I know that I am suppose to update you only on my weekend, but there was so much more to go over. My special, long weekend actually started on Tuesday at noon. I know that is going to make for a longer post, which may bore the reader, but I will try to make it as interesting (funny) as possible.

I can’t lie: I was not looking forward to this weekend. I enjoy the family thing during Thanksgiving but hardly enjoy the traveling thing. The plan was simple, leave late on Wednesday night to get to Los Angeles from San Diego without hitting the swarms of traffic (I was going to hit it anyway), spend Thanksgiving with my family and drive back on Friday morning to avoid traffic (though I was going to hit traffic anyway). Then spend the weekend with Josie (Yes, I spelled her name wrong in the last post but her real name, Josefina, is also spelled wrong as far as I’m concerned so she has to give me a pass) whose birthday it was.

It was a great plan. That is, until Tuesday happened.

I had to go to the bank at lunch. It was time to pay my rent (my landlord only wants cash, ugh!). So I am at the bank and Josie wants me to get her a diet Coke. I shrug and tell her fine. There is a grocery store by the bank (that grocery store shall remain nameless but it is a major store that is not Vons or Albertson’s, starts with an “R” and has the same name as a character in the 70’s TV show Happy Days whose nickname is “Mouth”) that I decided to go to to get lunch and the diet Coke. I bought three pieces of fried chicken. I was starving and ate them, hardly swallowing.

The rumble in my stomach and heart burn should have been an indication.

That evening, I took Josie out to buy her a purse for her birthday; a Michael Kor’s purse. I love her because she did not want me spending $2000 on a purse and she took me to an outlet store. Not only did I save a lot but everything in the store was 50% off. I was so happy about not spending my rent on a purse that I offered to buy her a pretzel. When offered a piece, my stomach rumbled. Though I was not sure, things were going south fast.

Now, food poisoning takes 12 to 24 hours to fully take effect. Mine took 14 hours. I had not slept, though I was exhausted. I knew that meant I was going to throw up and my body was just waiting. At 2:17 AM, I walked to the bathroom and let loose. It was something out of The Exorcist. When done, I felt better but had a mess to clean up and disinfect. It took me about thirty minutes to clean up.

Problem was, I needed to go to work. Not that I had any work to do (thank God) because of Thanksgiving but because if I called in sick the day before a holiday, eyebrows would be raised. So, after two hours of sleep, I woke up, took a shower, threw up a couple of more times and went to work.

When I got to work, as I expected, there was not much to do, which was fine by me. I sat in my office like a vegetable. Knowing there was no way I was going to be able to drive, I got a train ticket to Los Angeles to see my family. Though I was sick as a dog, I knew that was not going to be sufficient excuse for my father to not show up. My train was scheduled to take off at 7:44 PM. Good news was that we were able to leave ninety minutes early. I took a nap and went to get on the train.

I took Amtrak to Los Angeles. I love the train. It is a chance to get some sleep and not deal with traffic. Well, the best laid plans, etc. They overbooked. For the first hour, I had to sit on the stairs since there were no seats. When I finally got one, I was able to take a forty-five minute nap before we arrived at Union Station in L.A.

Because my father is getting rather up in age, I decided to take an Uber to his house. I had never used Uber before but my daughter swears by it. So I downloaded the app and requested a driver. The first request did not go over well. He never showed up. I watched the little car drive around on my phone then just disappear. I ended up paying $5 for “missing the ride” which is garbage. Guy made $5 for not wanting to find me. The next guy, Juan, made every attempt to find me. He called me about four times before he got a hold of me. He drove up in a Prius. Now I would rather club a baby seal than drive in a Prius but I was tired and sick so I dealt with driving 35 miles per hour on the freeway to get to me dad’s house. Not a lot of fanfare when I got there. I took some pills for my stomach and head and slept like the dead.

Thanksgiving was a small affair. Only half the family was there, which was nice. There were two turkeys. Both were good, though I was still recovering. I did eat though. There was no beer so I did not drink much (probably for the better). We watched football and talked. My father tried to have a political conversation with a vegan which I knew wasn’t going to go well. I changed the subject by talking about fried soy beans or something like that. Overall, it was an uneventful night. No bloodshed.

On Friday, I decided to go home. The freeways were deserted (which is odd for Los Angeles). When I got to the train station I was shocked to find that no one was there. I boarded my train and had a window seat to myself. Instead of sleeping, I read a book and got through a good portion of it. It was a very pleasant ride. Josie was at her family’s house so I had time to go home and do my laundry. There I found another surprise: an empty house and a package. And the package contained my new Google Home. It only got better! My house was empty! I cleaned, did me laundry, played with my Google Home and took a shower. A successful afternoon.

Finally, it was time to take Josie and her daughters out. As usual, they had no idea where they wanted to go. I decided on a sure thing: Joe’s Crab Shack. Dinner was awesome and we all had a good time.

 

Overall, it was a successful weekend. Even with the horror of a little food poisoning, I realized that things could only get better. And it did.