the everyday adventures of sabrina » vacations from hell

sunday evening coming down

sabrina — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 04:33:30 +0000

EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS

I ride on a perfect freeway
Many people on that road
I heard the sound of someone laughing
I saw my neighbor’s car explode

Just up ahead
Against the sky
Quicker than you blink your eye

    Oh my brother, I still wonder, are you alright?
    And among the living, we are giving,
    all through the night

From the milk of human kindness
From the breast we all partake
Hungry for a social contract
She welcomes you with dark embrace

    (puts)
    socks and shoes
    Upon our feet
    Little fishes swim upstream

    Oh my brother, I still wonder, are you alright?
    In the deepest silence, gold and diamonds,
    all through the night

Everything that happens will happen today
& nothing has changed, but nothing’s the same
and ev’ry tomorrow could be yesterday
& and ev’rything that happens will happen today

ev’rything that happens will happen today
and nothing has changed but nothing’s the same
& ev’ry tomorrow could be yesterday
and ev’rything that happens could happen today

–lyrics from david byrne.com, written by david byrne & brian eno.

next track on the album is Life is Long, which also seems appropriate.

so i think i’m probably going to move

sabrina — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 03:54:44 +0000

for the last few months, i’ve been noodling over whether or not to stay in this apartment. it’s not a bad place. i get great television reception (important for my no-comcast lifestyle). i’m half a mile from the blue line, and two blocks from the #72 and X9 busses and a block from the #9. i’m walking distance from a jewel, a staples, a k-mart, a decent supermercado, and a little bit further on, a home depot, a great fresh produce market, and my mechanic (which i love). my polling place is about 100 yards down the block. my new tiny local bank was chosen partly because it’s three blocks away from me. and, since it’s wicker park, there are innumerable bars and restaurants of every stripe all around. there’s free street parking, for a $35 resident sticker. my block is relatively quiet most of the time, and it’s pretty low crime (and most of what there is is, apparently, according to the CAPS web site, prostitution). as for the apartment itself — it’s probably about 850 square feet, which is a good size. it has a tiny office, so i can sequester my computer away. it’s a third-floor walk-up, with hardwood floors and a dishwasher, and laundry in the basement for when i don’t want to use the magic laundry fairies. i’ve got it all painted in colors i like, and i’m pretty happy with my commute. a couple weeks ago, i decided i’d stick it out for another year and decide then.

that said, i don’t think i care for the management that much. there’s been a couple of times lately i’ve had to call in for help, and they’re not very responsive. about two months ago, woke up on a saturday morning and it smelled like someone downstairs had burned toast. after a while, we realized that it no longer merely smelled like burned toast, but you could see smoke in the apartment — it was hazy and foglike in the apartment. i knocked on my downstairs neighbor’s door to ask if he had burned something, and he said he was just about to come upstairs to ask me the same thing. we knocked on the first-floor neighbor’s apartment, and got no answer. we tried calling the caretaker, but he didn’t want to come out — he encouraged us to simply call the fire department and have them start breaking down doors to investigate. we insisted he come over, and in the meantime, started investigating on our own. it turns out that the guy in the garden apartment had burned something — i mean, he put breakfast on and then went for a (cough) nap (cough). the smoke had simply made its way up through the first, second, and third floor apartments through the walls. he had no smoke detector. nice.

so this past weekend, when i went to las vegas, i left my downstairs neighbor a note saying i was going out of town, and leaving my phone number, in case (ha ha) the garden apartment guy tried to burn the place down again, please tell the fire department to rescue my cat. fortunately, he did not, but there was another crisis instead — on monday morning, my cleaning service came by, and she called me to let me know that the carbon monoxide detector was going off, and though she tried to air it out a little, it was still going off. so i tried calling the caretaker again. i got his voice mail. then i tried calling the landlord and got a really snotty woman yelling at me that he was on vacation and i should call the caretaker. when i said i had, and it was an emergency, and i needed someone with keys, she reluctantly gave me another phone number — which led to another woman, who complained that she “certainly [couldn’t] go over” because she had to go to work. fast forward a couple of hours, i’m frantic in my hotel room imagining poor kiyoshi taking a nap from which he might not wake up, and finally the caretaker calls me back, saying he unplugged the CO detector and plugged it back in, and when it didn’t go off again, he left. i spent the entire morning alternately wishing i’d boarded both cats (i had only boarded tiger, because he has to have his shots, because of the expense, but i thought kiyoshi would be OK for a few days with someone to check in on him), and wishing i still lived in a high-rise with 24×7 staff on site. (sure, the wolin-levin idiots in printer’s square entered my apartment illegally one time over labor day weekend and locked my cats out of the closet where their litter box was, but at least that was not life-threatening.)

