denver. united. hell.

So yesterday was probably the longest day I've ever had ... Well, I can't prove that, but it sure felt like it: started off getting up early and getting the freebie bad breakfast at the hotel- watching the fatties go straight for the donut tray while I munched on yogurt and oatmeal. The coffee was so bad that I spat it out and had to go with tea- I can't believe they really serve that pre-made gunk and call it coffee.
Then I rushed to pack my stuff and didn't have time for a shower, got to dad's house to take him to his rehab and parked, walked upstairs, tripped out because he didn't answer my call, "ready to start your hab?" and went down to the car where he was waiting... I went up and he went down...
His hospital looks like a nursing home- with a big staircase and nice carpeting and a fireplace and a piano and nice couches- a café and a gift store and an upstairs view of the lake. The only thing missing was old people being wheeled around the lake to feed the missing geese. Add that and dad would be at home... ;-)
Then, after he was pooped from his first day at hab, took him to IHOP where we both had an egg-substitute garden scramble... I know that with the lack of available healthy food unless you spend more and cook organic at home for yourself, it's going to be hard to motivate himself to eat healthily and not end up an obese diabetic corn munching beef eating mullet man in Iowa.
Best of luck with that one, pops.
After driving him home I spent about an hour finishing the Wicked book down by the river. It was calm, semi-cloudy, humid and nice... A good way to leave the place behind for now...
The flight from Moline to Denver was fine, and uneventful. On time and pleasant enough for a small and uncomfortable plane like all planes...
Then Denver turned into the Hellish nightmare airport of my undreams.
First the plane to SFO is delayed for unknown reasons. When it gets there it's got a hydraulic leak. They updated us every 45 minutes or so until after the 3rd update they finally cancelled the flight. I rushed to the counter to book another- got an automated phone call from United telling me I was successfully booked on the flight out tomorrow morning. Uh, no thanks. I got the flight to Oakland leaving another hour and a half later, and THAT plane has problems with the A/c! So another hour later they update us to tell us that they've found another plane to use, but it doesn't leave until 8:40 (two hours later!!!). So I got to know the shops and floor around gate B44 real well.

Finally on my way to Oakland, the kid behind me kicks my seat the whole way and my neck was cricked to one side from leaning on my tray table the whole flight. And the flight attendant forgot to get me my pillow. The whole time I'm simultaneously crossing my fingers hoping my bag made it through the 3 plane confusion in Denver and cursing the airline for all its fuckups- even the little light didn't work so I couldn't keep reading my cool new book- "Special Topics in Calamity Physics", Marisha Pessl, Penguin 2006.
SO
Yet while in Denver I chatted with some guy who was on the SFO flight and made it on another SFO flight, and met up with this guy Mick who used to work at Mission and I'd bought parts from and knows Amy. And, got a voucher for ground transport back into the city, and a $100 ticket voucher, lest I revert to having to use United ever again...
And, landed at about a quarter to 11. My bag never made it. No representative at the United counter. Pissed off people and laptop punching assholes were all angry about one thing or another.
The bag lady did hook up a travel voucher after standing there breathing down her neck for a long half hour, what felt like all night...
I went outside thankful for fresh air, and went up to the first shuttle I saw, the Russian driver guy had no idea what this voucher was, but took me anyway, with an old lady, an old guy, a young lady and a young gay couple. He drove slowly, too slowly for 12 AM and got all the way to the bridge before the lady said anything about being dropped off in Oakland, so we backtracked after the guy worked out his GPS and that took at least a half hour off the whole thing... Then we made it through, and after dropping everyone off by 1:15am I walked upstairs to be greeted by a scrunchy puppy face wagging to see me and a groaning sleepy boy keeping my bed warm...
Ah it's nice to be back.
Today my bag came delivered to work!~ and my Russ bear and my laptop and everything in it seems to be in order... Sigh of relief!
Thanks a bunches, life, you dealt me another good go...

