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Nov. 14th, 2006 12:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenShort of my flight being cancelled or the plane falling out of the sky or my luggage getting lost, there wasn't a whole lot else that might have gone wrong with the red eye I took back from San Francisco that got in, oh, about three hours ago. Recipe for a fucking bad morning, even if Tuesday is my first work morning of the week:
1) Get delayed by inclement weather. As in the fog was so scarily bad and the rain so persistent in SF that the natives were unnerved by the drive to the airport. The delay for ours and other flights weren't substantial on the board--twenty minutes--but that ended up being the boarding time, not the takeoff time. All told, probably a delay of an hour. I was dying because I'd very resolutely stayed away from caffeine in order to be sure I'd be that much closer to sleep on the plane.
2) Get spare seat in two-person aisle. Don't get to lie comfortably EVER. I debated swapping seats, but I couldn't find a row unoccupied in the three-person rows. Man, did those people look comfortable. Instead, I jammed my knees, back, neck, feet, and head in about thirty different configurations. I don't recall sleeping. Sixty songs, my iPod said it played, and I bet I heard all of them. Clearly, this red-eye experiment has been repeated enough times (twice) that I can tell she is not for me.
3) Baggage retrieval + wait for bus = 1 hour = start of rush hour traffic. Brilliant move, me. I debated carrying on my bag, but there were too many lotions et al that are now verboten on airplanes, so I checked it rather than chucking them. At 7 am, I'd have thought there'd be few enough flights our bags would come right out (wrong). Then I went to call the Super Shuttle as I was told to do when I made the reservation. I didn't like that clause, as opposed to them just coming to get me, but I totally understand why they do it. My flight is one shining example of why they don't make set times to come meet you, given the unpredictability of flight arrival times. I get told they'll get me in twenty minutes. They do, brava, but that's put me in a shuttle bus at 8 am. Driving in to New York City.
4) Have crazy ex-taxi driver for bus driver who thinks the Midtown Tunnel is the best way into the city from JFK. The driver I had going to the airport on Saturday was much, much better. Granted, it was 6 am on a Saturday, out of the city, but he didn't take no fucking tunnel (I was too tired to pay attention to what route he took). A tunnel is not an efficient way into the city. A tunnel is what you take when you have no other options (hello my friends in Jersey City). Because as bad as bridge can get, a tunnel is always way, way worse. A bridge is a wide-mouthed can to a tunnel's narrow funnel. Two lanes! Two LANES.
And it was the fucking MIDTOWN TUNNEL! So very many things wrong with that, not the least of which is that it lets out IN FUCKING MIDTOWN IN THE MIDDLE OF FUCKING RUSH HOUR. Driving around to the Triboro, even if that were backed up and we had to do something crazy like take it both ways while doing a wheelie wouldn't have taken as long as it took us to go from 37th street up to 45th. We sat at the thru-street turn light for four light changes before we turned.
4) When the bus driver makes a funny comment about how far away you live, take the subway. If I'd done that from the outset and just ate the $20 I spent on the return leg of the shuttle service, I bet I'd have been uptown at least half an hour earlier, for all that I'd have had to take the A from one end of the line all the way up to the other. At least on the end near Kennedy, I could be sure of getting a seat and just crashing there until I had to switch to the C.
Instead, we turned down Park or Lex I forget which (Lex, I think) and I saw Grand Central looming and he pulled over to let someone out and I was like, "FUCK THIS." I hopped right out the side (fell out, almost, as I was a) wearing heels, and b) occupying less than half an asscheek of space on the bench because I'd been the last one in--fucking AA Terminal being the last one!--and the two fucking fat-ass foreigners only deigned to scooch sideways and cramp their space for me) and I charged right to the back to demand my bag. I don't enjoy being a pissy, stereotypically rushed New Yorker, I don't, but I was fucking pissed and tired as hell. He was going to do all eleven, mostly midtown dropoffs first. By the time he got to the west side highway (oh God, help me, he probably would have just gone up Broadway, he was so bootleg--did I mention he didn't even have EZ PASS? WHAT THE HELL? WHY IS HE THE ONLY DRIVER IN THEIR SERVICE WITHOUT ONE AND WHY DID I GET HIM!?), it would have been noon.
So, I ended up doing precisely what I paid $40 to not have to do: I got on the subway, at rush hour with a suitcase and bag. People moving around Grand Central and Times Square are every bit as considerate of this fact as you're imagining they are. If ONE more person had come out the way I was trying to swipe in at Grand Central, I was going to give them a black eye. I got uptown about fifteen minutes before I had to be at work, threw down my stuff at home, changed shirt and bra (because both were sweaty--not enough time to shower), fed the kitties dry food and ran out the door charging. If there's one thing I can say for being forced to rush about after a red-eye, it's that I hadn't any time to be tired, and so far adrenaline is carrying the day (or won't, and I'll fail).
