*warning, post is long, and not very exciting*
i always bring work home with me, and i never get to all of it. knowing this, and knowing that my break would be filled with family business, i actually auditioned different bits of work to bring home with me. i weighed, measured, decided and made cuts before packing. yet unpacking back in california seemed an exercise in failure. here’s my calarts work- the crew i was supposed to call, the schedules i should’ve planned, etc., untouched. . . the sheet music i’d hoped to run through a couple of times. . . the second book i carried and didn’t crack (ha! i barely opened the first book! and yet, when given the opportunity to purchase a new and interesting book, i didn’t hesitate.). . . those ‘learn korean’ cd’s that i had to add to my ipod last minute. . .the belated christmas cards i was going to fill in and send. i got sick of seeing everything i didn’t get to, so i stopped unpacking. maybe i’ll finish sometime before i start loading in the first show of the semester this upcoming week.
it’s not like i indulged myself in my pj-wearing late sleeping slothdom. yes, i did get a chance to sleep in a bit. . . but each day was pretty full. it was hard to be on the move so much. especially since the moving didn’t start off so well. following the advice of a friend i showed up to the van nuys fly away. somewhere that i could park my car for a decent price and not worry about the downtown traffic. i even checked if he thought i’d need a reservation, since so many places required it. . . ‘oh, no, they have two huge facilities.’ so i drove up to the fly away, and they were full. errrr. i quickly made a phone call to another place that i had checked out earlier, and maneuvered my way to the address downtown LA. did i mention that a day earlier i had gotten dressed and packed and ready to go before i realized that i was a day ahead of myself? yeah, there’s that. so on the real day of my flight, i’m stuck trying to find a new place to park, and after being horrified by peoples’ stories of long lines at LAX, i planned to be overly early, and this switch in parking made me nervous.
the parking place was completely sketchy. it was being run by two guys who obviously wanted to be doing something else that day. they gave me bad directions, were unspecific, were running a shuttle that seemed less than kosher, and then took my key from me. there were a couple of other people parking there at they same time, and they were making similar facial expressions to my own. i left my car there with the definite feeling that it might not be there when i return, but i was going home, so at the time i was willing to deal with the repercussions later.
i got to the airport at 5:30pm, for my 10:30pm flight.
i was worried about the lines. the check in, security, and mob of people.
i was checked in and through security in 15 minutes.
i didn’t think they’d accept my luggage so soon, but it seemed to be no problem. the problem was in the fact that my flight was already delayed and hour.
LAX isn’t set up a nicely as some of the newer airports, where you can cruise between terminals and the mini malls they’ve created to keep people occupied and spending money while waiting for their flight. i had about 2 stores and 1 place to eat in my terminal area. since i’ve come close to missing a plane by falling asleep, i decided that wasn’t an option. i ate a bit, i walked a bit (and i really mean a little bit, just over and over again, the terminal was small), i read some, i listened to music some. in about four hours i checked the screens again, and the flight was delayed another hour. about a half hour before we were supposed to board i ran into the guy that had the calarts job before me. he was supposed to fly through denver, but got rerouted, through toronto. . . on my flight. we chatted a bit, but nothing too interesting.
and finally, we boarded. and directly before getting on the plane, i had to pee again. but i held it, since i’m so good at falling asleep on flights. . . usually. lucky me, not this time. i barely slept at all. and was uncomfortable the whole way. i’m sure i was annoying to the guy next to me. i had to readjust myself every ten minutes or so. i was annoying to myself!
i had already missed my connection in toronto, but getting another flight wasn’t bad, and i got into ottawa 2 hours later than expected. mom picked me up, we stopped home for 20 minutes, and headed to albany to pick up my brother, and then onto my aunt and uncles’ further downstate. we got in around 10pm. i’d been in a moving vehicle of some fashion for nearly 20 hours. i did sleep quite a bit while in the car. . . but it also might have been a little induced by the new allergy medicine, which didn’t read, ‘non-drowsy.’
why the allergy medicine? you ask. . . my parents, my brother, and both sets of my aunts and uncles own cats. which reminds me, i need to get a new puffer. nearly used it up this trip.
i was glad to be with my aunts, uncles, and cousins. it’s been quite a while since i’ve been able to visit them all. we had a couple decent family meals together. dan and i ran everyday errands with cousins, sat around watching south park episodes with them, planned dinners consisting of take out. it was really nice. now that they are all between ending highschool and mid college, there seems to be more that we can all do together. a group of us all went out for a sushi lunch, in which we forced the youngest of us to participate. her normal meals don’t stray too much from mac and cheese. . . so the cousins as well as the waiter all had a good time trying to explain all the goodness of sushi. i think she may have even enjoyed a bit of what was on the table. . . but considering all that she passed up, we all figured she must be going hungry till dinner.
