Saturday June 26, 2010

Betsy, Bob and I had a light breakfast before they dropped me off at the train station in Hudson. I was lucky to get on the 10:25 train due to a last minute cancellation… I had no idea that that particular train/time would sell out! I made it into the city around 12:45 and checked into my time share/hotel. I bought a time share through Hilton Grand Vacation Clubs several years ago and finally paid it off this summer. I get 5000 points per year which usually gets me a 2 bedroom condo for a week. Some cities are more popular than others so when I decide to do nights instead of the whole week I use more points. If that makes sense… like one night in Manhattan is 1000 points. Anyways…I have just under 20,000 points that I can use right now so this isn’t costing me anything except the $49 booking fee. The best part of the time share being paid off is that now for the rest of my life I get 5000 points a year which can also be transferred to any Hilton hotel worldwide or to another company called RCI which has hundreds of resorts around the world. When I die, I can will the time share to someone! The price was $25,000 and if you think about the fact that this is forever, it makes sense. I am just happy that I finally have the time to actually use the points! It is a brand new location and is right in midtown so I checked in and headed over to the closest Bikram studio. The practice of yoga is the same wherever you are, but each studio is a little bit different. There was a woman just yapping away at her friend before class started and it was getting under my skin so bad that I almost said something to her. I was trying to just lay there in the heat (same temp as outside I might add) and relax and prepare for class and she wouldn’t shut the fuck up about her wedding dress. No one does that shit at the studio I go to in San Diego. When you walk in the door, you are quiet. Period.

After class and a cold shower I went to the Lower East Side for wine and pizza with 2 guys that I went to college with for my one year at UConn. (Thank you Facebook for reconnecting us.) Dave is married with a lovely wife and a 2 year old and another one on the way. 631 is still single and still hot and we picked up where we left off in 1991. I went to visit him at his beachhouse last May and each of the 4 times that I came to the city in 2009 we were able to meet up. It was a little awkward after not seeing each other for such a long time, but the awkwardness dissipated pretty quickly and now it’s like eating at  McDonald’s: you know exactly what you are going to get when you go there. It’s funny, on paper we are a perfect match but there is still some sort of disconnect that I can’t put my finger on. We are both “foodies” (and both hate using that word), never been married, love to travel, etc… but I think even if we did live in the same city we would not be together. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. lol! He’s smart, funny, successful, fun to be around and we have great chemistry, but it is what it is.

Sunday April 25, 2010

This morning I headed to the Del Mar Fairgrounds for a small Travel Expo. I had looked at the exhibitor list and it wasn’t that impressive but after a coin toss I decided to drive the 30 minutes and check it out. It was free after all and I wanted to sign up for all of the potential free trips they were giving away. Yes, I realize that they are just going to mail me crap and email me things but if I get a free trip for 2 to Croatia I would be pretty excited! The first place I got suckered into was a Hilton Grand Vacation Club booth promising a trip for 2 to Catalina Island (a place I have never been to despite living in SoCal for the last 18 years!). All I have to do is take a 90 minute tour of their new resort in Carlsbad and I get 2 nights for free in Catalina with the boat ride there and a glass bottom ride once I get there. Sounds easy enough ESPECIALLY since I was very clear that I ALREADY have a time share with Hilton Grand Vacation Clubs! I was totally honest with the guy and told him I had no intention of buying a damn thing and was only doing this for the free shit. I already have 15,000 points stacked up to use (3 years/weeks worth that I kept postponing because I didn’t have the time to use them…but hey, I got nothing but time now!) He also asked if I made more than $75,000 per year. Well no not exactly because I don’t make any money at all right now. In fact, I make $00000 dollars per year at this very moment. But I smiled and said yes. I made my appointment for 9 am on Tuesday. I am heading to LA anyways, so I can just stop off and waste their 90 minutes, get my $20 deposit back and go on my merry way with the Catalina package. This is the new Laura… gettin’ shit for free!

I went back to the house and read Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang by Chelsea Handler (my new idol) while working on my tan and then later attempted to take photos of Lola.

I was able to sneak one with the fish eye lens before this started:

Then it just turned into a game of chase with the soccer ball.

And then it was just “Freak Out and Run”

Casey on the other hand, doesn’t care about the lens or the camera. Prolly because she is too old to move and can’t run away.

My sister Cathy had left me a note with instructions on when to feed them, what kind of meds they get, etc… The last of the instructions went like this: “Casey likes to bring in the mail so she’ll walk out with you and wait for you to give her a piece to carry in. Give her a cookie for that. Lola will do nothing and yet still expects and gets a cookie.”

I spent the rest of the evening doing the first edit of the pics from Australia and New Zealand. I am seeing a bunch of people this week who want the “slide show” but I don’t want to bore them with all 3600 pictures. I would like to narrow it down to about 500. It goes pretty quick, I swear. Add some fine Australian wine and we will be having a blast! It was a painstaking process and it will need to be done at least 2 more times tomorrow. UGH. After I was thoroughly going insane I decided to put Zach and Miri back on. Now that was a waste of time. What a dumb movie.