packing sucks . . . I hate packing . . . I hate unpacking even more, though . . .
I’ve just thrown a whole bunch of stuff into my bag. I really don’t know how many outfits I’ve thrown in or what it is that I’m actually taking. I just know I’m taking stuff that resembles stuff that I would wear in the summer or spring. It’s one nice thing about going somewhere for two weeks (and staying with family) — I know I can’t take enough clothes for the entire time but I can do laundry (and for free!).
Well, I’m hoping my brother won’t charge me to do my laundry at his place.
Ummm, he better not . . . . given all the stuff mom, my sister, and his mother-in-law are having me take over there for them (and given how much trouble I’ve gone through to get this stuff over there).
It’s been a really long day. It started out kind of crappy but ended up in the company of some of my favorite people at the Earle.
I think I will tell you about my somewhat crappy day because hey, isn’t that what blogs are about?
This post is really disorganized, which is essentially how I’m feeling right now.
So anyway, my day . . . . I spent the morning finishing up the last of my comm 111 grading (and procrastinating the cscw final). I was finally ready to leave my apartment at around 2 p.m. to go do some errands (and further procrastinate working on the cscw final). Unfortunately, Natalie the Jetta wouldn’t start. I think it must be the battery. Nat wouldn’t start on Monday, either. On Monday night, I called the free roadside assistance that comes with my warranty and they jumped Nat and she was fine then (I drove her around town for about twenty minutes). In any case, I called the roadside assistance number again this afternoon thinking that I’ll just have them tow Nat to the Howard Cooper dealership on State. The roadside assistance people told me that the tow truck will be there within an hour.
I don’t know why but I decided to just hang out in my car for that hour (mostly to procrastinate whatever work I could be doing in my apartment). I called up Howard Cooper and described the situation to them and they seemed to think that it was a battery problem, too. They also told me that they didn’t have any loaners available and that they probably won’t be able to look at it until tomorrow. I spent the rest of the time trying to think of how I was going to do everything that I needed to do this afternoon and still have time to take the car in and rent a car/take the bus/get a cab. There were a lot of logistical issues involved with the whole thing (i.e. could Howard Cooper get the car fixed early enough tomorrow that I would have time to pick it up and bring it back before my cab to the airport came? What if they couldn’t get it fixed in time? Could I just leave it at the dealership for two and a half weeks? What about a rental? Would I have to drive that back somewhere? But then who would pick me up to go home?). In the middle of this back and forth dialog with me and my brain, I remember that one of the bags that I’m taking is in the trunk of the car and that I should remove it before the tow truck gets there. This bag weighs like 60 pounds and is full of stuff for my nieces from my mom, my sister, and my brother’s mother-in-law, which they made me bring back with me from St. Louis when I came back from Thanksgiving break. The bag stayed in my trunk because I didn’t want to carry it up three flights of stairs only to take it down a few weeks later. Guess what I did today? I brought it up three flights of stairs only to take it down . . . umm . . . tomorrow.
After about an hour of going through multiple scenarios about logistically coordinating everything that I needed to do without a car (which is the worst thing for me to do because I really really really hate uncertainty and when life gets in the way of my very well organized plans), I called the roadside assistance number again to check the status of the tow truck. After giving the guy my information (counting the Monday night call, this is the third time that I’ve heard them tell me in a very unsympathetic monotone that they’re sorry to hear that my car won’t start and the third time that I’ve told them that I drive a black 2003 Jetta that’s located in Ann Arbor, MI 48103 and that yes, I am in a safe location), he tells me that the tow truck guy is going to be another 45 minutes because he’s at the scene of an accident.
Ummm . . . I guess I should have told them that I wasn’t at a safe location. I told them to go ahead and cancel the tow truck. I decided that I’ll just wait to get the car fixed when I get back from Dubai.
So, it’s already 3:30 p.m. at this point and I really needed to go to the post office today. My mom and sister had decided to buy even more stuff for the girls and have it shipped to me. Of course, when USPS tried to deliver it, I wasn’t home (because I’m never home) so I had to go to the post office to pick it up (why can’t they leave that stuff at my apartment’s leasing office like UPS does?). If there was one thing that I needed to do today, it was pick up that stupid package. I go back to my apartment and try calling a cab but the first place I called had an hour wait and I really didn’t want to wait an hour or keep calling cab companies in the yellow pages. I check out the Ride schedule and realize that I can take route 8 all the way to the post office. I walk to the bus stop on Main street and wait . . . and wait. I was actually waiting at the wrong bus stop (don’t you love how some of the AATA bus stops don’t actually post the route numbers but others do?) for a good twenty or so minutes. I probably ended up waiting another half hour at the right bus stop until I finally got on route 8.
It was really interesting to ride the bus on a route that doesn’t go to campus. The whole bus was full of people who weren’t students . . . people who really did need to take the bus because they have no other mode of transportation or do not have the mental capacity to drive a car. During the whole ride, I kept thinking about how spoiled and lucky I am. I was worrying about something really stupid that I can easily have fixed in a few weeks (and I’m lucky enough to have the financial resources to get it fixed).
I finally get to the post office (after getting off the bus a little too early . . . so early that I couldn’t feel my fingers after walking into the post office – yes, I was wearing gloves), pick up my package, mail my sister a copy of Business Week (it had social software stuff on the cover . . . I figured maybe she’ll take what I’m doing more seriously if she saw it on the cover of Business Week), and have them hold my mail for two weeks. The package is somewhat heavy but felt heavier as I was walking from the post office to the bus stop. It was really really really cold. It’s about 5 p.m. at this point and I was meeting up with my super awesome infoviz group for dinner at the Earle at 5:30 p.m. A few minutes after I got to the bus stop (which according to the sign, services routes 8, 12UL, and 15), the 12UL bus comes. I ask the driver if the bus goes downtown, he said no but it does go to Washington (and umm, why don’t bus stops have the routes posted?). I decided to not take this bus because I was sure that the route 8 bus would be there any minute and I really needed to just go home, drop off the package, and then walk to the Earle from my apartment. So, I waited and waited and waited and waited for the route 8 bus and it never showed up. The route 12UL bus, with the same bus driver, did show up again (it was about 5:40 at this point). Since I felt like a human popsicle, I took the bus because no matter where it ended up, it would have been better than waiting in the cold for a bus that wasn’t coming. On the bus, I looked through the route book and started thinking that maybe I’ll just take the bus all the way to CC Little and then take the Southbound commuter to go home, drop off the package, and then walk to the Earle. But then as we drove through downtown, I started thinking that the Earle was somewhere near here but I couldn’t exactly remember where it was. I finally decided to just get off at the next stop and ask at a coffee shop or something.
I get off the bus, turn around, and there was the Earle! It was the one right thing that happened today. I walk in, see mattbot and apete, drop the package on the floor next to our table and just say, “Where’s the bathroom?â€
