Californication

Since Hightower left everything has felt all flat and stale. I spent most of the day on the phone with my insurance company and talking to claims adjustors and body shops and my parents and sister and so on and so forth. Today was the first day since last Monday that I’ve had a fully functioning cell phone-so not only was there a lot to do regarding the aftermath of the accident, but my parents have been suffering from Monkey withdrawal symptoms after not having daily contact with their precious for approximately 7 days. Sure I’d call them on Hightower’s phone but I always had the excuse of “sightseeing gotta run!” to put them off extensive questioning about the when, where, what, why and have you two gone to the bathroom before getting in the cars? of their strong desi love.

MC Hungry Hippo and I were walking around Little Tokyo on Friday night after a satisfying izakaya experience at Haru Ulala (full of the best okonomiyaki she has tasted in the United States) and she brought up whether showing people around Los Angeles and California make me fall in love with it all over again, even though I’m kind of sick of it.

Just to clarify-yes, I am sick of Los Angeles. I am sick of making decisions based on traffic conditions, I am sick of the fact that I can’t meet a normal person my age and all the other stuff I’m sick of that I’ve complained about endlessly. I’m mostly sick of the fact that I have to spend all my vacation days to see my family. But I’m never ever EVER sick of California. California is the most beautiful state in the United States hands DOWN. What I am weary of is my lonely life and the fact that my personality is WAY more suited for Northern California, not the state itself. I think I truly became a Californian when I realised that no matter how much I bitch and moan about the taxes and the cost of living and the traffic and the motherfrocking CRAZY-ass people-I can’t imagine living anywhere else at this point. I even worked out the kink with missing my parents-they’re going to come here during East Coast winters after they retire. My parents also encouraged me to stay-pointing out that leaving family hurts, but that they did it all the way from several continents. Mostly I just think they want free housing when Boston is piled under massive snowdrifts.

I don’t know if I fell in love with California all over again-because I had never really fallen out of love with it. We just needed therapy, California and I. We needed to see each other in a new light-the eyelight of someone who has yet to pay California taxes. I still don’t like Los Angeles. I don’t think I ever really will. What I DO like about it is the insanely great weather and food. 

Watching Hightower fall in love with California was amazing-probably the best part of this vacation. I live here but I don’t take the time to enjoy all it has to offer. I’ve seen all the major cities-SF, LA, SD, SB and Vegas (nearby) but a long time ago. I’ve lived here for 2 years but last Tuesday was the first time I took the time to get up to Griffith Park (in my defense, it just reopened recently since it was closed for repairs). Last Saturday night, after he landed, was the first time I had dinner in Koreatown (I generally stick to Little Tokyo). I’ve been to Wat Thai, but this was the first time I’ve had friends I could take along and we pretty much ordered EVERYTHING. It was a true Glutfest (I took Hightower back on Sunday to make up for him missing the flight). When we drove on Kanan Road to Route 1 in Malibu, it was the first time I was a passenger, and got to enjoy the view. The last time I was on Route 1 was 10 years ago on a family vacation on which I was extra cranky. This time I relished climbing out of the car and insulting the elephant lions or whatever the frock they’re called.

On Friday Hightower made the best decision of the whole trip. He rented us a little scooter and we scootered all over San Francisco to check out the sites. We also scootered all over the place trying to find winterwear because San Fran on the back of a frocking open air vehicle is freaking FREEZING. Have you ever tried looking for gloves in California in the middle of summer? My friends, I strongly recommend seeing SF clinging to the back of someone as you travel at what seems like a dizzying 25 mph pace-but before you do, bring a couple of layers, gloves and a scarf from your stash of winterwear. You’ll need it. We did Lombard Street 3 times-on foot, on scooter, and once in the car. This time I saw Golden Gate from the base, shrouded in mist. Friday night I ate Burmese food for the first time at Burma Superstar-a restaurant that has a wait so long you descend into murderous rage and end up sharing a table with three other couples after an hour and forty-five minute wait-but the food is so good, the owners are so nice and frock it-they made Sergey Brin wait three hours so you feel that even if the wait is a little frocking ridiculous and maybe they should just EXPAND already, at least they aren’t playing favourites for the rich and famous.     

The best part of the trip was the company. I’ve seen California with my parents, with friends, with other people-but I’ve never laughed so hard or had so much fun. Mostly it was the happiness of seeing Hightower so happy and excited and giddy-seeing him turn around with a maniacal grin and say “Babe, I LOVE California” over and over again. The setting just heightened the best part of the trip-being with someone who makes me laugh all the time and genuinely happy. Y’all, I even POOPED. Twice. Which is not much, but is definitely a start. So far I’ve taken to dealing with the embarrassment of “getting comfortable” with someone by grabbing a book right in front of him and saying “Okay, I’m going to go poop now” and then getting a sweet “Okay, good job honey” in return. The next time he comes here I think we’re going to be at that point in our lives where I may even say “okay, I’m going to go wax my pelt now.” Well, probably not. That might take a while.   

