Home at last!

It was a rough ten days in LA. Did you know they have drive through liquor stores? I can see why! Didn't take advantage, but considered it.

On Sunday we moved to a different hotel, closer to DH's mom's house. It was lateish when we checked in. With my AAA discount we got a room at the Saddleback Inn for $69 a day, and oh boy, do you get what you pay for! As we were moving our bag from the car into the room, I noticed a couple of working girls plying their trade right across the fence from the parking lot. The room smelled like a wet dog. The exhaust fan in the bathroom didn't work, and the cable TV wasn't functioning. It's been a long time since I watched the news in black and white in a snowstorm. But we were just too beat to complain or make changes.

Every day, we stopped at the desk to report a lack of satisfaction and every day, they gave us sincere apologies and promises to get it fixed. And we stayed because his mom lives close to Dizzyland and also close to Biola College which was starting the new semester that week so all the parents had to be there to wish their darlings well. Any nicer hotel in the area was already booked solid except for the presedential suites.

A day or so later, we got ants in the bathroom. On the last night, we found a homeless man digging ice out of the machine right across from our door. The TV had been fixed, and the ants moved into the bed with us. Eentsy, beentsy black ants. At first, I thought I was just itchy and twitchy due to all the stress and fatigue. Then I felt something roll under my fingers when I rubbed a tickle. You know that state when you are just too sleepy to deal with it? I was there. Doze a while, crush a few more ants in the dark, doze a while longer, crush a few more. One ran across my lips and I opened my mouth in unconscious reflex. Ants do not taste good. Quite peppery.

So I am preparing my letter of complaint and wondering if I should send it to the board of health as well as the Norwalk Chamber of Commerce and the management of the Saddleback Inn.

And then we finally returned home (hooray hooray!!) Our usual cat-sitter hadn't been able to help us but her step-dad was between jobs, so he took it on. He did an excellent job of bringing in the mail and the papers, and feeding and watering the cats. He did not touch the litterboxes. He did not touch the litterboxes! Three cats time ten days quickly overfilled the three big litterboxes. Then they began leaving piles near the boxes. Then further away. There were 17 reeking piles of poop waiting for me when we arrived in the dark of Friday night. I nearly wept. Then I reminded myself that there are many people who no longer have a house or kitties to return to, so I pulled my socks up and got the job done. I also removed the two dead mice that were rotting under the sink and re-set the traps. And then I took a long hot bubblebath in MY bathtub and lay down beside my husband in OUR bed with our kitties (henceforth to be known as the crapweasles) and slept the sleep of the terminally wrung out till 6 am. Since then I have been doing laundry, trying to get the poop stink and stains out of the hardwood floor, paying bills, and trying to catch up on e-mail. Oh, golly it's good to be home!