(by the way, D. went to heroic cat-rescue measures, and kiyoshi was just fine, if a little bit traumatized by the beeping and the parade of freaky strangers after having been all alone for two days.)

this on top of one time last fall or so when the caretaker went on vacation and left instructions to call the landlord only in an emergency — and a lockout was explicitly not an emergency. i found that a little obnoxious — i’m sorry, if i’m locked out of my house, i’m fucking calling someone about it, okay? much like the few times i’ve called the caretaker to have some problem fixed, and he’s complained to me about not being able to call me back (on my mobile, which i use as my only phone — i never answer my landline; i use it for ordering delivery) because he doesn’t have long-distance service on his phone so can’t call my 847 area-code mobile for free. this is the sort of issue that makes me automatically mentally respond, “as though that is even remotely my problem.”

anyways. the CO detector incident was just way too much stress. i could understand if i had to page the caretaker and wait for a response, but little old ladies chewing me out because the landlord is on vacation (LISTEN UP, LADY, SO WAS I) while i worried my poor terrified cat was asphyxiating, and then having nobody except one guy, who’s unreachable, who has keys … no, i guess i just don’t find that acceptable. what if it had been something like my furnace, and there was a gas leak or something? or say, WHAT IF MY CAT DIED. i mean, really. so i think i’ve changed my mind, and i’m going to move. the furnace noise and the extreme draftiness, i can cope with; the lack of central air was mitigated with window units; everything else was okay. but i have to know if i need someone because the building is on fire or something, someone’s gonna freaking be there.

i’m not thrilled about the prospect of moving. frankly, i wasn’t planning to budget for it — it’ll probably be at least a grand for movers, and another (or maybe more) for a security deposit. and packing is a pain in the ass. i really didn’t want to paint again. i am pretty comfy here. but, it’ll be worth it, if i can find another place where i know the owner gives a damn about his building, if not about me or my cats. at least i’m not tied to a lease; i’ve been month-to-month since my last lease expired, so i can pick up and go more or less whenever i please. i looked over my calendar, and i’m thinking i’ll shoot for june or july. it’ll be summer, which sucks, but at least it shouldn’t be rainy, and it’s many months to plan and apartment-hunt and save and pack. also, my tax refund this year should be a quite pleasant $2500, so although i did have other plans for that, at least i won’t be in the same financial position i was last time i moved (namely, charging my groceries so i could afford to pay the movers in cash).

damn, i really didn’t want to move, though!

y’all, i have a bad history with “weekend getaways”

sabrina — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 04:01:00 +0000

friday, the thirteenth of october:
a tale of adventure, madcap hijinks, and the search for a
relaxing weekend in a baltimore suburb vacationing with friends.
a play in one act
(mostly because by the time i got done typing out Act I i was too disheartened to continue with Acts II and III).Dramatis Personae:
sabrina, a girl
american airlines, the weenies
the nice lady from national’s traveler’s aid desk, a woman
metro, the first public transport
the nice lady from amtrak, a woman
marc, the second public transport
some commuter bus place, hell if i know, the third public transport
the cash admissions guy at laurel park racetrack, a man
the pre-paid admissions woman at laurel park racetrack, a woman
the programs guy at laurel park racetrack, a man
the dispatcher from Taxi-Taxi, a woman
the taxi driver from Taxi-Taxi, a man
john the firefighter,
super shuttle, the incompentent and overpriced morons
and a supporting cast of thousands. ACT Isetting: friday morning, the thirteenth of october 2006, 4:30 AM CT: sabrina
[walks to el. boards el. successfully arrives at chicago o’hare international airport, where she learns that her 0625 to dulles international aiport has been cancelled. checks voice mail, where american airlines has left her a voice mail informing her of same, and that they have put her on a 1030 flight instead.]

