NEWLOVE

I was “that girl” at the airport because everything went wrong and I just couldn’t take it.  I sat against a wall and just cried for about an hour because I didn’t know what else to do and no one had any answers for me and YOU CAN’T TALK ON YOUR CELL PHONE UNTIL AFTER YOU LEAVE U.S. CUSTOMS. 

First I found out that there was a miscommunication with my friend who I thought was picking me up.  So I thought I was stranded - hungry, thirsty, tired, in need of a shower and a bed AND NOW had a few hours of public transpo ahead of me?!?!?

Then, my bags were lost for the second time in 2 weeks.  I don’t know why.  I don’t know how.  I eventually found out that they were being flown to NY from DC and that I’d just have to wait around but this information was not relayed to me until about five minutes before the bags arrived.  I waited for over 3 hours to get my bags and leave customs.  Grrr.

Everything worked out in the end.  I didn’t self-combust from stress overload or anything.  I got my bags and got a ride from the airport and basically passed out within minutes of walking in the front door and shoving lasagne in my face.  Yum. 

Brad filmed a commercial for Wallmart yesterday that has some sort of tie-in to Pirates Of The Carribean 3.  I am still in Denmark and haven’t really gotten the whole story.  What I do know is that it was 90 degrees and they filmed on the Disney lot and Brad was on the actual pirate ship they used in the movie.  He was dressed in a wool uniform playing a sword-fighting British Naval Officer.  I bet that was fun in the heat!!  Here are some photos.

Click on photos for larger sized version.

Today is my sister’s bday.  We all had dinner last night at Casper’s and rang in her 28th at midnight with plenty of booze.  I will post pictures soon.

I made chili for my granny, aunt, uncle and cousins tonight.  Although the alcohol in the beer evaporates, I swear my cousins were drunk by dessert.  I have never seen them (ages 10 & 15) so giggly!

I woke up and walked around in Copenhagen today with sunny skies and birds chirping.  The kids were throwing food at the swans on the lake and the old lady in her cart on Norrebrogade was selling Franske Hotdogs.  Too bad Brad wasn’t there.  The gay parade arrives in a few short days.  Trouble is brewing in the state of Denmark!

I was glad to be alive.  It was just one of those days.

It’s so unbelievably cold here in New York that I stayed inside for most of the day.  Lizzie and I had a failed shopping attempt in Yonkers and a crazy trip to a post office in the Bronx.

We stood in two separate lines for 45 minutes before I stepped up to the window and handled my business.  While waiting in line, there was a black woman in front of me with a really nice fake ponytail and crazy 1 1/2 inch nails painted in pink, blue and white designs with rhinestones.  She had on those ski goggle looking fake Yves Saint Laurent glasses and a white rabbit fur coat over her nurses scrubs and she was on the phone and obviously didn’t care who could overhear her conversation.  (Imagine a thick New York accent and excuse the following profanity.)
“That cock-sucking mother fucking bastard used my baby’s social security number because he’s so greedy for …  …I know girl!!  He done and got married to that fat bitch wife o’ his and he can’t use those kids social security number?  He gots ta use mine??  I gonna bring his ass to the courts so fast, he won’t even know.  Straight up.  I’m gonna tell him what I think over him, you wait and see!”

This went on for the majority of the wait.  Then when she got up to the mail person at the counter, she explained a lengthy version of her problem which basically could have been summed up as the following: I’m not receiving any mail and haven’t been for over a week.  Is there any reason it could be here at the post office?

But no, she had to go into the details, of course.  “Maurice been coming by and says that there ain’t no such address at 20830 when he standing right in front of it.  My daughter gets her check every Monday in the mail and last week, we didn’t get it until Wednesday after 6 o’clock in the evening!  And this week it still haven’t been come.  Our regular postman has no problem bringing our stuff but this Maurice is just rude.  How can he say 20830 don’t exist when he standing there lookin’ at it?!  He gots some major attitude and don’t you think that’s pretty unprofessional for a government employee?”

She went on and on.  Oh, life in the Bronx.

I spent a long loooooooooooong day in the Denver airport.  I just want to get to LaGuardia, people.  Have a little mercy!

