The End, I Think
Aug. 13th, 2016 11:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ateolfOkay, we're back out into the hot sun in Provincetown looking for a place to eat. We first try this place called Burger Queen mostly 'cuz Mary Beth had seen a picture of the sign and laughed at it 'cuz the titular logo held a milkshake in her hair. There was no indoor though, just picnic benches and it was mostly burgers anyway so we thought we'd find something a little more special. I found this place called The Canteen. Well, we ended up eating outside there too, but it was in the back, facing the sea with nice breezes and nice shade and it actually ended up being very nice back there. The food was pretty damn great. We both had cod bahn mis! I ended up getting a brilliant drink concoction: an arnold palmer with mint tea. It was very refreshing and delicious! A little walking around but not much. We went into an art gallery that had some nice stuff that we couldn't afford but enjoyed looking at. We also learned about a certain technique of Japanese woodblock printing called moku-hanga that we'd never heard of before (something to do with separate wood cuttings for each color...but I'm looking it up and it seems like moku-hanga is just the general term for woodblock in Japanese? I don't know...hm...). As we were leaving the parking lot, the woman taking our ticket noted that I must be hot (sweat was just cascading off my face, I'm pretty sure having sunscreen on my skin makes it sweat more and I can be pretty sweaty). While we were in the area we tried one last beach: Herring Cove (one Mary Beth enjoyed last time). She liked it before because it was really cold, it was also the first one we went to last time. This time we went later in the day and it was warmer. An observation from the trip, whichever beach we go to first in the day is probably going to seem coldest (of note because Mary Beth LOVES cold water, me less so but I can take it). This time I got another arnold palmer at the concession stand and stayed at a picnic table reading while she enjoyed the water. Okay, nice long and successful day now back to the house. Later at night I finished reading A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes (which I started when we started the trip as I didn't want to drag along the book I was currently reading, that newish Burroughs biography, as it's a ginormous hardback that didn't feel particularly well-suited to travel). I'll say this was an excellent goddamn book.
So thus rounded out a pretty laid-back but eventful and successful trip to Cape Cod. We headed back to Boston Friday morning taking the scenic route. We made good time and got to the airport early and all that. Okay, we're going to wait for our flight. Good show. Then it's all happening, great. Get on the plane. Get ready to take off! Yeah! Let's go home! Some announcements about weather and rerouting. Okay. Set back a few minutes, fine. Taxi some. Get out on that runway. More announcements. More wait. More announcements. Bad news. Worse news. Much time is wasted out there. They said all flights to La Guardia (where our layover was to be) were cancelled because there was some rain somewhere. Well, we can't stay out in the runway any longer. Back to the airport. The pilot's telling us there might be delay and the flight will go out later, but fellow passengers are looking online and seeing the flight is flat-out cancelled. We get to the gate and yeah it's cancelled. We're all in line to figure out what to do. Many people are on their phones. I call American Airlines to see if talking to a rep that way is faster than waiting to talk to the person at the gate. It is but they're not helpful and borderline rude. I get transferred to the supervisor who just tells me she can't accommodate my hotel if I have to stay the night because it was cancelled because of "weather" (COMPLETELY OUT OF THEIR CONTROL!) and they don't do that and I'll have to talk to someone in person at the airport (the first of many toss-offs of responsibility to just get rid of having to deal with me). So a bit later I get up to the guy and express frustration that we'll have to wait a whole nother day to get home and try to see if there's something that can be done. Oh, and get this. They tell me that there's only ONE more AA flight leaving Boston that night (it's like 4-something, maybe 5 at this point or some shit) and of course that single flight left for a Friday night in Boston is full. Okay, anyway this guy tells me I can try getting put on standby as there's a flight that can connect in Charlotte and go to this certain gate and he's putting us on the standby list. He said the list is already long and I know it's a long-shot but we're stuck so why not try? We make it over there and when someone finally shows up at the gate and I talk to her I find out we were never even put on the list. I ask if she can do it, she takes our boarding passes and says to wait. She seemed really concerned that some other guy said he'd put us on this list but didn't. Well so we wait and yeah, still our names never even make it on the list. I'm sure it wouldn't've done any good as there were many names on the list that didn't make it (though actually there were quite a few that did), but just the principle of saying you're going to and then not even bothering. Just keeping us stuck there 'cuz we have to wait and you have our passes and you didn't do shit. So there were are at Logan airport, stuck. Now it's after 7 and our new flight leaves at 11 the next morning and we're still in fucking Boston. It was either find an expensive hotel last minute or just stay all fucking night at the airport (which we'd been at since a little after noon, which would make the whole stay almost 24 hours). I made some calls and we found an expensive hotel with a shuttle that was a little less expensive than others (including the one right next to the airport that was full anyway). So not only do we have to waste time, but we have to put down a good bit of money just to sleep because of stingy American fucking Airlines. The worst part wasn't even our plight. But I was scheduled to pick up Horace from the vet the next day and they close at noon (and are closed Sundays) so I was sure it'd mean he'd be stuck at the vet for two extra nights (which was breaking my heart for the poor boy, that didn't end up being a problem, but it could have been).
