Wendy Goes West Recap Part 1
Oct. 11th, 2004 08:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wendyzskiIn which our heroine travels to a far-off land and meets the strange creatures that live there.
Okay, the sunrise over Lake Michigan is pretty - layers of purple, gold, and orange, but all in all I'd much rather be in bed. I get jealous looks from the other travelers as I breeze thru the security lines, but it's all a result of experience. You can do this too if you:
1) Choose the farthest check-in line if there are more than one.
2) Wait for your bags to be screened, and don't leave until you see then go down the ramp
3) Hand over your ID and Boarding pass arranged so they can see right away that the names match
4) Put everything (jacket, pocket contents) into your carry-on bag BEFORE you get anywhere near the scanners
5) Wear plain flat shoes
I was through and on my way to the gate before the little old lady next to me was finished taking off her jacket!
I think there is something wrong with the pressure on my plane. I was counting on getting a few more hours of sleep on the flight, but the air seems thin and hard to breathe, and when I get my packets of snacks, they are all puffy. I only get about a hour of sleep. Meh.
I officially hate Oakland Airport. I follow the signs that read "terminal" all the way to the end before realizing that "terminal" and "baggage claim" are at opposite ends of the complex, at least if you fly Southwest. For the record "Terminal" means Terminal 1, which is where baggage claim is if you are flying anything BUT Southwest. Luckily for me, it also has the slowest baggage claim response I have ever seen. I have time to get lost, go pee, get change, get bus info, and still read 2 chapters of my book before the bags from my flight actually turn up.
I take the AirBart shuttle to the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) trains, which look like the monorail from Disneyworld, only dingier. Also, I think the people in CA must be bigger than other people. The seats on the BART are bigger than the ones on any train or plane I have ever been on, and I can't even reach the strap-hanger bars. I must also conclude that I must be a very confident-looking person. I have not been on the ground 45 minutes and 3 people have already asked me directions. This even happened while I was standing in front of the transit map with what I thought was a perplexed expression on my face. Go me.
My trip requires me to change to the SamTrans Bus in downtown San Fran. (For those who do not know this, there are something like 9 or10 transit companies in and around the SF Bay area, and none of them seem to communicate with each other. This will become more apparent as my tale continues.) I come up from underground directly into the middle of a picket line! Hotel workers are locked out of some of the big downtown hotels, and are making a lot of noise about it. Between that and the less-than-helpful directions from both the MUNI and BART reps, I end up going almost 2 blocks in the wrong direction before re-orienting myself. Luckily no one mugs me as I stand there in the middle of the sidewalk with my map - probably because the "HEAVY" tag is still on my suitcase.
I reach my hotel, the Stanford Arms, about 90 minutes later. It's a vintage 1930s stucco with blue trim and a warren of rooms around a now-empty courtyard. My room is….interesting. (Is that what you call it when you have to turn on your in-room water heater in order to take a shower?) It's a little tatty, a little shopworn, but I've paid a lot more for a lot less room when traveling with Minstrosity. It's scrupulously clean, and compares in size with my first studio apartment. There is a small kitchen and an even smaller bathroom, but a main room large enough to give a dance class in. Also I have every satellite TV channel known to mankind. The welcome gift bag is waiting for me, including my hour-by-hour color-coded schedule spreadsheet of when I have to be where, who I have to meet there, and what cell phone number I call if something goes awry. When two financial analysts marry, there is no shilly-shallying around! There is also heaps of local food items - a bottle of the local sparkling wine, Ghiardelli chocolates, pistachios, and some kind of eggplant goo in a jar. I'll take it to gaming - they'll eat anythuing…..
The Stanford Park, by comparison, is very country-club-ish. Deep carpets, marble tables, inlaid wood, valet everything. I get odd looks waiting in the lobby for my mom and her BF. I can't imagine why? I only have a few beads in my hair….
I finally meet my mom's BF of several years, Hal. He's a nice enough guy, aside from the usual old-guy tendency to always be right even when he doesn't know what he's talking about. However, combine his lack of short-term memory with my mom's complete lack of directional sense, and it's a rough drive up to the winery where the wedding is to be held.
Luckily the view is worth the slightly nauseating switchback road trip to get there. I finally meet my brother's intended. She's tall, pretty, smart. Yep - he done good. The view is gorgeous - the winery is on terraces on the side of a mountain. Rehearsal goes well. Going to be odd - I'm not processing, and I'm recessing alone, as I am the only un-dated family member. I feel bad for the people in the 2nd row - My mom's BF is next to me and he's 7' tall! (My mom comes up to his shirt pocket).
