Back from California

I had to go down to California this week for work. I left Monday and came back Thursday. Here are several things about my trip:

• I work at home, so I haven't had to go to a meeting for a long time. Turns out they're still boring.
• My hotel was pretty nice. I actually had the best hotel sleep I think I've ever had.
• One thing that I liked about my hotel stay was that I could pretty much take as many showers as I wanted. There was unlimited hot water, and I didn't have to wait for it to heat up. I checked in at the hotel at 5pm on Monday and checked out at 8am on Wednesday, so about 39 hours total. In that time, I took 5 showers.
• If I was single and had no kids, I think I would be in pretty good shape. I didn't have a lot to do when I wasn't working, so I ended up swimming and lifting weights. I think I may have done more weight training in those 39 hours at the hotel than I have in the last month.
• My rental car was a not-so-new black Mercury Grand Marquis. It was very much an old man car. I felt like I needed a big cigar, a set of golf clubs in the back, and some black dress socks with my tennis shoes.
• I got to stop by our old church briefly. We really miss our old church. Right when I walked in the doors, I felt very comfortable. It's a much different feeling than I get at our current church, even though we've been going there for 5 years now. I saw the pastor and got to talk to him for about 15 minutes. It was great seeing him again. They had just finished their first day of Vacation Bible School, which is always an adventure. He showed me some of the changes that they'd made to the building and updated me on some of the new things that were going on. Even though it was only for a little while, I was glad I was able to visit.
  
• I found out on the phone that LilKat1 got his first loose tooth. I was a little sad that I wasn't there when he first discovered it.
• It sounds like LilKat1 missed me the most of everyone. Mrs. BigKat said he whimpered himself to sleep on Wednesday. That made me sad too.
• Mrs. BigKat says that my cat Darrel missed me as well. Sometime Wednesday, he just started wandering around the house crying.
  
• I got a 'Continental Breakfast' on both Tuesday and Wednesday morning at the hotel. Turns out that they cheated me out of some food on Tuesday. I got whole wheat toast (it was supposed to be a croissant, but I had them switch it), a muffin (it was supposed to be a scone, but I like muffins, so it's fine), a bowl of fruit, a bowl of plain yogurt (I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do with this. Do people really eat just plain yogurt? Well, that's what I did...), and orange juice. I found out on Wednesday that I was also supposed to get a bowl of Special K! They cheated me out of my Special K!
• I got to visit a friend on Tuesday evening. She gave me the directions to her place, but told me not to go in the front door. There's a basement living unit under the house, which she rents out, and the entrance is in the back. I found her street pretty easily and looked for the house number, 145. I parked at the house and got out. There was a car in the garage, but it wasn't hers, so it looked like she wasn't home yet. I started to head up the walk to the front door and saw the little path that went to the back. I followed it around the house, but couldn't see any basement units. There was a back door, but that looked like it went to the main floor. Then I saw a little tiny house in the back. I figured that must be it, so I went over to check it out. I looked through the window and saw a Weber grill and some other supplies. It was clearly a shed. Now, I was confused. My spider-sense was going off a bit, so I went out to the front yard and called my friend on the phone. She answered and said that she was about 15 seconds away from her street and she'd be right there. I saw her pull up the street. She waved at me as she drove by. She then proceeded to pass me up and pull into the driveway on the other side of the street. At house number 1-5-4! Oops! So yeah, basically I went into some strange people's backyard while they were home and just started looking in windows and snooping around.
• I had brought a pack of Rolo's with me on my trip. I thought I would eat them while I was on the plane but I didn't. Tuesday evening, when I saw my friend, I noticed that I had left them in the car. I picked them up and the whole roll was very squishy. When I got back to my hotel, I left them on the table in hopes that they would firm up by themselves again. It worked! But the next day, I had to drive out to Sacramento and they got squishy again. I visited some other friends after my meeting in Sacramento and left the Rolo's on the table to firm up yet again. I was going to open them the next day sometime, but my friend that I was visiting made me open them right there. Rolo's are his favorite candy, and he was having a hard time looking at the package of hard-soft-hard-soft-hard Rolo's on his kitchen table without being able to eat any. I carefully took off the foil and inside was a giant Rolo log. It broke apart pretty easily at the joints where the individual Rolo's met. So I got half and he got half and everyone was happy. But it was the strangest Rolo I've ever eaten.
  
• However, that experience led me to the conclusion that if they ever decided to produce a Rolo bar, I'd buy it.
• My friends in Sacramento that I visited live at the end of a street. Past the end of the street is just a big field of nothing. Just some tall brown grassy plants. I asked my friend if he'd ever just stood on his lawn and whacked golf balls into the field. He stared at me for a second and said 'That's the best idea I've ever heard! Let's go!' So we got his clubs out and whacked a few. Pretty fun! He's got his own personal driving range!
• It was nice being able to catch up with my friends again. We miss being able to talk with them. Although we'd be able to talk with them more if they answered their phones! (Yeah, you guys! I see you reading this! You know who I'm talking about! Answer your phones!)
  
• LilKat2 accidentally let Darrel (the cat that missed me) out of the house. Mrs. BigKat and the boys were all planting stuff in the backyard. LilKat2 went out through the garage door and left it open. Darrel escaped and they couldn't find him for a while. Mrs. BigKat eventually found him in our neighbor's yard. My mom came over for dinner that night and LilKat2 HAD to tell her what happened. He looked her straight in the eyes and started talking in his I'm-really-serious voice. It went something like this:

Grandma...I have something IMPORTANT to tell you...Something REALLY BAD happened..REALLY BAD...This is very IMPORTANT...

(pause)

Darrell got OUT!...I left the garage door open and Darrel got OUT!...Isn't that so BAD?

• So I think LilKat2's not going to need the take-responsibility-for-your-actions talk for a while. He seems to have it down pretty good on his own.
• It takes about $16 in gas to drive my truck from my house to the airport and back.
• I really don't like traveling. Everyone in my family is much happier that I'm home now. I hope I don't have to do this again for a while.