The Kitty Pool

I'm still in Palm Springs and can't wait for the breakfast buffet.  

When I arrived at check-in here at the hotel, I was told that most of the rooms were full.  I had my choice of a king-sized bed behind the elevator or two double beds.  I chose the two double beds and went to the room on Floor 2 at which time I remembered how small a double bed is. I did a u-turn and went back to ask for the elevator room on Floor 2.  

I wondered, how bad can it be? 

Really bad.  I heard the elevator all night.  Why were that many people riding the elevator in the early morning?  I might grin-and-bear it through late night bar closers or sunrise joggers, but 3am?  I suspect that it was the poor souls from elevator rooms on other floors doing a strange elevator dance and hence contributing to the very issue they were trying to solve.  Perhaps it started with the sleep walker on floor 5 riding the elevator back and forth from the lobby.  Floor 3 wakes up and gets on, rides down, and heads to the desk to complain.  He rides back up, waking Floor 4 who also hears the sleep elevator-rider.  Floor 3 hears Floor 4 making his return trip and is that a lot of cursing from Floor 2?  This continues all night.  It's the only way I can explain the amount of elevator noise all night.

The next morning, I ask for a new room.  Unfortunately, there were none left.  Late that evening which much closer to elevator time, I bought ear plugs so that I could sleep.  The grocery store only had the bright orange ones and the packaging indicated that they were for shooting firearms.  Perfect.

Back in my hotel room, I twisted the ear plugs as instructed and put them in my ears.  I fell asleep instantly, but woke up at 3am feeling extremely uncomfortable from the ear plugs that had now expanded.  The pressure was so great that it felt as if firearms had actually blown out the inside of my ear canals.  I took out the earplugs and listened to the elevator dance for a few hours.

The next day (yesterday morning), I asked for a new room.  The staff had decided that I suffered long enough and granted my wish.  Last night, I was so happy to fall asleep in my quiet room without earplugs.

That is, until I woke up to a crying cat outside.  

This post just turned into live action news reporting, because while typing the last sentence I heard the cat.  I just went downstairs to the pool area.  I stood there for a few minutes before I heard it again and I followed the cries.  I found the stray cat by the Kiddie Pool which, as of now, has been renamed the Kitty Pool.  I couldn't lure the cat out of the bushes, so I went to tell the front desk.

"Where is it?"

"It's by the Kitty Pool."

The hotel staff is out there now trying to round up Fluffy.  

I can't promise that I'll get sleep tonight, but I'm really going to try.  Good Night.

Zoning Out at the Airport

I'm blogging from Phoenix while on a layover on my way to Palm Springs.  I'm feeling a little out of place with my sweater and wool socks.  Did I say 'out of place'? Sorry, I meant to say 'wicked hot'.  However, I couldn't resist my five dollar burnt coffee.  I'll figure out later where to put that on my travel expense form.  In the meantime, I have to find someone to share my coffee with so that I can justify the expense.

I think that airlines made a great improvement to their plane boarding process when they implemented the Zone seating system.  If you haven't travelled recently, let me explain.  The airlines found that the attendants couldn't keep track of the row numbers or count higher than 10.  Therefore, management simplified things by grouping rows into Zones.  The boarding passes now tell you what Zone you are grouped into and when the attendant calls your Zone number, you get in a long line.  I realize that we all have the option of getting in line early regardless of our Zone designation.  The main advantage to this approach is that you don't have to hang way back and tell at least a dozen people what Zones were called while they were getting magazines bought for the sole purpose of telling other airline passengers what type of person they are.  The disadvantage of being a zone-butter is the scolding you will get from an underpaid airline worker.

This morning, my boarding pass said Zone 6.  I waited about 15 minutes while other people boarded the plane and I answered questions.  When the Zone 5-ers got in line, I was left standing there with one other guy and a cleaning person waiting for us to move along.  

I realized that if there were a Zone after 6, it would be called "Zone Out."  That's because when they finally called my Zone, I was staring out the window and probably drooling.  It was movement by the guy next to me that prompted me to get in line.  The cleaning person's pacing was also incentive.

When we landed, I realized that the attendants and their management no longer care about the Zone system when unboarding starts.  Zone 6 should have been the first group off the plane, but my boarding pass must have dissolved in my pocket.  This phase of the trip is called the "Zone for All."

WE GO!

At the San Francisco airport, they make it relatively easy to find the van shuttles that will take you almost anywhere in the city for $17. However I suspect that if I looked at a terminal map, it would show the shuttle pickup location just beyond the airport property. It's not that they don't want you to leave the airport, but rather they don't want to be associated with any ill circumstance that might result from a ride on one of these shuttles-from-hell.

I was the second person to sign my life away, which meant that I had to climb to the far back into the last row of three. Unfortunately, the middle row was three seats wide preventing proper access to the third row. I believe now that somewhere at a Ford plant in the midwest where they make these people-movers, there is a job opening.

"Someone must have put a three-seater in the two-seater pile when I wasn't looking," he must have said at his exit interview.

I climbed under an extended seat belt safely securing an invisible passenger in the first row. I tumbled over the second row of seats into the back. As I straightened myself out and started searching for my seat belt in the middle seat, another passenger hurled himself into our row. Once settled, the three of us looked at each other with disgust and fear for the unknown.

