I’ve been watching a lot of basketball since I’ve been at my parents, due in part to the complete lack of anything on tv (not helped by my parents barely owning any DVDs and my not getting any for Christmas) (not even Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, which I will have to remedy shortly) and in part to the fact that we caught part of a game early in my stay and I became fascinated by Joel Przybilla, who is a fantastic defender and is also very good at free throws. Anyway, in less than a week, I’ve caught parts of at least 3 or 4 games.
I don’t know whether it’s because my family just isn’t a basketball family (I grew up on baseball, my parents are avid Penn State football fans–even going to the Rose Bowl this year–and used to have season tickets to the [New York] Rangers, so we have most major sports covered) or what, but I am having a hard time grasping a lot of the rules. Like, it’ll pop up that someone got a foul for “holding,” but I have no idea what that means. I have deduced that this means that players can’t just hold the ball…though it seems at times that they do exactly that. What constitutes a foul? What doesn’t? How many substitutions are allowed? I know none of this.
And watching it on tv isn’t particularly helping. The announcers don’t elucidate anything. I was getting incredibly frustrated tonight, because there would be a foul or something, and the tv would replay some completely unrelated clip (”And Oden was fouled…Here’s a clip of Outlaw’s field goal!”) (I didn’t even know baskets were called “field goals” until this week; I just thought they were called baskets). Totally unhelpful. I think one of the nice things about baseball is that the pace is such that when something controversial happens, they show it again and again and discuss it in depth. It helps someone who isn’t terribly familiar with the game to learn it. Basketball? Not so much.
Anyway, it has been interesting. Unfortunately, the Wizards only play the Blazers once this year, and that’s in Portland. But maybe I’ll try to make it to another game. It’s not like tickets should be hard to come by, what with the Wizards’ stellar 5-23 record.
Sunday, December 21
7:45 a.m. EST: Wake up, shower, dress, etc. Finish packing.
8:30 a.m. EST: Head out. De-ice car.
8:45 a.m. EST: Depart for Philadelphia airport.
10:30 a.m. EST: Arrive at economy parking lot. Flight not until 2:12 (left plenty of time to drive, in case of icy roads).
10:45 a.m. EST: Check luggage, proceed to security.
11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. EST: Hang out at gate.
1:00 p.m. EST: Lunch.
1:15 p.m. EST: Flight delayed.
2:30 p.m. EST: Board plane.
2:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. EST: Sit on plane.
4:30 p.m. EST: Deplane. Talk to gate agent re: connecting flight that will now be missed. Get seat on later flight.
4:45 p.m. EST: Replane.
6:40 p.m. EST: Flight takes off.
7:40 p.m. CST: Plane lands in Chicago. Panic slightly, as next flight boards at 7:50.
7:55 p.m. CST: Talk to Dad. Discover next flight delayed until 10.
8:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. CST: Dinner.
9:00 p.m. CST: Arrive at gate. Discover that standby list for flight, thanks to insane weather in Northwest, has 317 people on it. Thank lucky stars.
9:15 p.m. - 9:30 CST: Notice plane still at gate, listed as going to Phoenix. Grow increasingly concerned where plane to Portland will go.
9:45 p.m. CST: Plane to Phoenix pulls away. Plane to Portland pulls up.
9:45 p.m. - 11 p.m. CST: Gate agents work to get standby people on plane.
11:00 p.m. CST: Board plane.
11:30 p.m. CST: Flight takes off. Monday, December 22
1:30 a.m. PST: Flight lands.
1:45 a.m. PST: Meet with parents, go to baggage claim.
1:45 a.m. - 4:45 a.m. PST: Wait for baggage, which is hampered by multiple flights landing at once with very limited crew. Scurry between Carousel 10 and Carousel 7, depending on information.
4:45 a.m. PST: Get bag. Proceed to Dad’s car, now with chains due to snow in Portland area and lack of plowing in said area.
5:45 a.m. PST: Arrive at parents’ house.