And, just in case what's lurking behind that cut-tag doesn't prove I had the worst getting out of the airport and getting home experience ever, did I mention...?
A)...I flew on the first day of my period, so I was crampy, in pain, and bleeding for the entire trip (which, because of the stupid delay, I got to sit and worry about, thankssomuch)?
B)...I charged through midtown with my suitcase and shit wearing high-heeled boots (they zip off easy and are normally comfortable, which are good for travelling purposes but not running around ones)?
C)...I had had too much wine the night before and so am therefore working on several nights of sleep deficit?
Don't get me wrong, the trip out in SF was lovely. My sister is, a tad unfairly I think, not at all fat for being seven+ months pregnant. It's all in her abdomen. She'll have the baby and go back to being annoying skinnier than me, just like my whole life. First thing I did when I saw her upon arrival (I hadn't seen her to that point when she was showing) was tell her I absolutely hated her and then gave her a hug around the stomach.
Her baby shower was...uh, wow. The lady who hosted has a gorgeous place, made lots of food, and arranged games. I actually won one and got a Starbucks gift card to go with the party-favor picture album she gave out. It was involved. I felt kinda like a cheapskate, though, since people were throwing billions of gifts at her, outfit after outfit (all of them pink, just about), item after item, and I just had the one onesie and bib that I made. Seemed paltry. Also, I am more certain than ever that I am too terrified of the paraphernalia to ever have a kid. Not only is there a frenzied lot of stuff you need to have/do/make/set aside for a baby (to say nothing of several, like my mom had), but gah! It turns you into some kind of drooling idiot. My sister was adorable in that she was close to crying, she thought her gifts were so cute. But after about the fifteenth fucking pink onesie, I was totally sick of that stuff. It wasn't cute any more. It was only barely cute to begin with. Unlike just about anything else, clothes aren't cuter for being small. I got the task of recording who gave what, so I had to take guesses at what individual outfits were, and, trust me on this, that's not easy. What the hell are baby clothes named? There were sweaters (which are different from jumpers, no matter what the English and their ilk say), onesies, footie pj outfits, fuzzy outer coverings, towels with hoods, blankets, swaddling blankets, washcloths, shirts, dresses, dresses that are really skirted-onesies, skirts! I started writing down what designs were on them because I honestly didn't know what half of them were properly called.
Whew. It's been a busy, busy weekend. I'll be catching up on LJ and life and stuff providing I don't completely crash until Wednesday when I get off work today.
1) Get delayed by inclement weather. As in the fog was so scarily bad and the rain so persistent in SF that the natives were unnerved by the drive to the airport. The delay for ours and other flights weren't substantial on the board--twenty minutes--but that ended up being the boarding time, not the takeoff time. All told, probably a delay of an hour. I was dying because I'd very resolutely stayed away from caffeine in order to be sure I'd be that much closer to sleep on the plane.
2) Get spare seat in two-person aisle. Don't get to lie comfortably EVER. I debated swapping seats, but I couldn't find a row unoccupied in the three-person rows. Man, did those people look comfortable. Instead, I jammed my knees, back, neck, feet, and head in about thirty different configurations. I don't recall sleeping. Sixty songs, my iPod said it played, and I bet I heard all of them. Clearly, this red-eye experiment has been repeated enough times (twice) that I can tell she is not for me.
3) Baggage retrieval + wait for bus = 1 hour = start of rush hour traffic. Brilliant move, me. I debated carrying on my bag, but there were too many lotions et al that are now verboten on airplanes, so I checked it rather than chucking them. At 7 am, I'd have thought there'd be few enough flights our bags would come right out (wrong). Then I went to call the Super Shuttle as I was told to do when I made the reservation. I didn't like that clause, as opposed to them just coming to get me, but I totally understand why they do it. My flight is one shining example of why they don't make set times to come meet you, given the unpredictability of flight arrival times. I get told they'll get me in twenty minutes. They do, brava, but that's put me in a shuttle bus at 8 am. Driving in to New York City.
4) Have crazy ex-taxi driver for bus driver who thinks the Midtown Tunnel is the best way into the city from JFK. The driver I had going to the airport on Saturday was much, much better. Granted, it was 6 am on a Saturday, out of the city, but he didn't take no fucking tunnel (I was too tired to pay attention to what route he took). A tunnel is not an efficient way into the city. A tunnel is what you take when you have no other options (hello my friends in Jersey City). Because as bad as bridge can get, a tunnel is always way, way worse. A bridge is a wide-mouthed can to a tunnel's narrow funnel. Two lanes! Two LANES.
