It's My TV….It's My Peanut Butter

Neither Kristy nor Cammy will be blogging tonight.  For I, Wash Seamus Downs, have hijacked it.  I interrupt this blog because… Mommy says I can’t type due to my lack of opposable thumbs.  Shows how much she knows.

So what’s new?  Well… last week Mommy gave me a greenie loaded with drugs and loaded me into my carrier and then into the car.  Where she imprisoned me for more than thirteen hours.  I spent most of that time curled up Mommy’s seat, but periodically she would prod me out so she could shove me back into my carrier.  This was so she could get out and stretch her legs, refuel the car, or use the restroom.  Please note:  she did not offer me any of those opportunities.  (Yes, there was a litter box in the car, but I have a little dignity).

At present we are staying at the home of Mommy’s parents.  They seem to be okay enough except that her father wears boots and walks very heavily.  The problem is that the house comes with two resident cats of its own, neither of which seems to appreciate my charms.  One of them is significantly larger than me which is kind of scary.  As are the noises she makes if I get near her.  My first day here, not only did she chase me under the bed; she sat beside it so that I couldn’t get from under it.  I’m not sure what’s worse: her or the little one.  The other cat here is definitely smaller than me.  Unfortunately, she’s also crazy. The kind of crazy that is so terrified of me she has to seek me out regularly so she can yell at me.  It took me a couple days, but I recently realized that if I just run at her she runs away.  It’s kind of fun, I’m not going to lie.

Other than that, I kind of like the temporary digs.  Things I have discovered here that I think we need to get at our house:

A refrigerator that sits low enough of the floor that wine corks don’t roll under it when I’m playing with them.

A cool combination scratching post/climbing tower.  It has things that hang off it and I can attack it.  And it only sometimes falls over on me.

A sunroom.  Windows everywhere!  Close up view of the squirrels!

An attic.  Mommy won’t let me play in it, but I’m pretty sure it’s awesome.

Hardwood floors.

A treadmill.  I don’t want to use it, but it sure is fun to pose on.

So, I’m preparing for yet another jaunt on a plane in the near future, and I am daily growing more pissed at the airline charges for checked bags.   I’m trying to save on checking a bag (and on the amount of luggage I’m toting around Texas).  I have to pack for 2 days at a conference where I’ll be donning professional attire and at least one day of which I will probably be sitting for a photo, followed by 2 additional days in the sweltering heat of S. Texas (including at least 6 hours in a house with no AC).

First problem:  business suit.  I could try a garment bag, but I hate those damned things and it’s just going to get crunched in the overhead bin anyhow.  It’s still going to get wrinkled in my other carry on, but at least then I’ll have room for everything else.  Because I’ve yet to encounter a garment bag that held much of anything more than 2-3 items on hangers and a pack of gum without it taking up as much space as my full sized suitcase.  I’m sure one of you is going to rave and tell wonderous stories about your luggage, but for me, these bags are always either too big or too small.

Second problem: Cosmetics.  I’m a homely critter.  The only chance I have of looking decent enough to pass muster at this conference is via chemical intervention.  Even when I have things in the appropriate under 3 oz. container size, the number of containers necessary renders that 1 quart bag useless.  Primer, lip gloss, mascara, shampoo, conditioner, make up remover, moisturizer, gel, perfume.  And that’s not even the real basics like deodorant, toothpaste, the topical meds for my knee and contact solution.  I don’t care how small the container is, you just can’t get that much in a 1 quart bag.

If I weren’t worried about how I come off in my attempts to network at this meeting, I’d chuck the suit and the cosmetics and laugh all the way down the jetway.  Instead, I’m shaking my fist at the airlines (and at the TSA….stupid 1quart arbitrary bullshit).  Ah well, time to google to see the hotel has an iron to press the business attire, and if there’s a drug store within walking distance–I might save some space and buy contact solution there….

Stupid damn airlines.

