Okay, the HorrorHound section is over, so technically, this is just me babbling about what happened the following week. Let’s see if I can remember it all, now that it’s after Christmas and this happened before Thanksgiving.
I last left you with My “son,” my wonderful trip to Maryland, and then back home to Arizona.
My “son”
Though I have never given birth to a child, I have many children. I have been a foster mother to a teenage girl, and kind of a mom to some of her friends. I’d attempted to give my nieces some semblance of a normal life outside of their home. I have been the mother figure for several of the Native American kids I used to work with when I was a Life Skills Coach/Mentor. But there is one person in particular, whom I’ve known since he was in middle school, and he was a part of the Writer’s Club I sponsored at the school. I love him as though he were my own for reasons only a parent could comprehend, and I’ve told him on many occasions that if I’d ever had a son, I would have wanted my son to be just like him. And this is why I call him my “son.” Online, I call him Pasha, and yes, he’s the one who had throat cancer a while back.
Pasha is on the ASU Quidditch team. Yes, there are actually Quidditch teams at universities across the United States and in other countries, and they run with a broom between their legs and the snitch is an actual person. It’s hysterical. Anyway, while I was in Cincinnati, Pasha was in New York for the Quidditch World Cup. I know, I know, it really does sound insane, and if Quidditch is real, where in the fuck is Hogwarts, damn it, and why didn’t I get a letter?! I don’t wear the talisman of the sacred three for just decoration, people. So, ASU came in 19th out of 92, or something like that. I’ve yet to have a chance to watch a Quidditch match or practice, so I’ll have to remedy that next season, but I just wanted to point it all out to you because I think it’s cool as hell and this is my “son” we’re talking about, so I have to gush. Oh, and his entire next semester is taking place on a cruise ship as he travels around the world, or at least South America. 😀 I’m so proud.
Maryland
After stuffing the backseat with Lora, Juliette, and ALL of Juliette’s clothes, thereby burying the both of them, we spent the 9-ish-hour trek driving to Baltimore, or at least to a place very near Baltimore. Paul drove, and I got the front passenger seat because I get car sick on long rides in the backseat. I wish I could claim it’s just an excuse, but no, it’s unfortunately very true. When that happens, I’m useless for at least two days.
Paul decided, at the beginning of our drive, to play a game. I’d never played this game before, so I was intrigued. The idea was to name a movie that started with the last letter of the movie previously named. I don’t think I need to explain it other than that, and for a majority of the ride, it was just Paul and me playing.
We played this game ALL THE WAY to Lora’s house. I’m not kidding. Near the end, it was damn difficult to think of movie titles.
Tuesday morning, I woke up to the most beautiful sight when I looked out of Lora’s front window.
And I saw an even more beautiful sight when I walked out the back door…
That’s Lora’s backyard and how fucking gorgeous is that? Look, it’s FALL! We don’t have this where I live, unless you drive up to the mountains.
Juliette and I spent the week at Lora’s, working, shopping, working, going out to dinner, working……..do you sense a theme here? Yeah, Juliette worked my ass off. :p I can’t even tell you how many survival bracelets I made, but I ran out of black paracord. Actually, I made one of each brigade color in one of four sizes, so….32. I wrote posts for ZSC. I fixed some bios on the ZSC site. I got some ghostwriting done. And Juliette got the inventory sorted and into new plastic bins. All in all, I/we got quite a bit of work done before watching The Walking Dead, The Talking Dead, and Terra Nova.
The dinner out was at Outback, which I haven’t had in a long damn time, but holy hell, was that sangria awesome! So much so that I had two! And all three of us were so hungry we devoured the appetizer, the bread, and everything on our plates.
Lora and Juliette bought me these AWESOME shoes!!! They truly appreciate my shoe whore addiction.
Thank you, ladies. Sincerely.
I also made spaghetti for them one night. 🙂 It turned out pretty good.
During my week in Baltimore-ish, it rained, then it dropped to below freezing after the storms left, and then it rained again. One day, it was 65 degrees. WTF? Isn’t this November in Maryland? Why is it Arizona weather? Regardless, I loved it! Part of me wished it had snowed while I was there. Part of me was thankful it didn’t because I certainly didn’t have the shoes for THAT.
Home
I left Baltimore at 4am on a train to Boston, since that’s where my flight was leaving from. We’d cancelled our ZSC trip to Boston, but it would cost too much to change the flight, so we opted for the train ticket instead. Actually, I’d never been on a train before, so I was kind of excited.
