Inane Chatter

It’s time to leave San Francisco.  Almost.  I’m jumping the gun a little ’cause this is the last time I’ll be able to post before actually leaving town.  I started reading Outlander the other night…I might not finish it.   Of course, my only alternatives right now are another Dean Koontz book and something short by Dorothy Sayer.  I”ll make sure I have both of those handy on the plane.  And uninterrupted reading time on the plane might be just what I need to get more involved in this book.

I got up extra early today to make sure I’d have time to pack after I got ready, and I’ve spent most of that extra time on the internet.  And that means I have to go or I’m going to be late.  Can’t be late.  If all goes well, by this time tomorrow I’ll have been home for 8 hours or so.  I hope I hope.

So…apparently a giant storm is headed our way (meaning home, not San Francisco) and is expected to dump a ton of snow (possibly more than in December) on us on Friday and Saturday.  Margot got our tickets changed to tomorrow, so we should be home not too long after midnight tomorrow night.  I’m kind of relieved.  I think I would really like San Francisco, but I’m not on vacation and I haven’t really had time to enjoy myself.  Marjorie and I were talking about this yesterday.  Most of the time, we can’t even tell we’re in California.  We could be in any city in the country.  So since there hasn’t been any time to really sight-see, I’m just as happy to be going home early (thereby ensuring I’ll actually get home, as opposed to be stranded somewhere because of the weather).  And I’m really tired today.  This class, even though it hasn’t been stressful, is really taking a lot out of me.  I’m standing ALL day, and I just want to rest, maybe take a bath, and go to bed.  After we finished with the class today, we did a little work to prep for tomorrow, and then we had an early dinner.  We went to an Italian place we could see from the window of the classroom and split a pizza.  Good pizza, and it was just enough food.  We asked the waiter if there was an ice cream place or something like that nearby, and he directed us to a gelato place around the corner.  SO good.  I had butter pecan.  Delicious.

So tomorrow, we’re going to check out of the hotel before class and leave our stuff with them, and then when class is over, run back to the hotel, change into travel clothes, and hop in a cab to the airport.  We should have plenty of time to make our flight.  And we’re already checked in (online check-in FTW!), so we don’t have to worry about losing our seats.  AND we’re in economy plus!  Still middle seats, though.  Oh well.  I’m seated right behind Mavis, so I told her she’d better keep me entertained or else I’ll kick her seat the whole flight back.

Anyway, I really really really want to come back here on vacation and do all the touristy sightseeing stuff and eat at all the fantastic restaurants and just hang out.  But right now, I can’t wait to get home.  I’d much rather be snowed in with John (and the dogs) than stranded away from them.

I am SO full.  We got out with daylight to spare today (and the rain held off for the evening), so we decided to head to Ghirardelli Square and the surrounding areas while we could still see some stuff.  We made definite dessert plans (hello, hot fudge sundae at the Ghirardelli Ice Cream Shop) and just needed to find a place for dinner.  Again.  We headed for the water (less than a block away) and walked along Jefferson Street and eventually (okay, it didn’t take that long – there were signs) figured out we were at Fisherman’s Wharf.  So naturally, we had seafood.  We basically picked a restaurant at random and ended up at Tarantino’s, which was very good.  We were early (6-ish, maybe a little before), so there was no wait, and we got a table overlooking the boats in the marina.  I had prawns and scallops sauteed in all the delicious stuff (wine, garlic, butter, etc) with vegetables and rice.  SO good.  I called Mom and Dad during our walk back to Ghirardelli Square (and listened to the everyday drama of finding the other phone so they can both be on the line (I know I make fun of you, but I love that you do it that way.  I just wish you’d have the phone handy!)), but was, you know, forced to hang up on them because the banana hot fudge sundae was twisting my arm and marching me through the door.  Man, that was good.  But huge.  And I couldn’t finish it.  Madeline couldn’t finish hers, either.  She got the one with peanut butter topping AND hot fudge – they brought her three spoons.  Hm.  Maybe she could have finished it if she’d used all three.

