The #36

For some reason every time I take the #36 bus something weird happens. The first time I got the funny bus driver who punctuated every stop announcement by cheering "YAY!" He also liked to talk to the other drivers on the road, but more as a running monologue to himself. "Hey, yeah, try driving that way! That's a good idea."

The second time I took the #36 a woman got on with an unlit cigarette dangling from her bottom lip. "She's going to sit next to me, she's going to sit next to me," I thought as I watched her tumble onto the bus and make her way down the aisle. Sure enough, she sat right next to me (and the seats on the bus are designed so that you become immediately intimate with your seat-mate) and struck up an animated conversation with herself. Most of it was unintelligable except for when she said suddenly, quite loudly and clearly, "Why, thank you!" The voices must have been friendly ones.

Then this morning when I took the #36, with two stops to go before mine, a REALLY crazy guy got on and - you guessed it - sat right next to me. He had a cigarette which WAS lit, although he appeared to be unaware of this. My first thought was for the nasty cigarette; my second thought, which very quickly followed, was, "Oh fuck, how do I move without it being completely obvious?" Because, like the woman on the previous ride, this man also immediately struck up an unintelligable conversation except this one apparently included me. I caught only a few words like, "Look at you dressed like that" (I am wearing a t-shirt and jeans) and "you obviously one those women takes THREE HOUR LUNCHES looking like you do," which he helpfully elaborated upon by mumbling something like, "I know you prolly think you earn yo living and yo money every day but I bet you got one of them lunches looking like that sheeeeeeeeet."

I glanced around the bus looking for an escape or the kindness of a stranger to help me out but the back half was almost entirely empty. I did manage to catch the eye of a normal-looking guy in the last row, and he sort of smirked at me, clearly saying with his eyes, "Hey, man, glad it's YOUR problem and not mine."

Of course I'm no stranger to the charm of crazy or homeless people after six years in New York. I have a few fun stories. Like the time my dog Theo and I were standing on the street, minding our own business, and a homeless woman, threatened by my 19 pound fluffy dog sniffing a lamp post, walked straight up to Theo and smacked her over the head with one of her shopping bags. That didn't go over well with me and it resulted in my one and only vicious confrontation with a homeless person. She backed down. You don't fuck with an angered mother.

Then there was the time I was sitting at an outside table at a restaurant, people watching, and a crazy person ran up to a woman who was just walking down the street, clearly on her way home from work, and shoved her. The woman looked extremely startled and insulted for a moment and then, in true New Yorker fashion, her face slammed shut again and she continued on her way. It made for wonderful dinner entertainment.

But my favorite bum encounter by far was one morning when I was sitting on the steps in Union Square, enjoying coffee and a bagel with my favorite date - New York City. I was sitting there, grinning like an idiot, watching the people go by, when a bum approached me with a crumpled paper bag.

"Would you like a roll?" he asked me.

This was new. Usually they were the ones asking for food. I gestured at my bagel. "Thanks, but I'm all set."

He nodded and crouched a couple steps down from me. "Hey, what day is this?" he asked.

"Tuesday?" I suggested.

He shook his head. "No, man, I mean, is it that day with the parade?"

The problem with engaging in these types of conversations is that your sanity quickly puts you at a disadvantage. "What parade?"

"You know - the parade! With the funny people. And the hats. With all the green."

"St. Patrick's Day parade?" I guessed.

He slapped his thigh and howled as if I'd made a great joke. "That's the one! That one! Is it that day?"

"No," I told him, hating to be the bearer of such disappointing news. "This is September. St. Patrick's Day was in March."

"Aw shit," he said, shaking his head. "You mean I missed March AGAIN?"

I liked that guy.

Cancun Bust

After literally years of planning this trip (okay, more "we really should do this..." comments than actual planning) Katy and I finally had our girls-only vacation in Cancun. Unfortunately we had only one really good day of sunny weather and I got sick with a bad cold. I spent the majority of Cancun in bed while poor Katy roamed the hotel grounds alone (cue song "ALL BY MYSELF..."). Granted, there are way worse places on this planet to be either sick OR alone, and that one good day generated some pictures that will probably cause most of you to insist I quit my bitching. Truly it was a gorgeous paradise. The beaches were smooth white sand and the water an indescribable turquoise. Katy and I layed out on the beach under a wee grass hut sipping fruity alcoholic beverages brought to us regularly by super-sweet hotel staff. When the mood struck us for a change of scene we had the option of the giant jacuzzi with built-in tables and a swim up bar, one of three different pools - one of those also with a swim up bar and a D.J. who was fairly entertaining, especially after a good buzz, or roaming the hotel shops. Since I was Typhoid Karen pretty much right away we unfortunately skipped the grandiose plans we had for the trip like flirting with hot unknown men at dance clubs, parasailing, snorkeling, and visiting Mayan ruins. We consoled ourselves that this is an excellent excuse to go back some day. Our room was nice - lots of fancy pillows on the beds and marble floors and since it was an all-inclusive deal (check out Costco travel, man - we got an awesome deal for this trip!) we indulged in lots and lots and lots of decadent roomservice.