I can’t wait to see more and tell you and show you all the stuff we got to try out-but right now my back is starting to hurt again so I’m going to make this Part I (Introduction) of our itinerary and go off to my Bengay dreams.

 

Bang and Whimper

And so vacation ends…

 Bang

The car. Oh my GODS, the car. We got in a horrible 4 car collision on the 101 just south of San Francisco International Airport on Saturday. This is after 1.5 days of engaging in risky behaviour all over San Francisco (not dirty, read on as I spell it out later in the post) and a couple of hours after we finished dim summing it up with Quasi in REM at Yank Sing and buying Hightower’s family gifts in San Francisco’s Old Chinatown. The plan was to drive back on the 101 through Silicon Valley (*sigh*…AGAIN, because he didn’t get enough the first time around on Thursday) and stop by Palo Alto to check out the Stanford campus. I can’t resist a cute desi boy who looks at me with puppy dog eyes and says “We checked out the Google building but we haven’t seen Apple YET!!! Pleasssssssssssse!” Mostly I acquiesced because he looks out the car window the way cats sit on sills and look out at passing birds and squirrels.

So there we are, driving along, when traffic comes to one of those standstills, as it is wont to do on the highway. I had to come to a quick stop-but there was enough length between me and the car in front of me that I came to a full stop about a car length behind it.

 Oh yeah, and then we got rear ended at about 20 to 25 mph (he thinks 15 to 20 mph). It was one of those situations where I was like “should I bother quickly switching lanes just in case someone rearends me?” but I assume people driving are paying attention and I’m like “nah, I’ll just assume the people behind me will come to a stop.”

They DID come to a stop. All over my car’s ass. And if life couldn’t get any better-not only did we have the primary collision (Collision #1), the force of which pushed my car across the entire gap into the car in front of me, then we had the treat of a SECOND collision when the guy who hit US, got rearended by his own tailgater (Collision #2)-I’m guessing at even harder than he hit us.

 None of us were injured-but Hightower and I are suffering from major whiplash and we both had bruising where the seatbelts prevented us from pitching headfirst into the windshield (twice). The least damaged car was the one in front of us-since there was a gap between me and the car in front, they ended up with some slight fender damage from the force of my car hitting them as it was plowed from behind by Collision #1.   

My car (Car #2) survived front injuries, since the force between me and Car #1 was relatively light. But the back is gone. Guys, it is frocking GONE. We thought the only thing wrong with the car was the back bumper, an easy fix, but when we opened the trunk (which now doesn’t close, we got a full look at the level of damage). The entire trunk of the car in the back is crumpled and warped-as in the metal trunk is crushed from compression. Hightower has jerry rigged the car with tape-which is the situation now, for us to be able to take the 5 (quickest route) back down to Los Angeles. The engine is fine-but it basically needs an entire body overhaul in the back. They are going to have to replace the metal that makes up the trunk, the bumper and the sides of the back.

 Car #3 was crumpled in both front and back. I couldn’t even bring myself to look at the guy since I was so livid. Car #4 was the worst off-it was leaking guts all over the highway (some sort of fluid).

 Yes, we got rubbernecked. And we slowed traffic down on the 101 for a while through rubber necking and the fact that they had to completely stop traffic in order to allow our cars to drive on to the shoulder since the accident was on the other side of the highway.

 You know what was AWESOME? Driving slowly and gapping about 15 car lengths in front of us the entire ride home but seeing people tailgating us and pulling the “left” swerve to avoid hitting the back of our already massively frocked up car during traffic slowdowns. I would seriously clench in fear that we’d get rear ended every time I looked back and saw a car swerve left because they were approaching us too fast from behind.

I love California but I hate the drivers, seriously.

Whimper

The stress of the incredibly long ride home and the aftermath of the accident, coupled with our minor injuries left us EXHAUSTED. Hightower missed his ass-early flight back the next morning by 5 minutes (rather, he got there before the flight but missed the deadline for checking in luggage). So I did get him for an extra day since all the flights back to the East Coast were overbooked and he got the one seat on a flight that left this morning. It left me confused. Yeah, I was happy but it was just more stress for him, which was more stress and unhappiness for me. I like having my booboo around but not at the cost of dreading parental lectures on irresponsibility upon arrival. I suggested taking home a picture of the massively frocked up car and riding the whiplash “I could be DEAD” sympathy but desi parents can’t resist a well-timed lecture even AFTER you’ve learned your lesson, lol. 

I’ll follow up with another post about the vacation and there will be (AWESOME) photos when Hightower gets home and sends me some of the shots. Unfortunately we forgot to photograph the car with his digital camera but I’ll post a camera phone pic when I get the other ones from him. We changed plans, we didn’t do some stuff, we did a whole lot of other stuff. It was magnificent. And even though it ended all askew with the crash and the missed flight-we figured out that we’re both pretty mellow* and can work together effectively through crisis. 

With tape. Lots and lots and lots of tape.  

*Well…he is incredibly mellow. I am an anxious person who gets mellowed out by the mellow waves he radiates all over the place.