June 14, 2001
California, Revisited
I am at the front desk again today, playing enforcer. Anyone comes in without an ID badge, and I have to stop them and find out who they are. It's interesting (but not surprising) that several of the folks without badges are upper management or executives. The fact we've gotten so many new executives over the past year or so led to the oh-so-amusing incident in the blog where I stopped a vice president. He was not amused.
I've started listening to audiobooks in the car rather than the radio. I'd forgotten to mention it here, but I've been doing it for about a month now. I love it! It's great if you get stuck in traffic. So far I've listened to Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility both by Jane Austen, as well as Timeline by Michael Crichton. As long as I keep listening, I'll keep posting what I'm listening to.
So I suppose I'm long overdue in talking about my trip to California, nearly two months ago now! In the course of nine days, I spent four days in Lancaster, three days in Whittier, one day in Santa Barbara, and one day in Panorama City (which has no real panorama, for the curious). That last was not a planned sidetrip. Our day in Panorama City (the first Saturday I was there) was the result of the Rental Car from Hell. On that fateful Saturday, shortly after the picture above was taken, the five of us loaded into the Rental Car from Hell (a blue 1993 Taurus) and set out from Whittier to Santa Barbara. The trip normally takes about an hour and a half to two hours.
Alas for us, we did not realize that we were in the Rental Car from Hell at that point, or we could have planned for a longer travel time than we did. About half an hour into our trip, passing through a part of Los Angeles called Panorama City, we stopped for gas, and realized that our car was falling apart. Or actually, that it was leaking copious amounts of something from the bottom of the car. We called the rental company (Rent-A-Wreck -- I know, I know, what else did we expect?). Each Rent-A-Wreck is individually owned, so the best they could do (since the rental office was two hours away in Lancaster) would be to reimburse us for any repairs. How very fortunate for us that Art's Auto Shop (I think that's what it was called, Mo has their card) was right next door to us.
Art's was our home for the next six hours. In that time, we ended up talking to Jack, one of the mechanics. Jack was Armenian, spoke fluent Spanish, English, and presumably Armenian, and was the type of character you expect to find only in a book. So much so, that the five of us agreed that we really ought to put him in a book. He told us stories about growing up in Armenia, railed at the injustice of our car rental company (his parting words: "Now you're never going to rent from that company again, eh?"), and gave us advice on lawyers (Jewish lawyers, according to Jack, are the best).
As entertaining as Jack was, by seven or eight o'clock, we were really ready to just leave. In addition to replacing the radiator, one of the belts was shredded, the water pump needed to be replaced, and the license plate was apparently expired (turns out it wasn't, but that's a long story). The final straw was when we all piled back into the car to finally finish our drive to Santa Barbara. As I got into the car and pulled on the door to close it, the inside door panel -- which had been loose -- came off in my hand! Then Laura pulled on her door, and her door panel came off. What else where there to do but sit there and laugh? Jack damn near fell over laughing while instructing his guys to screw the door panels back on for us.
Finally, against all odds, we made it to Santa Barbara to Josh and Laura's apartment, the Studio of Love. While it was as small as I'd heard, it was a welcome spot to crash after six hours in Panorama City. Josh and Laura were in the process of moving out, really at the tail end, so after ordering pizza, we crashed on the floor, invited Tyler (another one of those MUSH-types) over, and settled in to start a game of Tribe 8. After staying up to some ungodly hour or another, we crashed on the floor and air mattresses and went to sleep.
Sunday after much delibration, we dragged ourselves out of the house in time to have lunch at Palazzio's, the best Italian restaurant in the world. We drew and quoted poems in crayon on the heavy paper covering the tables and generally stuffed ourselves. After that, it was time, since we were in touristy Santa Barbara, to go be touristy on the beach. Bridging the area between State Street and East Beach (and Stearn's Wharf) is a little plaza with a fountain and a statue of three leaping dolphins. Dolphin Fountain played an unintentionally huge part in a lot of the roleplay that took place on Something Wicked This Way Comes, so we stopped and had a little old man take a picture of the five of us in front of it.
From there we split up and wandered the beach. I was the only one to actually go wading in the water, which was surprisingly cold. At the risk of sounding horribly geeky, it was very odd to stand somewhere where Jake spent so much time. I thought quite a bit about that, I admit. Also, since developing my obsession with all things selkie, this was the first time I'd been to the shoreline. Being around bodies of water (particularly large ones like the Great Lakes or the ocean) has always been something close to spiritual for me. I don't know why. I've never really questioned it. Standing there, in that place that is neither land nor sea but somewhere between, I thought about how selkies themselves are portrayed as belonging to neither land nor sea completely. Suddenly understood why I, who always feels like I have a foot in the world I was born in and a foot in the world I'm part of now, was so drawn to them.
I didn't have much time to brood, and soon we were all back together. Before long, the brat in the red shirt decided that burying me in the sand was a marvelous idea, so he and Mo went to work.
After gallivanting all over downtown Santa Barbara we finished helping Josh and Laura load their stuff into the Rental Car from Hell, then at about 9 pm, we started back for Whittier. We stayed there for the next three days, Laura and I crashed in one motel room, Brand and Mo in the other, and Josh staying with his parents, since he was teaching and being the responsible one. During that time we: stayed up much too late and slept in equally late, usually getting up in time to go pick up Josh at school each afternoon; returned the Rental Car from Hell (which we didn't pay for, naturally), watched Mo give the owner hell (that was fun!), and rented the coolest, most space-age minivan ever; played Tribe 8, culminating in a plot that deviated wildly from game canon but left me sobbing helplessly when my character died a martyr's death; and finally, took Mo to the airport. Then it was Thursday and Brand and I left Josh and Laura as well and headed to Brand's hometown of Lancaster.
Lancaster is in the Antelope Valley, about two hours out of Los Angeles. The Antelope Valley is up in the mountains and pretty much in the Mojave Desert. I thought it was wonderful, but Brand said that was because I didn't live there -- and it was spring, so everything was at its greenest (which wasn't very). The last four days of my vacation were so relaxing. After running around and staying up all night for a week, Brand and I spent the rest of the week vegetating, lying around his house like slugs and watching movies and talking. I got to meet his family, which was neat. He has three younger brothers and a mother all as insane as he is. (His nineteen year old brother is a pro wrestler. No, I'm not kidding. I saw the videotapes.) I feel bad for his dad, who is a very nice, normal man.
All in all, I couldn't have asked for a better vacation -- well okay, I could have asked, but it would have involved things like Europe and Hugh Jackman and Ewan McGregor, so it's unlikely that I could have actually had a better vacation.
Posted by Lisa at June 14, 2001 11:45 AM