The rehearsal dinner is at the bride & groom's house, which they just finished renovating. In fact the last item (the pedestal for the counter-bar) arrived yesterday. We are seated at a long table in the backyard, mixed up so that we have to make conversation with people we don't know well. One thing that saves me is that not only does everyone have nametags, but they have captions! (bride's mother, friend of groom, etc). This is needed because there are 5 family members on our side and something like 20 on theirs.
Dinner was like an advertisement for California food. John & Melissa are both huge foodies and wine nuts, so everything was designed to show off local produce. I actually tried artichoke- it's slimy and tastes like grass. You pull it through your teeth so you can scrape off the slime. Ick. Lentils taste like little brown lima beans with no skins. The local goat cheese is nummy in everything (with the lentils and in a ravioli). My favorite was a chilled salmon with a citrus rub. Mmmmm. Only problem was that when you combine it with the local sparkling wine, it results in an evening of little fishy-burps. There was also a local chicken sausage with basil, lamp chops, tri-tip (beef), and a bunch of other things I can't remember. Partly because everything came with a selection of wines, but also because (thanks to my position at the end of the table) I ended up eating mostly in the dark. There were large candles in glass holders all along the table, but they didn't reach all the way to the ends of the table. The wait staff brought flashlights around with the pepper grinders to make sure they were seasoning the right dishes.
After the dinner was the "Welcome Reception". All the wedding guests (90 or so) were invited for wine tasting (4 whites & 4 reds), cheese and desserts. We suffered a bit from the can't-see-the-food effect, but everything I tried (mini pecan pie, éclair, cream puff, warm chocolate chip cookie) was delicious, of course.
Melissa's family is apparently very wealthy. They do things like go golfing together. In Africa. Me - I live in an apartment about the size of my brotehr's swimming pool. Periodically I had to take breaks from "and then the warthogs on the second green…", so I went in the kitchen to hang out with the catering staff. This being CA, most of them were under-employed artists - the white-wine bartender plays guitar in a folk group and one of the waitresses is a dancer. Then, a bit more grounded by the time with "my people", I returned to the fray.
Some of John's childhood friends were there, including the kid across the street since kindergarten. Chris was the first kid we knew to be diagnosed with ADHD, and was on and off diets and medication all through school. Everyone thought he'd never amount to much. Everyone, that is, except my mom. I think he was able to talk to her about stuff his mom couldn't deal with. I know he still sends her Mother's Day cards. Well, apparently earlier this week he got word that he passed the bar in DC. Woo hoo! I also got to see the scary-smart kid from the next block, who is now a PhD researcher in Physics in Ann Arbor. He's working on a new technique of medical imaging. Now I consider myself pretty darned smart, and I found myself nodding and smiling vaguely as he explained what he was working on. My honors-graduate brother says he found one of Tak's white papers online and only managed to understand about 1/3 of it. And finally his best friend in High School who joked that he had always thought I was just a rumor! (John was in 6th grade when I went away to college, so none of his HS friends ever saw me)
The party was supposed to go till 11, but I pooped out around 10:15. I had been up since 3AM that time zone with only two brief naps, and I was beat. So I took my little pumpkin-stem out to the bus and went back to the hotel and to bed.
Coming soon - Chapter 2
A groom with a view, an appropriate reading, more weird food, and getting to know the new in-laws.
Okay, the sunrise over Lake Michigan is pretty - layers of purple, gold, and orange, but all in all I'd much rather be in bed. I get jealous looks from the other travelers as I breeze thru the security lines, but it's all a result of experience. You can do this too if you:
1) Choose the farthest check-in line if there are more than one.
2) Wait for your bags to be screened, and don't leave until you see then go down the ramp
3) Hand over your ID and Boarding pass arranged so they can see right away that the names match
4) Put everything (jacket, pocket contents) into your carry-on bag BEFORE you get anywhere near the scanners
5) Wear plain flat shoes
I was through and on my way to the gate before the little old lady next to me was finished taking off her jacket!
I think there is something wrong with the pressure on my plane. I was counting on getting a few more hours of sleep on the flight, but the air seems thin and hard to breathe, and when I get my packets of snacks, they are all puffy. I only get about a hour of sleep. Meh.
I officially hate Oakland Airport. I follow the signs that read "terminal" all the way to the end before realizing that "terminal" and "baggage claim" are at opposite ends of the complex, at least if you fly Southwest. For the record "Terminal" means Terminal 1, which is where baggage claim is if you are flying anything BUT Southwest. Luckily for me, it also has the slowest baggage claim response I have ever seen. I have time to get lost, go pee, get change, get bus info, and still read 2 chapters of my book before the bags from my flight actually turn up.
