Category Archives: Travel

A weekend spent away

Photography, Travel

In which I get the hell outta town!

I didn’t take a pre-spring vacation like I did last year, so I’ve been in the office without a pause since Vegas last September. (As soon as Amma’s tour schedule comes out I’ll be trying to book Chicago, and I’m also hoping to get to New York in late autumn.) Sometimes you just can’t have a good attitude if you haven’t gotten out of town lately.

I really, really, really needed to get out of town. I was sleeping too much, feeling irritated with my customers, and in general needing a little break in the old routine. I mean, when your mantra turns into “Fuck! Fuck! Fuckity fuck!” when you’re on the phone at work? You need a break.

Luckily, Teh BF’s birthday was Saturday! I gave him this:

The B-day Present

Which is a sweet set of sushi knives with chopsticks in a groovy case, and in return he took me to Idaho with him:

View from the balcony

Coeur d’Alane, Idaho! Where there’s a lake! And some leftover Rocky Mountains! And really good cosmopolitans!

We stayed in a resort hotel, ate an amazing meal, spent about an hour in the casino, and then slept in our room’s gigantic bed. In the morning we had the hotel’s VERY EXPENSIVE brunch buffet (apparently a buffet with chocolate fountain, ice sculpture, omelet and crepe bar = $30 a head) and then checked out.

I am the type of person who goes to a sporty resort and does nothing sporty at all. We barely even walked around; there was certainly no boating or fishing or water skiing or hiking or golfing or swimming. But the eating and drinking was stellar!

We took a detour through Medical Lake on the way home ’cause Teh BF was incarcerated there 23 years ago and wanted to have a look at it. He completely spazzed out and told me all kinds of crazy jail stories, like the one about breaking into the commissary and stealing cartons of cigarettes. Yes, when you’re in jail for stealing, you probably should not ought to be doing B&Es! Heh. My baby was a really stupid silly boy.

I took a lot of pictures – I brought three film cameras along for an overnight trip ’cause I’m a dork like that – but none of that is developed yet, of course. You can see the rest of my cell phone pics for now, though; they’re here. (Go look at them and come back. I’ll wait!)

When we got back to town Sunday afternoon, we went straight to KJ’s and passed out for three hours. (Most likely, those three hours were the most gorgeous three hours of 2009, but I needed the nap more than I needed fresh breeze and sunshine.)

When we got up, we ate at the new taco joint in town (it was AMAZING!) and then he took me home. I think I went to bed at ten, and slept until my alarm went off at nine this morning.

~+~+~
This morning I got up and packed my bento for the day:

Bento #77: Indian

That’s rajma masala. I made it myself.

Then Bindu and I walked to work. It was gorgeous and warm and I wished for a short-sleeved shirt.

~+~+~
When I got to work, the Yashica had arrived:

Yashica with tele lens and finder

Can’t wait to get a battery and a roll of film into it!

Good News

Travel

In which I share a few nice things with y’all.

1. I have paid off my 2007 surgery completely and in full.

2. I got laid last night. Yum.

3. I received a new classic camera today. It’s another Argus C3 and it’s in fantastic condition:

The Third Brick

4. This weekend is Teh BF’s birthday! This is excellent for two reasons. The first is that I will finally get to give him his present, which I’ve had for weeks and which is burning a hole in my brain because I want to give it to him NOW and he won’t let me. The second is that he’s taking me to Coeur d’Alane for the weekend! We’ll be staying at this chichi hotel and playing at this nifty casino.

5. The weather is nice!

It's 2009!

Events, Travel, ,

In which we were out of town for 26 hours and it was HELLA FUN!

Teh BF asked our employer if we could leave at six o’clock on New Year’s Eve. Our employer agreed! So we checked the weather, talked it over, and then gleefully took mmmFiber up on her offer to overnight at her place in Portland for New Year’s Eve.

Of course, I was stuck on the phone until 6:17, but we were pulling out of the BMI parking lot at 6:21. We made the trip in three and a half hours, and arrived at Adie & Adam’s a little after ten. They gave us champagne, we changed, Adie gave me a cute hat, and then we went out. They live right near Alberta street, which has several blocks of cute stores and pubs.

