Older and...?
Today I headed out to my sketchy grocery store to pick up some ground "veal." (Seriously: 1) it's cheaper than the ground beef, and 2) the store doesn't sell veal. What's a girl to think?) I was a bit at loose ends, because as late as 10:30 last night, I thought I would be heading to JFK at that particular moment, and grocery shopping is...dissimilar.
"Now that the weather is getting warmer," thought I, "I should start climbing the hill again." To clarify, I live across the island from Fort Tryon Park, and by descending and then ascending some rather punishing hills for about fifteen minutes, I can walk right to it. In addition to the park, there is Inwood, to which my neighborhood is the evil twin--or at least the ugly, bitter, and untalented twin. And, all in all, it's a rather charming trip on a fine spring afternoon.
It is harder to clarify how I managed to mentally skip winter.
As I do with most things, I blame Nick. It's all this planning ahead that comes--or should come--with what I euphemistically refer to as our "long-distance relationship." Unfortunately, between Nick's casual arrogance (in a good way!) and my general flakiness, I am feeling the strain of the future-mindedness without ever seeing the benefits.
A few weeks ago, we decided that I would come to Paris today, and stay for a bit over a week. Nick booked the tickets, and I was alarmed to see that the stay was longer than I had planned. I looked into changing the tickets, which cheaptickets.com (who can go screw) indicated was possible for a fee, and, imagining the fee, I dropped the idea.
Last week, Nick had this brilliant idea himself to change this trip, which was looking less and less convenient, for one over the holidays. "We'll go to Burgundy! We can stay in a chateau!!" The man knows I am helpless before chateaux.
And then the problems started. Cheaptickets.com (did I mention...?) had a seizure during which it told me that my tickets had been cancelled, and then firmly announced that the tickets, while still mine, were unchangeable. Naturally, they refused to send Nick any documentation to back up that improbable claim, which is good, because I had seen the (now missing) "Call this phone number to change your tickets" page with my own eyes, and lying is bad enough. There's no need to add a fraudulent cover-up. That sort of thing spawns conspiracy theorists.
Then we found that the over-the-holidays tickets were going to be ludicrously priced. "If you can find something tonight, send it to me. I have to book tomorrow morning," Nick said sadly.
I found something. Yay!
But, hey, did you know that travelocity has wildly different prices depending on where your server is located? The completely reasonable tickets I found in the U.S. were more than twice as expensive when Nick rolled out of bed in Europe. I looked again. He looked again. Same site, same flight number, same cursing and complaining as before, because by then he had already given up and decided to come here, instead, while I was sleeping comfortably, thinking that I had solved everything.
And, don't get me wrong, because I'm thrilled to see him anywhere--it's just that 1) I hate it when things don't work right, and 2) we don't have chateaux here.
We kept scheming (because we're like that), and, by the time Nick went to sleep last night, we had a plan. And I found that flight, too, and my hand was hovering over the "Complete Transaction" button (because now we knew it was best to buy tickets from here) when I realized that we were about to pay $1000 for two round trips so that I could spend a total of two days in Paris (and I would probably spend one of them sleeping).
See how crazy this stuff can make you? Do you think you would be able to tell your seasons apart during all this?
I promptly called him, and he thoughtfully agreed that we had, perhaps, lost perspective. Nick is the sort of man who can make that kind of determination at 4:30 in the morning--after I had already woken him up 15 minutes before to tell him I was buying tickets to leave today. I find that endlessly admirable, and only a tiny bit freakish.
Stupid maturity.
"Now that the weather is getting warmer," thought I, "I should start climbing the hill again." To clarify, I live across the island from Fort Tryon Park, and by descending and then ascending some rather punishing hills for about fifteen minutes, I can walk right to it. In addition to the park, there is Inwood, to which my neighborhood is the evil twin--or at least the ugly, bitter, and untalented twin. And, all in all, it's a rather charming trip on a fine spring afternoon.
It is harder to clarify how I managed to mentally skip winter.
As I do with most things, I blame Nick. It's all this planning ahead that comes--or should come--with what I euphemistically refer to as our "long-distance relationship." Unfortunately, between Nick's casual arrogance (in a good way!) and my general flakiness, I am feeling the strain of the future-mindedness without ever seeing the benefits.
A few weeks ago, we decided that I would come to Paris today, and stay for a bit over a week. Nick booked the tickets, and I was alarmed to see that the stay was longer than I had planned. I looked into changing the tickets, which cheaptickets.com (who can go screw) indicated was possible for a fee, and, imagining the fee, I dropped the idea.
Last week, Nick had this brilliant idea himself to change this trip, which was looking less and less convenient, for one over the holidays. "We'll go to Burgundy! We can stay in a chateau!!" The man knows I am helpless before chateaux.
And then the problems started. Cheaptickets.com (did I mention...?) had a seizure during which it told me that my tickets had been cancelled, and then firmly announced that the tickets, while still mine, were unchangeable. Naturally, they refused to send Nick any documentation to back up that improbable claim, which is good, because I had seen the (now missing) "Call this phone number to change your tickets" page with my own eyes, and lying is bad enough. There's no need to add a fraudulent cover-up. That sort of thing spawns conspiracy theorists.
Then we found that the over-the-holidays tickets were going to be ludicrously priced. "If you can find something tonight, send it to me. I have to book tomorrow morning," Nick said sadly.
I found something. Yay!
But, hey, did you know that travelocity has wildly different prices depending on where your server is located? The completely reasonable tickets I found in the U.S. were more than twice as expensive when Nick rolled out of bed in Europe. I looked again. He looked again. Same site, same flight number, same cursing and complaining as before, because by then he had already given up and decided to come here, instead, while I was sleeping comfortably, thinking that I had solved everything.
And, don't get me wrong, because I'm thrilled to see him anywhere--it's just that 1) I hate it when things don't work right, and 2) we don't have chateaux here.
We kept scheming (because we're like that), and, by the time Nick went to sleep last night, we had a plan. And I found that flight, too, and my hand was hovering over the "Complete Transaction" button (because now we knew it was best to buy tickets from here) when I realized that we were about to pay $1000 for two round trips so that I could spend a total of two days in Paris (and I would probably spend one of them sleeping).
See how crazy this stuff can make you? Do you think you would be able to tell your seasons apart during all this?
I promptly called him, and he thoughtfully agreed that we had, perhaps, lost perspective. Nick is the sort of man who can make that kind of determination at 4:30 in the morning--after I had already woken him up 15 minutes before to tell him I was buying tickets to leave today. I find that endlessly admirable, and only a tiny bit freakish.
Stupid maturity.
posted by Caroline | 12/07/2006 11:35:00 PM
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