I take the AirBart shuttle to the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) trains, which look like the monorail from Disneyworld, only dingier. Also, I think the people in CA must be bigger than other people. The seats on the BART are bigger than the ones on any train or plane I have ever been on, and I can't even reach the strap-hanger bars. I must also conclude that I must be a very confident-looking person. I have not been on the ground 45 minutes and 3 people have already asked me directions. This even happened while I was standing in front of the transit map with what I thought was a perplexed expression on my face. Go me.
My trip requires me to change to the SamTrans Bus in downtown San Fran. (For those who do not know this, there are something like 9 or10 transit companies in and around the SF Bay area, and none of them seem to communicate with each other. This will become more apparent as my tale continues.) I come up from underground directly into the middle of a picket line! Hotel workers are locked out of some of the big downtown hotels, and are making a lot of noise about it. Between that and the less-than-helpful directions from both the MUNI and BART reps, I end up going almost 2 blocks in the wrong direction before re-orienting myself. Luckily no one mugs me as I stand there in the middle of the sidewalk with my map - probably because the "HEAVY" tag is still on my suitcase.
I reach my hotel, the Stanford Arms, about 90 minutes later. It's a vintage 1930s stucco with blue trim and a warren of rooms around a now-empty courtyard. My room is….interesting. (Is that what you call it when you have to turn on your in-room water heater in order to take a shower?) It's a little tatty, a little shopworn, but I've paid a lot more for a lot less room when traveling with Minstrosity. It's scrupulously clean, and compares in size with my first studio apartment. There is a small kitchen and an even smaller bathroom, but a main room large enough to give a dance class in. Also I have every satellite TV channel known to mankind. The welcome gift bag is waiting for me, including my hour-by-hour color-coded schedule spreadsheet of when I have to be where, who I have to meet there, and what cell phone number I call if something goes awry. When two financial analysts marry, there is no shilly-shallying around! There is also heaps of local food items - a bottle of the local sparkling wine, Ghiardelli chocolates, pistachios, and some kind of eggplant goo in a jar. I'll take it to gaming - they'll eat anythuing…..
The Stanford Park, by comparison, is very country-club-ish. Deep carpets, marble tables, inlaid wood, valet everything. I get odd looks waiting in the lobby for my mom and her BF. I can't imagine why? I only have a few beads in my hair….
I finally meet my mom's BF of several years, Hal. He's a nice enough guy, aside from the usual old-guy tendency to always be right even when he doesn't know what he's talking about. However, combine his lack of short-term memory with my mom's complete lack of directional sense, and it's a rough drive up to the winery where the wedding is to be held.
Luckily the view is worth the slightly nauseating switchback road trip to get there. I finally meet my brother's intended. She's tall, pretty, smart. Yep - he done good. The view is gorgeous - the winery is on terraces on the side of a mountain. Rehearsal goes well. Going to be odd - I'm not processing, and I'm recessing alone, as I am the only un-dated family member. I feel bad for the people in the 2nd row - My mom's BF is next to me and he's 7' tall! (My mom comes up to his shirt pocket).
The rehearsal dinner is at the bride & groom's house, which they just finished renovating. In fact the last item (the pedestal for the counter-bar) arrived yesterday. We are seated at a long table in the backyard, mixed up so that we have to make conversation with people we don't know well. One thing that saves me is that not only does everyone have nametags, but they have captions! (bride's mother, friend of groom, etc). This is needed because there are 5 family members on our side and something like 20 on theirs.
Dinner was like an advertisement for California food. John & Melissa are both huge foodies and wine nuts, so everything was designed to show off local produce. I actually tried artichoke- it's slimy and tastes like grass. You pull it through your teeth so you can scrape off the slime. Ick. Lentils taste like little brown lima beans with no skins. The local goat cheese is nummy in everything (with the lentils and in a ravioli). My favorite was a chilled salmon with a citrus rub. Mmmmm. Only problem was that when you combine it with the local sparkling wine, it results in an evening of little fishy-burps. There was also a local chicken sausage with basil, lamp chops, tri-tip (beef), and a bunch of other things I can't remember. Partly because everything came with a selection of wines, but also because (thanks to my position at the end of the table) I ended up eating mostly in the dark. There were large candles in glass holders all along the table, but they didn't reach all the way to the ends of the table. The wait staff brought flashlights around with the pepper grinders to make sure they were seasoning the right dishes.
After the dinner was the "Welcome Reception". All the wedding guests (90 or so) were invited for wine tasting (4 whites & 4 reds), cheese and desserts. We suffered a bit from the can't-see-the-food effect, but everything I tried (mini pecan pie, éclair, cream puff, warm chocolate chip cookie) was delicious, of course.
