You can go home again, sorta,
May. 14th, 2012 03:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gurdymonkey...but it won't be the way you remember it.
Got up stupid-early to make a 7:05 AM flight out of SFO. I periodically get email coupons from an off-site parking garage over there and had one for two free days, which was considerably cheaper than trying to go by cab or shuttle, so I used it.
Sat next wedged between two men, one of whom was plugged into a too loud iPod (if I can hear the leak from the headphones over engine noise, it's too loud) and another one who was snorting and snoring the entire time. I buried my face in the omnibus edition of the Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox. However, it's pretty hard to read when the book is bouncing up and down. Battled turbulence all the way to my 1 hour layover in Dallas-Fort Worth and of course, landed in terminal D and had to shlep to terminal A for my connection. D is shiny and new and has places to eat that don't look like they might give you food poisoning. I got off the tram, surveyed the dingy 50 year old A terminal and its fast food options and decided lunch was going to be a bag of Chex Mix and some bottled water.
More turbulence en route to Newark, but my seat mate kept his elbows to himself and was polite. I connected easily with the rental agency and figured out all the modern electronic bits of the Ford Focus they gave me before pulling out on Highway 1&9 to get to the turnpike. (Seriously, my truck is manual everything from 1999 and solving how to set the mirrors and get the seat where I needed it took me a couple minutes of squinting at likely buttons and seeing what happened.) Zippy handling, quite comfortable and more than adequate for what I needed it for.
Dad had to teach until 8, so I stopped at the house, loaded half a dozen boxes of books I knew I didn't want into the trunk of the Focus and found my way to the local shire meeting. I knew all of three whole people there, but there were lots of new, young faces dancing, fighting or fencing in the downstairs room, and the energy seemed good. The books were well received and it was good to get some bone crushing hugs from Tanaka, Willie and Arienna.
Dad bought me a bagel for breakfast Friday and we split it. It was - disappointing. It's from the same Jewish bagel joint up the street we always got them from, but for some reason, it just didn't seem the same. I boxed up a pile of old photo albums, my antique books and the stack of newspapers and magazines from Glenn's orbit, the moon landing, Kennedy assassination and other stuff Mom had saved them from, stuck labels on them and loaded those out to go to the PO. The rest got ferried to the living room to join Dad's huge collection. A couple fellows with a van from Strand Books turned up to take them and we filled the van. I figure if I haven't missed it in ten years, someone else can enjoy it.
The curmudgeon at the PO didn't like my plain white wine boxes and attempts to Sharpie out the writing on them, so I glowered right back at the cranky old bastard, made Dad watch the boxes and went around the corner to look for a store where I could get a thicker marker. I ended up with opaque tape from the drug store up the street (and became even more pissed when I later discovered the Dollah Stowah he'd suggested I go get a marker at was not within walking distance). With everything going parcel post, my boxes of books came to about $70 or so.
We had lunch at Matthews' Diner (mostly because Dad wanted to find out if the Goodwill across the street would take LPs). Massive diner salad, lobster bisque you could stand a spoon in, and I was done in. Kinda weird to see new businesses where old ones were, and I could feel the humidity, even though it was an otherwise lovely day. The park across the street from the house is in full spring lushness of a kind just not seen in Northern California.
Helped pack some more Dad stuff, then we did dinner at the Taipei Noodle House and saw "Five Year Engagement" which I didn't care for and he thought was funny. I like Jason Segal and Emily Blunt, but there was too much dumb guy humor for my taste.
I had messaged Sofia to see if she wanted my old riding boots and helmet - I seemed to recall she and Hana were taking lessons - and ended up making a date to drive up to Tanaka and Sofia's place in West Milford on Saturday. I'm glad I was smart enough to run it through Google Maps. It's been a LONG time and enough things have changed in the past few years that I didn't always recognize where things were when I took the car out. Still, it's a pretty drive up past the Wanaque reservoir and up to their cabin on a lake. Hana doesn't remember me at all - she was maybe two when I moved away. The new dog fell in like with me immediately. We caught up on all manner of SCA and life news and ended up watching the American release version of "Red Cliff" over plates of okonomiyaki. (I'm gonna have to pick up a copy of the Asian release on DVD at some point, I think. It was really, really good, as were the okonomiyaki.)
By the time I got back to Teaneck, Mom and Elaine had made it up from Annapolis. We had dinner at a local steakhouse which did know what medium rare was, but was insanely overpriced (everything was a la carte) for what it was, and painfully noisy. Mom and Elaine hotelled it for the night, then came by for Sunday breakfast and some more whirlwind packing of treasures, many of which somehow kept getting shoved in my carry-on duffel. Elaine headed off with Mom for a Mother's Day visit to Atlantic City, and I dragged my 40 pound carry-on (with no wheels on it, I must add) down to the Focus and said good bye to everyone.
Aside from struggling with my damn bags (which fit despite the weight so I carried 'em on), the return was uneventful. I had ice cream for dinner on my two hour layover in Dallas and managed to sleep a bit on the final leg into SFO. Was home a little after midnight and made it into work in good order this morning. However, I am sore from marching boxes up and down stairs and lugging that duffel and I think a nap is in order when I get home. Not to mention sucking it up and investing in a decent carry-on with wheels at some point....