Apparently, winds were gusting as high as 40 mph and LaGuardia was only allowing planes to land on one runway which caused lots of flights to be canceled and the flights that were still scheduled were loaded up with the passengers from the canceled flights.  My flight luckily was not canceled, only delayed a few hours.  But when I finally arrived at LaGuardia, my bags were nowhere to be found.  They hadn’t made it onto my plane.  I guess United thought they’d be nice to the people who had their flights canceled by making sure their bags came first.  But those of us whose flights weren’t canceled were luggage-less.  Great.  The options were we could either wait 2 more hours for another plane to arrive which was supposedly bringing our bags, or we could wait up to 48 hours to have our bags delivered.  Great.

Since I have an international flight to catch the day after tomorrow, they told me that I should wait the 2 hours as they couldn’t guarantee my bags would arrive before I left for the airport.  Great.  Ixel and Michael picked me up at the airport and Michael was kind enough to come keep me company but poor Ixel was sitting in the car dying to leave at 8:30pm is waaaayyyy past her bedtime!

Now, those of you who know me well know how often my luggage gets completely and utterly lost - POOF!  It’s a strange but true fact in my life and I don’t know why.  I must have really bad karma or something.  My luggage gets lost at least once a year.  That is a lot.  Most people lose their bags once in their lifetime!  So for United to ask me to sit around and wait for two hours in addition to making Ixel and Michael wait around as well for those two hours is quite a lofty proposition because I mean, who knows if I’ll even get my luggage after waiting those 2 hours.  Also, when they say 2 hours, they might mean 2 days but just want to make you feel better about the wait time.  Who knows.  But we stayed around and waited.  There was a mutiny all around us.  The other passengers were pissed and not afraid to show it.  They were threatening the poor man whose job it was to inform us that our bags were on another plane.

One guy was screaming, “Lies!  All lies!!” and another man was screaming for a supervisor.  Then there was a woman who was trying to start a national debate over the issues.  The United representative must’ve been in this sort of situation because he was able to handle them all fairly well.  I was the only one who wasn’t mean to him, and guess what?!  I WAS THE ONLY PASSENGER WHO DID NOT RECEIVE THE VOUCHER FOR $25 OFF YOUR NEXT UNITED TICKET PURCHASE!!

Instead of doing laundry at home where 8 loads takes a lifetime, I decided to schlep my stuff over to a local laundromat.  I hate doing laundry and can only muster up the tolerance to wash clothes a couple times a year.  The last time I did laundry was mid-October.  Yes, I have too many clothes.

Anyways, I went to the laundromat at midnight against Brad’s better judgement - he thought it’d be dangerous as there’d be weirdos and homeless people hanging around at that hour. I told him it’d be alright and not to worry.  But sure enough, just after 1am a fairly normal looking youngster came in talking animately to himself.  It seemed like he was on the phone at first so no one really paid attention.  But when it was apparent that he wasn’t there to do laundry and that he was just staring at his reflection in the window as his conversation with himself grew louder and more intense, we all got a little nervous.  He turned around and asked me what time it was.  I made a point to look at the clock on the wall instead of my watch in case he was a thief or something and responded, “It’s one twenty-five.”

That shocked him more than seeing Janet Jackson’s nipple on live television.  “One twenty-five?!?!?!?”  He giggled a bit and muttered a variety of “oh wow” and “holy shit” and “i can’t believe it” before giggling some more and then leaving.

He returned shortly and had found one of those noise-makers that unfurl and roll-up as you blow into them.  This particular one was silver.  Picture a 20 year old Mexican looking guy of average height with shoulder length black straight hair in a half ponytail on the top of his head like a samurai dancing around blowing on a one-note noise-maker.  It was weird.  He came up to me and asked me if I wanted a noise-maker, that he was generous enough to share his with me that he’d just soaked in his saliva.  “You can have this one.”

Although it was quite the tempting offer, I declined.

At this point, the lady that works at the laundromat asked him to leave and they had some words.  She called for reinforcements and her hombres showed up.  They weren’t scary homies or anything, they were just nice little Mexican dudes who work hard to support their families.  But having 5 of them around made us all feel safer.

I found out after the fact that the junkie threatened to kill her.  He told her to stay put so that he could go out and buy a gun and come back and shoot her.  Yeah, because the 24-hour Walgreen’s down the street that doesn’t sell alcohol is going to sell you a gun.  Sure.  You’re so scary.

Gunnar Allen

Halsten James

The Golden Gate Bridge.

The Crooked Street.

Cable Car.