Even with that insanity, I’m so happy. I could’ve been stranged in Chicago for days. There are hundreds of people stuck in airports across the contry–I really am very lucky to have gotten here. Even if it did take over a full day.
So, I went on a cruise with Becca and Steve. Technically it was a few weeks ago. But look! Pictures! The cruise was indeed super fun. I actually felt bad for the crew–it must’ve been a rough week for them.
On a cruise, you get a little card that’s basically everything on the ship; it’s your room key and is programmed with your picture to use when boarding and leaving the ship, it’s how you charge everything on board (food, casino, bingo, spa services, etc.). And it turned out that there were issues with the cards we were initially given; they all were associated with the wrong names. So on the second night, we had to exchange the cards for new ones.
On top of this, it was the first time they had done this cruise. The ship had been doing sailings in Europe all summer, then did a trans-Atlantic, followed by an 8-day cruise, then our 6-day. The crew hadn’t done the same cruise once in over a month, which had to have thrown off their routines.
But the topper came on Wednesday, when we were in Grand Cayman. As we headed off toward Jamaica, I could feel the ship make a very sharp turn. And then…keep turning. Eventually the cruise director made an announcement, that someone or something had gone overboard. Turned out that it was the giant inflatable monkey that someone had on their balcony (visible in one of the pictures linked to above). But they had to make absolutely sure–due to international law–so we were required to figures 8s just south of Grand Cayman as everyone on the ship had to check in again. Which took three hours. Steve, Becca, and I wound up sitting in the bar near where the check-ins were taking place to watch the fun in the latter portion of the proceedings. By that point, the director was listing names of people who hadn’t checked in. When the last ones did, there was much cheering.
Anyway, I did get my bobsledding in. Mystic Mountain was just fantastic–so beautiful. I went on the bobsled three times. Seriously, there was nothing not awesome about that day. And we got to Jamaica on time; just barely, due to aforementioned circling of Grand Cayman. In any case, if I run away from home someday, you’d be wise to check out Mystic Mountain. I may be living on a zipline platform there.
There was a really interesting article in the Post the other day about the Whitman-Walker Clinic, an AIDS clinic in DC that’s been open for over 20 years. Of course I’ve heard about the early days of the AIDS epidemic and vaguely remember how scary a disease it was (not that it’s a laughing matter now), but I also remember watching the tv movie about Ryan White in health in middle school–which would’ve been around 1990. So reading about things like office raids to get the names of people who are HIV positive, funeral homes that wouldn’t handle AIDS deaths, that even doctors wouldn’t treat people who were HIV positive…it’s nuts. Even after watching And the Band Played On and knowing about the history…it just really struck me. It’s hard to believe this was all in my lifetime, you know?
I got home tonight and only saw Colin waiting at the door for me. I couldn’t find Pem, and Colin immediately led me to, naturally, the closet door. It wasn’t the first time I’ve closed her in the closet all day. (You’d think she would learn. She does not.) Anyway, she came trotting out when I opened the door, and I noticed some shredded paper on the floor.
The thing with Pem is that she enjoys eating paper. Newspapers, mail, Netflix envelopes, sticky notes on page proofs, napkins. She’s the friendly cate, but she’s the destructive one. Anyway, it wasn’t a surprise that she was chewing up paper. The question was, where did the paper come from? So I picked up the paper, and discovered that it was my 101 in 1001, which I’ve had hanging on the inside of my closet door. Now the question was, how the heck did Pem get to it? This is what it looked like after Pem’s day:
I still don’t totally understand it. She must’ve jumped to it from my shoe rack. I guess she was bored. Hey, at least she didn’t poop in there. Unlike some cats I could mention surely would.
I just got back from the cruise, and here’s a sneak preview. I took this on my camera. It’s from the ride up to the bobsled and zipline at Mystic Mountain. You go up the mountain–about a 15-minute ride–on what looks like a ski lift. It’s absolutely gorgeous. This doesn’t do it justice, really.
