Traveling Part Deux

So, last Sunday (so 8 days ago?) we arrived at the airport on time, no issues, no missed flights. Arrived in NOLA ready to party. We landed at about 1030am, so we figured we'd go to the hotel, drop off our stuff, and just walk around. Luckily (or maybe not so luckily?) we were staying at the W in the French Quarter, which is convenient to just about every drinking establishment known to man.

We started out with daiquiris, then a huge beer, then we moved on to the thing that really kicked us in the ass – Hand Grenades. They are made with Everclear, but taste like fruity deliciousness. Our mistake was having TWO of them. Oops. So, we took our Hand Grenades and went out to watch the Barkus parade, which is all of these doggies dressed up in silly costumes going through the French Quarter. By this point, like 4pm, I don't even think I knew what my name was. I took a photo with a man painted in silver and a guy with a snake, which I just walked up to and decided it was ok to "pet". So you know I must have been shittay drunk.

Woke up, figured since we did nothing of value the day before (except stimulate the economy by paying for overpriced drinks), we should do other touristy things. We took the St. Charles streetcar, walked through the Garden District, walked down Magazine Street and went into some boutiques (including my favorite jewelry store EVER), where I exercised self control and only bought 2 things. Stopped at Harrah's for a little slot machine fun. Relaxed in W Hotel cabanas. Have I told you how much I love W Hotels?

Had a pre-dinner Kir Royale at the Carousel bar in the Hotel Monteleone (it's a bar that spins around, way way neat). Dinner that night at Nola, one of Emeril's restaurants. Just so, so delicious. Deliciously delicious. Then headed to the ultimate funnest of fun tourist traps, Pat O'Brien's dueling piano bar, where they ripped on Scott for...something? and where we sang and got crazy and drank Hurricanes. It was really a perfect day.

Next day, walked around down by the river, stopped in approximately 20 souvenir stores to find Mr. Coops a Mardi Gras bandana but couldn't find one (wtf?), relaxed some more in the room and then headed to the airport, and home!

Whirlwind of travel. I got pretty traveled-out. Its mostly the airports that I find exhausting, and all of the gross and annoying people and germs and $4 bottles of soda and just the general lameness of it all. I found out I may have to go to New Mexico for work soon and all I can think of is F-U airport. And seriously fawk the flights that are more than 1.5 hours, I cannot sit still that long. Oh well.

Other things to note: I am sick of Gossip Girl reruns, I am sick of the freezing ass cold weather because I have completely fallen off of my running routine, I need to go grocery shopping but may just go Friday morning before I pick up Amber from the aeropuerto for her visit (yay fun!!!), also need to go to the dry cleaner, Target, do laundry, buy new towels, pillows for the couches, and basically all new bedding for our bed.

Hmph. Think I'll be sittin on the couch watching TV instead.

I forgetted to write, now I have to write lots

Well, last time I posted I was sulking in my hotel room, getting ready to leave California. Phew, thank god. I am totally NOT a west-coast person. Scott was hoping I would go there, fall in love with it, and call him and tell him we had to move there immediately.

Sorry, no dice.

So, with me, there always has to be some kind of dramatic situation which I've ultimately created for myself someway, somehow. And, this case was no exception.

When I'm not at work every day during the week, I have a hard time telling what day it actually is. It just seems to really put me off balance. So being in SD and having odd hours at this conference really really threw me for a loop, and for some reason I did not realize my flight was leaving on SATURDAY, not FRIDAY. Like I knew, but it wasn't really registering with me. Of course, my Iphone alarm was only set for weekdays. Alas - I missed my flight. It was supposed to take off at 645 am, I woke up at 630 am. I love how I actually THOUGHT I could catch that flight. I'm such an idiot. I should have stayed in bed, called the airline, rebooked, and went back to sleep. No, instead I'm the asshole who throws on clothes, runs downstairs screaming that I need a cab, realize there isn't one there so pay double for a black Town Car to get me to the airport running red lights, and then get there to discover, "yes, ma'am, your flight has already departed". No shit. I knew that already and yet I felt the need to make a scene.

