Monday, August 13, 2007. I woke up at 7:15am Pacific Standard Time and thought, "Shit!" -yes, I swear in my internal monologue- "I'm late for work!" Half of a second later, I corrected myself, "Nope, I'm unemployed!" I don't think that I have ever taken quite so much joy in being 'between jobs'. Probably because in the past, being unemployed equalled being broke. Now that I'd saved money for two years, I found myself happily contacting friends and family, using the opening statement, "Hi, I'm unemployed!!! (insert giggle)"
Even though I wasn't late for my nonexistent job, I still needed to hustle to be ready for my 9am Super Shuttle to SFO. I had a funny Chinese lady driver whom I am convinced had just passed her driving exam a week or so prior to becoming a Super Shuttle driver. As evidence: she held a death grip on the wheel with her hands precisely at 10 and 2 o'clock; she drove about 20 mph in a 35 zone; she waited to turn right until she had a one block gap in traffic; definitively, she drove by audio GPS. I kid you not. She had a GPS unit hooked up giving audio directions such as, "drive 50 feet and turn right, beep (signal to turn), continue straight for 200 feet..." It was awesome. I thought that we were going to cause an accident on the freeway, but we got there safe and sound. You go girl!
The flight was uneventful, other than me being the one person on board who didn't get lunch. I asked for a vegetarian sandwich, and the flight crew twice told me that they were getting it, then never brought it. Next, they skipped me in the drink cart rotation. I must have been wearing my "Continental's flight crew stinks!" t-shirt without realizing it.
We landed at Newark at 8ish and I made my leisurely way (with a stop for a much needed dinner) to baggage claim and the taxi queue. I still ended up beating Melissa home from work and sat on her stoop for a bit 'til she got home. Not exactly a sacrifice to be forced to stop and enjoy the summer evening. When sister got home, we went out for a bite and then to bed.
On Tuesday, Melissa, Kevin and I went to the Great America amusement park. It was fun! Lots of time in line with some serious adrenaline rushes to make it worth the wait. Long day. Wednesday, M & I went for pedicures and then made a huge mistake. We went to her gym and tried what was billed as a butt class. Hah! In a half an hour we did about 300 squats, some weighted, and lunges. Then 200 plies. Then we stayed for the upper body class and the ab class, unaware that we would be unable to walk for the next week. Our quads were absolutely blown. Did I mention that Melissa lives in a 4th floor walk-up? Going up wasn't nearly as bad as going down, but either way, M & I were getting a serious preview of what old age is going to be like. It is not pretty.
Thursday, we sat around in serious pain, watching TV and doing laundry. Friday, Melissa had to go to work, but I sat around, in serious pain, watching TV, talking on the phone, and surfing the internet. We did stir ourselves to go out Friday night, and hit Manhattan for dinner, then home to bed. Saturday was a lovely brunch at Frozen Monkey Cafe, where we were served delicious food by their staff of drug addicts and lobotomy victims. Then, Kevin gave me a ride to the airport and our visit was over.
Thank you, Melissa and Kevin! It was fun!
About Me
- christine
- I'm an HR geek who loves to read, loves my husband, loves my family & friends, loves to exercise - especially hiking, biking, and dancing, loves to travel, and above all, loves to learn.
1 comment:
Dear Christine,
your analysis of Russia was interesting. The country indeed does not welcome tourists, or foreigners generally, and the obtaining of visas is getting more difficult year by year. We are watched just like we would have been watched in the Soviet Union; after living 24 hours in a friend's apartment in Moscow without registering myself, police/intelligence service people in civilian clothes already knew about the matter. Russia is geopolitically an island, or a continent of its own.
My experience of the Russian smile was different from yours. I do not read the Lonely Planet, I only have Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophische Untersuchungen with me. So I do not need diligently to see the sights, but can wander aimlessly where the road takes me. There is a geography to Russian smiles, just like there are geographies of fear = places that people avoid at certain points of time. In city centres Russians do not smile. You can hear laughter there, loud self-confident laughter, especially in very expensive restaurants and similar locations. Only the rich and the powerful laugh aloud in city centres. But if you go to the suburbs, where normal poor people live in apartment blocks, where the most dramatic sight you see is an old grandma eating sausage on a bench in front of the house, there you can encounter quite normal smiles. Children laugh, people smile to their friends, and sometimes a woman may give me a small inquisitive smile, wondering what I am doing there on the same bench with the sausage eating grandma.
Geographies of fear and geographies of safety are clearly separated in Russian cities. In areas of safety, in small restaurants or shops in the suburbs, you can get very friendly service, and meet girls with sparkling eyes. In smaller cities, where the concentrations of money, power and control are weaker, the geographies are less clearly separated.
There is much violence in Russia. You saw a beating of a man, I saw a young man hitting his girlfriend with the palm of his hand.
I am glad that we both are out of the country now. The transition/nontransition of power from Putin in March 2008 may, or may not, be dangerous. No one knows yet.
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