Before I write about the sad event that occured this past weekend, I must finish my account of last weekend's adventures.

Baltimore - Part the Second

The party following the Premier was better than I'd thought it would be, which isn't saying a whole lot, since I didn't know what to expect at all. The locale, Club One, is a three-storey space with an industrial, techno feel to it, with lots of metal and glass and reflective materials, but tempered with asian-style lanterns hanging from the ceiling. The top floor was VIP space reserved for cast, crew, etc., and the particular people with whom they were attending. The event had some of the tastiest food I've ever eaten at anything comparable. Seafood dips, sushi, noodle dishes, and the best dessert nibblings, ever. Seriously, I could have crammed the little pastries all night. *laugh* What would that have done to my figure, hm? There was also dancing to well spun music, to which a guest accompanied on a congo drum (rather well, I might add), an auction of awesome goods that I could not hope to bid on in support of "Make a Wish", and other neat things. I didn't stay until it closed, I was knackered, but it was well past midnight when we left. In all, a very good evening.

On Sunday, it was check-out time, and then Rick and I headed back into Baltimore proper in order to attend the last in a three-game series of the Yankees at the Orioles. It promised to be a good one, as the O's had been creaming the Yankees. We bought our tickets, which were pretty good, even if they had a "limited view", and then wandered around in Camden Yard, looking for snacks and especially a bank machine. I was delighted to find a kosher snack stand where Rick got a sausage (25 cents less than a normal one) and I got a knish (yes, a knish - in a ballpark !) and large salted pretzel. The pretzel was nothing to write home about, but the knish, which is basically a chubby potato dumpling, was delish ! We had both Orioles and Yankees fans sitting around us, so there was some good cheering. Of course, anything compared to the Toronto stands is rowdy. Also, it was really nice to see a full ballpark, too, with 47,000+ fans in attendance.

After that, we drove back to our friend's house near Washington and decompressed a bit before heading to a Tapas restaurant. Our friend's daughters are a lot of fun, even for adolescent proto-people, and we had a pretty good time at dinner. My plan had been to pay for the meal, since N~ was kind enough to treat us to Indonesean on Thursday night, and because of her hospitality, but upon receiving the bill, I was mortified to discover that I'd left my wallet... In The Car. The car being parked in front of their house, quite some distance away. I was incredibly embarrassed. This has only ever happened once before, when I took a friend to dinner years ago and only had my debit card on me, and they didn't take debit, and there was enough ON the card to pay, but not enough to withdraw enough in the form of $20 bills. Anyway, our friend ended up paying and I promised to send her a cheque upon my return to Canada.

On our return, we put Revelations in the DVD player for some fun. I think they were impressed - everyone is impressed by it ! It was fun to point out bits that I knew were my own, and offer little anecdotal tidbits. I am disgustingly proud of the whole thing. Part of me wishes that I hadn't given up the movie work to work for He Who Shall Not Be Named, considering how that ended up. Oh well. Next time, if there's a next time, I'll know where my priorities DO lie. I digress; then it was time for bed, as Rick and I had a plane to catch in the morning, and N~ had work and the girls had school.

Now, let me tell you about some of the (mis)adventures of the Baltimore trip. It began with a ride to the Buffalo aeroport by Rick's parents. Unfortunately, Rick is not quite the Mapquest maven I am and although he typed in the destination we wanted, what he ended up with was directions to the very centre of Buffalo. We lost about half-an-hour, or more, to driving around in the sad streets of a once-prosperous, now fallen, city until stopping in a mechanic shop to find out where the hell we were going. Rick and I arrived at the aeroport with twenty minutes to our flight. Of course, the days of easy security on internal flights are gone, at least in the USA, so we knew we were in trouble. First we had to find the check-in, which we did, and we were informed that my luggage was late (no shit) and might not make the flight. Okay, no problem, we could wait for it at the other end, it wouldn't take that long. Then, with tickets in hand, we ran to the security clearance only to discover that there were at least sixty people in line. Under fifteen minutes until our flight; we hear my name called over the PA system paging us for our flight. Ten minutes to go. I looked at Rick and said, "Put your sweet face on," took off my sunglasses and proceded to ask very politely if we could skip ahead because we had just been paged. Yes ! Okay, one more part of the queue to hop and we could be golden. I asked again, and YES !