We went to four different bars, stopping at a couple of them a second time on the walk back home. We got drunk and rambunctious and hollered “Happy New Year!” to complete strangers. We discovered “the Alberta”: a cocktail made of lemon, orange, vodka, and lime juice muddled with fresh basil. I made Teh BF buy me a blingy ring from this awesome hustler chick (I thought she was awesome because (a) I was drunk, and (b) she was, like me, wearing fucking Crocks in Portland. In the rain. Like an idiot. Who the hell wears shoes with HOLES IN THEM in Portland?!) that we’d met on the walk from one bar to another. Then he ordered me some awesome black bean nachos because we were drunk and had not had dinner.

We went back to the house and drank more and talked and played with the dogs – they have two terriers, a Schnauzer and a Cairn – and hung out until the wee hours of the morning.

Six hours later we were up again. After coffee we went to the Chapel Pub for bloody marys and brunch. Then we took the light rail downtown and stopped at the Thirsty Lion, mostly to get out of the rain. Then we took the train back to the car, and the car back to the house, where we watched an episode of Red Dwarf.

Then we collected our stuff and Bindu and drove home. Whirlwind 26-hour vacation! Whee! I HAD DO MUCH FUN OMGWTFBBQ.

Back in W2, we pulled into the driveway, marched right down the stairs, and held the couch down until bedtime. I slept like a rock last night.

Vegas Was Great, Thanks For Asking!

Travel, ,

In which I recap a very, very killer vacation.

Most of it’s already a blur. But here is the Flickr set, and below are the most important highlights:

Moar SlotzI played a lot of slots and drank a lot of booze.

The food was uniformly great.

Vegas looks pretty nasty during the day but is like a giant, endless Times Square at night. It’s fun, and gaudy, and weird, and I enjoyed the hell out of myself.

The shrine between Bally’s and Caesar’s Palace was beautiful and unexpected.

Teh BF is a completely easy-going travel companion, which bodes well in general.

On my birthday, my friend Adam – who booked me as part of the opening act of one of his very first shows ever, when he brought Richie Havens to Iowa about a decade ago – took me and his sister Mona, and our friend Jason, and KJ out for birthday dinner at Nove, a chichi restaurant at the top of the Palms. The food was incredible, the view was stunning, and the company was superb. I had so much fun I could have popped, but I didn’t get any pictures because it was so dark in there.

After the meal, we went downstairs to The Lounge and listened to my new favorite band, Santa Fe and the Fat City Horns. (You can hear ’em here.) Holy fuck, this band smokes. They’re like the new Tower Of Power. They’re all monster players – studio cats and seasoned players all – and they groove like you simply would not believe. This is the band I want to be in. I bought a CD and ripped it to my iPod when I got home last night. It’s been on the top of my playlist since and will probably stay there for months.

Although we never managed to make it over to Fremont street nor go bowling (we’d had the idea that bowling in Vegas would be hella fun), we did accomplish some sushi-eating on our last night in town. We stopped at Ah Sin and gorged on all-you-can-eat sushi. (Well, I gorged – I had six rolls. Teh BF had, like, four.)

I bought myself a new wallet. It was ten bucks. (I’m a big spender, I know, I know.)

When we got back to W2 yesterday evening it was thirty degrees colder than we’d been used to, so we stopped at the new Thai City restaurant and ordered yummy spicy food. I had the green curry and it was brilliant; Teh BF had pad thai and when I saw him on my lunch break was still raving about it. Thai City absolutely rocks.

In other, totally unrelated news: yummy cell phone pr0n! I totally want this, omgwtfbbq. Srsly.

Pre-vacation Geekfest

Travel, , ,

In which I’ll be in Vegas in twenty-four hours!

I’m certain I’m over-packing because it’s in the 70’s here. It’ll be in the 90’s in Vegas; of course we’ll probably spend a lot of time indoors and that’ll be air-conditioned, but I brought pants and long-sleeved shirts and in spite of the sun dresses I packed will probably end up buying a tank top somewhere anyway.

All of my shoes suck. I am so serious. I don’t own even a single pair of cute shoes. I might have to fix that in Vegas. Since I don’t really gamble I’ll need to blow my cash somehow. Wouldn’t want to come home with money, now would I?

Facebook fucking rules. Through it, I got Adam and Mona’s numbers – even texted with them both last night! – and Mr. Appel’s as well, and will hopefully be seeing some of the old Fairfield contingent during my stay there.

Monday is my 40th birthday. My life will be roughly half over, but I expect to be having an auspiciously hella good time when that little landmark is passed. (Teh BF says he bought me a present, but won’t tell me what it is and says I can’t have it ’til we get back.) I want to go out for sushi. Yum, sushi!