So while the local was gorgeous and beyond reproach, I was pretty sickly, snarfling and snorting and coughing and hacking, which, as you can imagine, was quite a turn-off to my loyal best friend and roommate, and we were both looking forward to coming home. The night before we left, the hotel across the way decided to engage in a project that involved seeing how loud their music would need to be in order for alien life forms to hear it on distant planets and want to come join the party. They finally gave up on this lofty goal around 2am, allowing Katy and me to get a few desperate hours of sleep before the airport shuttle picked us up.

Tip: if you go to Cancun, don't buy souvenier shit in the hotels. The airport has it all. And the tequila is CHEAP!!!

Katy boarded her flight and left without incident. In fact, she was lucky enough to get on an earlier flight after the shuttle service insisted on picking us up about a fortnight prior to our flight departures. I watched her plane go merrily on its way and then boarded my own plane. Which is when the real fun began!

We taxied to the runway as usual although we all started to notice it was uncomfortably warm in the plane. But whatever. It's like 90 degrees in Cancun so it's pretty uncomfortably warm in general unless you're in the ocean. But then the captain came on and said the aircon was broken, we couldn't fly to

Atlanta with it busted, and we were going to park it somewhere nearby the terminal and have the mechanics take a look. Which we did. For two hours. With no air conditioning. And

Mexico, in true one-step-behind-the-rest-of-the-world fashion, still wasn't allowing ANY liquids onboard, even those purchased in the airport. So to review: two hours, 90 degrees, 200 people, no water. Finally they showed mercy and let us off the plane where we waited in air conditioned but cigarette-smoke enfused comfort for another 2 hours until they figured out the problem and fixed the plane. And, no, there were no other flights they could put us on. So, about 5 hours after our scheduled departure, we finally left

Cancun in a plane whose fixed air conditioning, as if to make up for its slack, now kept the temperature hovering at a pleasant -20 degrees. Keep in mind I am slightly feverish at this point, short on sleep thanks to the UFO-party-seekers, fast running out of kleenex, dehydrated, and completely disgusting all the passengers around me with my typhoid cough. One woman actually got up and moved to another seat. (She was pretty obnoxious anyway and kept hitting me in the face with the shoulder strap of her bag, so I was pretty amused to scare her away.)Arrived in

Atlanta 9pm. Went through customs, claimed bags, re-checked bags, checked in at

Atlanta counter because of course my connecting flight had left ages ago. Last flight leaves 9:30pm. It is currently 9:20pm, and the flight, naturally, departs from another terminal. "What do I do?" I ask the scowling woman behind the counter while I'm trying to tug on my shoes after going through security. "Run," she dead-pans helpfully.So, coughing, snarfling, wheezing, and barefoot, I run. No - I sprint, putting those hours of treadmill experience to work. I get to the gate with 5 minutes to spare, but they've already sealed the gate. Federal Regulations state that they cannot let me on this plane. When the door's shut, it's shut. Opening it again would apparently cause a chain-reaction of events that would lead to nuclear war. Sorry. Bummer. Off you go. And please stop sweating all over our counter.I am sent to Delta customer service. At this point my voice is gone and I am pouring sweat. I stink like hell - I know it, I can smell it myself - after sweating on that Cancun runway for 2 hours and then sprinting through the airport. I haven't eaten since breakfast. And I am told that was the last flight to

Huntsville that night.In true I Am Woman Hear Me Roar fashion, I burst into hysterical tears that sounds like some sort of deranged donkey because of my hoarse, soar throat. I believe my tune went something like, "I want to go HOME I want to go HOME please please let me go HOME can't you see I'm SICK?!" But instead I was sent to a seedy Holiday Inn, left to wait for the shuttle in 32 degree weather with no coat and no luggage. Feeling more qualified than any person on earth (keep in mind all logical thought had been completely banished by my brain at this point) for a nice long bout of self-pity.But I made it to the Holiday Inn where I promptly called my husband and hee-haw-sobbed to him, who of course felt awful but could do nothing but spend his evening writing poisoned emails to Delta. I donned my Delta-bestowed t-shirt and climbed into bed, dozing now and then between coughing fits and waking at 7am to once again catch the shuttle back to the airport.

Upon arrival I discovered that my flight was - wait for it - delayed. This plane was broken too. An hour to an hour and a half.I was more broken than the plane, and reacted not at all to this news. I sat like a zombie at the gate, staring straight ahead, snorting, snarfling, coughing and driving away any chance to small talk with strangers (fine by me). And just as the terminal television announced the attempted hostile take-over of Delta by US Air, which brought the first smile to my face since the obnoxious woman changed her seat, they announced my flight was boarding.

And so... 25 1/2 hours after my ordeal began, I am home. In bed. Surrounded by soft kleenex and curled up with my doggie and awaiting the return of my husband who has gone out for reinforcements: more kleenex, orange juice and DVD's. And once again, all is right with the world. The End.

