Suzy Says

Welcome to Los Angeles

Well, that was not fun.

I blithely assumed that it would be fast and easy to fly to LA from Santa Rosa. Only a two hour drive to the airport instead of a four hour one! A terminal the size of my house with parking that’s a mere $9 a day (instead of $18 at SFO)! All these halves should equal twice as good, in Suzy math.

The plane was the size of my car and my teensy seat was located right beside the wing/engine for maximum alarming noise capacity. The plane noises, however, were nothing compared to the kids cluttering up the plane. It was like a school bus with wings. Don’t kids ever go to school*?

Little did I know that the scrunched, noisy, and bumpy flight would be the fun part of the day.

Once decanted at LAX, I found the area where the shuttle buses to the rental car places theoretically stopped to pick up would-be renters. About four of them swept by, packed to the gills. This should have given me a hint of the horrors to come, but it didn’t.

Finally a shuttle deigned to stop for me, and after shoehorning me in there, the driver said, “No mas” and went on his merry way. I admired the bougainvillea and birds of paradise growing by the side of the road as I clung to the overhead bar. Arriving at the rental car place, I was greeted by the sight of a line of epic proportions. The last time I had seen anything like this was in post-glasnost Russia 20 years ago, where they were waiting to buy cigarettes.

It took an hour and a half to get to the head of the line. I wordlessly handed over my confirmation, driver’s license, and credit card. As per usual, it took me about a minute to conclude my business, much like waiting in airports back in the day when you had to check in with actual people.

The car itself is really nice, a brand-new Ford Fusion. Don’t tell Miss Scarlett that I’m cheating on her with a younger model. It’s what you do in LA.

The long wait had not improved the traffic or my mood. I also hadn’t eaten all day. I spotted a Whole Foods, like a beacon of hope in the darkening sky. I pulled in and picked up a picnic dinner (rosemary roasted chicken breast, golden beet salad, and potato salad for $8), and more importantly, a sky blue bottle of Skyy vodka and some blueberry lemonade.

Back in the car, I sadly watched the arrival time on the GPS tick upwards, from 7:15 pm to 7:39. It was nearly 8:00 by the time I reached the motel. I had left the house at 10 am for a 1:45 flight arriving at 3:15. According to my friends at Google Maps, I could have driven here faster, in a mere 8 hours instead of 10.

Good to know.

I walked into my assigned room and was greeted by incessant barking of a Baskervillian type. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but I wasn’t going to find out. I returned to the front desk and the unapologetic and unconcerned clerk assigned me to a different, bark-free room.

At last! I made a drink and put on the baseball game. As I ate my picnic, the Tigers lost to the Red Sox, thus putting the perfect capper to the perfect day.

Tomorrow – or today – is, as Miss Scarlett’s namesake observed, another day, and it has to be a better one. Right?

*I posed this semi-rhetorical question to Megan via text, and she responded, “No. That’s why they can’t spell pneumonia.” The hospital just hired someone to work in the ER who spelled it “numonia”.