We’ll be packing my laptop along, so there will be updates on both our sites; hopefully the trip doesn’t finish loosening the panel ribbon from the motherboard and find me hauling around a useless bit of electronics. Even if the worst happens there’s Twitter and Flickr so you’ll know where I am.

I am so excited I could freakin’ pop, I tell you! Whoohoo! Vegas!

My Laptop is Back

Travel, ,

In which the AC adapter has arrived!

Kaje and I watched an episode of Doctor Who last night while eating tostadas on his couch. I love Doctor Who. I love tostadas. (Couches are pretty cool too. Pretty much a win/win scenario, if you ask me.)

Then we slept for ten hours.

This morning when I got home to shower and change, I found that my new AC adapter had arrived. W00t! I immediately ran upstairs and plugged it into the ol’ IBM A30… and damn if it didn’t just boot right up! I’m so glad to have my laptop back again.

Maybe now I can get my iTunes library off of that damn failing IDE-drive-in-a-USB-enclosure and onto my laptop, where it fucking belongs.

In other news, payday has come and gone. After paying all my bills I have $147 to live on until the 15th. I usually pay only half of my bills per paycheck, but this month I paid everything with this check so I can buy a ticket to Vegas with my next one.

Yay! Ticket to Vegas!

Six Blocks from Seattle Center

Spiritual, Travel, , ,

In which I take the longest bus ride EVAR.

Woke up at K’s this morning. He may have tried to let me sleep in, but he tends to look at me while I’m sleeping [the utter weirdo] and the attention wakes me up. (At least he has the grace to make the coffee.) We lounged around, talked, took showers, dressed, got in the car.

I walked into the airport just as they were announcing my flight. We kissed, he left, I went through security. (This time, they did not go through MY ENTIRE SUITCASE: yay.)

Sat at the gate for awhile. Boarded at 10:50, flew to Seattle. Arrived on time, went downstairs, called my devotee roommate Leela (we met on the Travel Exchange, not IRL). I was at baggage claim 16. She was at baggage claim 1 – of course. So I hoofed halfway across the airport to meet her. Thank God for rolley cases!

After several phone calls we finally found one another and met properly. I pulled out the stuff I’d printed off the ‘net and we discovered we were only fifty yards from the Gray Line bus counter. We got in line to buy tickets, but when we got to the desk a big Russian dude came and said, “If you pay cash, I help you. Come. You pay cash.” We followed him. He took our luggage and walked us to the bus. (Turns out the counter dude hadn’t had a break in six hours and really needed to pee.) The Russian bus driver stowed our luggage and escorted us on board.

Forty minutes later, the bus was full and Leela and I had met another Amma devotee who lives in Mother’s ashram and we were all three having a lovely chat.

Not only does the Gray Line stop constantly, but it doesn’t even go to the Travelodge. We had to catch a commuter to go the rest of the way, and much hilarity ensued as the driver stowed a metric ton of luggage in the ass end of that little short bus. (A woman next to me let out an involuntary groan watching the driver stow suitcases. When I raised an eyebrow at her, she shrugged and said, “There’s three bottles of booze in that suitcase at the bottom.” LOL!) The short bus was fun because everyone chatted and laughed, but fast it was not: we didn’t check into our motel until 3:11.

After check-in, we walked over to Whole Paycheck and ate, and I bought some green plasti-shoes. (I *heart* them. They’re very springy!) We walked over to Seattle Center and found the program hall, but no one was setting up yet. We laid in the grass because the weather is drop-dead gorgeous today. Leela gave a beggar some change; I gave him a cigarette.

We idled back to our motel. I got all comfy on the bed with my laptop. Leela went back out. I chatted with K on the phone because we’re über-dorks who can’t go eight hours without speaking to each other.

The program doesn’t start until 10 tomorrow morning, so I’ve got quite a bit of time on my hands. Am wondering if I care enough to find a pub within walking distance… we seem to be in gaytown (everyone, from the motel desk clerk to the Whole Foods checker to the barrista at Starbucks, not to mention half the boys on the street in this neighborhood, is utterly flaming), so it might be worth going out to find a drink.

Stoked to be in Seattle! Super stoked to see Mother tomorrow!

Oh, and the Flickr set is here.

The reason there's no booze left is because we drank it all.