Then, I find out that I can't get on a flight departing until 1:30pm. Um, for serious? Cause that's 7 hours. I had no options, all other flights were booked, and Scott and I were departing for NOLA the next morning @ 830, so I had to get home.

I also realized that I had checked out of my hotel, so I had nowhere to go. I call Scott, sobbing, crying, whining, just wanting to get THE FUCK out of THE CALIFORNIA. He's like, look, everyone misses flights. I missed flights. You'll be fine. Basically telling me to grow a pair and shut the fuck up. And he was right, I was fine. But I was also really pissed I had to buy all those magazines and books to keep me occupied, cause there ain't SHIT to do in the SD airport. And it was packed. I couldn't even get within 20 feet of the bar, so drinking was out. So whatever, long story short, I get on my flight and head to the layover in Chicago. I arrive there, immediately find a bar and frigging pound 22-oz beers like it was going out of style. Goddamn, it felt good. I get a call from Scott saying our dogsitter had fallen through, and I'm about to panic again but he tells me he's taking care of it. Good, because at this point I couldn't handle it. Drink more beer. I only had a 2 hour layover, so I consumed as much as I could. Oh, I also ate some french fries because I realized I had like, not eaten all day, and french fries are a really important part of a balanced diet.

So, land in DC and it is 1130 pm at this point. Now folks, keep in mind my next flight is leaving 9 hours from this point. Joy. By time I get my bag, get a cab home (I decided to let Scotty sleep, since at least one of us should appear well rested on our vacay), by that time it was past midnight. I got approximately 3 hours of sleep that night, since I had to get up and pack another bag and shower, etc. So we make it to the airport and take off to our next destination.

At that point, all I wanted to do was get sloppy drunk. I deserved it, right?

And sloppy drunk we did get. I'll make a NOLA post in a day or 2, I'm tired of typing, and I figure that was too much to read anyways, and I also am kind of hungry and want Scott to take me to brunch so we can get drunk off mimosas. I have a real big Sunday planned, you see.

Living the high life here in Viginia, folks. Keeping it real. Dirty south.

And seriously, fuck California.

Wendy Whiner

I've come to the conclusion I've turned into one of "those people". If I travel alone for more than 48 hours, I turn into a lonely, depressed, whiney basket case who can't deal without her man and her dog.

Sigh. Only a few more hours of California left. I should have enjoyed it more. I tried. I really did.

What disgusts me - Monday, 11:02 PM

- "Octomom" (anger...sheer anger...raging anger)

- Chris Brown (coughASSHOLEcough)

- my PedEgg (yeah, its just kinda gross)

- A. Rod (coughDOUCHEcough)

- 7:30am flight departure (just sucks)

Discuss.

A Confederacy of Dunces

Over the past 2 days, I've seen and heard a lot of stupidity. More stupidity than usual. Is it just because I was like, paying more attention than I normally do or did stupidity actually increase? Unsure. I don't have a scientific method for proving one thing or another, nor do I give a shit, because who really cares. People are just dang stupid, no matter what.

So here are 2 prime examples. Maybe I'm overreacting, but you tell me.

1. I'm walking down in the Crystal City tunnels and this blond chick breathlessly walks up to me and asks, "can you get to like, addresses from down here?" I stared blankly for like, a solid 10 seconds, and all I could muster was "uhh...heh? whadda ya mean?" Because honestly, what the fuck kind of question is that. I think she said something else, but all I said was yes and ran away scared because WHAT THE FUCK.