Melissa's family is apparently very wealthy. They do things like go golfing together. In Africa. Me - I live in an apartment about the size of my brotehr's swimming pool. Periodically I had to take breaks from "and then the warthogs on the second green…", so I went in the kitchen to hang out with the catering staff. This being CA, most of them were under-employed artists - the white-wine bartender plays guitar in a folk group and one of the waitresses is a dancer. Then, a bit more grounded by the time with "my people", I returned to the fray.
Some of John's childhood friends were there, including the kid across the street since kindergarten. Chris was the first kid we knew to be diagnosed with ADHD, and was on and off diets and medication all through school. Everyone thought he'd never amount to much. Everyone, that is, except my mom. I think he was able to talk to her about stuff his mom couldn't deal with. I know he still sends her Mother's Day cards. Well, apparently earlier this week he got word that he passed the bar in DC. Woo hoo! I also got to see the scary-smart kid from the next block, who is now a PhD researcher in Physics in Ann Arbor. He's working on a new technique of medical imaging. Now I consider myself pretty darned smart, and I found myself nodding and smiling vaguely as he explained what he was working on. My honors-graduate brother says he found one of Tak's white papers online and only managed to understand about 1/3 of it. And finally his best friend in High School who joked that he had always thought I was just a rumor! (John was in 6th grade when I went away to college, so none of his HS friends ever saw me)
The party was supposed to go till 11, but I pooped out around 10:15. I had been up since 3AM that time zone with only two brief naps, and I was beat. So I took my little pumpkin-stem out to the bus and went back to the hotel and to bed.
Coming soon - Chapter 2
A groom with a view, an appropriate reading, more weird food, and getting to know the new in-laws.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
JCW da DMG sez . . .
Date: 2004-10-11 08:42 pm (UTC)Re: JCW da DMG sez . . .
Date: 2004-10-11 08:53 pm (UTC)But you are welcome to some of the pistachios. They aren't even red!
the eggplant goo
Date: 2004-10-11 09:10 pm (UTC)artichokes -- the main thing about *those* is the heart, which is the treat you get to after dealing with all of the leaves, and the choke, which is the little nest of fuzzy stuff that's in the middle. you scrape that off and cut the heart into bites and dip those into butter -- yum.
our RenFaire out here used to have an artichoke booth -- areas of the ground were paved in artichoke leaves.
lea bob
former RenFairian (NoCaRPFN, St. George) & lurking fan of your blog
Re: the eggplant goo
Date: 2004-10-11 10:29 pm (UTC)"Eggplant Caviar Provencal" - 'Eggplant caviar is a typical Provencal dish cooked with a tasteful melange of eggplants and olives. It is a delicious cold appetizer.' It then lists some ways to cook it.
Ingredients are 65% eggplants, sunflower oil, black olives, lemon juice, olive oil, parsleym garlic, salt, pepper, and savory.
In other words - Eggplant goo. From France.
Re: the eggplant goo
Date: 2004-10-12 04:12 am (UTC)Eggplant, no way, Jose.
Though I'm curious how you get a chop from a lamp... ;)
no subject
Date: 2004-10-12 06:49 am (UTC)When you eat artichoke, you're pretty much eating a large flower. As the NorCal rennie stated, the heart is the best part of the artichoke. The leaves aren't bad either, but they should also be dipped in butter.
and some kind of eggplant goo in a jar. I'll take it to gaming - they'll eat anything...
How do you expect to pass it off on them if you give them a warning? ^_~
no subject
Date: 2004-10-12 12:59 pm (UTC)I was not around much if at all while my brothers were in Jr. high and HS.. they were like 10 and 11 when I moved out.. and my mom (you know, the one who thinks I am evil .. whatever lol) had NO pictures of me anywhere.. she actually once gave me all my pictures (not that there were many) my HS pics and all lol... now pictures of my stepsisters actually existed, not many but they were there..
Anyway I once was there visiting when my brohters were getting ready to go to some dance.. a bunch of thier friends all gathered at mom's.. and I was told wow.. they really do have an older sister.. we never saw any signs of you so figured you were not real.. geez.. thanks mom....
no subject
Date: 2004-10-12 03:57 pm (UTC)I find that always happens to me in stores. I could be standing in line at Customer Service and people start asking me "do you carry such and such?" I can never go to Target wearing a red shirt. "Well, I could go into the back and see if they have that, but I think the actual employees and security might be a little upset."
no subject
Date: 2004-10-13 07:46 am (UTC)Josh's cousin just got married, country club, floofy dress, the whole nine yards. We left early because I was going to start sniping at thease stuopid unreal people of 45+ who could do nothing but bragg about how many tv's they were putting in their new homes.
The upside is we went to gaming! ;)