I did well today, in class.  If I may say so myself.  No major screwups, no belligerent students (unlike yesterday, but I didn’t have to deal with them.  Myrtle did.), and when I misspoke (happened a couple of times), Mona was there to rescue me.  I wasn’t nervous at all, though, so that’s pretty cool.    I don’t think tomorrow will be much different.  Hope I didn’t just jinx myself.

I remembered why I don’t like to exercise at the gym.  Hotel gyms, anyway.  They’re HOT.  Freakishly hot and humid.  But I’m not about to go for a run by myself, in the dark, in a city I don’t know, so a treadmill in the rainforest it is.  We did go for a quite a nice walk last night, though.  Martha’s phone died Sunday night, so we walked to a nearby Verizon store and figured we’d look for a place to eat near there or on the way back to the hotel.  We saw surprisingly few restaurants at first, but we kept walking.  Ended up at Union Square (I think), found a sketchy street, turned around and headed east (I think – no, it was north) for a while, found ourselves in Chinatown, dismissed one restaurant because it was empty and smelled weird, found a really steep hill (the first one we’d seen!  very exciting), and tried to find our way back to Market Street.  We did, eventually, and we turned east again, but within about three blocks we realized we’d gone too far east on California Street (maybe in Chinatown?  nope.  Again, that was north.), so we turned around on Market and found our way back to 2nd Street.  California was the hilly street.  We had dinner at a Thai place less than 2 blocks from our hotel (it was really good and we were really hungry) and then crashed for the night.

I think tonight we’re either going to find one of the French restaurants Evelyn recommended or head somewhere famous and touristy.

Today is my first teaching day, so I have to hurry up and get ready.