sabrina
[manages through some heretofore unheard-of strength of will to avoid desperate suicide by bashing her head into the wall in order to avoid spending hour after unnecessary hour at ORD.]
was it not enough that i left the house at 4AM? now my flight is cancelled! oh woe! woe! woe! now put me on another damn flight!

american airlines
how’s 6:30 sound? into ronald reagan washington national long-ass name airport instead? that work?

sabrina
dude, you totally could’ve just done that the first time you rescheduled me. i am so on board with this plan.

american airlines
rock on.

sabrina
[boards plane at 06whatever.]

american airlines
[lands at 0907 ET]

sabrina
hooray! this is the best thing ever! i landed before my original flight was going to land despite taking off later, and i am geographically much closer to my destination than i would have otherwise been! hooray! oh, dang, all my transit plans are now in upheaval. i shall inquire at the Traveler’s Aid desk.

sabrina
hello, nice lady from the national traveler’s aid desk. i see on this little free map you have helpfully provided that my destination, laurel, maryland, has a little “MARC” icon on it, and “MARC” is indicated, by said map’s legend, to be your local commuter rail service. can i get to there from here?

nice lady from the national traveler’s aid desk
sure thing. hop on the yellow line, transfer to the red line at gallery, get off at union station, hop on a marc train. enjoy!

sabrina
i love this plan. nothing can go wrong today! …

sabrina
[09:50 ET. get on yellow line. transfer to red line at gallery, after watching some sort of amusing interlude wherein two teenage idiots are denying that they know each other after getting busted by a metro security guard for something, which suits me just fine because they shoved onto the train in front of me and several other be-suitcased individuals and i am not a forgiving soul.
10:20 ET. arrive at union station.]

sabrina
hello, nice lady from amtrak! i see on this map here that i can take a marc train to laurel, maryland. true?

nice lady from amtrak
true. one way or round trip? oh, really, you take the train to odenton and transfer to a bus, the bus takes you to laurel.

sabrina
sweet. one way, please!

sabrina
[11:15 ET. boards train.]

MARC train
[takes me to odenton. MARC double-decker commuter trains are, by the way, indistinguishable from Metra trains except for their livery: they seem to have little maryland flags on them. how twee. anyways.]

crack-addled commuter bus co, inc.
[waits at train station.]

sabrina and ten thousand elderly men

[board bus.]

sabrina
[who is dim but not stupid]
is this the bus to laurel?

crack-addled commuter bus co, inc
laurel race track.

sabrina
you said “laurel” and that’s good enough for me!
[piles aboard with suitcase and carry-on, with the ten thousand elderly men who are all, sabrina now sees, discussing horse racing.]

crack-addled commuter bus co, inc
[drives to laurel park race track. kicks everyone off bus.]

sabrina
say, do you know where i can get a cab around here?

crack-addled commuter bus co, inc
hell if i know. have a nice day and get off my bus!

sabrina
[12:00 ET. stares at her surroundings.]
i would appear to be at a horse racing track out in the middle of nowhere. this was not at all what i had had in mind. oh well, i’ll go ask someone for the number to call a cab.

ten thousand elderly gentlemen
[go very, very slowly, through the admissions queues.]

sabrina
[seeing no other alternative, like say an information desk, gets in the admissions line. upon arriving at the head of the line, asks if they know the number of a cab company.]

the cash admissions guy from laurel park racetrack
hell if i know, go ask the pre-paid admissions woman.

sabrina
hey, do you know how i can call a cab?

the pre-paid admissions woman from laurel park racetrack
what the hell are you doing in my line asking me for a cab?

sabrina
…dude, i just need a cab. chill out.

the pre-paid admissions woman from laurel park racetrack
fine, jesus. go inside and ask the programs guy. and get out of my line!

sabrina
[hauls suitcase and carry-on up the ramp to the programs desk.]
do you happen to know how i can get a cab?

the programs guy at laurel park racetrack
go ask the pre-paid admissions woman, she’ll call you a cab.