Busted Cam

Oh how I do wish my camera hadn't broken the first day I got here, I've had only this crappy camera phone that doesn't do justice...
Otherwise I would have been taking photos of Tommy the Tomato Plant being put in his barrel, and Buster on the fence watching intently, and other stuff I'm sure.
Supposedly after looking on the Canon website, the camera has a historical problem and maybe I'll be able to send it back for free servicing.
Phooey.

day 4 moline

This morning we went to services at the Tri Cities Jewish Center in Rock Island, IL - a nicely landscaped and well funded brick place. Dad had only been there once before but was welcomed warmly back and the Rabbi came up to us a few times and wished best of all, and mentioned him a few times during service. He went up there with all the alta kakas and read the torah, he sang hebrew proudly even though he didn't have the breath for it, beaming with the surprise warmth and even though he walked slowly there was a bit of a spring in his step. The family that has been helping him are a sweet folk, they remind me slightly of the Navy version of Mary and the boys, the middle one having his bar mitzvah next weekend, and the girl and other boys ranting about their fun at camp Mahna Mahna. It was sweet...

Then we went downtown to the John Deere center to buy a tractor, and there was the "taste of quad cities" get fat and eat bbq festival on the street. I had been surprised on Wednesday when I noticed them blocking off the streets for a fair happening three days later... but that's how it works in a small town- they've got all the time in the world to get it right, and it's not like it's inconveniencing anyone.
Lots of pink, pastel colors, John Deere hats and shirts, fat people, mullets...

THEN we went to Bettendorf Iowa to a post-church lunch with a coworkers of Dad's - a pristine American house set on a large green lot at the back of "Manor drive" - huge well to do family homes, giant yards and trees, set between corn fields. The house was... stuffy, religious, clean. Bad generic paintings on the wall. A wooden duck fetish. Antique dolls. A smiling and happy three year old greeted us at the front door with a loud and cute lispy nearly unintelligible babble, and shyly opened up her tractor toy, and ran screaming around the freshly vacuumed white carpeted place for her kitty... We ate a healthy home cooked meal which was quite good, talked about health, etc... one thing that stuck out was how the mother referred to some black people they had staying with them for a night as "the blacks"...
Afterward we went downstairs to the newly renovated garage storage area where immediately I was struck blind by the amount of fluorescent light and office ceiling tile... gah. And the sight of all the Jesus videos and books on the shelf, and a dvd title "only one race" struck me dumb. And the dad told of how he took an axe and sledge hammer to a 100 year old upright piano because he couldn't find anyone to take it out of there...


Buster the neighbor dog. -------------------->

Then, took the old man home to relax and now I'm back at the hotel, about to crack open a beer, maybe go sweat some calories at the gym... I still haven't done the tomato plant thing for Dad yet- chances are I'm kinda over driving around today, so hopefully I can find a nursery open on Sunday - if not, there's always Wal-Mart (which according to the guy are now in Brazil)...

Boring, IL

Uh, oops, that's supposed to be written "Moline"... Really it's not that boring, but it is HOT and MUGGY and HUMID and STICKY and WHITE and FAT and Amuricun.
Arrived yesterday to a practically empty airport, no other planes in sight- as soon as I stepped outside the blazing sun hit me and it felt heavy on me - worse than any hot heat I felt visiting Florida or somewhere South, and hotter than the dry desert heat...
Called a cab, waited for a while, shared it with a cussing cell-phone chatting young thug, and got dropped off first, the stinky fat coughing cancerous driver silent most of the way...
Dad's house is in a cute green hilly neighborhood in Moline, an empty town of nothing but houses and spread out buildings with the A/C blasting and brick facades, parking lots full of John Deere tractors and Ford trucks. It's a sweet little upstairs apartment, perfect for him and the yowling cat to share-
We tired out early after driving around erranding in Iowa and IL - crossing the border a couple times a day during the run around is no biggy.
He's old, tired and grumpy, but all due I'm sure...
Got a visitors pass to the Army Island yesterday and today went to see his coworkers- fat and nice people, stuck in their army cubicle fluorescent building eating doughnuts and clucking away on their Dells. It seems like a nice enough place to work- a short drive across the bridge for him each day, or a nice bike ride downhill- I have hopes he'd do this in fair weather, otherwise he'd get to work a sweat ball and have to shower in the Mississippi...
The hotel is SO cheezy it surpasses the bounds of anything that is corn and riduculousity. The slogan is "experience the great outdoors indoor" in and of itself an offense of bad grammar (I think) - with bad decoration around every corner and even a fake wood log pole in my room.
The bike path today seemed my only escape, and my only relief from the heat ironically being in the heat itself- the cool breeze as I rode dad's too tall for me and painful on my ass bike, I saw why he moved here... It's clean enough- I've seen no crackheads or homeless people, no graffiti... lots of railroads and brick buildings, big trees and the river, ducks and horrible food. His heaven.
It feels good to drive him around and watch him read his 379 emails after not seeing his computer for 3 weeks...
Kinda lonely life, but he seems to have a few friends... ;)
Uh dunno what else...

