You're Doing It Wrong

Okay so it turns out I’m an idiot. My trip was not to the Coeur d’Alene Resort it was to the Coeur d’Alene Casino which are on opposite ends of the planet (well, if you’re in Idaho). DOH! In my defense, my conference materials, printed by a federal government agency, did not contain the word casino anywhere — which probably has something to do with public policy and not an intentional desire to confuse me. Also, in my defense I will point out that although in some places the casino (like on their napkins) refers to itself as a resort hotel, when you’re looking at the big neon sign out front the word “resort” is nowhere to be seen. In their defense, I will point out that The CDA Resort is a big fancy place with not a lot of emphasis on Indians and what the hell would the government be doing hosting an Indian employment related conference there? It didn’t make a lot of sense at the time, but what the hell, I had dropped my normal completely cynical view of the feds and applauded them for wrangling such a swank place.

Anyway, all would have been fine if I would have stuck with my informative piece of paper with the conference info, which included the correct number for my reservation and transportation arrangements. But I decided to make sure I had transportation, seeing as how I was arriving in Spokane after 9pm and didn’t want to be stuck there so late. So I went online and used the Resort webpage to grab the number and called and what do you know, they didn’t have me in the system. Good thing I called. Look for the dark blue van when you exit the baggage claim.

Meanwhile, I leave work at 6pm and go to PDX and use the economy lot which I haven’t done in a while and forgot my secret routine. But I found a decent parking space under a light and near a bus shelter and I boarded the bus and here’s the perfect cute family coming home from vacation and here’s the perfect angelic blonde child, 3 or 4, tops, who has “to go.” And here’s Mom, infant strapped to her belly, toddler balanced on the seat beside her scolding her for not going earlier when she had the chance. (Like that’s going to help now, Mom!) Oh no, now Emma is crying. “Don’t think about it!” (Like that’s going to help now, Dad!) You can see where this story is going. Altogether now: “Emma!” Mom is horrified. Emma is sobbing. I’m practically sobbing as deeply buried childhood pee accident trauma floods to the surface of my fragile adult psyche. Mom makes little Emma stand there so the seat doesn’t get wet. We arrive at their bus shelter. The kindly bus driver gives me a look and then goes back to survey the damage. Mortified Mom confesses the trouble — like we had no clue. The bus driver helps them de-bus. Poor little blonde Emma in her wet shorts carefully climbs down the steps, Mom still scolding. I catch Emma’s eyes and try to give her an encouraging smile but all I can think about is her in therapy 20 years from now, relating this experience complete with the MOCKING LADY ON THE BUS. Emma, I’m on your side. Swear! Poor kid.

Back to MY humiliation (and my theory that EVERYTHING is foreshadowing). So I get on the CDA Resort van and the driver tells me that I don’t have a reservation. Well: Of Course I Do. They hear my confirmation number and with great confidence tell me that no, I don’t have a reservation. I sit there staring at my information sheet while the horrifying realization that I have made a terrible mistake washes over me. Is there any way to get out of this without looking like a complete moron? No. They want to take me to the resort which turns out is miles from my destination and they want to offer me a room which is going to cost me personally twice as much as the room the government has already paid for at whatever place I’m supposed to be going. I get on my phone and turns out another ride is coming for me. The nice van driver is at all times completely professional and kindly takes me to a different terminal (and kindly accepts my generous tip). Later I have to hike back to my original terminal because I’m being paged on the airport system “Paula Rentz, please meet your driver.” It’s a black stretch limo. I ride with three people from Ho-Chunk, where Bob and I went a couple years ago. I get to bed at 11:30pm. Hours past my bedtime. The next morning I relate this tale to the people from the government agency with a big “hee hee ho ho” and I’m complimented on my sense of humor. What else am I going to do, cry?

One thing I forgot to write about Gladiator yesterday is that with a name like Commodus that evokes “commode” or “common” how could you succeed? Whereas Maximus sounds powerful like a super-duper condom or maybe, a winning racehorse or the biggest tankard at a coffee house: would you like: large, grande or maximus?