sabrina
[finally beginning to get a bad feeling about all this]
um, she sent me to you. she said you’d have the phone book?

the programs guy at laurel park racetrack
fine, jesus. give me a minute.
[grudgingly searches for and eventually hands over a coffee-stained, messy card for a very creatively-named cab company called “Taxi-Taxi.”]

sabrina
thank you, kind sir! it has been a pleasure!
[12:10 ET. walks outside, calls cab company.]

dispatcher from Taxi-Taxi
Taxi-Taxi, whaddya want?

sabrina
hi, i need a cab from the laurel park racetrack to the holiday inn in laurel.

dispatcher from Taxi-Taxi
ten minutes. [hangs up]

sabrina
well, this isn’t so bad! it’s such a beautiful day outside. so blue-skied and temperate. things could be worse than waiting here on such a nice day for my taxicab to the hotel. i guess i should just hang back and relax!

sabrina’s phone
[12:20 ET.]
“twenty, twenty, twenty-four hours to go-o-oh, i wanna be sedated!
nothin’ to do, nowhere to go-o-oh, i wanna be sedated!”

driver from Taxi-Taxi
hi, i’m here, where are you?

sabrina
here? where? i don’t see a cab.

driver from Taxi-Taxi
at the main entrance?

sabrina
hmm. i’m at the “grandstand entrance,” i don’t know if that’s different. do you see a yellow penske truck?

driver from Taxi-Taxi
hmm, no. are you at the restaurant?

sabrina
hmm, no, i don’t see a restaurant. do you see the outer wall of the racetrack with the horses on it? [repeat Q&A session with other fine local checkpoints including the railroad tracks, the green awning, the red awning, the ambulance, the bus parking lot, the cab driver’s white cab, sabrina’s lime-green winter coat, and a horsie.]

driver from Taxi-Taxi
hmm, no. let me ask someone here and see if they know where you are.

driver from Taxi-Taxi
well, this is apparently the public entrance. are there any signs around you?

sabrina
just a sign that says “thank you for coming to the laurel park racetrack.”

driver from Taxi-Taxi
laurel park racetrack? are you serious?

sabrina
um. yes? laurel park racetrack? in laurel?

driver from Taxi-Taxi
dude. the dispatcher said you were at the racetrack restaurant in fort washington. i’m like 45 miles away.

sabrina
i hate my life. so much. you have no idea.

driver from Taxi-Taxi
yeah, that sucks. good luck with the taxicab thing. ciao!

sabrina
[12:30 ET. returns to the hostile admissions desk, defeated.]
do you happen to know the street address here? i tried asking for a cab to the laurel park racetrack and that really didn’t work out so well for me.

the pre-paid admissions woman from laurel park racetrack
what? street address? are you kidding? just say “laurel park racetrack.”jesus. go away.

the cash admissions guy from laurel park racetrack
what happened?

sabrina
they sent the cab to fort washington.

the cash admissions guy from laurel park racetrack AND the pre-paid admissions woman from laurel park racetrack
[groan.]

the cash admissions guy from laurel park racetrack
well, where are you trying to go?

sabrina
the holiday inn in laurel.

the cash admissions guy from laurel park racetrack
oh! well, jeez. that’s just like a mile up the road. go walk down that road there, turn right, then turn right again, then when you get to 198, turn left, it’s right there. can’t be more than a mile.

sabrina
[eyes wheely suitcase. shrugs.]
what the hell. i’m not waiting another half hour for another cab to show up someplace and call me from, like, alexandria.
[sets out on hike.]
[time passes.]
[more time passes.]

sabrina
less than a mile MY ASS YOU IDIOT.

john the firefighter
[pulls up in a silver isuzu rodeo.]
um, are you lost? do you need a ride? what the hell are you doing walking alone with a suitcase along this backwoods, winding, hilly country road?

sabrina
OH YOU HAVE NO IDEA.
um, do you know where the holiday inn is?

john the firefighter
no idea, but i’ve got a map. hop in.

sabrina
[mentally weighs relative merits of continuing along this never-ending country road, lugging my wheely bag — thankfully only barely packed, since its real purpose was to bring things home with me — and being kidnapped by a crazy man in a silver isuzu rodeo. kidnapping wins.]
excellent.