Cammy has already made a couple of posts about traveling and all the things that drive her nuts about it.  I’m not posting about the costs and bureaucracy and all those things that drive Cammy nuts.  None of those things seem to bother me on the same level that they infuriate Cammy.  What drives me crazy are the people I have to travel with.  On two and a half hours sleep I traveled from Indianapolis to southeastern Virginia.  With a stopover in DC this means two flights:  one about an hour and a half, one just under an hour.  I’m good at sleeping on planes, so that was my plan.  Unfortunately those flights were so short I didn’t get much sleep to speak of.  Which meant I had less patience than normal with humanity.  So here are a few of the travel behaviors that irritate me the most:

1.        Cologne Fiends. Dousing yourself in cologne before flying is in no way a good idea.  Now, I don’t know, it’s possible that you’re going to be traveling for thirty hours like Cammy and without the benefit of your daily shower you’re concerned how you’ll smell afterwards.  Here’s the thing:  contrary to what the musicals tell you, perfume does not cover a stench.  After thirty hours, you’re just going to smell like BO + cologne.  If you want to absorb odors put some baking soda or talcum powder in your pockets or something.  It so happens that I’m allergic to a lot of cologne’s, especially men’s colognes.  But even if I wasn’t, there’s no cologne that smells good that strong.  And, you know, no matter how short the flight, it’s a fair bet that someone on the plane will want to breathe at some point.  Don’t get in their way.

2.       Ass Lady. My second flight was on a tiny school bus sized plane.  When we landed the lady sitting across from me stood up to get situated long before the door was opened.  For some reason she could not figure out how to do this without sticking her ass in my face.  Which was not small.  And judging by the smell, it’s possible she’s got some hygiene issues.  Then she stood there, for like, bloody ever, with her ass in my face.  She could have turned to face the front, pointing her ass down the aisle.  But no.  She kept it in my face.  It’s a wonder it didn’t wind up covered in my vomit.

3.       Seat stealers. Maybe I’m just ordinarily oblivious, but I swear I’ve never seen so many people just taking seats that weren’t theirs and just acting like there’s nothing wrong with it.  On my first flight I heard a guy ask a woman to get out of his seat.  Her response was, “I don’t think it really matters where we sit.”  Um… maybe not, but if that’s not your seat, and the man who booked it wants it back?  Get the heck out of it.  A woman stole my seat on my second flight.  I didn’t make a big deal out of it, seeing as it was only going to be half an hour to forty-five minutes and sitting in the aisle allowed me to extend my busted knee, but seriously?  All she had to do to make me stop directing angry energy at her for the duration was ask, “Oh, do you mind?” Yes, I would have minded, and yes, like a good passive aggressive southern girl I would have pretended I didn’t.  But I would have felt better about the whole thing.

4.       Seat hogs. I’m not talking about on plane behavior here.  I’m talking about people in waiting areas who take one seat for their ass and two for their stuff.  This is quite acceptable when there are plenty of seats, but when you start to notice the seats are all filling up?  Put some of those bags at your feet, jack ass.

The trip wasn’t all bad though.  National Airport does have awesome food courts and there was one right by my gate that supplied me with some California Tortilla action and a good dose of nostalgia.

Yes, I know, I bitch about the time wasted during air travel with startling regularity.  But this time, well, this time, I’m beyond justified.

For those of you who’ve made the hellacious trip down to Australia, you get me.  I know you do.  Except for those of you who either got to A) Start on the West Coast or B) Had a direct flight to a major west coast airport.

Yeah.  I have two legs before I ever get to San Francisco.  THEN I make the hop on to Sydney.

And guess what?  Then I get to fly local to a place, which, while I hesitate to refer to it as “the outback” is certainly more off the regular tourist path than I’ve ever had anyone else talk about going (except my friend Jen, who was chillin’ with a local Aussie buddy and no doubt got the insider’s tour).  We’re looking at over 30 hours door to door.

At present, I’m just at the start of all this.  I’m sitting at my initial airport gate, which, sadly, is an American Airlines gate so no nice power outlets or anything here.  There are outlets.  But they’re dead.  Fuckers.  And I know DFW won’t let me have free power because they’re douche-bags as well (and also controlled by American).  Here’s hoping all goes well….and here’s hoping that San Francisco is less stingy with the electricity.