NEWS FLASH!!

New word added to dictionary:

"ELANA": ee-law-n-uh: verb: "To be ultimate idiot"; "To make boo-boo"; "To leave one's Brain at home"; "To squeeze little intelligence out of head to no avail"; "To live and breathe all existence on cloud nine"; "To be in La-La Land";

Please, tell me... has anyone else done this before: Take train downtown, buy a few items at Old Navy downtown. Put items in Old Navy plastic shopping bag. Go to Ross down the block. Go downstairs. Put bag down to check out luggage. Pick new luggage. Return upstairs. Purchase luggage. Put back-pack in luggage. Leave store. Take crowded train home. Arrive upstairs. Unpack new luggage. Search through compartments. Ding. Realize Old Navy shopping bag is not around. DUH! Call Ross store. Say "please check to see if my bag is there". FART ON MY FACE. So there's $52 down the drain. Open beer. MMm. Beer.

AAAAaaaeraerararrrrrararaggghgh.

time to cry

I absolutely hate shows like these but this clip really had me smiling and crying out my ears!

boont and a pupper dawg

On a semi foggy day... I spent the morning shopping for essentials, and a greek-flared snack medley, which makes a great breakfast: (tomatoes, cucumbers, olive oil, kalmata olives and feta cheese)... also some hummus and crackers, etc. Mm...

So now Sandy pants and I are lazing around nside the house, I just vaccuumed a bit and swept up some after taking her to the beach this morning.
There must have been 13 labs there: 7 yellows, 2 goldy/browns, 2 chocolates, and 2 black labs... I kept joking that it must be Lab day at the beach but none of the other people seemed to laugh or care to converse... whatevah...
She got into a stick-grabbing tussle with a black lab and it was cute, but when she started begging for treats the other people were having none of it. She is a mighty beggar, for sure... Now she's curled up on the chair with a tennis ball tucked neatly under her neck by being hugged by her arm... too cute!

So just waiting for Josh's return call to chat about whether he's available and willing to share the Dad wishes of transport and care for two weeks... I was looking around a bit online for prices of flights, and $547 if I don't wait much longer seems like the average base price. Then I'd want to sleep in a hotel, I'd insist, in fact, for want of privacy in his studio apartment, but be entirely willing to get up very early and help Dad around the house, assuming that he'd allow me access to the Batmobile to take him shopping and to work for a few hours a day. I do want to help out as much as I can, and as much as I can afford to take off work would be 4 or 5 days at the most, so ... whatever.

AND there you have it... the little blurb of what's going on in my head right now... Trying to pass the saturday away slowly and soak up in my time off after being on my feet for a week straight... If only I could train the pupper dawg to give me a foot massage all would be perfect. A sunny day, with nothing to do, freshly unwatched videos from the rental store, a brand new hill a few blocks away that we've slated a sunset-watching ceremony in a few hours...

oh noes!

hippidy dippidy dawg
my dog lays around like a log
and when she's not layin
she's runnin round playin
and bouncin around like a frog

waah.

I don't want to go to work tomorrow.

blargh.

uh
i'm braindead. don't feel too hot.