john the firefighter AND sabrina
[drive up and down rt. 198, see no holiday inn, and no sweitzer lane, and sweitzer lane is not listed on john’s helpful local maps. give it a good ten minutes and finally ask another driver while stopped at a red light. other driver says, “oh, just go straight ahead down 198, you can’t miss it!”]

john the firefighter AND sabrina
HOORAY!!!

john the firefighter AND sabrina
[drive straight up rt. 198 for about ten miles, in the opposite direction from which the cash admissions guy at laurel park racetrack had directed niqui.
13:30 ET. find the holiday inn on sweitzer lane!]
HOORAY!!!

sabrina
LESS THAN A MILE MY ASS.

sabrina
hello, i’d like to check in! my roommate has already checked in.

the holiday inn receptionist
yeah, your name is not on the room. no key for you.

sabrina
but… but… you don’t understand…

the holiday inn receptionist
sorry. you can put your bags behind the desk if you want.

sabrina
I STILL HATE MY LIFE.

john the firefighter
c’mon, i’ll buy you a beer.

sabrina
you are the most awesome person in the history of ever, even if you are crazy enough to pick up strange women lugging suitcases up country highways with no goddamn shoulders to wheel their damn wheely suitcases on.

john the firefighter AND sabrina
[go to local pub. killian’s for john, yeungling for sabrina. BEST. PINT. EVER. or at least since the first pint after the first leg of my very worst vacation ever in the history of vacationkind, but let’s not go there, shall we?]

john the firefighter
yep. hey, you wanna go have sex sometime? like, say, tonight?

sabrina
wow, did we just cross the line of the amount of bizarre shit i’m willing to put up with in one day. no, thank you!

john the firefighter
well, i had to try, right?
[drops me back at the hotel]

sabrina
[14:30 ET. finds roommate.]
OH MY GOD, Y’ALL. YOU. HAVE. NO. IDEA. WHAT. I. HAVE. BEEN. THROUGH. TODAY.

roommate
do you need a hug?

so i made it home all right

sabrina — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 01:07:00 +0000

* niqui really wants to blow off the rest of today and shop for yarn stuff. s/niqui/twork/ s/ and shop for yarn stuff// yeah, i could s/ and shop for yarn stuff// as well.

so, road trip.

it occurred to me that when harry potter and the order of the phoenix came out, i was on vacation — you remember, the very worst vacation ever in the history of vacation-kind? — and perhaps not coincidentally, harry potter and the half-blood prince came out during this vacation. i must remember not to schedule a vacation that will coincide with the release of book seven as it appears to be a curse.

i’ll start out by saying that only very rarely a phone-call at 00h30 turns out well for me. sure, sometimes it’s the guy who found dan’s phone after he lost it dialing the last number called to ask how he could get the phone back to its rightful owner, but other times it’s someone calling to tell you that someone died, and it’s the latter type that i got early monday the 11th. so i spent monday alternately very upset and planning for a tuesday trip down south, complete with a rush trip to the north side for a pre-road trip oil change.

tuesday, 11h45m on the road for 700 miles. wednesday, thursday, friday, depressing shit. friday afternoon, on the road from south of little rock to nashville. saturday, nashville to cleveland.

don’t worry, we’re not done driving yet.

sunday, watch the white sox play the indians at jacobs field. which is a pretty nice ballpark. had a good time. mmm, pretzel. mmm, the good guys winning.

monday, tuesday, wednesday, laze around at my friends’ place. read half-blood prince (OMGWTFBBQ.) knit some stuff. watch The Incredibles because the kids were incredulous that i hadn’t seen it yet. eat delicious barbecued food. laze around some more.

thursday, hit the road again. 14h30m on the road for 700 miles. WTF? turns out the last 240 miles of that were on two-lane country highways. two-lane country highways that were under construction, so i averaged something like 30-35 mph. that kind of sucked.

friday, saturday, sunday, palavercon. fun time. shame about my overpriced hotel which was not the con hotel (boo, hiss).