They had kept our checked-in luggage so we didn't have any toiletries, but we were able to get enough to get by from the hotel. The bed was comfortable and we were able to sleep. We were able to shower. Those were all pluses. I don't know if my sunburned body could have taken much sitting in the same clothes in an uncomfortable airport chair all night/day. So it sucked but the hotel was worth it (given the shit situation, shituation?). Well, we get up early and make it to the airport relatively early for the flight. Mary Beth tried to check in the night before online but got some weird shit with not being able to pick any seats. We get in and it seemed to go okay with the seats. We got assigned seats except the second leg of the trip Mary Beth had something on her ticket saying there was no seat assigned (mine had one). We're worried about the worst. We're boarding the first plane and I get stopped up with what seemed to be an issue with my ticket. The attendant kept going over something on her computer screen and then talking to the other attendants about it. I was getting ready to go off if they said I couldn't be on the flight. It ended up being a dumb thing where Mary Beth's and my seats were switched on the ticket from what they were in the computer. Anyway, that ended up being a briefly bit of meaningless confusion. The flight ended up going on time and we made it to the Philadelphia airport, took the shuttle to terminal F (which looks to be the original airport, servicing smaller planes and being older and smaller and quite charming) where our next flight was. Thankfully Mary Beth just showed her weird ticket and they had her new ticket with a real seat ready to go. We weren't sitting next to each other for this part of the journey, but we were just glad to fucking be making it home. And we did make it home! Our luggage had arrived ahead of us the night before. Oh, and earlier in the day I called the vet to let them know about my travel setback. She told me that I could do an after-hours pickup for an additional fee between 5 and 5:30 (which I'm sure was less than the cost of boarding him another whole day...really two days). We made good time and were home before 4. So I was able to get my wonderful Meow Man. He lived up to his name! So much to say in the car back and at home for a good while. Poor boy. But he's been very happy to see me and affectionate and he seems very healthy and in good shape so I'm pretty happy about that. He must have heard me typing about him. He literally just bounded into this room meowing at me. He's still meowing. I had a bit of mail waiting for me when I got home. I'd ordered this cd online while we were out of town trying to time it so it wouldn't get here before I did (which I seemed to time perfectly as it arrived today): The Body: All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood (especially excited 'cuz it's out of print and been kinda hard to track down and I think it was just last week that it popped up on discogs for like two or three hundred bucks, ugh, that shit makes you think there's no chance, but then it popped up maybe a week later for a normal price so I snagged it, well, after waiting a few days as I literally got THAT notification the day we left town). Anyway, good to be back home. And to see Trudy too. She had the house to herself and she seems to have been a pretty good girl. Alright, time to wrap this up. Oh, and I didn't even talk about the fight I got in with my dad over the phone while out of town. I'll save that for later. And anything else I may have missed in these gigantic chunks of logorrhea.