This will probably be a dull post, but….I’ve returned home from travel yet again.  The visit to help Kristy celebrate the big 3-0 was successful and entertaining (at least I thought so).  Unfortunately the lure of a paycheck caused me to hit the road today.  Well, the paycheck and the realization that I had a cat who was undoubtedly missing me (or at least missing a lap to sit on).

But, even if it sucks to end the fun, it’s always nice to get home especially when the journey in between has been a long drive.  Even after a short visit, I come back to a tomato plant that has apparently decided to take over the entire flower bed, a bunch of peppers that weren’t there when I left, and an eggplant that will be ready to pluck in a few days (plus others which look to be on the way).

Of course, I also came home to laundry had to finish, and a cat that literally bitched me out before I even got in the door (I could hear her inside).  Oh, and the knowledge that the bill-paying-job starts up again tomorrow.

But I won’t dwell on that.  For now, the cat is done bitching and has curled up next to me contentedly, the garden will be dealt with tomorrow and I’m back in my cozy chair after having had an oddly pleasant cross country drive back from a fantastic weekend with an old friend, eating, drinking and generally being merry.  Oh, and I’ve put Rio Grande in the DVD player.

I’ve got the warm and fuzzies and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

Maybe it doesn’t make for an entertaining post, but the pleasant-yet-un-exciting really ought to be worth a mention just as much as the annoyances, right?

Your resident road (and air) warrior, Cammy, is packing to hit the road yet again.  Fear not.  This trip is not for business or even continuing education purposes.   This is purely for fun and I’ve got reasonable assurances that there will be booze at my destination.  A certain half of this box-of-entertainment/mashed-nut duo has a Geburtstag this weekend.  A celebration must happen, even if it won’t involve blowing up a porta potty (although, I, personally, believe that it should–launching of porta-johns should be involved in all great celebrations).

Unfortunately, this means that I am trying to write my obligatory post and pack and prep for departure tomorrow.  Normally I’d be hitting that point where I plan to finish up loose ends when I wake up in the morning, but I’m actually going to run into the office for my real job for a few hours (all comments about Type A Workaholics….are probably not inaccurate) before I hit the highway.

You’d think packing for a road trip would be easier than packing for air travel, but the overwhelming amount of stuff I can bring in my car that I couldn’t dream of dragging on a plan puts me into a tailspin of “Ooooh, should I bring this????” thinking.  Before I know it, I’ve packed half my wardrobe, more movies than I could ever watch in a month (let alone that Kristy and I could manage to watch in 4 days in between all the yacking), and then I realize…..I’ve not even begun to burn tunes for the car (yes, I’m still on the CD burning phase of music….especially since my MP3 player is on the fritz and the last FM transmitter I bought for my car was crappy).  And allow me to make this crystal clear:  I. Do. Not. Drive. Without. Music.

And on that note, in the interest of not delaying my departure for lack of a good soundtrack, I will end this poorly constructed post, and I’ll catch y’all on the flip side.

In yet another incident of travel mishap-ery, my early morning flight from Vegas involved a 5 year old girl who had obviously had a much better night’s sleep than me, who was seated in my row between me and a 60-something Oakland fan, while her mother and toddler brother were in the row behind.  She really was adorable, but she was also way, way too energetic.

And she had NOTHING to occupy her.

Except me.

Honestly.  This is a 3 hour flight.  What kind of parent doesn’t bring the coloring book?  I rather applaud this mom for not having a personal DVD player or a Nintendo DS for the kid.  That’s what I usually see on flights.  Even the pre-school set usually has some form of electronic crack to pacify them.  But here sat my new little friend, with not so much as a pencil.  All she had was a fuzzy little toy snake/worm thingie.

And, of course me.  I am, apparently, highly entertaining.

