Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Hey, I found this draft on my blog.

I wonder why I didn't finish it! Oh, well. Something must have made me stop. But I DO remember the rest of the weekend! Somehow I must have sucked it up and finished the drive. It was the end of July. '09 and I was headed for a big weekend in the Plymouth, MA area. Friday we were celebrating my sister's 50th birthday. She knew we were celebrating it, but not what the big activity was. A chartered boat around Plymouth Harbor out to Provincetown! Maybe see a whale or two on the way! I knew a couple of people would be seeing pink elephants! Anyway, the weather asea was too rough for the charter to motor from Boston to Plymouth. Fortunately my younger sister (who herself will be the recipient of a wild and wacky fiftieth birthday celebration this July in Vegas!) was able to arrange a party bus to drive us to Boston where we would board the party boat. Awesome ride, awesome sail, awesome ride back. To the party hotel. The one that doesn't like parties and wouldn't let us use, well, the party room. Not after ten on a Friday night! No problem, we just turned my corner room into a party room. We're flexible like that! A couple of hours later, after many rounds of Mafia and an unsuccessful attempt to turn the cornhole board into a beer pong table, we all crawled into our beds to catch a few ZZZs before heading, on Saturday, to the extended family reunion at a party area in the nearby state forest. It's technically a picnic area but we don't picnic so much as party. I do remember a good time was had by all. There's plenty of photographic evidence. I've seen the photos. Online, anyway. Because nowadays nobody ever prints out their photos. And nobody ever edits them. There's, like, a thousand and two photos from that weekend floating in cyberspace, on google and picasa and shutterfish or snap fish or some kind of fish photo place. So I know we had a great time. And for the record, I was NEVER in the Mafia. So there.


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Here's the draft I found.
Well, I survived my harrowing drive to MA. Well, harrowing may not be the right word but...it was certainly miserable. Tried to leave on Tuesday. Couldn't make it. Went to Dr.s office, now I have a problem with my "good" foot. Yes, a painful problem. Get referral to podiatrist. Go home to get ready to leave on trip, and while going through old photos of previous reunions, I fell on my ass when my rolling office chair rolled right out from under me. Now my back hurts. Now I can't drive tonight, so I cancel Wednesday's plans. Try to leave early Wednesday. Spend an hour looking for my camera. Spend a half hour packing car, after unloading three bags of cement, two of which had holes in them. Clean up (most of) the mess. Get the stuff I forgot to pack. Finish packing the car. Check my list, everything's a-okay. Stop at Credit Union ATM, can't get any cash. Withdrawal from savings, transaction declined. Withdrawal from checking, transaction denied. Geeze. Gotta get outta the car and go inside. No problem, just have a $200 daily withdrawal limit and I requested $300. Get back in car and head towards PA. Stop for gas in Erie and realize I don't have my license. Unpack my bag to check pockets of shorts I wore last time I had my license. Not there. Nowhere. Check other bags. No license.

Of course, most of you would just continue on your way, realizing you aren't likely to need your license anyway and knowing if you get stopped without it you likely won't have a problem. I, on the other hand, know better. In my lifetime I have thrice been stopped for a traffic violation and not had my license on me. Two out of those three times I got a free tour of the local police station. The third time I was moving a car full of crap from MA to OH and the cop decided he didn't want to stand by the side of the road on a hot summer night while I unpacked my car to find my wallet. So yeah, knowing my luck and not wanting to spend the weekend in beautiful downtown Buffalo while my entire family partied the night away on Friday in Plymnouth, I drove back to OH and got my license. Drive back to PA and stop for gas. Now my "good" knee is cramping up. The one on the right. The driving leg. Cramping. So my left ankle is at about a seven on the pain scale, my right foot is at about a six, and now that tendon or muscle or whatever behind the right knee is all tied up on knots. While I'm driving on the New York Thruway. Gotta keep stopping to uncramp it. Call and cancel Thursday's plans because now I'm not going to complete the drive.

Yeah, I'm hurtin'. And stressed. And can't take any meds cuz I gotta drive another four hundred miles.Right about now I hate my life. So I keep on pushhin'. Gotta see how far I can get tonight. Turns out, not far. End up staying in Rochester. Thought I'd check out the Microtel Inn. I've never stayed there and there was a $20 coupon in the hotel mag at the turnpike plaza. How bad could it be?

Let's just say I have an active imagination and was able to pretend I was travelling through a third world country and was staying at a five star hotel. I figured that was the easiest way to make it through the night. At the Microtel. In Ny. In the USA. Here's a piece of advice for you. If the name of the place starts with the word Micro? Trust me, it's gonna be small. That's what micro means. Small. I know the prison in Attica's not that far from Rochester but who would have thought the same guys that built Attica would have built a nearby hotel? Seriously. A bathroom, a bed, a phone, a 15" TV up on the wall. This place was smaller than the hospital rooms I've stayed in. No lamps on the night stands. Well, not nightstands, exactly. A shelf mounted between the bed and the wall on each side. Yes, the room was that small.

It was secure though. Not the motel itself, but my room. Standard motel security with double door locks. But lucky me. The elderly couple staying in the room next door, the adjoining room, had their dog with them. I think it was a German Shepherd. It sounded like a German Shepherd when it barked. And it barked a lot. Oh lordy, between the dog and the conversation I could hear through the single door there wasn't a whole lotta sleep to be had.