And it was the fucking MIDTOWN TUNNEL! So very many things wrong with that, not the least of which is that it lets out IN FUCKING MIDTOWN IN THE MIDDLE OF FUCKING RUSH HOUR. Driving around to the Triboro, even if that were backed up and we had to do something crazy like take it both ways while doing a wheelie wouldn't have taken as long as it took us to go from 37th street up to 45th. We sat at the thru-street turn light for four light changes before we turned.
4) When the bus driver makes a funny comment about how far away you live, take the subway. If I'd done that from the outset and just ate the $20 I spent on the return leg of the shuttle service, I bet I'd have been uptown at least half an hour earlier, for all that I'd have had to take the A from one end of the line all the way up to the other. At least on the end near Kennedy, I could be sure of getting a seat and just crashing there until I had to switch to the C.
Instead, we turned down Park or Lex I forget which (Lex, I think) and I saw Grand Central looming and he pulled over to let someone out and I was like, "FUCK THIS." I hopped right out the side (fell out, almost, as I was a) wearing heels, and b) occupying less than half an asscheek of space on the bench because I'd been the last one in--fucking AA Terminal being the last one!--and the two fucking fat-ass foreigners only deigned to scooch sideways and cramp their space for me) and I charged right to the back to demand my bag. I don't enjoy being a pissy, stereotypically rushed New Yorker, I don't, but I was fucking pissed and tired as hell. He was going to do all eleven, mostly midtown dropoffs first. By the time he got to the west side highway (oh God, help me, he probably would have just gone up Broadway, he was so bootleg--did I mention he didn't even have EZ PASS? WHAT THE HELL? WHY IS HE THE ONLY DRIVER IN THEIR SERVICE WITHOUT ONE AND WHY DID I GET HIM!?), it would have been noon.
So, I ended up doing precisely what I paid $40 to not have to do: I got on the subway, at rush hour with a suitcase and bag. People moving around Grand Central and Times Square are every bit as considerate of this fact as you're imagining they are. If ONE more person had come out the way I was trying to swipe in at Grand Central, I was going to give them a black eye. I got uptown about fifteen minutes before I had to be at work, threw down my stuff at home, changed shirt and bra (because both were sweaty--not enough time to shower), fed the kitties dry food and ran out the door charging. If there's one thing I can say for being forced to rush about after a red-eye, it's that I hadn't any time to be tired, and so far adrenaline is carrying the day (or won't, and I'll fail).
And, just in case what's lurking behind that cut-tag doesn't prove I had the worst getting out of the airport and getting home experience ever, did I mention...?
A)...I flew on the first day of my period, so I was crampy, in pain, and bleeding for the entire trip (which, because of the stupid delay, I got to sit and worry about, thankssomuch)?
B)...I charged through midtown with my suitcase and shit wearing high-heeled boots (they zip off easy and are normally comfortable, which are good for travelling purposes but not running around ones)?
C)...I had had too much wine the night before and so am therefore working on several nights of sleep deficit?
Don't get me wrong, the trip out in SF was lovely. My sister is, a tad unfairly I think, not at all fat for being seven+ months pregnant. It's all in her abdomen. She'll have the baby and go back to being annoying skinnier than me, just like my whole life. First thing I did when I saw her upon arrival (I hadn't seen her to that point when she was showing) was tell her I absolutely hated her and then gave her a hug around the stomach.
Her baby shower was...uh, wow. The lady who hosted has a gorgeous place, made lots of food, and arranged games. I actually won one and got a Starbucks gift card to go with the party-favor picture album she gave out. It was involved. I felt kinda like a cheapskate, though, since people were throwing billions of gifts at her, outfit after outfit (all of them pink, just about), item after item, and I just had the one onesie and bib that I made. Seemed paltry. Also, I am more certain than ever that I am too terrified of the paraphernalia to ever have a kid. Not only is there a frenzied lot of stuff you need to have/do/make/set aside for a baby (to say nothing of several, like my mom had), but gah! It turns you into some kind of drooling idiot. My sister was adorable in that she was close to crying, she thought her gifts were so cute. But after about the fifteenth fucking pink onesie, I was totally sick of that stuff. It wasn't cute any more. It was only barely cute to begin with. Unlike just about anything else, clothes aren't cuter for being small. I got the task of recording who gave what, so I had to take guesses at what individual outfits were, and, trust me on this, that's not easy. What the hell are baby clothes named? There were sweaters (which are different from jumpers, no matter what the English and their ilk say), onesies, footie pj outfits, fuzzy outer coverings, towels with hoods, blankets, swaddling blankets, washcloths, shirts, dresses, dresses that are really skirted-onesies, skirts! I started writing down what designs were on them because I honestly didn't know what half of them were properly called.
Whew. It's been a busy, busy weekend. I'll be catching up on LJ and life and stuff providing I don't completely crash until Wednesday when I get off work today.