it was good to see my grandpa in his new surroundings at my aunt and uncles’. one of the cats or the dog was doing a good job of making sure they had his attention on the regular. and being around for my uncle’s first chemo session was real important.
my uncle asked for a recording of a meditation he had read in a book. dan hooked up my and my cousin’s computer to do some vocal recording and my mom, with her speech training, did a reading. the whole process was met with all the normal computer problems anyone has when trying to put something together quickly, but dan made a full recording and put it to disc so my uncle could listen to it during the chemo treatment. i had mentioned from the beginning that we should put music behind it, but my uncle didn’t want the project to get too big, he just wanted a simple reading. but when has that ever stopped me from making a situation more complicated?
we gave him the reading the night before his treatment, and i brought a copy back to work on at night. i had to do some quick learning in a program i’d never opened. . . but i know how i wanted to work it. i picked some music from my mom’s collection, and layered in a second track and just adjusted the volume around mom’s reading.
it sounded pretty good, i think. having sat though tons of relaxing music through acupuncture treatments, i know how much i rely on it to relax. and i hoped he’d really get into it. after staying up late with it, i left a copy for my dad to bring along with him and my uncle and aunt that morning.
it seems to have gone over really well. dan and i were talking about trying to clean up the vocal track, since my internal mic picked up the whirl of my hard drive. . . but for now, i hope it’s helping him get through the treatments as he wanted. as for me, it’s the most creative thing i’ve done in months, and i loved picking the music and staying up adjusting the levels so the music was supportive to the meditation.
shortly after that we left to head home. we stayed about a day and a half. long enough to see some snow on the ground, long enough to open a few gifts, and long enough to make some chicken and peppers (a family recipe).
then it was off again, this time to boston with dan. we caught some dinner just as we hit boston. i had a hankering for chocolate cake, and the picture of the ‘chocolate tower’ looked good enough to share. little did i know, it was a WHOLE cake. no kidding, i’m pretty sure they took the duncan hines box and then made three small circular cakes out of it, and stacked them with a cement made of thick fudgey chocolate frosting. it looked like a cute small cake in the picture. . . it must have been from a distance. after sharing a bit, and taking four immense forkfuls myself, i declared defeat and brought the 7 pounds of leftover cake home.
dan had been pushing a new game my way. i doubted that i would find it interesting. i doubted guitar hero. i will not doubt again. and i will warn any other nay sayers to not knock it, until thou has tried it. it’s amazing how far a little manufactured praise can go. of course dan was playing everything on difficult levels, and i was playing all the songs on the easiest level possible. i knew i was hooked when i gleefully announced that i was going to head into a ‘career.’ i would be getting myself one currently, if i had any time to play it.
we all headed out for first night the next day. i doubt we got out of it the amount that a more seasoned first night family would get. we didn’t exactly know where to go, but we caught a couple of fun events, including the parade- by total chance. we thought it would be a good time to leave the hynes. . . and while we crossed the street we noticed people lining up for something. and one of the better ways to end an evening in boston? how about an irish theme bar and grill. and for dessert, ‘finale.’ REALLY good chocolate- keep in mind, there’s still 7 pounds of chocolate cake back in dan’s fridge. instead of heading out for the fireworks though, we got back to dan’s place just in time to catch them on tv. . . and play some more guitar hero.
the next morning was spent at the museum of science, where i caught another ‘bodies’ exhibit. i enjoyed comparing the german and the asian versions. each had some strengths. . . oh, and i hope my aunt and cousin got out to it as my cousin was headed back to school. really, both are fantastic exhibits. so awe inspiring. of course i wanted to do one more showing of the ‘electricity theatre’ but the ‘rents felt we needed to really get on the road. and yeah, i was kinda upset when after another six and a half hour ride, getting in around seven, we went to sergie’s for dinner. yeah, i like sergie’s, but i think i would’ve enjoyed the ‘electricity theatre’ more. and the weight of what i had to get back to fell on me. i didn’t get more than 5 bites into my pizza roll.
the next morning it was back into a plane, and then into my car- which miraculously hadn’t been stolen or stripped. (not that my car is really worth much, but you never know what someone else wants.) now i’m a couple of days away from a complex load in. i’m worried, but i’m not doing much to alleviate the worries. i don’t even want to face it. hopefully i’ll get over it by tomorrow, because i really need to accomplish something. hopefully that scratch in the back of my throat isn’t me getting sick right before the load in. hopefully this semester proves to me that this move was worth it- or perhaps, undeniably not worth it. and hopefully my uncle’s health is keeping up, i’d like to visit them all again without the underlining fear and worry.
well, back to unpacking my failures. if they aren’t in my bags anymore, does that mean i don’t have to carry them with me?
told you it was long.
