Air Journal: Destination: Middle of Nowhere, USA

Lake Blackshear (no, I don't know why the water is brown)

There was a gathering of my father's kin in southwest Georgia on Saturday, and as I haven't seen any of those folks in 4 years or more, I made the long trek. And by long, I mean about 7 hours on planes, then nearly 3 hours driving south from Atlanta. Some highlights:

When I was getting ready to leave for the airport to go on the trip, I got a call from BofA saying there was suspicious activity on my debit card. Yup, sure enough, some asshole had charged a $249 ad on Facebook. I called to confirm that the card had been compromised, reiterating that not only had I not done business with Facebook, I had never ever even had an account, and hadn't even replied when one of their recruiters contacted me on LinkedIn. So there. This also meant I had no damn ATM card while I was in the middle of nowhere. They said I could stop by a branch and get a temporary card, but the closest branch was in Albany, about 35 miles away, and I just couldn't make it during business hours. Fortunately it turned out not to be an issue. (I had been planning on going to Albany, but not until Sunday, to visit my father's grave, which I did do.)

On the drive down, it seemed like every other restaurant in Atlanta's sprawling suburbs was a wings joint. I also passed two "Chick-fil-a Dwarf Houses," which made me go WTF. Was it a badly named Ronald McDonald House rip-off? Or something named with even greater poor taste? Turns out it's their "fancy" sit down chain.

I momentarily panicked when I realized my hotel was 20 miles from the lake house where my first cousin (once removed) was staying and where the gathering was to be held. Then I remembered that I was IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, which means it was 20 miles with few cars. Indeed, driving out Friday midday, I passed 2 pieces of heavy farm equipment on the 2-lane highway and maybe a dozen cars. And a lot of pecan trees. When I say I hate driving in LA, I mean I hate LA drivers, both the quality and the quantity.

Some other metrics and highlights:

• Some small roadside place I passed on the way to the lake had a handmade sign in front that read
  Drive around back
  Blow for service
  And I can't even figure out, um, what the service was, as there was no clear signage for that.
• The closest Starbucks to where I was staying was about 33 miles away. The closest Walmart was about 1/3 mile away.
• I saw more dead possums on the side of the road than I could count with all my fingers and toes. Oddly, though, I didn't see any buzzards, something there had seemed to be plenty of when we would drive around this region when I was a kid.
• Those stories about predatory Southern county sheriffs setting speed traps? Totally true. I knew well enough to put the cruise control on and remind myself I didn't need to get anywhere in a hurry.
• The hotel breakfast buffet featured, among other things, instant grits. (Just add hot water.)
• I got a big piece of my great-aunt Margaret's coconut cake at the potluck, so nyah.
• I ate more deep-fried food in 3 days than I normally do in 3 months, including fried catfish for two meals.

I was talking with the Oakland, CA native wife of my (first-cousin-once-removed)X2, it's like a different country. I noted that I had seen a full-sized Confederate flag, flying from an actual flagpole. She pointed out that it really was a different country...

Spoonerisms: Kitty Sleep-over Camp

While I was in NYC, Spoon and Dipity stayed in a group room at The Best Little Cathouse in Pasadena.

First they had to get a current test showing they were FIV- and FeLV-free, but fortunately there's a snap test, so I just took them to the vet on the way to the cathouse. Since I never take them someplace at the same time, Spoon had to use the big, old carrier, which only fits in the back seat, instead of the smaller carrier, which I can put on the front passenger's side floor. If I open the top-lid, he'll just lie there the whole trip, pretty relaxed, occasionally meowing to remind me he's there. Instead, Dip got the smaller carrier on the front passenger's side, and she won't stay in the carrier if I open it, so she remained caged and complained vocally the entire trip, barely stopping to inhale for her next howl. I guess Spoon either figured he couldn't compete with her Siamese vocalizations or that he didn't really have all that much to complain about in comparison, so he stayed pretty quiet back there.

According to the paperwork, he's lost half a pound in the 6 months he's been on the diet. Well, ok, much less than I hoped for, but at least he's stopped moving in the wrong direction and reversed course a little. (According to a study, 15% of owners of obese cats are in denial about their pets' avoid dupois. The number is 22% for dog owners, though, showing that, yes, they are even more delusional, which I'm going to extrapolate to "about life in general." No, I never thought Spoon gained 6 pounds of bone in the 5 years since I adopted him.)

Spoon in his hiding spot for the first couple days.

Fortunately, the cathouse is a fairly short drive from the vet, but there was still some major 'meser meowing. I said goodbye to my kittehs, then went to the office (my flight didn't leave until early the next morning) and immediately went to the webcam for the group room. I didn't see them. Unfortunately, the webcam is mounted on top of the wall of built-in cabinets, so there are lots of off-camera places for kitties to hide. I didn't actually catch either one until the next evening, after I got to my hotel in NYC. I thought I saw Spoon hiding in the cubbyhole in the base of a cat tree, but wasn't sure until one of the humans came in, which, of course, drew Spoon out.

Saturday morning, still no Dip sightings, although there were a couple Siamese variants who looked a lot like her, but one was pretty clearly a seal point and the other was lighter in the points, but was kind of fluffy.

