make for a rough Monday :/ I hope that maybe I'll take a nap later today, but at that moment it seems like a waste of time. Maybe around two o'clock I'll see things differently.