ba-ack
So. I had connectivity all weekend, I just didn't feel like posting. I still don't feel like posting. But I feel like I should. So here we are.
Flying with vertigo: not my favorite thing. (Translate from Minnesotan to English for full effect.) The best thing about today's flight: the sensation that the plane was spinning quickly around its vertical axis, while we were in a cloud so that I had no exterior reference points to try to convince my brain that this wasn't happening. The pre-flight stuff in the San Francisco airport was pretty jolly, too. Completely the opposite of my experience in MSP on the way out, at pretty much every step. If it hadn't been for a random nice Korean Baptist lady who was traveling with seven small children to a grade school rappers' contest for Asian Christian churches (!!!!), I would have probably ended up in tears after I fell out of the wheelchair they were not letting me have yet and timprov had to go away to stand in line without me. There were enough points of bad, bad stuff that I feel like I have to write letters to NWA, SFO, and possibly even the TSA. (I will also be writing to MSP. But my letter to them will be completely praise, and the NWA letter will be mixed praise and complaint -- their Minneapolis people were impeccable.) timprov is a total Hero of the Revolution here. Also hurrah for the people who make peach-mango smoothies in the terminal Northwest uses at SFO.
And a completely different hurrah for my mom: all three of our bathrooms are now painted. They all turned out just as I'd hoped. In fact, I just went in to admire the nearest one again. They now look like rooms to me; they now look like someone thought through what would look good in them. I have the feeling that the poor people who lived here before us went, "Well, crap. We have ugly brown fixtures in two bathrooms and ugly yellow ones in the third. What goes with this stuff? Ummm...white! Or beige!" And, no. It made the rooms feel weird and disconnected. (It's a difficult brown. I am not completely opposed to brown.)
Hmm, I seem to be doing this in reverse order. All right then: yesterday we had dinner with a lot of folks, and I will now list them for you in alphabetical order so that they can spot each other's ljs: arkuat, athenais, brooksmoses, David, evangoer and his girlfriend who does have an lj but I don't know what it is, Jim who ditto, logovore, reveritas and her spousal unit, wshaffer, zed_lopez (Edit: I originally had this name wrong and have fixed it), and zellandyne and her boyfriend who might have an lj, because life is uncertain. And me and markgritter and timprov. So it was a good mix of people I haven't seen in forEVer, people I've seen recently but not recently enough, and people I'd never seen before but was happy to see this time. I didn't feel that there was any one person I got to talk to enough, but I expected that out of a trip with the limitations this one had; I was glad that my friends were being friendly with each other. That's always nice.
(Edit again: oh, for the love of Pete. I do, too, know Jim's lj, because it's not Jim, it's Jym, yes? jymdyer? Hi, Jym. We'd...uh...been pronouncing your name differently. Sorry. Poor fairmer should be able to sympathize, since porphyrin and I were calling her "murr" and it ought to have been "mare." Actually, uh, we still do call her "murr." Sorry, Mer. Sorry, Jym. Uff da. I haz the dumb.)
Jing Jing is still pleasant and accommodating, House of Nanking is still awesome, Vive Sol is still pretty darn good, Flying Fish Grill is still awesome, and Bodeguita del Medio is still awesome in a completely different direction from House of Nanking or Flying Fish Grill. The pizza place what serves langos: also confirmed as awesome. Laaaaangos. You've read Dzur? Fine. Then you know about langos. (You've not read Dzur? Go. Read. Drool. Envy my langos.) I spent most of the week leading up to this trip, including much of Friday, being nauseated by the very concept of warm food, so I was glad to get over that particular bit of vertigo-induced joy in time to not be a total PITA over food all weekend.
Amber's wedding was very good, in some ways very Amber without ignoring traditions of her family and Gerard's family. I also think that wee tiny bits of nifty artwork by the bride and Star Wars magnets from the groom are just about the best wedding favors ever.
There were lots of good bits. But it was a very difficult trip and a very tiring trip. I thought twice before doing this. I'm going to think three or four times before doing it again before I get All Better. Ideally I will get All Better fast enough that this will not come up.
