ultra-crappy Andie MacDowell movie (Andie MacDowell in a crappy movie? Is that possible? Well, since Groundhog Day and Four Weddings and a Funeral were good movies despite her rather than because of her, I would say a resounding yes), read, and at 10:00 decided I should get my ass out of the room so that housekeeping could do their thing. About half a mile from the hotel is the Lakeforest Mall, so I hoofed it over there (crossing against the light, because my mind went on vacation, and thought that the hand held up in a stop motion meant that I should walk, rather than, y’know, stop) and wandered around for about two hours.
Just as I made it back to the hotel, Fred’s meetings let out for lunch, and he picked up a sandwich for me, and met me in the room. When he went back for his afternoon meetings, I read and lolled about lazily upon the bed, finally snoozing for a few hours.
Fred got back from his meetings, and I learned that the business dinner I’d been dreading all day had been cancelled because some muckety-muck couldn’t be there. I was relieved, to say the least.
“Hey,” I said. “Now we can have dinner with Bozoette!”
“Who?” Fred said.
“Remember? She emailed and offered to take us to dinner?”
“I thought her name was Mary,” Fred said.
“Yeah, and she’s Bozoette online,” I said.
“Well, do you have her number?” Fred asked.
“Noooo….”
“Her last name?”
“……”
“Do you know where she lives?”
“I think she lives in Washington, and works in Gaithersburg,” I said.
“No last name, no idea where she lives, how were you thinking we would contact her?” Fred said with a smirk.
“Bite me,” I said, which is my usual response.
So we went out to LoneStar, despite my vote for a trip to Bugaboo Creek. Fred, you see, gravitates to the familiar and is frightened by the unknown, much like Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer –
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I’m just a caveman. I fell on some ice and later got thawed out by some of your scientists. Your world frightens and confuses me! Sometimes the honking horns of your traffic make me want to get out of my BMW.. and run off into the hills, or wherever.. Sometimes when I get a message on my fax machine, I wonder: “Did little demons get inside and type it?” I don’t know! My primitive mind can’t grasp these concepts.
Dinner was good, and after, we drove to something-or-other lake and checked it out. There were tons of geese and ducks, and it was a fairly small lake located next to an apartment complex. There was a jogging path around the lake, so Fred and I walked along it for a little while and I admired the apartments.
After a stop at the grocery store, we went back to the hotel room, and settled in for the night. We watched 30 Seconds to Fame, which is a show Fred likes far more than I do, the second half hour of Meet the Parents (the first episode I’ve been able to catch), Bernie Mac, and American Idol.
May I say that not only am I creeped out by the creepy creepy Justin, but I am incredibly annoyed by judge Randy Jackson’s habit of saying the name of the person who just sang three time – ie, “Kelly Kelly Kelly.” or “Justin Justin Justin”, etc. And Paula Abdul just a pain in the ass as well. I think Simon’s needlessly cruel sometimes, but I’d take him over either of the other two.
Fred was ready for bed slightly after 10, but I wasn’t tired at all (see: afternoon nap), so I read for an hour or so. When I was ready to turn in, I put in my earplugs, turned off the light, and was immediately accosted by Fred’s LOUD snoring. I tried to trick myself into believing that it was just a noise the air conditioner was making, but he wasn’t snoring rhythmically enough for my brain to go along with that. After ten minutes of trying to get to sleep, I went over to his bed and put my hand on his arm. He woke immediately and I said “Is there something we can DO about the snoring?” He obediently turned over on his side, and I fell asleep a few minutes later.
Fred got up early Thursday morning to go jogging, which I slept through, and left for his meeting at 8:30. I ate breakfast, watched a little TV, read, and dozed off for another hour. I got up and showered and then waited for him to get back. He did, and had some peanuts while we watched an episode of Little House on the Prairie. We checked out and then went to the mall so that I could buy a refrigerator magnet that had caught my eye in Spencer’s the day before. This one, to be exact:
because it cracked me up.
We had originally planned to go into Washington for a few hours before driving to Baltimore to catch our 6:00 flight, but Fred had heard that after about 2:00, the traffic in the area becomes incredibly horrible, and was worried that we would get caught in traffic and miss our flight, so we, instead, drove directly to the airport. We were there by 1:00, and after turning in the rental car, we headed for the ticket counter. The line was pretty long, so I suggested to Fred that we find a restroom and something to eat and perhaps later the line would have cleared out a little, but he wouldn’t go for it. We stood in line for about an hour, and I was glad I had something to read while we stood there. Finally, the ticket chick waved us over, and asked our names. Fred told her, and he and I slapped our driver’s licenses on the counter. She got our boarding passes ready, and never once so much as glanced at our licenses.