Whine Wine Whine

It's hot. No, I mean it. It's really really mother fucking hot. I was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona so I am more than qualified to determine when it is hot. And it is hot. Did I mention...?

I love Seattle, I really do. I love the bus driver I get sometimes who likes to punctuate every stop announcement with a cheery "Yay!" As in, "Fifth Avenue and Pike. Pike Place Market, Pier 55, Pacific Place YAY!" Although I'm not much of a giggler at 8:15am before I've had my coffee, it can be amusing.

But for some reason Seattle does not believe in air conditioning. Apparently the argument is that air con is needed perhaps two or three weeks out of the year, and therefore installing a/c doesn't make much sense.

I've got ninety seven degrees and a pool of my own sweat that beg to differ.

Personally I think just ONE DAY over 80 degrees is reason enough for a/c. I HATE being hot. It makes me whine a LOT. Even the dog has spent the past several days, ever since the heat wave started, under the bed. Probably because she can't stand to listen to me bitch anymore.

At first I tried to combat the heat by drinking cold white wine. This resulted in my being drunk and hot and, eventually, hung over. Which resulted in more whining.

We decided, not just for my own sake but for my husband's who, since he can't fit under the bed, is left as the primary audience for my whining, to buy an air conditioner.

But again Seattle stepped in and announced its unwillingness to allow me to be comfortable in my own home. Not only is a/c not installed in most residential buildings, but it discourages the purchase and use of window units as well. All the windows in our apartment, which we raved about when we first moved in because of the view and because it was May and 64 degrees, swing out. Not up and down or side to side like every other window I've ever seen, but out. On hot days, with all the windows shoved open as wide as they can go, the building looks like it's gasping for breath.

But extensive online research presented a solution: a portable air conditioner. Portable air conditioners are infamous for being a) not portable and b) not air conditioners, in the sense of actually emitting cold air. But I didn't care. An air conditioner that didn't work, I reasoned, was better than nothing. Perhaps just having it in the room would psychologically convince me I was cooler.

Once we finally came to terms with the fact that we were going to shell out several hundred dollars (because portable air conditioners, in addition to not being portable and not emitting cold air, are also much more expensive than their far superior window unit counterparts) we set off for Costco, resigned and determined to spend a month's worth of fun money on keeping my body temperature set to Bitch instead of Mega Bitch.

But it seems that, despite Seattle's overall distrust of air conditioners, Seattlites themselves adore them. With the promise of temperatures in the 90's, the entire city headed to Costco. And the entire city apparently does not sleep in till eleven like we do on weekends. No, they get up at the crack of dawn and buy out all the Costcos of all the portable air conditioners. There were still LOTS of window units left of course, because nobody in Seattle has a window that can accomodate one.

"Gee," we said to ourselves, "maybe we should have thought of this sooner." But we weren't panicking yet. No, the panicking (and the desperate whining that steadily increased in octave the more stores we went to) kicked in about four hours later after we had exhausted every possible store in the city and all were sold out of portable a/c's. With the dreaded 90 just two days away I refused to risk an online purchase. Even if we paid the astronomical $70 for expedited shipping the thing STILL would have arrived a day after the heat wave was over.

It was 9:00pm that day when we decided to try one last store that we doubted even sold air conditioners, let alone would still have one. We were shocked and delighted to find that they DID in fact have ONE portable air conditioning unit left in stock. For $600.

Anybody who knows what I'm like when I am hot does not need to be told there was no hesitation. There was groaning, certainly, and great irritation at spending savings meant for a house down-payment on an air conditioner that we HOPED would be strong enough to cool just one of the small rooms of our apartment. But no hesitation.

This air conditioner has become like a family member for several reasons. One, it has indeed cooled the bedroom down to a comfortable temperature and so I love it. I love it more than my mom. My mom is a fantastic person and I admire her a great deal but she can't cool me off when I'm hot. Two, it is about the size of a family member, the kind of family member named Uncle Somebody who is not really an uncle but who shows up to all the family gatherings and eats twice his share and everybody's leftovers and has a big gut and makes a shitload of noise but everybody is fond of him anyway. Hal 3000, as we've dubbed our little R2-D2 unit (if R2-D2 had taken steroids) is a gargantuan hunk of machinery that takes up a quarter of the bedroom and makes so much noise that a bomb could go off on the street outside and we wouldn't hear it. And Hal also eats more than his share in that our electric bill has quadrupled.

But Hal's face has a soft, friendly blue glow that gently reminds us of why we love him: 64 degrees, he gently announces in his sweet, glowing way as we drift off to sleep, rocked in the cool breeze of Hal's love.

I don't regret the addition of Hal to our family one bit. Of course, I haven't gotten the bill for Hal yet. And by the time I do, it will be back to a pleasant 75 degrees and I'll come to my senses realizing we've spent roughly $200 for each day of the heat wave to keep me from complaining.

But that's okay; I've still got the wine to fall back on.