monday, dover new hampshire to north east pennsylvania. not particularly tired when i pulled off to find a hotel, but had decided that 18 hours driving (to go straight through) would be a near-criminally stupid idea. turns out, didn’t matter anyways, as after i went to bed at 10PM, i could not sleep at all. got up again at 8AM EDT and lit out, stopping in cleveland to pick up my copy of order of the phoenix which i’d accidentally left at my friends’. arrived home about 7PM, unloaded the car in the pissing-down rain (with a moving truck parked in the way so i got to get extra wet). get everything up to my apartment, change into dry clothes, start going through my mail, and realize i left a houseplant in the car. stomp off in the still-pissing-down rain to the car and retrieve plant, stomp back to apartment. halfway there, hit a puddle that’s too deep for my shoe and, rather than slipping and sloshing the entire way back, take shoes off so at least i have some traction. stomp past moving guys, stomp to elevator, go upstairs, sit down, find a spot for the plant, crash.

fifty-nine hours and fifty minutes of driving, thirty-four hundred miles travelled at an average speed of 59 mph and getting an average of 32.4 miles to a gallon.

i’m thoroughly sick of driving.

really kind of would have liked to have had today off work as well, just to recover.

at least there are only two more days until the weekend.

some correspondance from the road

sabrina — Sat, 16 Jul 2005 18:24:00 +0000

Dear People Who Make Brecks:
Your “Holiday Collection™ Conditioning Shampoo with Aloe Vera, Nettle, & Sage” makes a halfway decent bubble bath, in a pinch. Who knew?
Sincerely,
sabrina

—

Dear The Entire South:
Sometimes when I travel, someone from the South asks me why anyone would want to live in the North, especially since I seem to like the South all right. Well, I’ll tell you why. It’s because we have winter.
You see, three or four months of everything being frozen does something valuable for the environment and those who live there: it kills bugs. Sure, we have to shovel snow in February while y’all have blooming rose bushes, but then you don’t see giant flying cockroaches in Illinois, do you?
So, the answer to the age-old question as to why Northerners are uppity Yanks with a sense of superiority is this. It’s not because we won the Civil War and then proceeded to carpetbag the shit out of you, it’s because when it comes down to a battle between frozen precipitation and creepy, crawling creatures with antennae, too damn many legs, and carapaces, snow wins every time.
The North Rocks!
Sincerely,
sabrina
p.s. The alligators are also not helping your case.

—

Dear Unmitigated Jackass Who Tried to Kill Me on I-40 E between Memphis and Nashville at Around 8 O’clock P.M. on Friday, the 15th of July, 2005:
Hi. I’m really sorry¹ that you had just powdered your nose before the rain started, but listen up close when I tell you that when I did not speed up after you started riding my ass and blinking your bright lights at me it was not because I didn’t get the message.
You might have noticed that there was rather a lot of water falling from the sky down on the road. Occasionally there were large pools of standing water. You might also have noticed that everyone on the road was driving somewhere between 35 and 45 miles per hour. Most of us had our hazard lights on, because it was impossible to see anything. In fact, I myself could see barely one car length in front of me, and I did not feel that it was in my best interests to drive any faster than 40. And although I would really have liked to, I could not move over and let you drive your damn fool self off the road, as the right lane was full of other people who couldn’t see a goddamned thing (but who, it is important to note, were not driving like unmitigated jackasses and instead used a little something we good drivers like to call “common sense,” which translated in this situation to “driving slowly and cautiously”). When I finally did get a free spot so that I could move over and let you go by as you were so clearly desperate to do, it was absolutely not appropriate for you to continue to blink your lights at me out of spite, as i signalled for my lane change and moved. You are truly an asshole par excellance³.
So, Mr. Unmitigated Jackass Motherfucking Son of a Bitch Shithead,

FUCK.
OFF.
AND.
DIE.
Also? If I had any way of knowing who you were, I would make it my life’s mission to find you and break your motherfucking nose for scaring the shit out of me like that. Shithead.
Sincerely — and I really meant it about that “Fuck off and die” part, just please try (for a delightful change in pace) not to take anyone else with you when you go,
sabrina
—
1 – That was sarcasm².
2 – That means I was lying.
3 – That means you’re a really big asshole, and not even your momma loves you because of it.

—

Dear Whoever Invented Waterproof Mascara:
You rock.
Sincerely,
sabrina