best of weekends, worst of weekends

While I went to Bear Mountain, nefarious deeds were taking place back home. Emily, my 8.5 yr old niece, wanted snowboarding lessons for Hanukkah, and the weekend of Feb. 4th was to be the weekend that we would go. Dana came with me and we arrived around 3pm into LAX, rented a huge atmosphere-hating SUV (BTW, this was the first time I had rented from Enterprise in a loooong time. What a strange experience. I just want to stop, get my car, and be on my way. At Enterprise they consult with you on which car you want, go through this bizarre we-want-to-connect-with-you-the-customer inspection of the vehicle, and eventually send you on your way. Next time I’m sticking with Hertz). If anyone is considering flying into LAX on a Friday and going from there to the mountains, or for that matter anywhere, you should select a less aggrivating plan. Bamboo shoots beneath the fingernails comes to mind. Did I listen to people when they told me there would be horrendous traffic? Nooooooooooooo. We picked up Emily around 4:30, went to the supermarket to get snacks, and then drove onto I-10 only to be greeted by the worst gridlock I have ever seen.

Two hours, many side streets, and about 25 miles later we pulled off for a meal at Sizzler where I proceed to let my niece ignore her mother’s diet instructions and order whatever she wants. I’m the uncle, I’m supposed to spoil her!

We arrived at Bear around 10:00pm. Including food pit stop, it had taken a whopping 4.5 hours to drive what would ordinarily be a 2 hour trip. We lug our stuff into the Best Western and I notice a message from my roommate, Eric. “Nothing to worry about,” the message went, “but will you give me a call.”

“Hey, Eric, what’s up?” He starts rambling on, something like, “I get home and notice all these coins on my floor and my change jar, where I keep some pennies, some change…” uh huh “… is on the floor. I’m wondering if I was so tired this morning that I knocked it over, I don’t remember knocking it over.”

“Cut to the chase, Eric,” I say, a queesy feeling setting in. (I’m reading Blink these days, and my intuition at this moment was that something bad was about to be reported to me)

“I noticed my laptop was missing from the table. So I started trying to remember if I had left it at Jane’s or at someone’s house.”

“Eric, what happened?”

“Well, so I looked in your room. I was wondering if your laptop is normally on your desk?”

The weekend did go well. Emily had a great time learning to snowboard, and Dana even had fun. What a trip snowboarding in 65 degree So. Cal. sun! In between the moments of fun, my stomach would turn and I would vascillate between revulsion and anger. How dare these motherfuckers break into my house and steal my shit! As it turns out, Eric lost more than I — not just a laptop, but also a digital camera and video camera with irreplaceable vacation movies. I lost all my photos and movies, too, equally irreplaceable. Got home and signed up for XDrive. Why is it always when you lose the most that you learn your lesson?

Part II: Bay Alarm redux