California. July 22-28 2003
It was all going too well. In retrospect, I should have known it was coming.
The morning of my departure, less than two days after my return from Akron, I collected the camera kit I was borrowing from school. I had to jump through several hoops and enlist the help of three different faculty members to get me the cameras for the summer. Having the camera kit was a major victory.
While I was packing, a little demon began to whisper in my ear about how much easier it would be to load up the checked luggage and not carry everything onto the plane. So, I packed the tripod away in my big suitcase, along with all the paperwork, the blank tape, some other equipment, etc. I knew then and still know now, that is one of the dumbest things I have ever done, including going on that date with the guy from tech support who was into guns, and buying a Geo.
On the plane, as usual I self-medicated ("non-drowsy Dramamine"? that defeats the whole purpose). I was settling in to sleep when I heard sounds like a tv show or a movie, which was quite confusing as the flight from Detroit to LAX does not include entertainment.
A row ahead of me, this couple had brought along one of those personal DVD players, but no headphones! I am still agog over the rudeness. Would anyone in their right mind get on a plane with a boom box and expect the other passengers to listen to their music? People, go to Radio Shack already!
I was so furious with the unmitigated gall of these people (and with the flight attendants for not insisting they turn the damned thing off because they were disturbing everyone else in the section) I did not have time to think about my luggage.
Those of you who have been through LAX will have no trouble visualizing the chaos amid the ugly, neutral colored corridors of the airport, even on a Tuesday night. Simply picture me with my backpack standing completely alone by the luggage carousel, staring hopelessly at the empty conveyor belt rotating before me.
The airline could not find the missing suitcase because it had not been scanned in like it was supposed to. I was tempted to call Tom Ridge and file a complaint. I settled for not crying hysterically in the lost luggage office. The woman at the counter assured me the suitcase probably was delayed in the x-ray process in Detroit and would arrive on the next flight. She would know by 1am.
I dragged myself onto the shuttle bus to the rental car place. The little voice in my head was shrieking at me over and over about how stupid I was to put anything vital into checked baggage. Finally, having waited on line for about 45 minutes while I mentally pistol-whipped myself, I got to the counter and was told by the rental car agent that the economy car I had reserved was not there. I literally repeated the line from "Seinfeld" about how a reservation implies the car is being saved for me. The agent offered to give me another car of a higher grade without the extra charge. I walked out into the parking lot to find that I was the temporary owner of a Suzuki Grand Vitara.
Well, at least one thing went well that night.
I managed to get to Chez Polgara in one piece. Upon walking in I promptly burst into tears. To her everlasting credit, Polgara got me a glass of water, a neighborhood parking pass for my car, and sat me down at the dining room table and filled me in on all the gossip I had missed while traveling. Even the cats, Trouble and Jack, seemed to want to distract me.
After Polgara retired to bed around midnight, I laid on her couch in the dark, waiting for the phone to ring. Every minute I got more anxious. Every kind of horrible thought that always seems to come in the dark when you're not sleeping was piling in on me. I was writing a new Worst Case Scenario Handbook of my very own life. If the suitcase was lost, not only was I accountable for the equipment and going to have to somehow find the money to replace it, I was now in California for a week with a dozen interviews scheduled and missing huge amounts of information and supplies. I tried to be rational and calm, but that lasted all of about fifteen seconds. If the suitcase didn't turn up, I was screwed.
At precisely 12:58 am, my cell phone rang.
My legs got wobbly with relief. I may have done a rather drunken dance of joy. Good thing the cats already thought I was nuts.
But the powers weren't done messing with me.
Having spent a good hour working myself into a hysterical state before the phone call, I couldn't settle down afterwards and basically didn't sleep that night. In the morning I was driving from LA to San Francisco. I was expected for dinner with the gang at 6:30 pm. I had a new message when I got up saying that my suitcase would be delivered to Polgara's between 9-11am. The drive to SF is a good 6 hours, plus I had to get all the way into downtown, check into the hotel, and I rather desperately needed a shower. In other words, waiting around until my suitcase was delivered at 10:55 a.m. wasn't a good plan.
I called the office at the airport and asked if I could come pick the suitcase up instead. No problem.
Bade farewell to Polgara and climbed into my rented SUV and fought my way to LAX through morning rush hour. I took the calculated risk of leaving the car unattended by the curb to "run in and grab" my suitcase.
Of course, I went in to the office. No suitcase (well, there were many, just not mine.)