And I am so glad to be home.
Flying with vertigo: not my favorite thing. (Translate from Minnesotan to English for full effect.) The best thing about today's flight: the sensation that the plane was spinning quickly around its vertical axis, while we were in a cloud so that I had no exterior reference points to try to convince my brain that this wasn't happening. The pre-flight stuff in the San Francisco airport was pretty jolly, too. Completely the opposite of my experience in MSP on the way out, at pretty much every step. If it hadn't been for a random nice Korean Baptist lady who was traveling with seven small children to a grade school rappers' contest for Asian Christian churches (!!!!), I would have probably ended up in tears after I fell out of the wheelchair they were not letting me have yet and timprov had to go away to stand in line without me. There were enough points of bad, bad stuff that I feel like I have to write letters to NWA, SFO, and possibly even the TSA. (I will also be writing to MSP. But my letter to them will be completely praise, and the NWA letter will be mixed praise and complaint -- their Minneapolis people were impeccable.) timprov is a total Hero of the Revolution here. Also hurrah for the people who make peach-mango smoothies in the terminal Northwest uses at SFO.
And a completely different hurrah for my mom: all three of our bathrooms are now painted. They all turned out just as I'd hoped. In fact, I just went in to admire the nearest one again. They now look like rooms to me; they now look like someone thought through what would look good in them. I have the feeling that the poor people who lived here before us went, "Well, crap. We have ugly brown fixtures in two bathrooms and ugly yellow ones in the third. What goes with this stuff? Ummm...white! Or beige!" And, no. It made the rooms feel weird and disconnected. (It's a difficult brown. I am not completely opposed to brown.)
Hmm, I seem to be doing this in reverse order. All right then: yesterday we had dinner with a lot of folks, and I will now list them for you in alphabetical order so that they can spot each other's ljs: arkuat, athenais, brooksmoses, David, evangoer and his girlfriend who does have an lj but I don't know what it is, Jim who ditto, logovore, reveritas and her spousal unit, wshaffer, zed_lopez (Edit: I originally had this name wrong and have fixed it), and zellandyne and her boyfriend who might have an lj, because life is uncertain. And me and markgritter and timprov. So it was a good mix of people I haven't seen in forEVer, people I've seen recently but not recently enough, and people I'd never seen before but was happy to see this time. I didn't feel that there was any one person I got to talk to enough, but I expected that out of a trip with the limitations this one had; I was glad that my friends were being friendly with each other. That's always nice.
(Edit again: oh, for the love of Pete. I do, too, know Jim's lj, because it's not Jim, it's Jym, yes? jymdyer? Hi, Jym. We'd...uh...been pronouncing your name differently. Sorry. Poor fairmer should be able to sympathize, since porphyrin and I were calling her "murr" and it ought to have been "mare." Actually, uh, we still do call her "murr." Sorry, Mer. Sorry, Jym. Uff da. I haz the dumb.)
Jing Jing is still pleasant and accommodating, House of Nanking is still awesome, Vive Sol is still pretty darn good, Flying Fish Grill is still awesome, and Bodeguita del Medio is still awesome in a completely different direction from House of Nanking or Flying Fish Grill. The pizza place what serves langos: also confirmed as awesome. Laaaaangos. You've read Dzur? Fine. Then you know about langos. (You've not read Dzur? Go. Read. Drool. Envy my langos.) I spent most of the week leading up to this trip, including much of Friday, being nauseated by the very concept of warm food, so I was glad to get over that particular bit of vertigo-induced joy in time to not be a total PITA over food all weekend.
Amber's wedding was very good, in some ways very Amber without ignoring traditions of her family and Gerard's family. I also think that wee tiny bits of nifty artwork by the bride and Star Wars magnets from the groom are just about the best wedding favors ever.
There were lots of good bits. But it was a very difficult trip and a very tiring trip. I thought twice before doing this. I'm going to think three or four times before doing it again before I get All Better. Ideally I will get All Better fast enough that this will not come up.
And I am so glad to be home.