The weeks of exhausting hosting, socialization and travel are finally at an end.
Things I have learned/re-discovered:
- My parents are incredibly generous...and I mean incredibly!
- I have serious issues with decision-making
- My extended family is cool, but distant
- Lack of sleep and lack of food make Hannah not feel good
- I have a very small sense of adventure
- I have some super-awesome friends
- I'm not as afraid of flying as I once was
- A shower at home is a wonderful thing after having to stay in a hotel unexpectedly due to a delayed flight
- I have lost any desire to see the movie The Wedding Crashers
- Tempur-Pedic beds are grrreat!
2. It was very hard to decide which sewing machine to get...and I feel slightly guilty choosing the one I did because it cost so much, but it can do everything I want it to do and more. I have no limits. I'm very excited. But it took for fracking ever to make up my mind.
3. I was able to visit my extended family this Christmas (dad's side)! I haven't seen them for a few years, so it was very nice to reconnect. However, it's funny how little we all have to talk about and how weird it is to try to interact with anyone. It's like a room of strangers making smalltalk most of the time. Maybe it's a symptom of my cousin's huge house -- everyone goes off into different rooms and and the tv is always on the football game, so the location doesn't facilitate interaction. But even when everyone is in the same room, it's a little odd. Do we really have so little in common?
4. On the 6th, we got up at 4am to get to the airport for our flight to Portland. I ate a huge bowl of oatmeal (a double serving) in the car on the way there. We got to Chicago for the layover and I ate a breakfast burrito at 10am. Then we had a 4.5 hour flight to Oregon and arrived at 1-ish. By the time we got to the Heathman Hotel it was 2-ish. At about 2:30 we had a minute to grab a bagel before the troupe's load-in/rehearsal from 3-7. Their stuff went until about 7:30 (9:30 my stomach's time) and we went to dinner. I was famished and exhausted. I should have gone off to find food at 2:30, but I didn't. Too tired (and see #5). We went to a yummy Thai restaurant called Typhoon at about 8pm but the food was so rich and spicy I couldn't handle it. I thought I was going to pass out or be sick or something...so I ate what I could, hightailed it back to the hotel and crashed. Hard. (see #10)
5. The T&S shows with the Oregon Symphony were on the 7th (my birthday!) so they had rehearsals all day. I slept in a bit and decided to ask the front desk where I could get a nice, big bowl of oatmeal for breakfast. They gave me a few options and a map and I went out the door and froze. I really have little sense of adventure. I want to know exactly where I'm going and how long it's going to take to get there and what lies in store for me on the way. Portland turns me around. North is downhill...which just screws me up. So, I had to gather my courage to go find this restaurant by myself in a city I'd never been to with a map that I didn't want to take out and study while walking down the street in the rain. But, I did it (without the map)...and it gave me a feeling of accomplishment. It's a little thing, but I faced that fear and won. I won a big bowl of organic oatmeal with filberts and raisins.
6. My friends are the best. Totally the best. Especially R&T, J and K who put up with me asking them to cat-sit while we're gone. I feel horrible asking people to visit the kitties twice a day to give Penny a pill. These friends are troopers and I love them! We got to see our friends Molly & Phillip who recently moved out to the Portland area from Chicago. So good to see them! We couldn't believe that our 10-year college reunion is coming up. It feels like yesterday that we met Molly! I have found that time stands still for good friends.
7. I'm beginning to think that flying can actually be fun! I'm getting used to the bumps and dips and they don't terrify me as much anymore.
8. We spent Monday hooting around in Portland. Meaghan, Rudi and Bonnie went off on a big hike in the morning and Neil and I did a lot of in-town walking. We went to Powell's Books (awesome) and walked through Chinatown a little bit. We popped into some stores and window shopped. We wanted to go to the art museum, but found out it was closed on Mondays (pbbbbtttt!) so we went to see Volver instead - a movie that probably won't come here or won't play here for very long if it does. We ate at some really good restaurants while we were there (Typhoon, Silk, Southpark, Bijou Cafe) and saw a ton of hybrid cars.
When we left on Tuesday morning, we weren't ready to leave. But we went to the airport and got on our plane only to wait for two hours on the tarmac because of wind in Chicago. This delay made us miss our connection and we ended up stranded in Chicago overnight with a make-up flight at 7:25am the next morning (today). So, we got a hotel room at the O'Hare Westin (they gave us the "distressed passenger" fare, which we thought was funny), stayed up late waiting for pizza (luckily I had bought a wrap in the Portland airport at 1:30pm when we found out about the delay and therefore wasn't in quite as bad a state as I was on the way out there) and went to bed at 12:30 or so, only to get up at 5am and get on the plane. We had all checked our personal bags and nobody thought to put our pjs and stuff in our carry-on so none of us had pjs or anything. Quite uncomfortable.
We got home this morning at 8:30. Tired and smelly. I had to go to work. I took a shower...and it felt indescribably good.
9. The movie on HBO last night was The Wedding Crashers and it looked terrible.
10. Our room in the Heathman Hotel had a Tempur-Pedic bed. I want one. First hotel I've slept well in right off the bat...even without earplugs!
So now we're home. No guests. Just the cats and the pile of presents to play with (finally)! I'm looking forward to it.
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