First day

I am still sick when I arrive in Long Beach for my first ever trip for work. My head hurts and I am pale and coughing. I check into my hotel where I am told with some surprise that I am a VIP and that my room is on the 15th floor. Rad, I say. It takes me minutes to dump my things and head out to the convention center. All of my co-workers have been here for days, so I feel like I need to get there as soon as possible. I know the convention center is nearly a mile away, but I start to walk it anyway. I am a walker and thus will walk. The sun beats down on my navy blue IT polo shirt and the palm trees provide no cover at all. It is hot and it is California and I am glad I took this job. I am experiencing something new and thus more alive than before and thus will be a better mother when I get home. The new surroundings are making me long for Jeff and our trip to London. I have never traveled without Jeff before and I am feeling a little strange about this. This won’t be the first time I feel this on this sunny day.

I am looking at my watch and wanting to just be at work already. I don’t want anyone to think I am slacking, so I sit at the passport bus stop and wait. I have no idea how much further the convention center is, so I give up and wait for the bus.

The convention center is huge with escalators only in the center. This makes this fat girl have to decide if she should take the stairs or walk the length to get upstairs. My knees hate stairs, so I always decide to walk the length. This gets my muscles working and my heart beating. I haven’t felt this way since I could still exercise before I got pregnant.

My first day ends an hour early as a supervisor looks at me with pity and tells me to get a nap. I do this. I put on my jimjams at 4 pm and I try to sleep. Far away, Jeff calls me and I pang a little and the babies are missed. I have to say that I miss Jeff more, but that makes sense because I have known him for longer. My brother and his gal and dog are on their way to visit me. I haven’t seen Mike in nearly two months and while I am excited he is driving up from San Diego, I need to sleep. I need to sleep sleep sleep. Mike calls to let me know when he is an hour away and I mumble to him and I am not very engaging. I fear this will be what our visit is like. I am right. He looks thin and the dog is barely noticed (4 pounds, so small). He and Sarah look happy though and they drive a new silver car and I get dressed and we all ride out into the California night. Long Beach is cold and not very dog friendly so we get take out and head back to my hotel room where I worry about the little dog making messes and then I promptly spill a coke all over my hotel room floor. Thank you scotch guard. Mike and Sarah and Nilla stay the night and I am told I talk in my sleep. At one point they ask me if I am awake and I reply, “clouds.” It is nice to see my brother and I fear that he may be a little homesick, but I try to not encourage it because he is the first in our family to escape Washington, DC and I admire him for it.

Second day

I crank open my window to see there is no screen. What kind of world lives without screens? I suppose there are no bugs, here. And the window is too thin to jump out. So, no screens. The rain is tiny and barley touches me. I am on the 15th floor, so I stick my head out the screenlessness and touch the rain with my nose and eyes. Below is a pool which is not pool shaped, but more hat shaped. The underwater lights make it cloudy and foggy and made of soup. The lights from the harbor are tiny tiny and to me they say ta ta ta ta. And they sprinkle off the water. Ta ta ta ta. I try to look into other windows to the left, but no one is home. 10pm. Lights are on in some rooms, but no one is home. I am hoping to see a coworker, really, but nothing. They are all still dancing somewhere or eating chicken from sticks and talking loudly in dark rooms.

Third Day

I have a new friend today. I didn’t expect it. I don’t fish for new friends, so I usually don’t catch them. But today, I have a new friend and it is nice. I remember the last time I got a new friend at work. Her name was Eileen and she changed my life. Isn’t it great how that can happen? My new friend’s name is Megan and we have tickets to see David Sedaris speak at the theater attached to our convention center. I don’t know where this is, but I call Megan and she says the sign across from her hotel says “David Sedaris Tonight” and I laugh. Must be the place. We put on non-convention clothes and take our seats in the balcony and get ready to laugh. The people are a nice mix and it is nice to see different kinds of people for a change. It is nice to take some time away from these longs days of work at day, reception at night. Our schedule says we are free so we take the time and make the most of it. Mr. Sedaris is hilarious. He is nice and funny and very good at what he does. I have to say I only didn’t like one thing that he read and that was a fiction piece about animals. I really love his real life stuff much much better. We laugh our bums off and I have to pee the whole time, but don’t dare miss a minute of it. This reminds me of my goals and book and how someday I will make something of myself if I am lucky.

Fourth Day
Work, work, work. Gala dinner where I have to get dressed up. More chicken on sticks and fried wonton and a little bit of wine even though I don’t drink and it tastes terrible.

Going home
My days here have been long. Without many actual assignments, I found myself running from one location to the next, asking if anyone needed anything. I am officially part of the IT group at my job, but without much in the way of IT skillz, the IT boys kept sending me away. The reality is that I DO have some IT skillz that said IT boys aren’t aware of. So, I found myself running the length of the Long Beach Convention Center over and over and over once more. I started to get hella joy out of watching my Campers as they stepped down on the carpet that looked like waves. I got coffee and water for people who didn’t ask; people who looked like they were working harder than me. I made signs, I searched for people in giant exhibit halls. I made friends. After a few days of this, I decided I would park
myself at the registration booth and learn that. This wasn’t fascinating, but it made the days go by faster.

My final day, I went to the Aquarium of the Pacific, where I saw an octopus hide in a cave. Poor guy must hate being looked at all day. I wonder if octopi are as smart as apes. I bet they are. This octopus had lots of toys in his tank. A puzzle ball and a Mr. Potato Head. The sign said he likes the Mr. Potato Head the best. I pet some sting rays with some little kids. It is always me and the little kids petting the sting ray. Is it sting ray or sting rays? These were much larger than the one I pet in the London Aquarium. These guys also almost jumped out of the tank when they came up to you. They seemed over eager to be pet. What makes them this way, I wonder out loud to a little red-haired boy. Why do they jump at us, I ask? Maybe he wants to kiss us, the boy says. Sting Ray Kisses, I think. What a great band name.

My flight is uneventful and I arrive home to a daddy in his South Park pajama pants. He is holding a Rachel, who looks sleepy until she sees it is me. She lights up and it dawns on her who I am. Anya is plumper than I remember and asleep and looks like a painting of a baby hundreds of years ago. Rachel has learned to crawl while I was away. She is fast and follows me all over the apartment. Awake, we are all twinkle-eyed and sleepy still. We made it and our adventure continues.