At security, we dumped our stuff into the bins, removed our shoes, and hoped for the best. No problem ! Back into our shoes - nevermind doing them up - into our jackets and we were off and running for our flight. The thought occured to us that our luggage might make it, but we might not. Five minutes or less, now, and we're still running. Halfway up a ramp to the second half of the gates and I see our check-in counter. My lungs are burning, my legs are crying (my bike boots are bloody heavy), and I slow to a brisk walk. At that point, I knew we would be alright, for lo and behold, there was the captain waiting with the ground crew, and the plane isn't going anywhere without him. We made it ! But did our luggage?

At Baltimore-Washington International, after a non-eventful flight ("If you look on your left, you'll see where the West Susquehanna River meets the Susquehanna River...") we waited with anticipation to see if my luggage appeared. It did - the last one through the rubber curtain. Now it was time to pick up the car I had rented. The last time I had rented a car at BWI, things had not gone well. This time proved also to be a challenge. My credit card was declined. Gads ! There was enough money for the car on it, and then some, but the $200+ security deposit the company wanted was too much - remember, there's that tricky little exchange rate. We were informed that they could not run my card through again in the same 24hr period, not even if, as Rick suggested, with a manual authorisation. Bastards ! So, I called up Mastercard, managed to get them to raise my limit by just enough that it didn't require my mother's permission AND would allow me to rent a car from a different company. Now, there was no problem, except that the car was a good hundred bucks more expensive because we were a walk-up, not an advanced booking. ARRRRRG !

After that, it was smooth sailing until the following evening when Rick and I were fifty minutes late for dinner because I couldn't remember the meeting time and no one called me (as I had hoped they would) to confirm where we were meeting (we were at a different hotel, you see) AND then there was utter gridlock on the Interstate because of all the baseball fans flooding in to watch the evening game. We actually spent half an hour in the cab getting to the restaurant when it probably shouldn't have taken more than ten minutes to get there. Can you say stress?

After our return to Canada on Monday afternoon, we had to stop at Rick's parents' house before getting dropped at the GO Train station in Burlington. I had been napping in the car and was somewhat groggy when we got out. Who ever was in front of me, did not hold the door for me and it swung back and the enormous mailbox attached to it nailed me on the shoulder - HARD - tearing my beautiful lambskin jacket we'd gotten only a few weeks earlier. I was tired and cranky and couldn't take it anymore. All I wanted was to be home and with my mother and my cat, and now my jacket had been eaten by a killer mailbox and I still had a trainride and a Greyhound ride ahead of me to get me to Peterborough. And, then, naturally, because Murphy is a bastard, I arrived at the bus terminal in Toronto scant minutes after my bus departed, leaving me to wait for over two hours for the next one. Rick was a sweetheart and came up to join me (he'd gone home, of course) and brough spring rolls and took my jacket with him to have it fixed.

Let me tell you, I never wanted to be home with my mother so much as I did after that trip. For all the fantastic things that happened, the stress was really awful, and when I did finally get home, I had four and a half projects that needed completing by Friday. Ya. My week kind of passed in a blur of school insanity.

The End.


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Sort of. Unfortunately, one event took place this past weekend that put all the stress of school and finances and nearly missed flights in perspective. This past Saturday, while I was at a friend's house, watching Revelations and other things, my best friend Tracy with me, Willi, my beloved little cat was hit and killed by a car.

I can't bring myself to write about it again, but you can read about it here in my other journal. Today, I took her body to the vet's in order to have her cremated. I asked for her collar back, and for the ashes to come in an unsealed container so that I can sprinkle her at the cottage when I go up there this summer. In an instant, my beloved Stinky Bee was struck down, her life taken, and I'm grateful that it was fast. There was no blood, no obvious trauma, just her lifeless little body set out on the grass in front of the house. I've wrapped her collar around the work socks she used to carry around the house, the ones that are fuzzy from all of the washing she gave them.

It hurts so much.

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