I know, now y’all think I’m sheltered or something, don’t you? LOL
I had a 7-hour train-ride to Boston, a 3-hour wait at the Boston airport before my flight left (thank God for Starbucks), which was heading to Atlanta. Don’t ask.
When I first scheduled these damn flights, they were non-stop from Phoenix to Dayton, and from Boston to Phoenix. I don’t think the fucking airline should be allowed to change that on a person.
My flight arrived late, so we left Boston about 45 minutes late. Landed in Atlanta late–another goddamn mile-long between concourses airport–and I took the tram this time, the moving walkways, and practically ran to my gate (which I really can’t do) to discover they were already boarding. I barely made it, and I’d like to thank all the jackasses on the previous flight for listening to the captain and allowing those of us who had connecting flights to deplane first (not). This is why I fucking hate people. Most of you don’t think about anyone but yourselves. Not you, dear blog reader. I mean that “you” in general–as in the general population. This is why I love apocalyptic stories, especially those movies that show the apocalypse actually happening.
I’ll let your imagination fly from there.
I boarded the plane and the plane finally taxied out to the runway. You know how when you’re sitting there before take-off, waiting your turn, and you hear and feel the engines basically shut down and start back up? Yeah, so the captain and his crew do that…and suddenly the a/c isn’t working anymore. He gets on the com to inform us that there’s a problem and we have to go back to the gate so maintenance can take a look because he doesn’t want to take any chances. I’m so more than cool with that because I really don’t feel like being in a plane crash. Captain takes us back to the gate, and then proceeds to explain to us, after he’s walked around the plane–I saw him outside my window–what exactly is going on. And I mean EXACTLY. At this point, we’ve been sitting at the gate for about an hour. I’ve still got my hoodie on, which my neighbor helped me pull off because a 6ft. Amazon sitting in a tiny coach seat on a plane isn’t going to have the room to do such a thing. El Capitan comes back on the com, explaining why we couldn’t take off–there was a valve that stayed open and apparently, if it had stayed closed, we’d have been able to take off, but since it stayed open, we couldn’t. Hey, I had to suffer through the much longer version of that, so be thankful I gave you the summary. Anyway, Captain Jack (or whatever his name was) explains–as we’re all wiping sweat from our brows–that the problem would affect the a/c so it wasn’t working…
Now, I have very little patience for stupidity and being talked to like I’m a child. I don’t need things explained to me in detail. I don’t give a fuck that there are approximately 250-some-odd other people on the plane. Perhaps they need it explained in detail. Or perhaps Captain Whats-his-name is a newbie at this, which does NOT instill my confidence whatsoever in him flying me to Phoenix. Regardless, me, being the smartass I am and having been traveling since 3am and it’s now 8:30pm–yes, that’s right, as my plane was now an hour late from departing–I decide to answer the pilot without thinking about it and completely forgetting I’m kind of half deaf because my ear buds are in my ears.
PILOT: “So the air-conditioning is out…”
ME *very loudly*: “No shit.”
BACK HALF OF THE PLANE: *raucous laughter*
ME: “As if sweating wasn’t a clue.”
PEOPLE SURROUNDING ME: *laughing harder*
Older guy in front of me says something hysterical, along the lines of my sarcasm, but I can’t remember what it was.
PILOT: “But we’re about finished here…and once they’re done…well…we should be on our way.”
ME: “Is he new at this?”
NEIGHBOR: *laughing* “Seriously.”
PILOT SAYS SOMETHING ELSE IDIOTIC.
ME: “Are you fucking kidding me? Are we children?”
NEIGHBORS LAUGH AND COMMENT.
ME: “I’m sorry. I’m tired and just want to go home. I’ve been traveling since 3am.”
GUY IN FRONT OF ME: *turns around and waves his hand while laughing* “Don’t worry about it.”
PILOT: “And we’re ready to depart again.”
ME: “Thank the gods.”
PEOPLE SURROUNDING ME: *raucous laughter*
I’ll not bore you with the rest of my remarks, but know that as we took off, I wanted to shout something along the lines of “And we’re airborne! Duh!” and when we landed, I really wanted to yell out something to the passengers on the plane along the lines of “Welcome to the desert. Earlier in our flight, you’ve already experienced the weather. Enjoy!”
*sigh*
And so, my darling cousin Skywise had to pick me up–an hour late–and I finally made it home, whereupon I sat and told Umi the ENTIRE day.
Yeah.
***Note: I’ll try to get a recipe post up this week, but my phone isn’t working right now–which is where all the pictures for said recipe are–and I can’t get it to talk to my laptop, so it may have to wait a week. This is also the reason I can’t add some of the other pictures I took during my travels. Oh well.
jinxiesworld.com 