San Diego Started Out Well. . .

For all of you "airplane cold" conspiracy theorists out there (you know who you are, and if you don't, just read the comments from the last post) I did NOT get my cold from the plane. Both my daughter and my husband were sick the week before I left, but being the psychotic, oh wait, psychic doctors that we are, we decide ourselves whether we have colds or allergies. Of course, both Kate AND My Sweetie diagnosed themselves with allergies. Yeah, I'm gonna say no. I remember as Kate was driving me to the airport on Saturday morning I said, "I have the weirdest sinus ache. It's just on the right side in like a 3 point triangle between my two eye points and the bottom of my nose." I decided to ignore it because I'm good at that type of thing. I got to the airport and breezed right through check-in and security. I found a Friday's near my gate and parked myself. I was more concerned with their TV just above me because Duke would be playing their first conference game at 11:00 and I knew I had time to watch the whole first half. Sure enough, the TV was tuned to ESPN. It was all good at that point.

I ordered a giant beer and started watching the game. I doubt any of my readers watched this game, but take my word for it: if you were a Duke fan you would have HATED this game! At home I cuss a lot when I watch Duke play, but I was sitting in a public place so I had to be aware of my "reactions." And believe me, I was having A LOT of reactions. I kept consoling myself with my usual mantra of "we will fix all of this in the second half," but it was hard to leave at halftime. I was on the starboard side of the plane in an aisle seat next to two broads who seemed to know each other but weren't really friends. They were kind of amusing. Also we had the emergency exit and I knew they could handle the heavy lifting in case of emergency while I would direct people and tell them to shut up, I mean calm down. On the port side next to me (with just the two seats) was a guy with a laptop that he had placed on the window seat table. He watched every single part of one of the Zorro dvd's. I couldn't even hear it and I grew tired of the "behind the scenes" stuff.

I didn't stop in the San Diego airport for a beer because, quite frankly, I did not need another one at this point, plus I was far more interested in getting outside for a smoke. It was fun going down the escalator and seeing the handsome young man holding a card with my name on it. I told him I was going out to smoke and he came with me. I thought that was cute. We went back inside and I pointed out my bag and he grabbed it. He was very nice and pretty much kept up with my incessant chatter. He told me that after he dropped me off he would be going to get My Sweetie from Torrey Pines. I said, "Tell him I'll be sitting right there." I was pointing at the bar diagonal to my hotel.

I got to the hotel almost two hours before check-in and was going to check my bags, but the clerk said the room was ready. That was great! I got to redistribute my stuff so I'd only have my tiny purse, AND brush my teeth. Oh yeah, the room. First of all, he said it was on the 7th floor. I was kinda disappointed. Then I walked into the room and was confused. It was a good sized room, but there was no bed, just two small couches facing each other. I walked to the end of the room and there was A DOOR! We had a separate bedroom! It was awesome. AND it was a corner room so we had windows EVERYWHERE! And there was a giant window seat cushion in the bedroom window. It was really nice. NOW it was time for a beer. I went down to that bar - the Gaslamp Tavern - and people were cheering and yelling at (for?) the football playoffs. I immediately asked some sports savvy looking guys if they knew how the Duke game ended. Yeah, not good. I was sitting next to two sisters from L.A. and we chatted it up until My Sweetie showed up.

We eventually went back to the room, got the camera, jackets and whatnot and headed out for the night. We bar hopped, had a great dinner, bar hopped some more, sang and danced in the street (HE said I did) and then headed back to the room. We were going to watch "Buffy" but we both crashed on our couches. I woke up after midnight my time (yes only 10:00 in California!) brushed my teeth and went to bed. Sometime in the middle of the night I woke up with terrible foot pain, but I was too tired to get up for Advil. That was a portent for the rest of the trip . . .


(And thank you all so very much for the "Get Well" wishes!)