For 3 hours, she talked my ear off.   I’d had big plans to snooze on this trip, and spend some time staring out the window and scribbling in my notebook.  Instead, I gave up my coveted window seat so she could look outside. I thought this would keep her occupied enough to let me doze, but not so much–it just gave her a reason to explain to me that our plane was scaring away the Care Bears who live in the clouds we were flying over.  She stole my pen and proceeded to use me as a human dictionary as she wrote words on the airline napkins.   I picked up dropped items, explained things from the airline magazine, helped with the cup of apple juice, handed over my graham cracker snacks and turned on the reading light (and turned it off, and turned in on, and off and on, until I finally adopted a “Mom” look and said “No.”)

Even if I hadn’t been tired at the start of the flight, the unending stream of energy from my under-sized seat mate was enough to wear anyone out.  But, it didn’t come without payment.

Near the end of the flight, I was presented with a napkin adorned with hearts, flowers and astoundingly neat (for a 5 year old) lettering proclaiming her name, my name, half of the words I’d spelled out for her (such toughies as “teeth” “eyeball” and “dirty”), my name and “I love you.”

Ah well.

I can nap on some other flight.

It’s your world traveler Cammy, here again from the road.  This time, Vegas.

I’ve never been to Las Vegas before.  I’ve always heard such glowing reports about how it’s wild and fun and awesome.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have found my personal hell.

It’s crowded.  It’s claustrophic.  It’s loud.  It’s purposely manipulating.  It’s plastered with consumerism.  It’s over-priced.  It’s tacky.  It’s dirty.  And there’s not near enough damn Elvis.

You think I’m kidding about that last one?  Two days and I’ve seen exactly one dude dressed as Elvis.  What the hell?

I have never really wanted to come here.  I don’t gamble, so there’s no attraction there.  It’s what built this city and in a way that’s rather interesting, but it doesn’t mean I want to contribute to it.  And everything is designed to shuttle the weak-willed into parting with their money.  The very design of the buildings is geared toward focusing you toward slots.  I hate that because it makes for a very difficult time navigating.  I normally have a fairly good sense of direction and very little problem getting from point A to point B, but this place has totally messed with my internal GPS and that pisses me off because I know it’s purposeful.  It’s also annoying as hell to be routed through the casino which is smokey and just fuckin’ noisy as hell.

Of course, the argument from everyone has always been that I don’t have to gamble, I can just “look at all the cool stuff.”  But I lack the racoon syndrome necessary to be awed by shiny things, so I don’t care much about the lights and showey stuff.  And the shopping blows because it’s all Gucci, Prada and Louis Vuitton.  This is the only place I’ve ever been that has two Tiffany’s in 2 blocks.  Even if I were enough of a label-whore to want to shell out, those prices are so jacked up it’s well beyond my budget.

And while I’d been told about the people pushing the prostitute cards, I had no idea how bad it was.  Seriously, I was all but ready to deck the last guy who snapped the cards in my direction.  For those of you who haven’t been here and who’ve only heard the glowing reports of Vegas, you get people along the sidewalks who have stacks of fliers and cards, most of them for strippers/prostitutes and they do anything to make noise to get your attention to push these cards off on you.  They’ll snap them against one another, against bottles, whatever.  It’s annoying.  And a lot of those cards wind up on the ground, which is both dirty in the litter sense and in the porn sense because generally the cards feature female nudity.  Now, I’ve no fear of boobs, but I really don’t like looking down to watch my step and seeing three different women’s tits–it’s just disturbing.  However, I will say that it’s helping to break me of my bad habit of looking down at my feet when I walk.  Even the ueber-tacky horizon of The Strip is an improvement over the parade of nudity on the ground.

I wish I had time to get out and away from this part of town.  I have a feeling that the greater part of Las Vegas would be much more to my liking.  The scenery I saw while landing was gorgeous.  Desert mountains are a type of scenery I really appreciate–seeing the ruggedness and colors of the mountains and rock formations, unobscured by large amounts of vegetation.  It’s just a shame that so much of it is obscured by the man-made tackiness of a fake Eifel Tower, and seizure inducing neon signs.

