Standing right outside my door

2004-05-14 - 12:09 p.m.

Surprise, I'm writing an entry! I'm in LA right now and it turns out that internet access isn't really going to be much of an issue. Tigger has dial-up. It's been a really long time since I've had to deal with dial-up, but hey, it's better than nothing.

So yesterday I spent most of the day packing and cleaning and taking care of everything that needed to be taken care of before I left for a few weeks. I got to the airport over two hours early.

I was lucky enough to be selected to be one of the passengers who gets to be thoroughly searched by security. I had two items I intended to carry on so that I wouldn't have to check anything. One is a piece of luggage which is just barely small enough to be acceptable as carry on. The other is my backpack, which is actually huge and I had it stuffed with pharmacy notes and my laptop so it was actually much heavier than my luggage. So since I was selected to be searched, they unpacked all my junk. They weren't so concerned about my luggage, but they were very concerned about my backpack. It was a pain in the ass to repack it all so it would fit, but the security people were really nice and apologetic about having made such a mess of my stuff. After seeing all my notes they said, "Are you a student?" I didn't feel like going into the actual truth so I smiled and said, "Yeah, how'd you guess?" Then they said, "What are you studying to be? A doctor? A nurse?" "A pharmacist, actually," I said. "Ah, that explains the drug books," said one, "I was a little afraid to ask about that." The other took it upon herself to start quizzing me on pharmacy stuff while I was repacking my backpack. All she asked, though, was the generic names of several brand name drugs. I didn't tell her that all her questions were first semester pharmacy school stuff. And what does it tell you about her that the drugs she asked me were Xanax, Prozac, and Vicodin? Well, it tells me I sure don't want to be an airport security person, anyway! So of course I answered all of her questions correctly as I finished packing and she announced, "You pass! You can be a pharmacist now!" "Yay!" I cheered. Ha ha, I was very amused by that.

All the flights from Sacramento to LA were delayed, but they ended up putting me on the flight that was scheduled to leave before mine so I ended up getting to LA about the time I would've got there if I had been on my flight and it hadn't been delayed. Did I just make any sense there? But since I was bumped to the earlier flight, I ended up having to be just about the last person to board and very full flight and I had to check my luggage at the gate. So then I had to wait at baggage claim--the avoidance of which was the whole point of not checking anything in the first place. Oh well.

Tigger met me at the airport and drove me back to her place. By the time we got here it was just about midnight. We stayed up pretty late last night just talking.

This morning we went to McDonald's for fruit n' yogurt parfaits for breakfast then went to Ralph's to buy some groceries so I would have something to eat while she's gone. She's giving violin lessons to kids about three days a week. She left this morning at a little before ten and told me she'd be back between six and seven.

So here I am in her room with nothing to do but study (and of course mess around on the computer). This is exactly what I said I wanted. And I think it will work, too. I really do. There's no one here to bother me except Tigger's landlady who I don't think will bother me unless I go to where she is. She's very nice, but also really chatty.

Tigger says she'd like to go for a road trip tomorrow. It's Saturday after all. I discovered that our definitions of "road trip" vary. To me, going on a road trip means spending at least all day driving, preferably many days. To Tigger, going on a road trip seems to mean driving somewhere you wouldn't normally drive. So she says "road trip" and I'm thinking San Diego, Death Valley, Las Vegas, or the Grand Canyon maybe, while she's thinking a 45-minute jaunt to Newport Beach. Well, I'm still thinking San Diego might not be such a bad idea. I'm not sure exactly what there is to do in San Diego, though, but I think there's plenty. Or maybe we could go to Catalina Island. That sounds like fun, doesn't it? I'm not sure how to get there though. I'll have to do some research. Does anyone else have any Los Angeles area "road trip" ideas?