Of course, if you think about it, someone who’s up to terrorist-type activities is surely going to not only fly under an assumed name, but also will have the resources to get a passable driver’s license.
We went through security – “Don’t make eye contact with the wand guys!” I hissed to Fred, believing that it was the eye contact that had doomed me in Huntsville – with no fuss, and then found ourselves some food. Well, Fred ate a couple of pieces of fruit he’d brought with him, and I ate a crappy chicken salad sandwich (which caused me to burp up chicken salad all afternoon. Yummy!). Then we found our gate and proceeded to wait. And wait and wait and wait. Fred thought that the time went back fairly quickly, while in my opinion it just crawled. Whatever it was that Fred was reading just sucked, so he went into the bookstore and bought a David Sedaris book – I’ve been suggesting for ages that the man check out David Sedaris, but does he listen to me? No! – and proceeded to read and giggle like a fool.
Finally, FINALLY, we boarded our plane to Cincinnati. Because Fred was in charge of buying the tickets, we were in the very last row of the plane. And because the plane was packed and Fred is skinny while I am not, I made him sit in the middle seat instead of where he wanted to be, next to the window. I’ll encroach upon the space of someone I’m related to, but not a complete stranger, and if I had ended up in the middle seat, I would have spent the entire flight scrunched up, legs crossed, arms crossed, trying to make myself as small as possible, so that I wouldn’t encroach upon the space of the woman in the aisle seat.
The flight went quickly, though due to turbulence, the flight attendants couldn’t take the time to serve us drinks from the drink cart, but rather came through and passed out cups of water.
Once off the plane in Cincinatti, I informed Fred that we must find a bathroom immediately. As so often happens when we’re together anywhere, I stopped paying attention to what was going on and just kept following him.
“Restrooms are over here,” I heard him say. We entered a hallway, and I just had think to think “Where does the hall branch off to the ladies room?”, when I realized I’d followed him into the mens room. There were crowds of men standing around doing manly bathroom-type things, and as one, they all paused what they were doing, and turned to stare at me.
“Uh. Oops!” I said loudly, and hauled ass out of there.
We rode the shuttle to Concourse C, which is where – in my experience – they put all the bitty planes with tiny whining engines run by hamsters on wheels. We sat down by our gate, and Fred went off to get us something to eat. While he was gone, the ticket agent announced that there was an “oversold situation”, and anyone offering to take a later flight would be compensated. Since Fred and I had talked in passing about giving up our tickets in such a situation so that we could return to Washington for a vacation, I went to find him. After much discussion, we decided not to go for it – though if given the opportunity on my way to or from Maine, I’ll probably take it.
We weren’t even done eating when our plane started boarding.
“We’ll be walking out to the plane and up those rickety steps!” I told Fred, who hadn’t apparently had that pleasure yet. I found that with 100-plus pounds less of me, those steps were a lot less rickety, thank god.
Aside from me, there were maybe three women on the very packed plane – the rest appeared to be men returning from business trips. Although the flight was just over an hour, by the time we landed, all I wanted to do was get our asses home so I could strip down and never get dressed again ever in my life. By 9:30, we were home, petting cats, checking mail, and unpacking. I’ll tell you – there’s just nothing like sleeping in your own bed, there really isn’t.
As we were checking our email – I got 600 entries for the giveaway while we were gone, since apparently y’all are some reading fools – I heard Miz Poo howling. I looked all over for her before I saw her sitting outside the cat door, howling frantically. She had apparently gotten so excited to see us that she forgot how to push through the door, so I held the door open and coaxed her inside.
Very very very good to be home, yes indeedy.
What I forgot to mention in yesterday’s entry:
1. Every time I saw someone being randomly searched at the gate, it was almost invariably someone old and female. In Atlanta, they were searching a 100 year-old black woman who couldn’t stand by herself without assistance. I understand that they’re probably going out of their way not to be seen searching suspicious-looking swarthy males (that’s an Ann Coulter reference, by the way. I didn’t make it up myself, so keep your angry emails to yourself), but if Granny can hardly stand and doesn’t even know her own name, it’s possible she’s not into terrorist-related activities.
2. People who MUST have big-ass carry-on bags are the people I hate most in this world. Look, I understand that if you travel a lot, it’s possible that you’ve been the victim of lost luggage. Understanding that doesn’t make me hate you any less, though, as I keep my ass in my seat so that I’ll be out of the way of those of you who are frantic to wrestle your bag out of the overhead compartment and run off the plane. You know what I’d do if I had a say in the matter? I’d make it a rule that people without carry-on baggage are to be the first off the plane. Everyone else would have to stay in their seats until the non-baggage-carrying people were off the plane.]]>
2002-07-27