As I alluded in a prior post, I’m not pleased with the “high end” hotel experience.  I grew up in a family that tended more toward the tent-and-National-Forest form of over-night accommodation.  A La Quinta was high end.

But job travel, especially to conferences and seminars, usually means staying in the hotel where the event is taking place and that usually means a “high-end” location.  The first time I got sent on one of these trips, I thought, “Oh, wow!  Even if the conference sucks, at least I can spend the evenings relaxing in a luxury room.”

Yeah.  That was  a let down.

The sheets are a little nicer, and I’ll admit that the pillows are usually quite schnazzy, and sometimes you even get a great view out the window (not always) but the lack of extras generally leaves me wishing they’d just put me up in the regular old Holiday Inn.  Oh, sure, the extras are THERE, but they cost you.  It’s all about ways to nickel and dime you, which kind of blows knowing what my company is paying per night.  Other than the lack of paying for a rental car or taxi to get me too and from another hotel to the conference location, what you get for the price is almost insulting, especially when you know what you could get somewhere else!

The biggest pet peeve?  Internet access.  It’s a total racket.  They know they get high end business folks who have to have internet, so, of course, they charge $10 a day extra for it and it’s generally only wired access.  The fact that I’m in a room with a luscious king-sized bed and yet I have to sit in a craptastic chair to check my e-mail?  That makes me grumpy.  Meanwhile, the Holiday Inn two blocks down might have one layer less on the pillows, but the internet is wireless and it’s free.  Hell, even the Motel 6 and the Super 8 can manage to swing wifi, so what the hell is going on at the Marriott with the waterfront view.  Oh, and while the Wall Street Journal had a story about the lack of wifi in many high end hotels and SAID that all the Hyatts had wifi?  Bull.  I have yet to be in a Hyatt that didn’t limit me to that $10 wired internet crap, including the one I was stuck in when I read the story in the WSJ.

Another peeve?  Continental breakfast.  The higher end the hotel, the more likely that the only way to get breakfast is in the equally high-end and dramatically over-priced restaurant.  While the La Quinta down the street a few blocks has the waffle-maker and the mini boxes of Captain Crunch free for the taking, my $200 a night hotel with no wifi wants me to pay $6.89 for a bowl of plain oatmeal.  A number of the hotels I’ve stayed in like to “bundle” internet access along with breakfast in a “business upgrade package” for extra bucks.  I applaud them for the supply/demand capitalist behavior, but as someone filling out an expense report, I loathe and despise these bastards.

TV also sucks.  Now, it’s kind of nice to walk in and see a huge flat-panel larger than my home TV sitting there, waiting, but, inevitably, the channel selection blows goats, and you always have to go through their stupid-ass menu every time you turn it on–or worse, navigate away from the 24/7 tourism suggestion channel.  The only 24/7 tourism channel I could ever tolerate was the one so many hotels in Williamsburg, Virginia use where they play Story of a Patriot on continuous loop.  Because, well, it’s Story of a Patriot!  What’s not to love?  And, really, would it kill them to have a DVD player?  I don’t want their pay per view crap, I just want to watch the Psych DVDs I shoved in my carry on, and if I can do it on the TV rather than my laptop, I’d be less inclined to write critical blog posts.

Location.  Outside of the hotels in the East Coast cities (DC, downtown Baltimore, New York), they like to put these hotels off away from other things–like reasonably priced eating establishments.  Without a rental car, I either prepare to answer to the boss on travel spending with my meal price when I get back to the office, or I put on my walking shoes and brave the strange streets to find food–so far I’ve been lucky on this, but as a woman traveling alone, I’m not always going to have this option.  Taxis cost money and frankly, I’ve been in a few where I wondered if I would make it back alive.  And even if I do manage to finagle a rental car, the parking at high end places sucks.  Several have limited you to valet parking, and others charge you every time you enter and leave.