Alias is trying my patience lately. It’s the same show every episode. Some sort of loony Rambaldi artifact (Rambaldi: not that interesting) that either CIA or Covenant has to get and whoever gets it loses it to the other in a big fight scene with explosions. Vaughn has lost all my sympathy. Jack bagging Lena Olin AND Isabella Rosselini is tough to buy and now did they really tell me that I now have to wait 3 weeks for the season finale? Gee, I hope I remember to watch it.

The next week is going to be crazy busy. It’s the first of the month so I have all that stuff to finish up at the office and then tomorrow evening I fly to Spokane and shuttle to the Coeur d’Alene Resort for that training I do every year that I complain about. I get home Thursday night and we have more plans this weekend and Monday Robert and Heather are getting married.

One of our neighbors installed a home alarm. I know this because it went off for a good part of the day Saturday, at least twice yesterday and it went off again this morning. I don’t think it’s going to help.

This month’s Entertainment Weekly has a major feature on the movies coming out this summer and for the first time in a couple of years there isn’t much that I’m excited about. I’ll be there for Troy but I don’t know what else. Since we got netflix I get all my movies delivered to my door and I can watch them whenever I want and I don’t have to park. AND they have TV shows. Our queue goes on and on.

I’m always complaining how I never have time to do anything and yesterday I had time and didn’t want to do anything. There’s probably a lesson in there somewhere. I goofed around a bit. I researched new webhosts and read newspapers and magazines and finally got off my butt and did a bunch of spring cleaning stuff: mucked through cupboards, vacuumed my car and swept the garage.

My Free Will Astrology this week said:

You may find this hard to believe, but it's very important for you to decide what actor or actress you'd choose to play you in the hypothetical movie based on your life. For me, it's obviously Viggo Mortensen, though if he weren't available I'd probably accept Robin Williams or Snoop Dogg. But then I can afford to indulge in the luxury of indecision about this matter, whereas you really can't. For reasons you can't imagine -- reasons that have to do with you taking your life's work more seriously than ever before -- you must expand and deepen the mythic intensity of your life story.

These are the actresses I came up with: Lily Taylor, Frances McDormand and Holly Hunter. Any other ideas?

I got a digital camera for my bday and I’m adding more pictures.

Last week we got an unsolicited fax at the office to inform us that we were possibly eligible for an award in a class action suit against DirecTV for sending out unsolicited faxes. I checked it out and it is legit but I don’t have the URL handy and I’m not going to look for it now. The notice included fine print that said that the law firm would get either $8.2 or $8.6 million dollars for their fees and expenses, I can’t remember exactly how much, for defending us against this terrible violation of federal law. Except that we just got another unsolicited fax from the people who “earned” over 8 million dollars. What’s the point? What are they saving us from?

Captainhoof is my latest online must-read. I went back and read the whole thing. The comments border on excruciating but there are some gems in there as well. You might also want to check out this Gawker bit — the item about the anonymous blog.

Yesterday there was some poor befuddled driver trying to get around downtown at the tail end of rush hour. I know he was befuddled because he was in front of me and very tentatively went to make a turn down the wrong way of a one way street. I helpfully honked which he apparently interpreted to mean “hurry up and turn” and off he went the wrong way. What else could I do? I heard other cars honking and I didn’t hear brakes squealing or metal crunching so perhaps it worked out okay. I never use my horn. I think that was the first time in this car. It’s not like it helps when traffic is screwed up and you never know what whacko lurks behind the wheel so you don’t want to honk at jerks because who knows what could happen?

Another thing I never do is return things. I don’t know why, it always embarrasses me. However, I bought this software which turned out to be total crap and I contacted the company yesterday to see what they could do for me. It appears they’re going to let me return it — on my own dime which is no problem. I bet I can send it back for about $3. They charged me, ahem, $9 for an item the size of a DVD.