I prefer Tuesday

…especially since I’m not 100% certain the air conditioner is fixed. It’s still about three degrees cooler outside than inside.

Home at last

Finally made it home about 5:00 today, approximately thirty-two hours after I left my hotel for the airport yesterday. Ah, the marvels of the jet age, which allowed me to race home from the West Coast at an average speed of about eighty miles per hour!

Of course, just to make the trip completely symmetrical, my luggage is once again missing in action and will likely be delivered at some unspecified time tonight. My rerouted trip sent me home to Greensboro by way of LaGuardia and also involved an airline shift that they didn’t warn me about. Airline shifts at LaGuardia, by the way, involve leaving the secured area, taking a shuttle bus ride to what seems like the next county, and going through security again: a nice trick with a forty-five-minute layover.

So all in all, a great trip sandwiched within really shitty travel days at the beginning and end.

And upon my return, when all I really wanted was a few hours to decompress and relax before work tomorrow (I’d originally planned on a whole day, after all), I found that:

My air conditioner is not working. This, mind you, is in the midst of the worst heatwave in a couple of years.
My mom is having another major episode, apparently threatening to walk out of her assisted living facility.

So I get to spend my first morning back at work dealing with fallout from all that, too. I know problem number one is very “first world” and I don’t want to whine (more), but it really sucks to be completely exhausted within two hours of returning from a vacation. And to know that you also probably won’t be able to sleep it off either because it’s so fucking hot.

I think I’m going to turn around and go back west. Or north. Or something…

Tuesday night at the Dulles Hilton

It was all going too smoothly after that hellish first day. There had to be one more snag. So now I’m spending the night at the Dulles Hilton courtesy of United Airlines because my flight from Washington to Greensboro got canceled. It was mechanical failure instead of a weather delay so at least they’re kicking in for the room. And it’s a nice one. But I really wanted a day at home to relax before going back to work. Oh well…

Monday night. Home tomorrow.

I stayed mainly in Pasadena today and made good on my promise to have a low-key last day of vacation. As a mild insomniac, I pretty much always wake up a few times a night, particularly when I’m traveling, but last night I didn’t budge all night. That was nice.

Today:

Walked downtown for breakfast (machaca at Andy’s Coffee Shop) and what turned out to be a very frustrating library run.
Hit a couple of used bookstores on Colorado Boulevard.
Took a little drive through Arcadia, Monrovia, Alhambra, and San Marino.
Had soul-sucking conversations with my parents (the second in as many days with my dad).

And then there was dinner:

This place is one of the most wonderful restaurants I’ve found in many years. It’s a time capsule, circa 1965, and is pretty much every restaurant I used to eat at with my parents when we traveled back in the 1970s. The food was OK if a bit pricey–this is the kind of place hat still thinks it’s splurgy–but he atmosphere was amazing, from the elevator music (e.g. an instrumental version of “King of the Road”) to the genuinely friendly waitress who knew all the old people by name and played with the babies. This was not “by the manual” friendliness but the rather maternal behavior of a older lady who’d probably worked there for years, probably lives in the neighborhood, and really loves her job. That she switched effortlessly between English and Spanish was a plus too.

I left here in a really good mood, happy that such a place could still exist in SoCal.

One more picture:

Gotta be up early tomorrow to drive from Pasadena to LAX at the peak of rush hour. Wish me luck.

Sunday night. One more day…

This may be brief. I’m a little worn out tonight.

Yesterday:

Breakfast at another great coffee shop in Pasadena.
Toured the Valley shooting lots of photos and videos.
Visited Mildred Pierce’s house in Glendale.
Lunch at Wienerschnitzel (finally).
Found a great used bookstore in North Hollywood which also happened to be a magnet for cute geeky boys on a Saturday afternoon.
Shawerma for dinner.
More twilight photos and videos.
Brief, ill-advised nightlife experiment.

Today:

Tested my airport route for Tuesday morning.
Visited the oldest operating McDonald’s in Downey.
Came back into town via Slauson, Figueroa, and Broadway.
West Adams, Pico-Union, downtown.
Spent an hour or so walking around in in Westlake/MacArthur Park. That area makes me smile a lot.
South on Crenshaw to Inglewood, with detours.
Walked around Santa Monica for an hour or so.
Back east via Santa Monica and Wilshire Boulevards.

Tomorrow, I’ll probably stay mostly around Pasadena being a pedestrian. I’m weary of all-day drives and a little worn out in general. Plus I hit a bit of a mood tonight in Santa Monica for several reasons which I shan’t detail right now. A low-key last day may be just the thing for me.