Crappy coffee.  Kristy’s right.  The in-room coffee at the high end places is really not that good.  And worse, I’ll admit that I’m afraid to use it half the time.  After all, the bottles of water they leave in the room will add $5 to your room bill if you take them.  Why should I believe they would actually let me drink the coffee for free?  That goes for other things as well.  In one hotel, I was almost afraid to set the alarm clock for fear of what the charge would be.  Everything in that place came at a price over and above the $200 odd a night charge for the privilege of letting me sleep there.

Add to this that a lot of these luxury places have had crappy decor (in my opinion), wear and tear equal to or exceeding many of the low to mid-price hotels I’d stay in on my own dime, and at times, I’ve had reason to be completely grossed out by the housekeeping (bad vacuuming–I could have grown a garden in the dust and dirt left in the carpet behind a door–chewing gum under the desk….) which, I dunno, I guess I just expected better than that for the cost of the room.

I’ve got one last really big boon-doggle next week and then I think I get a reasonable amount of time off.  But the next round?  Screw the conference location.  I’m going to find a way to stay somewhere reasonable.  Somewhere with my free muffin and orange juice, free wifi and in-room coffee I’m not afraid to drink.

While I would always prefer that putting out sub-par blog postings and procrastinating on improving the design of It’s My TV….It’s My Peanut Butter was my real job…it’s not.  But occasionally the real world comes with benefits beyond the paycheck that keeps me fed, clothed and connected to the net.  The current benefit?  I’ve been sent to Budapest on business.

So far, it’s fabulous.  I mean, aside from the part where I have to work.  Other than that, this is an amazing city.  I’ve only had time to explore a very small fraction of it, and sadly, work scheduling looks like I won’t get to see much more.

I’m in the city center area, on the Danube (which I find neither beautiful nor blue…it’s muddy green-brown), Pest side between the Elizabeth and Chain bridges (which I would type in their proper Hungarian names, but the butchering would be too much).  This means I’m getting a lot of the tourist-y stuff.  In a way this is disappointing.  I’d like to be immersed in Hungarian culture….but on the street I hear as much German and British-accented-English as anything.

There are definitely Hungarians here and there, down the side streets I wandered off on this afternoon.  You can spot them easily if you know what to look for.  I’m sad to say that Eastern Europe maintains a standard of dress that I can’t help but mock, at least a little.  The women favor the highly unnatural hair color with a good 2 inches of dark roots and seem to cling to the 1980s fashions (although, that’s oddly not far from current fashion in some ways, so they’re doing okay there).  The guys, well, despite Hungarian pride, the guys all seem to dress in track-suit type apparel with slicked hair (or close cropped) and gold chains around their necks, kind of like you’d picture an Italian-American low-level mobster from New Jersey to dress.  Nothing to be proud of.

But, they’ve all been really polite.  Quite reserved, but I guess that’s because I keep getting them in the service context, and I’m sure the whole language thing is intimidating.  I did come upon one girl who was really friendly in a tiny little stationary shop on a side street.  The place was like a closet and was selling nice journals, pens and paper.  I was the only one in there (no one else would have fit–if I held my arms out to the sides, I could easily touch both walls at once) and at first she started chatting with me in Hungarian.  She was the first one I felt comfortable asking questions.  If I had more time, I’d try to find the place again just to get her to tell me about the city (and also to pick up another journal–I bought one while I was there as my souvenir for myself).

My European experience pretty much consists of this trip, but I can’t help but think it’s slightly cooler than Paris, London, Berlin…..Sure, you see the crumbling facades poorly maintained, and the scars of ugly, communist-era blocky buildings.  There are weeds in the cracks of the side walk and graffiti on things that should be pristine, but that almost adds something to it all.  A little umph to the place, if you will.  Even under the neglect, it’s hard not to appreciate the fantastic architecture that graces the front of almost every building you pass.  In the absence of time for museums, I’ve managed to build my own self-tour, recalling as much information as possible.

Here’s hoping I get the chance to post from here on another trip when I have more than a handful of hours to see what this place has to offer.  In the meantime, I’ll have to be content to see what I can of this beautiful city.