So thus rounded out a pretty laid-back but eventful and successful trip to Cape Cod. We headed back to Boston Friday morning taking the scenic route. We made good time and got to the airport early and all that. Okay, we're going to wait for our flight. Good show. Then it's all happening, great. Get on the plane. Get ready to take off! Yeah! Let's go home! Some announcements about weather and rerouting. Okay. Set back a few minutes, fine. Taxi some. Get out on that runway. More announcements. More wait. More announcements. Bad news. Worse news. Much time is wasted out there. They said all flights to La Guardia (where our layover was to be) were cancelled because there was some rain somewhere. Well, we can't stay out in the runway any longer. Back to the airport. The pilot's telling us there might be delay and the flight will go out later, but fellow passengers are looking online and seeing the flight is flat-out cancelled. We get to the gate and yeah it's cancelled. We're all in line to figure out what to do. Many people are on their phones. I call American Airlines to see if talking to a rep that way is faster than waiting to talk to the person at the gate. It is but they're not helpful and borderline rude. I get transferred to the supervisor who just tells me she can't accommodate my hotel if I have to stay the night because it was cancelled because of "weather" (COMPLETELY OUT OF THEIR CONTROL!) and they don't do that and I'll have to talk to someone in person at the airport (the first of many toss-offs of responsibility to just get rid of having to deal with me). So a bit later I get up to the guy and express frustration that we'll have to wait a whole nother day to get home and try to see if there's something that can be done. Oh, and get this. They tell me that there's only ONE more AA flight leaving Boston that night (it's like 4-something, maybe 5 at this point or some shit) and of course that single flight left for a Friday night in Boston is full. Okay, anyway this guy tells me I can try getting put on standby as there's a flight that can connect in Charlotte and go to this certain gate and he's putting us on the standby list. He said the list is already long and I know it's a long-shot but we're stuck so why not try? We make it over there and when someone finally shows up at the gate and I talk to her I find out we were never even put on the list. I ask if she can do it, she takes our boarding passes and says to wait. She seemed really concerned that some other guy said he'd put us on this list but didn't. Well so we wait and yeah, still our names never even make it on the list. I'm sure it wouldn't've done any good as there were many names on the list that didn't make it (though actually there were quite a few that did), but just the principle of saying you're going to and then not even bothering. Just keeping us stuck there 'cuz we have to wait and you have our passes and you didn't do shit. So there were are at Logan airport, stuck. Now it's after 7 and our new flight leaves at 11 the next morning and we're still in fucking Boston. It was either find an expensive hotel last minute or just stay all fucking night at the airport (which we'd been at since a little after noon, which would make the whole stay almost 24 hours). I made some calls and we found an expensive hotel with a shuttle that was a little less expensive than others (including the one right next to the airport that was full anyway). So not only do we have to waste time, but we have to put down a good bit of money just to sleep because of stingy American fucking Airlines. The worst part wasn't even our plight. But I was scheduled to pick up Horace from the vet the next day and they close at noon (and are closed Sundays) so I was sure it'd mean he'd be stuck at the vet for two extra nights (which was breaking my heart for the poor boy, that didn't end up being a problem, but it could have been).
They had kept our checked-in luggage so we didn't have any toiletries, but we were able to get enough to get by from the hotel. The bed was comfortable and we were able to sleep. We were able to shower. Those were all pluses. I don't know if my sunburned body could have taken much sitting in the same clothes in an uncomfortable airport chair all night/day. So it sucked but the hotel was worth it (given the shit situation, shituation?). Well, we get up early and make it to the airport relatively early for the flight. Mary Beth tried to check in the night before online but got some weird shit with not being able to pick any seats. We get in and it seemed to go okay with the seats. We got assigned seats except the second leg of the trip Mary Beth had something on her ticket saying there was no seat assigned (mine had one). We're worried about the worst. We're boarding the first plane and I get stopped up with what seemed to be an issue with my ticket. The attendant kept going over something on her computer screen and then talking to the other attendants about it. I was getting ready to go off if they said I couldn't be on the flight. It ended up being a dumb thing where Mary Beth's and my seats were switched on the ticket from what they were in the computer. Anyway, that ended up being a briefly bit of meaningless confusion. The flight ended up going on time and we made it to the Philadelphia airport, took the shuttle to terminal F (which looks to be the original airport, servicing smaller planes and being older and smaller and quite charming) where our next flight was. Thankfully Mary Beth just showed her weird ticket and they had her new ticket with a real seat ready to go. We weren't sitting next to each other for this part of the journey, but we were just glad to fucking be making it home. And we did make it home! Our luggage had arrived ahead of us the night before. Oh, and earlier in the day I called the vet to let them know about my travel setback. She told me that I could do an after-hours pickup for an additional fee between 5 and 5:30 (which I'm sure was less than the cost of boarding him another whole day...really two days). We made good time and were home before 4. So I was able to get my wonderful Meow Man. He lived up to his name! So much to say in the car back and at home for a good while. Poor boy. But he's been very happy to see me and affectionate and he seems very healthy and in good shape so I'm pretty happy about that. He must have heard me typing about him. He literally just bounded into this room meowing at me. He's still meowing. I had a bit of mail waiting for me when I got home. I'd ordered this cd online while we were out of town trying to time it so it wouldn't get here before I did (which I seemed to time perfectly as it arrived today): The Body: All the Waters of the Earth Turn to Blood (especially excited 'cuz it's out of print and been kinda hard to track down and I think it was just last week that it popped up on discogs for like two or three hundred bucks, ugh, that shit makes you think there's no chance, but then it popped up maybe a week later for a normal price so I snagged it, well, after waiting a few days as I literally got THAT notification the day we left town). Anyway, good to be back home. And to see Trudy too. She had the house to herself and she seems to have been a pretty good girl. Alright, time to wrap this up. Oh, and I didn't even talk about the fight I got in with my dad over the phone while out of town. I'll save that for later. And anything else I may have missed in these gigantic chunks of logorrhea.
