Last Minute

So I never did make a post about the boy finally leaving. It was two weeks
ago. And it made us sad - but also happy that he's finally working again and
hopefully starting to make some good money soon. And we can start planning
on things we're going to do with his newfound income. Like having me come
visit. So last Wednesday, we debated on whether or not to visit because of
the holiday weekend. Should he come here? Should I go there? Should I drive?
Should I fly? In the end we decided that a visit might not be in our best
interests. Mapquest says it takes 7 hours to drive there. That'd be 14 hours
of driving total. Like a whole day of driving. And with gas prices, that'd
be ~$100 worth of gas. So we moved on to flying. Southwest flies into
Ontario and has fairly reasonable rates. Problem is finding a way in to Palm
Springs (Ontario is an hour to 1.5 hours drive to Palm Springs). Rental Car
would be too expensive. Flying direct to Palm Springs was too expensive (for
not much more, I could have a ticket to Hawaii!). So Thursday comes and
Matthew again brings up the topic of me coming to visit. Turns out his
friend (and new boss) is willing to come pick me up from the Ontario
Airport. So we revisit the whole flying issue. We check ticket prices again
- and what we thought was a very reasonable price on Southwest turned out to
be the one-way price only. (They do have very reasonable rates, but you have
to plan more in advance than the Thursday before a Holiday weekend). So the
debate continued. In the end, we decided, even though it was more than we
wanted to pay, we wanted to see each other more. Especially since it was a
holiday weekend and we wouldn't have another opportunity to visit for
several weeks (as for two weeks this month Matthew will be back home in
Hawaii). So I ended up buying tickets ~1am Friday to leave San Jose to
Ontario at 12:35pm Friday. Talk about last minute. At first, I decided I'd
go in to work a couple hours on Friday and say I had to leave early, but in
the end, I figured I'd probably need that time to get myself ready, so I
called work, left a message for my supervisor saying I had a "family
emergency" and I wouldn't be in on Friday. Good thing I did, as I really did
need every minute to get ready before I had to leave for the airport.

The beasties seemed to have done just fine without me. I came back to my
apartment in the same condition I left it - although with the litter box a
bit more stinky than I would have liked. This is the longest I've left them
by themselves - 4 days/3 nights. If I'd been more prepared, I would have
tried to get someone to come in to check on them on Saturday - but I figured
they'd do alright. And they did. (Much to my relief)

We had a very nice weekend in Palm Springs. We were somewhat limited by the
fact that we didn't really have any transportation. Matthew's friend was
kind enough to let us use his big ass SUV on Sunday. We had a very nice
"date". We first went the zoo, The Living Desert, in Palm Desert. My
favorites of course were all the cat species - Mountain Lion, Ocelot,
Serval, Sand Cat, ect. I couldn't believe how uncrowded the place was. I
think we saw more staff than people actually visiting! Probably because this
weekend was the start of their season and it was HOT! Many of the poor
kitties were panting it was so hot!

We then went to a very yummy Mexican restaurant in Downtown Palm Springs.
Palm Springs is definitely a very "yuppie" town and had many yummy looking
(and smelling) restaurants to choose from. After that we saw The Transporter
2. It was quite entertaining. Jason Stratham is fun to watch. He has this
charisma and finesse (plus he's nice to look at) and he made a movie with a
so-so and much overdone plot - into a very enjoyable movie.

All in all it was quite a good weekend. It was very disappointing to have to
come home and think about going back to my crappy job. At least it's a short
week this week. I really really need to make a better effort a finding a new
job.

And I probably had more to say - but I've been interrupted so many times,
I'm not sure it's worth it anymore.

Comments

[Cliff Lusk]

Saw your blog. Had to check it out...my mothers name is Julie, she lives most of the year in San Fran...so it made me think for a minute she had a blog when I searched for Lusk. Anyways, nice talking to you.
Cliff