Sunday afternoon, after I got back from my day about town, Spoon had moved behind the large aquarium. Still no Dip.

On Monday, Spoon was still hanging out mainly around the aquarium, and still no Dip.

Fortunately I made it back Tuesday afternoon in time to pick up my kitties. The cathouse lady confirmed that Dip had spent much of her time in the built-in cabinets, but other than being shy, she hadn't been too upset, and had been eating and all. I nearly died laughing, though, when she told me that one time when she'd gone in there, Spoon had come out of the cat tree cubbyhole, revealing that... he'd been sitting on Dippy! How that came to be, I can only wonder, but she said when he tried to get back in there, Dippy hissed at him, so he had to find a new spot. Silly kitties. They seemed happy to see me, and in fact, Dippy was in the tree cubbyhole and came out to greet me. She howled all the way back home, of course, but everything was copacetic once we got home, and they even seemed a (very little) bit more relaxed around each other. "Could be worse. There could be 6 cats here instead of 2." Yeah, they're probably not thinking that.

Air Journal: Escape to NYC

I had this thing for work in NYC yesterday (that'll teach the recruitment coordinator to use people he's never met before for events!) and since I needed to burn vacation hours and I also needed to get the hell out of town for at least a few days, I flew in on Friday. I won't go into a lot of details, but here's the round-up:

Overheard in New York:

They put us in the corner. Baby ain't put in the corner.
--Woman in Sylvia's Restaurant, Harlem

This was my haul from the Kinokuniya there. You could fit the entire LA Kinokuniya location inside the basement of the one in NYC with room leftover, and then there are 2 whole more floors!


Overheard in New York, Part II:

I love the smell of dead rat in the morning. It smells like... victory!
--MTA worker in the 42nd St Port Authority subway station

And, ZOMG, I thought drivers in LA were bad. Traffic signals, just a vague suggestion to both pedestrians and motorists. Like this primo parking job:


Plus I saw a real live NYC subway rat. It wasn't that big.

Oh, and I was knitting on the subway. Because I'm cool'n'stuff. But even though I went into 2 different Dunkin' Donuts (one of them twice), I didn't manage to find a Chocolate Kreme-filled. :(

Travel: My New BFF

This handsome fella is my new BFF. I call him George. I was out in Denver for a no-adequate-superlative-exists needed vacation, and I drove out into the Rocky Mountain National Park yesterday. I stopped at Lake Estes, which is about 7300 feet in elevation. (The bag of chips I had bought in Denver (about 2000 feet lower) had puffed up like a balloon by that point.)

Lake Estes has a visitor center and a golf course. The only creatures on the course yesterday, though, were several (I counted four) elk bulls. A woman who grew up there was nice enough to explain that they had come down for mating season. While their antlers are quite impressive, they're mostly for show for the ladies. The bulls might butt antlers a little bit, but it's just a play for attention. However, since there were no lady elk present, and it was a hot day besides, the guys were just grazing and napping in the shade of trees. (Note that the elk were in no way fenced in. Not only were there periodic openings in the fence, they could easily have jumped it, and there were a few logs knocked off, although I don't know if they were responsible.)

The lady I was talking to went on to explain that the elk can do about $50,000 in damage each year to the course, but they had the run of the place if they wanted it. After mating season is over, they will shed those gorgeous antlers, which look a lot like aged wood close up.

One of the bulls was grazing right next to the fence, and he had quite a fan club gathered around, snapping shots. One guy kept reassuring his friend that the elk wasn't going to bite him. I pointed out that he might get poked by an antler, though. Then I asked someone to snap my picture with George, and I guess I moved too quickly, because George was a little started and stepped back a foot. Hey, most people aren't afraid of me until after I start talking to them! I felt bad, but he calmed down right away. Dude, he has several hundred pounds on me. Plus, you know, antlers.

I heard a brilliant woman say to her husband, "Look at the moose!" I made my way further down the path around the golf course. I saw a few dozen Canadian geese hanging at a water trap on the golf course. I saw some interesting butterflies (my pictures of them didn't turn out well) and walked into a bird sanctuary, although the only birds there were crows or ravens. No, I can't tell the difference.

While the path around the golf course is paved and has signs that leashed pets are fine (but owners must clean up after them), the bird sanctuary trail had a sign saying no pets or loud noise makers (read babies) were allowed. So, as I was coming out, moose woman, her husband, her chihuahua, and her baby stroller were coming down. I politely told them the sign at the head of the trail said dogs weren't allowed, as there were birds on the ground. I'm not sure how they could not see the sign, but... yeah. To their credit, they did turn around.

I stayed about an hour. My lungs are used to sea level, and although I wasn't having much trouble, I didn't want to push it. I was also driving a rental car, and the mountain roads were, well, mountain roads with switchbacks, periodically dotted by signs saying, "Drive Safely. In Memory of [some person who apparently did not drive safely enough.]" I also wanted to get back to Denver before the sun got too low and the forecast late afternoon thunderstorms hit, and as I said, it was hot (90F). Those gorgeous elk made it worth the trip on their own.