Travel, , ,

In which I finally tell you all about GBM!

I’m somewhat ashamed that I only blogged twice while I was actually traveling to a blogger meet-up, but there were the issues of laptop shortages, busyness, fatigue, and inebriation and I flickred and twittered like a demon so it’s not like there wasn’t some content.

Let me say first that I love all the bloggers I met. Love them. Didn’t meet a single soul I didn’t like, but fell particularly in love with Vuboq (omg, the unrelenting Southern hospitality and the cheese grits), Hypenated Non-Identity, and I Think I Need A New Heart… though I pretty much expected to love those boys. All sweet, wonderful people.

Secondly, all of Vuboq’s friends are, to a one, lovely people. He’s an incredibly fortunate person. The pre-birthday party on Saturday night was populated by nothing but wonderful people, most of whom were excessively pretty gay men with cute jeans and cute hair and cute shoes… Since I’m essentially style-free I knew I’d be utterly outclassed, and I was. (I mean, it’s not like I don’t know I spent fifteen years in freakin’ Iowa and then moved here to hicksville.)

Thirdly, Vuboq drinks like a fish. He tried to blame it all on us, his guests, but who kept ordering pitchers of margaritas? And sangria, huh? I shall tell you: it was VUBOQ.

On Sunday we went out for Mexican food and then went to a gay bar called Cobalt where we drank cheap cocktails and didn’t dance. Ray told an hysterical story about thinking, when he was eight or so, that his mom – an undercover cop – was actually a hooker. Then Canada disappeared with a pocket gay named Billy and barely returned in time to get a ride home with the rest of us, thoroughly freaking Only Me out. When we got home from that, I poured another round and Vuboq and I sat on his bed and had a twitter war and laughed ourselves silly – I had so much fun I can’t even express it, because WHO KNEW Vuboq could, with sufficient booze in him, start doing a strange and wonderful Cartman-meets-lolcats accent?! Certainly not me. He’s just lucky I didn’t wet his damn bed.

On Saint Patrick’s Day, the actual birthday, Hyphenated left at six to make a business meeting in Pittsburgh. Hours later, Only Me made breakfast in bed for the Birthday Princess… and then we just lounged around until past three because we were all hung over. Eventually we left for DC, and we walked the Mall but didn’t go into any of the museums because we were useless and so we opted instead to go get tapas and sangria at Jaleo. (There really aren’t any words for how amazing the food is there, so I won’t bother. Suffice it to say that you should eat there the next time you’re in DC.)

We took the Metro home. Only Me went to pick up the GBM t-shirts he’d ordered, and Vuboq and I stopped at Whole Paycheck to get a few things. Then we went home and I did the dishes and then made an awesome pot of veggie chili. Tomoko and hubby, as well as SCGB, dropped in to eat with us. We killed two bottles of wine.

Today I got up at ten to six, dressed, and then took a bus, two trains, another bus, three planes, and a car. I was home by 6:35. I’ve blogged and uploaded photos and now I’m going to pass the hell out because I have to work tomorrow.

The Never-ending Birthday Celebration

Travel, ,

In which I can’t believe no one took off their pants.

Vuboq’s birthday party was a resounding success. There were twenty-five in attendance and between us we drank five litres of vodka, a fifth of rum, and half a bottle of tequila.

The most amazing part to me was that no one got loud, no one drove anything with an internal combustion engine or shot off a gun, and no one took off their pants. Vuboq’s friends are all refined, well-traveled, educated, and totally great at totally tanking without getting obnoxious.

I really enjoyed everyone I met – Vuboq is blessed with amazing friends. The conversations were fun and interesting (I even had a great talk with M. about Amma – he’d been to India and had met a hugging sadhu in a temple), the people were all beautiful, and the birthday cake? Was homemade and gorgeous.

I laughed a lot and talked a lot and got hugged a lot. If I’d had time to write about it yesterday I’d now be relating charming anecdotes in detail, but I opted instead for a nap yesterday afternoon and both of the laptops were getting heavy use anyway with five us here all needing to check email, bank accounts, and blogs on the Internet. (I didn’t bother to bring my laptop because I figured there’d be several here, but Jake didn’t bring one and Jay’s grounded Australian plug won’t fit in the adapter so he can’t use his at all so there’s only two.)

…I was about to relate last night’s events, but the Birthday Girl just told me to get a move on. We’re going to the mall to wander, and the weather’s gorgeous.