She's doing it. She does it. Now I do it too. WTF?
I pack last night; a bit of a to-do since it involves coordinating trip clothes, an early morning rink date, and clothes to change into after skating for work. I decide to have a skate bag, dress for the rink in the am, and then transfer my skates to my suitcase, and carry my suitcase into my office and change there - with work and travel clothes all in the suitcase.
Except I arrive at work (after the early morning rink session) with it pouring rain and I left the handle to the rolly suitcase at home. WTF...I get to carry the suitcase though the rain into my office. Allrightey then. There's a reason I chose the rolly wheeley suitcase - carrying my computer bag, lunch bag, purse, and a flipping heavy suitcase is a bit much for even this girl not too afraid of using her muscles.
Work for a few hours goes fine. I spend most of it trying to load and transfer stuff to my small laptop (better for traveling) but give up half way through that process. For this trip, the big laptop it is. Which is fine. Hopefully I'll play with the tablet on the trip and get used to pen-entering text.
I also now get to make an unplanned trip home before heading to the airport. To retrieve the suitcase handle. Good decision, because did I mention that it's a flipping heavy suitcase...
I get on the plane, and thus begins the official Ignore Sara Day. My gaydar goes off re the person assigned to the seat next to me. I sit down (window seat) and she promptly turns her back to me and starts chatting with the person across the aisle. Which lasts for the entire flight - whatever, I'm happily knitting away on a sock. Except they're grad students, one is a few years ahead of the other and imparting her vast wisdom. They're both trying to secure grant funding, and rather flumoxed about statistics and data analysis, and talking about hiring a consultant to do that, and talking about the design of their (longitudinal) studies. About exercise (including figure skaters) and sleep and as near as I can tell some health profession field. About 3/4 of the way through they start talking about significant others. Yup, the one next to me is a dyke. I'm pretty friendly, I would have at least said "hi" if it would not have entailed saying 'hi' to the back of a head. WTF??
So I get here, and check in, get connected to the web, and find that wow! Knit Happens is nearby. I connect with Hannah (yay! I think we get to meet up tomorrow!), who advises on how to get there from here (a few metro stops and a bit of a walk away), and off I go. It's in a very fun and funky neighborhood - lots of really pricey stores, but what's not to like about a neighborhood that still has several locally & independently owned bookstores? Including a children's book store?
I get to the store, walk in, and there's a table full of knitters at the back. Someone by the door says "hi" as I walk in, and I start fondling yarn - the person who said "hi" has walked back and sat at the table. After about 5 minutes, I ask if a class is happening, or if it's a social group - it's a social group, so I ask if I can join them. A chair is found...I sit down, and then have to extract my sock yarn from the zipper of my bag (oops!). Much chatting is going on - but holy cow, I feel like I have crashed a private party. No one asks my name, no one asks if it's my first time at the store...etc. I contribute to the conversation as I can, much of it is stories about Debbie, and about people that this group knows in common. Allrightey - I'm starting to wonder if I had forgotten my deodorant that morning or something. Except I distinctly remember applying the deodorant. B/c I was in my office while doing it - not the usual place. Anyway. WTF?
So I go back to the hotel. It's now about 9 pm - and my stomach is grumbling. I peruse the hotel choices, and settle on the bar with it's promise of "lite fare". I choose a table so I can spread out (and knit while waiting), eventually I get up to order at the bar since there's no evidence of a waiter or waitress. (WTF?) Food arrives quickly (oh- there's a waitress! She brought me the food.) I eat, and my tuna steak is pretty "rare". I eat around the outside of it...but rare non-sushi grade fish makes me nervous, so I don't eat the rest. Does the waitress check in with me at any point during the meal? Uh no. I finish, I stare into space for a while, I knit about 8 rows of my sock, and eventually I get the eye of someone - who asks from behind the bar if I'm ready for my check. I say yes rather than shouting across the room that my fish is undercooked... I do mention it when the check arrives, but apparently it's my fault - if I had wanted well-done tuna, I should have asked for it when I placed the order. WTF???
All is well, I have a huge comfortable hotel room, wireless, knitting to keep me busy, and the lure of more disability and statistics than I can handle tomorrow. I did pass by this museum on the way to the metro today: DEA Museum. That's the Drug Enforcement Agency Museum. WTF??? WTF!!! Yes, I could have guessed that there'd be a Drug Enforcement Agency. But a Museum of such an agency? Current exhibits include Illegal Drugs in the US: A Modern History; and Target America: Opening Eyes to the Damage that Drugs Cause (a traveling exhibit on the topic of narco-terrorism). They even have a gift shop -- you too can own a DEA Sports Watch.
WTF - I'm heading to bed. I suspect that "I'm being ignored" is simply this month's flavor of PMS. My cycle has started, I'm liking the intermittent use of anti-depressants to treat severe PMS. In the last year or so, my cycles have gotten utterly whacked - and I had a few where I just couldn't continue living in my own pre-menstrual skin. Two weeks of dragon swipes (props to Amy E for the term) and incapacitating irritability... this month, NADA. Nothing. ZILCH in the way of irritability or obsessive focus on the clutter and dirt level in the house. Could be a good month...could be the 1.5 weeks of prozac (I'll stop it til my next luteal phase starts), who knows. Whatever it is, I like it. I even had excellent skate days in the days leading up to the start of my cycle...which is unheard of. WTF - but in a very good way ;)