Got up stupid-early to make a 7:05 AM flight out of SFO. I periodically get email coupons from an off-site parking garage over there and had one for two free days, which was considerably cheaper than trying to go by cab or shuttle, so I used it.
Sat next wedged between two men, one of whom was plugged into a too loud iPod (if I can hear the leak from the headphones over engine noise, it's too loud) and another one who was snorting and snoring the entire time. I buried my face in the omnibus edition of the Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox. However, it's pretty hard to read when the book is bouncing up and down. Battled turbulence all the way to my 1 hour layover in Dallas-Fort Worth and of course, landed in terminal D and had to shlep to terminal A for my connection. D is shiny and new and has places to eat that don't look like they might give you food poisoning. I got off the tram, surveyed the dingy 50 year old A terminal and its fast food options and decided lunch was going to be a bag of Chex Mix and some bottled water.
More turbulence en route to Newark, but my seat mate kept his elbows to himself and was polite. I connected easily with the rental agency and figured out all the modern electronic bits of the Ford Focus they gave me before pulling out on Highway 1&9 to get to the turnpike. (Seriously, my truck is manual everything from 1999 and solving how to set the mirrors and get the seat where I needed it took me a couple minutes of squinting at likely buttons and seeing what happened.) Zippy handling, quite comfortable and more than adequate for what I needed it for.
Dad had to teach until 8, so I stopped at the house, loaded half a dozen boxes of books I knew I didn't want into the trunk of the Focus and found my way to the local shire meeting. I knew all of three whole people there, but there were lots of new, young faces dancing, fighting or fencing in the downstairs room, and the energy seemed good. The books were well received and it was good to get some bone crushing hugs from Tanaka, Willie and Arienna.
Dad bought me a bagel for breakfast Friday and we split it. It was - disappointing. It's from the same Jewish bagel joint up the street we always got them from, but for some reason, it just didn't seem the same. I boxed up a pile of old photo albums, my antique books and the stack of newspapers and magazines from Glenn's orbit, the moon landing, Kennedy assassination and other stuff Mom had saved them from, stuck labels on them and loaded those out to go to the PO. The rest got ferried to the living room to join Dad's huge collection. A couple fellows with a van from Strand Books turned up to take them and we filled the van. I figure if I haven't missed it in ten years, someone else can enjoy it.
The curmudgeon at the PO didn't like my plain white wine boxes and attempts to Sharpie out the writing on them, so I glowered right back at the cranky old bastard, made Dad watch the boxes and went around the corner to look for a store where I could get a thicker marker. I ended up with opaque tape from the drug store up the street (and became even more pissed when I later discovered the Dollah Stowah he'd suggested I go get a marker at was not within walking distance). With everything going parcel post, my boxes of books came to about $70 or so.
We had lunch at Matthews' Diner (mostly because Dad wanted to find out if the Goodwill across the street would take LPs). Massive diner salad, lobster bisque you could stand a spoon in, and I was done in. Kinda weird to see new businesses where old ones were, and I could feel the humidity, even though it was an otherwise lovely day. The park across the street from the house is in full spring lushness of a kind just not seen in Northern California.
Helped pack some more Dad stuff, then we did dinner at the Taipei Noodle House and saw "Five Year Engagement" which I didn't care for and he thought was funny. I like Jason Segal and Emily Blunt, but there was too much dumb guy humor for my taste.
I had messaged Sofia to see if she wanted my old riding boots and helmet - I seemed to recall she and Hana were taking lessons - and ended up making a date to drive up to Tanaka and Sofia's place in West Milford on Saturday. I'm glad I was smart enough to run it through Google Maps. It's been a LONG time and enough things have changed in the past few years that I didn't always recognize where things were when I took the car out. Still, it's a pretty drive up past the Wanaque reservoir and up to their cabin on a lake. Hana doesn't remember me at all - she was maybe two when I moved away. The new dog fell in like with me immediately. We caught up on all manner of SCA and life news and ended up watching the American release version of "Red Cliff" over plates of okonomiyaki. (I'm gonna have to pick up a copy of the Asian release on DVD at some point, I think. It was really, really good, as were the okonomiyaki.)
By the time I got back to Teaneck, Mom and Elaine had made it up from Annapolis. We had dinner at a local steakhouse which did know what medium rare was, but was insanely overpriced (everything was a la carte) for what it was, and painfully noisy. Mom and Elaine hotelled it for the night, then came by for Sunday breakfast and some more whirlwind packing of treasures, many of which somehow kept getting shoved in my carry-on duffel. Elaine headed off with Mom for a Mother's Day visit to Atlantic City, and I dragged my 40 pound carry-on (with no wheels on it, I must add) down to the Focus and said good bye to everyone.
Aside from struggling with my damn bags (which fit despite the weight so I carried 'em on), the return was uneventful. I had ice cream for dinner on my two hour layover in Dallas and managed to sleep a bit on the final leg into SFO. Was home a little after midnight and made it into work in good order this morning. However, I am sore from marching boxes up and down stairs and lugging that duffel and I think a nap is in order when I get home. Not to mention sucking it up and investing in a decent carry-on with wheels at some point....
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-05-15 12:23 am (UTC)