The guy behind the counter frowned at his computer and said it looked like the suitcase was still in Detroit.
As I had the coronary I gasped out that someone had called me at 1am telling me the suitcase was physically in LA.
Tap tap tap on the keyboard. Frown. Squint, "Oh yeah. It's on the truck. Let me call the guy." So much for my asking them not to deliver the bag.
Turns out "the guy," the truck and my lost luggage had just left Polgara's neighborhood. It was approximately 9:15 in the morning. Had I waited there, I would've had my suitcase and been on my way to Interstate 5, which is a hell of a lot easier from Polgara's apartment than it is from LAX, by 9:30.
As it was, I had about a 15 minute wait until the truck bearing my suitcase returned to the airport. I walked out to move my car and found airport police writing me a ticket for leaving a vehicle unattended by the curb.
I chose to simply be grateful it wasn't being towed.
About three hours later, I was cruising down The 5 at a 'stina-like speed in my rented SUV, CD player blasting to keep me awake, eating my first full meal in a day and a half, I finally felt calm for the first time since... actually I couldn't remember back that far.
I'm happy to report the first 24 hours of my California trip seemed to contain all the problems the trip would hold. I made it back to the city by the bay, checked into my hotel on Lombard Street (the "crookedest street in the world" although I wasn't actually staying on the crooked part), showered and ironically was the only person who showed up at the willas' on time. That's partly because the willas' live in my old apartment, so I wasn't in any danger of getting lost.
We all went to the Pyramid Brewing Co. for dinner, a place we used to frequent often since 'stina and I used to live down the street. This was my first time in SF since 'stina moved away and it felt wrong on some level to be there without her (and Relampago, of course).
The weather in San Francisco wasn't too cooperative for my 24 hour stay. The city was badly fogged in, so I have no nice picturesque shots of the skyline. I have some pictures of the Golden Gate bridge (my favorite of the 5 bridges in the area) half hidden by fog. All the effort was worth it, though, because I got the money shot of the cable cars coming up the hill from Fisherman's Wharf. I rule!
Oh and I saw everyone who was in town and did several interviews. I am saddened to report that the Mel's on Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley has changed their cornbread recipe. Life will never be the same.
After my whirlwind visit to the Golden Gate city, I drove to Tracy, which is in the Central Valley of California. No offense to the people who live there, but if my only option to get out of Bowling Green was to move to the Central Valley, I'd be living in Ohio the rest of my life.
The one good thing about Tracy was it made the drive back to LA shorter. I checked into the hotel in West Hollywood, (booked because I had some interviewees coming to me during the weekend) and after some frantic phone tag, caught up with OzLady, then met up with Polgara again for dinner at my favorite cheap restaurant in LA, Jerry's Famous Deli on Beverly. I'm well aware that Jerry's isn't really a genuine kosher deli, but they have the largest menu selection in the universe, fantastic black & white cookies and they bring you kosher dill pickles to snack on while you wait. What's not to love?
Nothing problematic occurred over the weekend, but the whole month of July was catching up with me. The interviews themselves were taxing, the traveling left me unsurprisingly tired and being sociable would wear down even a person who doesn't have my hermit-like tendencies. Once again I was longing for my bed, particularly for crawling into my bed knowing I did not need to get out of it again for some time. As in, days. Weeks if possible.
It was a great comfort to know that at the end of an exhausting weekend, I was headed to a Claris' house to just chill out on her front stoop and play with her dog Zoey. And allow her to take indecent pictures of me. OK, well, that last part wasn't exactly comforting...
The moral of the story: never go anywhere without your friends. A very wise man named Gordon Shay once told me, "There are two questions you have to answer. Where are you going? And who's going witcha?" ("with you" but it must be spelled and pronounced "witcha").
I bade farewell to the California sunshine, although not before leaving a little surprise for Claris in her apartment. Zoey, who had been so proud of herself for getting out of her room and onto the couch where I was sleeping in the middle of the night, merely looked at me as though I were crazy. I can't say she was wrong, either. I climbed onto the plane with my overloaded backpack and an extra bag. I was taking no chances this time.
No rude people with DVD players marred the trip back, although we were all somewhat perturbed that the middle seat of the row in front of us was missing the entire back. Made you wonder what other parts of the plane were missing.
Detroit never looked so good as when I landed, and received a cell phone message from Claris.
Important Airport Safety Tip: Hysterical cell phone messages and moving walkways should not be mixed.