December 23, 2007

well, i'm back home. back in boring orange county where life is dull and the people are just as interesting. i will say this though, i am loving the weather.

getting here was an experience. mother nature, being the whore that she is, decided to strike boston with a snow storm the day that i was to leave for california. plane was supposed to leave boston at 4:30pm and arrive at lax at 8pm, but......

didn't get on the plane until about 5 because they were still cleaning it or something. fine. whatever.

we get on the plane, but cannot leave until the aircraft gets de-iced. fine.

the de-icing can't get underway yet because the crew is still loading bags into the plane. ok. no problem.

while waiting for the bags to be loaded and the surrounding areas to be cleared of people and machinery, we lost our spot on the "to be de-iced" list. but we are next in line. alrighty.

the de-icing is now underway and we will leave directly afterwards. hooray.

it appears that something on the plane might have been broken during the de-icing. maintenance needs to give the plane a once over. dammit.

i guess nothing was broken after all. we can now fly off. *sigh*

rather than arrive 8pm, we arrive at 10:30pm. but then....

it appears that we must now drive around for a bit before parking because there is no available spot at the moment. god dammit!

we have now come to a complete stop, but please allow those who need to make a connecting flight to leave first. i'm going to burn this mother down!!

so i finally see my family about 11pm and can go home as soon as i get my suitcase. but wait....

the carousel will start in due time. grrrr.... fine.

three different flights will be using the same baggage claim. fuck!

three planes worth of luggage go by and i do not have mine yet. although, that one covered in duct tape that's been making rounds for 30 mins. kinda looks like mine. oh wait. it is. wtf!?

turns out that the damn airport security people were inspecting all the luggage. when they got to mine, however, the bastards broke my zipper and duct taped the suitcase back together. the company would not replace it because it was overweight, which it wasn't. i had to walk to the car with this duct taped piece of shit and freaking out about everything still being in the suitcase. thankfully, everything was.

i did not get home until 2am. i was tired as hell because, being on east coast time, it was 5am to me.

friday was a pretty chill day. optometrist. last minute xmas shopping. doctor. mariana and i impulsively bought tickets to new york and made reservations at les grenouilles (we're crazy like that). that night my grandma was having her annual xmas party with her neighbors. they all know me, so we were having drinks and talking about how i'm liking my new life. these are the funniest old people you'll ever meet. they were getting tipsy and joking about one of their cats being high on kitty litter and whose going to die first. i hope i'll find dying amusing when i get old. then they left and the bottle of tequila came out. my uncle had bought my grandma an expensive bottle of tequila because she had a craving for some quality tequila (yup. you read right.). so then there i am taking tequila shots with my parents and grandparents. such is my family.

yesterday, however, was a wonderful day. i spent the entire day with Mariana because she left for the east coast at 5am this morning. it was my homecoming and her going away celebration. got to her parents' house at 9am and we went to laguna beach with her mom for breakfast at las brisas. the weather was to die for and the beach was beautiful. we met some really funny and interesting waiters. had some great food and some lovely mimosas. exchanged our gifts. she got me ira glass' (of 'this american life' fame) new book, which i liked. but the real gift was that she had tracked him down and got him to sign the book for me. i loved it! she knows me so well. while we were there we decided to publicize the beauty of the environment we were in to our significant others. both jenna and nick are in new york where the weather is in the 40s, so we had to mention the fact that it was 70 and we were overlooking the beach.

after breakfast, we did some shopping at the mall. walked around one of the prettier spots in "mission potato." went to dinner at the restaurant where our friend Mary works. had some good food and a bottle of champagne. we went back to her parents' and had mini xmas with her family, since she'll be spending xmas in connecticut.

it wasn't a sad goodbye when Mariana and i parted ways because we'll be seeing each other again in a month. she's coming back to boston for a week or so and we'll be going to new york for the weekend. going to new york with my two favorite girls. january cannot come soon enough.

well, this post has gone on long enough. so i bid you adieu.

cheers,

- R

p.s. on a not so light note...... despite disagreements over what i have written in the past, i will continue to write. i write what i feel at the moment of composition. at times i can get emotional. other times some of my inner darkness spills onto the page. i may offend or you may disagree with what i write, but that is the risk that accompanies knowing another person's thoughts.