With eight of us packed into every available seat, the driver climbed in and started the engine. While the van idled, we all sat there quietly for a minute. The driver stared straight ahead, perhaps considering how he might kill us and steal our frequent flyer miles as part of his plan to start a new life. My new best friends and I nervously looked at each other, searching for an explanation as to why we were still there. One passenger spoke up, his voice cracking.

"I don't think anyone else is coming." His observation was returned with silence.

A couple minutes later and without warning the driver yelled, "WE GO!" He must have slammed his foot on the gas pedal, because we sped out of the parking lane faster than you could say "Refund Please."

With the grace and speed of an Andretti, our chauffeur cut off a dozen other drivers including another van from his own company. I hope this comes up at his annual performance review, as in the following: "The employee does not work well with others. In fact, he tries to kill them on the highway." I also wondered if shuttle drivers ever respond anonymously to a "How's my driving?" bumper sticker when it's in response to a coworker. It might be a competitive field after all.

Now in the passing lane with open road ahead of us, it was somewhat smooth sailing at 80mph. As we all sat there speechless and facing forward, I felt like one of those Fisher Price Little People. If I were to raise my arms straight out to my sides and put a frog in my pocket, I could have completed the imitation. The wheels on the bus go round and round.

Besides the simple-minded fellow in the front row chuckling at the text message alert he received on his phone to inform him that his flight had just landed, my co-passengers were non-verbal. Unwilling to die lonely, I chose to make friends with the woman to my right. She was staring out the window, perhaps praying for her safety.

"Are you from San Francisco?" I asked cheerily.

"No," my new friend said deeply, finishing the conversation without looking at me.

The man to my right was now sleeping through all of this. I decided to focus more on what was happening outside the van. I marveled at the houses on the Peninsula that were built on the sides of very large hills. It just doesn't seem like a great place to live. The views might be great, but is it really worth it to risk sliding down the mountain and onto the highway?

We entered San Francisco and the driver stopped every 5 minutes to unload each passenger at their final destination. As we entered one low income neighborhood, my chipper friend reconsidered our rocky start and said in a heavy Russian accent, "This city looks like a slum."

"This does look like a bad part, but it truly is a beautiful city. I've been here once before," I said to the back of her head.

A few minutes later she concluded, "It doesn't look like the slum; it is the slum."

Still staring out the window, she then confessed, "This is my stop." The vehicle came to a halt and I moved aside so that she could roll over the seats in front of us and out the van door.

On the road again, I was the only victim remaining. As we sped up and down the 'Frisco hills, I wondered if the weight of all the other passengers had previously prevented us from tipping over. This concerned me as I bumped up and down in my seat with every trolley track we crossed.

At one intersection, we drove through a red light cutting off traffic to cross three lanes to make a left. This might have been more successful had we not tried to accomplish this in less than 10 feet.

Finally, we pulled into my hotel driveway nearly hitting the unsuspecting valet. As the driver pulled my luggage from the back of the van the valet walked by and with sarcasm said, "Nice driving."

As always, I experienced tip fear (the fear of confrontation that might result from not tipping enough or at all). I gave him $17 per standard rate and another $5 for getting me there alive after all. With a wave and a "thank you," he was on his way back to the airport to do it all again.

When the hotel offered a Lincoln Town Car for the return trip to the airport, I didn't hesitate to make a reservation. In fact, I think I said out loud and very enthusiastically, "WE GO!"

Formaldehyde Bomb

Last Saturday, my daughter's skin broke out in a rash. The rash was a random pattern of raised bumps as opposed to a contiguous patch of irritated skin. I'm not sure exactly when the bumps arrived so quietly, but it was soon after a lot of suntan lotion, rolling around in the recently cut grass, and playing in the baby pool full of said cut grass. We weren't worried about it, until it didn't go away but rather showed a little blood on the surface of the bumbs.

So the doctor wanted to see her and her bumps yesterday. The doctor wasn't too concerned but ordered lab tests anyways. We went to one lab where they unsuccessfully attempted to draw blood. They sent us down the road, three rights to make a left, to another lab where we left 1/2 a tube of RBCs lighter. But, while drawing the blood, the nurse asked if she had a fever or was "it just warm outside"? "Warm outside", was my reply.

After a caffeine addiction refill at Starbucks and on the way home, Shea vomited in her car seat. It was a Poltergeist moment, for sure. We got home only a minute later. I was quite efficient in getting her undressed, out of the car, upstairs, into the bathroom dripping chunks along the way. Nice. After the bath, she reloaded with more milk, and fell asleep in her crib.

While she napped, I cleaned her car seat and the back seat of my car. Her car seat was obviously the most affected by the GI assault. I took it apart with two fingers and a wrinkled nose. I carried the pieces into the house, through the kitchen, to the basement dripping chunks along the way. Nice. Washed, scrubbed, rinsed and loaded the fabrics into the washing machine. Filled a bucket for the little pieces and hosed off the bigger pieces in the backyard. Chunks in the grass, breakfast for the birds. Nice.

Then, I returned to the car. Only a little had oozed through the strap holes, down the strap, onto the carseat. I wiped it up with a paper towel and dish soap. Yet, my car still smelled this morning.

I need a self-cleaning car. One in which I could have left the whole mess (toddler too if it were FDA approved) and initiated a self-cleaning cycle. I realize that this might not decontaminate the biological hazardous materials, which is why I really needed a formaldehyde bomb.