2. Was wandering around the mall today with the purpose of buying sunglasses. Found some relatively fast and so I was just wandering from store to store. I walked in the Limited, realized that yes, that place still really sucks, and so I turned around to walk out. Salesgirl chick standing at the door says, "Oh, so you didn't find anything you liked today?" Now, why would you ask that question? Am I supposed to run over to her and be like, "OMG thank you for asking, can you please help me find something half decent in your store of SHIT ASS cheap clothing that looks like SHIT ASS?" Like, I just don't understand what kind of reaction they were expecting out of me. So, I just said "NOPE!" and walked out. I'm not at the mall to THINK. Dumb biotch ruined it for me. I still don't get it. What was I supposed to do / say? Help me smart people!!!

Ok, so maybe just because I've been under a great deal of stress and I drank too much this weekend to compensate and now I feel like crap and even going running didn't help enough, maybe its all some kind of "mel bein a crazy bitch" thing.

I don't think it is.

Someone tell me that people are stupid. Make me feel OK about myself.

Gadgets

Will you buy this for me?

Thank you in advance.

Love,
Mel

Mooshy Brain

So this is not really a post. Its mainly a disclaimer to say that I have not posted in a few days and probably will not post for another few days because I have been working solid 12-hour days...the kind of days that you don't even recall if you ate breakfast and / or lunch, where you survive off multiple cups of coffee and cans of diet coke, where you can't remember what day it is at any given time, where the only reason you know where you're supposed to be at any given moment is because your blackberry calendar tells you, where you've sworn so much that when you actually once apologized for it people just laughed because why bother.

San Diego on Tuesday! Where I predict, due to the way things have been going, that I will be working 12 hour days remotely.

Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuckaroo.

Weekend in review

Hmm nothing too exciting. Here's what went on (yep I'm too lazy to write in complete sentences so here you go)

- Friday, went to happy hour with Scotty for a drink. Ended up drinking for 6 hours, but he bought me an Entertainment book (likely as a result of the double 7 & 7's) so it turned out to be an OK night. Also got to try a new bar called the Light Horse. Me likey, Scott no likey. I explained to him you can't fault the bar for charging you double when you order a double, but he's still pissed. I bet if I paid that tab he would have liked Light Horse. Whatev.

- Saturday, went to Georgetown. Had to return the Kate Spade clutch i ordered...just didn't do it for me. Loved the pattern, did not love the size of the bag. I didn't see anything else I liked there so I took that cashola and headed to the Banana Republic sale. The g-town BR is like, stoopid good. They have stuff there I never see at other BRs. I was able to really control myself and only bought 2 shirts for me, 2 for Scott. Total, $50. Not bad. I still might go back and get the coat I wanted, picked up, and put down 3 times.

- Saturday, left Georgetown, got fucking lost. See, I can get to Georgetown with my eyes closed. Its going home that causes the problems. So I end up in...god knows where. I was famished at this point, so I stopped for a large diet coke and some fries at mcdonalds. Thank god, because I somehow inserted myself into a massive traffic jam. I pulled a U-turn probably where I was not supposed to, but fuck it. I came home. Saw Benjamin Button. Really, really fucking good.

- Sunday, Scott was on a mission to find some kind of racing shoes that they are selling at Ross (like a shittier Marshalls) for only $20. Drove around all over the goddamn place looking for these shoes, to some really not sweet areas, to 3 different Ross's, only found 1 pair. Oh well at least we were sort of succesful. Also got some disgusting ass sandwich at Bruegger's Bagels. I will spare you a rant on that place. Stopped at Target, only to pick up a prescription but spent about $140 between us. Typical.

- Let me also interject it is 60 degrees right now. This is fucking amazing. Perfect time to start my new running program, one of those things that trains you to run in intervals for people like myself that can barely run up some stairs without getting out of breath. I want to run a 5k this year. So, I did it, it was hard, but good.

- On dock for the rest of the evening: steak fajitas, the super bowl (not for the game, just for the commercials, and because we also got 3-d glasses at Target for some kind of 2 minute ad they are playing at halftime), and fucking relaxation.

I am turning into quite the potty mouth. Rahm Emmanuel must be rubbing off on me.