I hate LAX

While I loved the beautiful, cool, sunny Seattle weekend getting home last night was such a relief. We spent about twelve hours in airports and planes. LAX reaffirmed its status and the most loathsome domestic airport ever, and certainly one of the ugliest. (Seriously, this is an international airport in L.A.? Newark looks better than this. Even the Atlanta airport doesn't smell like day old socks and piss.) The crazy construction of the terminals requires one to take shuttle buses around the tarmac, occasionally stopping for planes and randomly switching buses. Then one waits indefinitely while the bus drivers gossip, despite the fact that you could be missing your plane RIGHT NOW.

But I should back up - In Seattle, our plane was late arriving. Then the vast number of children made early boarding slower than molasses. Halfway through boarding there was some kind of security incident in the airport, causing flashing orange lights to go off everywhere. This also meant they had to stop boarding. Lovely. At least we were in the terminal and not trapped on a plane with large numbers of screaming, crying children. Our take off was late, and combined with the ridiculous shuttles we came close to missing out connection despite having planned for a layover of well over an hour. The final catastrophe came at the gate when the attendant suddenly decided she didn't want to let me on the plane, because she could not understand why I was holding my boarding pass for this flight as well as the previous flight.

I try to always be nice to people in service jobs, but I was about to start yelling.

Our flight home was distinctly uncomfortable. I spent most of it in one never-ending panic attack. Some dim corner of my brain knew it was just panic and feverently hoped I wouldn't embarass myself by screaming on the plane. The rest of my brain was convinced I was dying. It was the combination of hideously uncomfortable seating, dehydration, the near constant screaming of small children, and the two older women behind me. One of them answered her damned cell phone as we were beginning to take off and it took all my self control not to turn around and yank it out of her hand. They spent a large portion of their flight talking in gruesome detail about dentistry, brain injuries and other medical things.

Towards the end of the flight, the cabin pressure seemed to be fluctuating. I felt like I was underwater, about to pass out. I had several minutes of feeling as if I was going to die. It was miserable.

At home, the temperature after midnight was 88 degrees. My joints ached so badly I cried. I feel a little better this morning, but probably mostly because it is raining. I think I will go back to bed now.

In Seattle

Seattle is so much like here, but with more recycling bins and narrower roads. And super tall trees. Instead of blistering heat though I understand that they get crushing gray dampness. The whole weekend the weather was astonishing, in the 60s and sunny. It was like some strange paradise. It is a place I would like to see again.

Staying with Melynda and Truong, it really felt as if we were at home because their apartment complex is full of Spanish speakers. There was an epic birthday party over the weekend involving a pinata. Hah! It was awesome. We got together with Tyler for many foods, coffees and cards. The voodoo curse was invoked, to Melynda's dismay. Tyler and I shared our favorite joke ever, which consists of a single word: boob. It was awesome. Seeing them again was good, as it seems like forever since they moved. Melynda and Truong have a goofy puppy named Zoe, and Tyler's going to school and working and playing softball and living it up.

Mike chronicled most all of our delicious meals with his phone, and our adventuring.
June 25th
June 26th
June 27th
June 28th
June 29th

Sadly the lighting was too dim at the Icon grill to photograph our delicious meal. That pear salad was so so so good, as was the giant ice cream sundae.

Cupcakes were finally achieved at Cupcake Royale. Ever since beatnikside posted about Cupcake Royale ages and ages ago, I have long wanted to go there. It seems like one of the greatest places on earth - coffee, cupcakes, good music, wifi and reasonably comfy chairs. (While I loved Metro and the industrial German chic, I do have to admit the chairs could have been more comfy - but I digress) The first visit we were too late for cupcakes. Crushing. But we went back the next day!

I tried the monthly special of Ranier Cherry and Lavender first. The cupcakes were intensely moist, with excellent fluffy cake. The buttercream frosting was deliciously buttery without being too sweet. I liked the faint herbal note to the lavender, which was super subtle. The cherry frosting with cacao nibs was delicious - I only wish I could have eaten it on a chocolate cake. On another visit I picked up the Peppermint Party (peppermint buttercream on chocolate cake), a Lemon Drop (lemon frosting on white cake) and a carrot cake one for Mike. Writing this now has given me a terrible craving for their delicious, lovely cupcakes. Everything I ate was delicious.

We visited the Aquarium, which was pretty awesome. They have everything from starfish in a half dozen colors to giant fish and otters. It was pretty and fun inside. We even got to see puffer fish, yay! I think I would like to go back and see more of the exciting things around the city like the sculpture garden, more of downtown and such. We did drive around various neighborhoods and look at all the candy colored houses. Such big windows! Wooden siding! Views of the water! Gigantic cranes over huge loading docks!

I'd also like to go back just to visit all the Seattle peoples I know from livejournal. Sadly I did not plan ahead much and we were mostly just hanging out with Mel and Tyler. But I'll come back again. I will bring a large box of warm weather too - it was almost 90 when we left the airport at midnight.

mermaid dollars

the_good_dollar

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