The last…lots of hours have been both a whirlwind and the longest…lots of hours I can remember.  John dropped me off at the airport at 2:30 yesterday afternoon, and I met my coworker, Millicent (not her real name), in front of the United counter.  She’s got some kind of special frequent flyer status, so we got to get in the short line.  Usually, she (and anyone checking in with her (that would be me)) gets a free upgrade at least to Economy Plus, but we were on a full flight and no upgrades were available.  Sad for us.  Especially as we boarded the plane and realized that we were in the two middle seats on either side of the LAST aisle on the plane.  Yeah, those seats don’t recline.  We were in the first boarding group and got on the plane about 3:30.  Supposed to take off at 4 and land just after 7 PST.  My first seatmate, window seat guy, arrived.  He’s a big guy, a little too big for the seat, gray hair, very nice.  He was reading David Eddings, so we chatted about that for a few minutes.  Then Mr. Talkative arrived.  Tall and skinny, also with gray hair, he started talking the minute he sat down.  He travels ALL the time apparently, all over the world, and knows everything.  He tells funny stories, but because he knows EVerything, it got old fast.  (And he scared the 10 year old in the row in front of us with horror stories of flying in bad weather.)  But I was being nice, so I didn’t bury my nose in my book or reach for my headphones.  Anyway, while everyone was still boarding, a maintenance guy came by.  We heard the flight attendants talking about how the potable water system wasn’t working.  Then they made the announcement.  “We’re fixing the problem and will get in the air as soon as possible.”  At about 5pm, an hour late and after another announcement that didn’t give us any clue when we might actually go, I called John and told him I’d just text him when I landed, since who knows how late it would be.  At about 5:15, they made us all get off the plane.  They were either going to fix our plane or find us a new one.  But all other flights to San Francisco (and to anywhere that might get us to San Francisco) were full.  They weren’t saying where another plane might come from.  Everyone ran for the customer service desk.  By the time we got there, United was telling us to wait and see.  A decision would be made by 6:30 one way or the other.  So either the plane would be fixed or the flight would be canceled and we’d be getting on a 6am flight Monday morning, if such a thing existed.  It was just after 5:30, so we figured we had an hour and we’d go find somewhere to sit down and eat.  Wendy’s was the only place nearby with seating, so Mildred grabbed us a table and I ordered.  We got a frosty to share.  (We felt we deserved it.)  JUST as I got our food and was heading for our table, I heard the announcement for immediate boarding of our flight.  It was about 5:45.  Maybe another 15 minutes later, we were on the plane again, this time with food.  And now people were jealous.  But we had a frosty to share, so we were trying to figure out how to sit next to each other, just for a little while.  I convinced Mr. Talkative to switch with me, so I had an aisle, and then we noticed that her aisle seatmate hadn’t arrived yet, so I figured I could sit there, next to Miranda in her middle seat, and let Marcella’s aisle seatmate have the aisle seat that belongs to Mr. Talkative.  Just for the length of time it would take for us to eat our dinner and our frosty.  Everyone went for it, we all switched around, and the plane took off.  And then we gave away our fries ’cause we had WAY too much food.  So people liked us again.  Until the flight attendant (who wouldn’t take any fries even though she was starving ’cause she said it wasn’t professional) yelled at me for getting out of my seat too early.  I could have sworn the captain made the announcement.  He did make an announcement, but it was about something else.  That I totally missed.  Anyway, we all switched back when we were allowed to move about the cabin.  And then my rather large seatmate, window seat guy, started getting claustrophobic.  For real.  At first, he was just feeling a little overheated, and he’d ask me and Mr. Talkative to let him out so he could stand in the aisle.  That happened two or three times.  He got some ice, he had my air thingy and his pointed at his head, but it wasn’t helping.  Then he panicked a little and said, “Okay, I gotta get out of here.”  So we got up in a hurry and let him out.  I had already considered offering him my seat, but I didn’t really think putting this big guy into a middle seat was going to help at all.  I was working on how to bully Mr. Talkative into switching with him and letting him have the aisle, but when window seat guy panicked, the mom in the row ahead of us offered to have her daughter (in the aisle of that row) switch to his window seat (next to me).  Nice lady.  Window seat guy calmed down and was fine in his aisle seat for the rest of the flight.  It worked out for me, too, ’cause the daughter didn’t take up nearly as much room.  No more crowding.  That’s more drama than I need on a flight.  Mr. Talkative finally shut up, I was able to finish This Rough Magic (I liked it), and I got more than 2/3 of the way through my Dean Koontz novel.  But I was SO bored!  I didn’t have any puzzle magazines (stupid oversight on my part – won’t happen on the way home), I was uncomfortable, I didn’t watch the movie (it was The Informant!, which I really want to see (so does John), but the airplane was loud, and I couldn’t hear the movie very well, and I figured I’d just miss lines, so I’d better wait), and I wasn’t sleepy.  I don’t usually get bored with reading, and now that I think about it, I don’t really think I was bored at all, but I was uncomfortable and restless.  The rest of the flight was uneventful (yay), and we landed around 9:30 or so.  We were at the hotel by 10:15 or 10:30 (felt like 1:30), and then I collapsed.  I’ll get into today tomorrow sometime.

Who needs paragraphs?

I’m going to San Francisco in a couple of days, and I spent all day (at work) making sure I have everything I’ll need.  Thankfully, I’m not going by myself, but this will be my ONLY supervised trip before we all head out on our own.  I’m looking forward to it (I like to go places, I’ve never been to San Francisco, and I’ll have a good time, I’m sure), but I’m not at the same time because John can’t come with me.  I don’t mind going places on my own, but I hate going without him.  But I still have to go, so now that I’m home, I’m working on my to-do list.  I have a packing list, but that will wait until Sunday morning.  I just spent some picking up downstairs and I’ve got laundry in the washing machine.  I’ll pick up in the bedroom as I do laundry.  You know, my list really isn’t that long.  Which is why I can take the time right now to write and change the look of my blog again.  So here’s version #4:

Not all that far from version #3, but that’s okay.

Oh!  I have to remember my camera.  No excuses.  Camera camera camera.

I just put it with the work stuff I have pack.  Yeah, too distracted by trip stuff to write anymore.

Update: One thing I really like about this version is that I can make changes to individual pages (like allow comments on the lists pages (favorite books, favorite movies, etc), and say no to comments on the main books and movies page).  Other versions force me to make a change universal for all pages.  That’s pretty cool.  Of course, if I weren’t using a WordPress template (coding each page by hand instead), I’d be able to do whatever I want to each page and this wouldn’t be such a big deal.

I’m heading home.  Let’s hope the snow doesn’t come early.