We did successfully rouse the whole group just a sliver before 6am. There was no time for breakfast. We scrambled to complete our last few tasks, with Amanda and i loading up the car top carrier and strapping it to the roof of the Yaris as quickly as we could. Dogs were given a very brief walk, with just enough time to pee, but not to poop, and loaded into the Yaris. We re-crated the tribble (D, who no longer fits the required criteria to legally identify as a cat), and with that, Alyssa and i were off. We had planned to be out by 6; i had Google Mapped the route the night before and it estimated that, at that time, as long as we were out by 6:30 we should make it to the vet by 8. Alyssa and i had the Yaris outbound just after 7. Vinz immediately got comfortable by plopping his butt down on top of D's carrier, waterfalling his upper body onto the center back seat, and propping his head on the edge of the folded-up metal dog crate that was crammed between the back and front seats.
Amanda had some tasks to complete without us, but a little more time to do it. In order to pick her family up from the Ontario Airport by 10, she would have to leave Northridge at about 8.
At this point, despite how tired we all were, everything seemed to be moving along close enough to plan to call it a success. We are at like 5% of the day, though. Still, the start is usually where our plans go wrong, so it felt good in that moment.
Really the only problem was that i had to pee pretty badly. Hmm. Lot of pee talk in this entry already. But like. It was bad enough that when my GPS routed me past the Hollywood RV Park on the way out of Northridge, i very nearly stopped in to use my own toilet one more time before the trip, even though i had just gone before leaving Alyssa's. This is what it's like being over 35.
I held it though, all the way to Long Beach, because of the urgency of getting the cat there early. As soon as we were off the highway, i stopped at the first gas station i saw with the intent of taking care of that issue plus purchasing a caffeinated beverage, because my brain was still stalled somewhere in the boot up process. The gas station was doing some remodeling or something; half of the parking lot and pumps were behind a construction fence and there were obvious signs of work being done back there. I went in, didn't see a bathroom, and asked the clerk if they had one. He said no. Then he gestured toward the fences and said it's behind all that. I didn't bother to get my drink. We pressed on toward the vet.
I took a wrong turn and we ended up going on the scenic route and coming in the back way, and somehow still didn't find another convenience store; although Alyssa did point out a donut shop in the same strip mall with the vet that she'd noticed on a previous trip and wanted to try. Alyssa said the clinic had a bathroom, but you had to get the key and then walk or drive all the way around the building to the back to get into it. The vet clinic is in the dead center of this strip mall, so walking around it is a bit of a hike.
I stayed in the car with the dogs as she took D in for dropoff and, i thought, to talk to Minneo. She brought me the bathroom key and said something like, "it's behind the building, i don't know where, so you'll have to just go back there and figure it out." She took the dogs out of the car, i assumed to let them go potty, but she led them straight into the vet clinic waiting area. Through the door i could see that a wall has been knocked out of the waiting room since the last time i was there, for D's previous UTI. They're remodeling as well, apparently taking over a newly vacated space next door and expanding.
So i drove around the building, arbitrarily choosing to go to the right of the clinic, which led me across a tall, menacing speed bump every fifteen feet, just to slosh my bladder. Then around the donut shop, and finally through the employee parking and deliveries/loading docks area. Fortunately there was a banner for the Long Beach Emergency Vet on the back side of the building, so i parked the car and walked toward that banner. The door beneath the banner was locked. There was another to the right, though, which was propped open. I thought i'd roll the dice and walk in there. Maybe it's still the vet clinic?
It was silent and empty. The walls were mudded but unpainted drywall. I could see clear through to the front of the building. At first i was like, okay so maybe this is the vet clinic, and i'm in the new part. But then i was like, if this hallway goes all the way through, that should be the lobby up there, why is it so quiet? So i took a few cautious steps in, hoping i'd see a bathroom with a keyhole to match this key, and instead saw a man through a doorless doorway, wiring a fuse box. I panicked for a second, sure i was in the wrong place, and quickly but quietly stepped back outside. But back out there, it was just like, well what the hell else am i gonna do? My bladder is screaming.
So i boldly strode back into that unfinished hallway and said to the man, "Excuse me! The vet clinic said there's a bathroom back here somewhere. They gave me this key. Do you know where it is?"
"The vet clinic sent you back here?"
"Yeah, they said to go around to the back of the building and it was there. That's all they told me."
"...well, there's a porta potty out in the parking lot."
"Oh. Well...i don't know why they would give me a key for that."
"Oh! Maybe they mean upstairs. There's bathrooms upstairs."
"Oh, okay. I'll try that. Thanks!"
And i walked back out, not knowing what the hell he was talking about. As soon as i was out there again, sure enough, i noticed some stairs i previously hadn't seen at all. In fact there was a second-story walkway that i was standing underneath, blocking the sun from the back doorways like an awning.
Went up the stairs, somehow expecting a similar experience: having to walk into another unmarked door and nervously explain the situation to a stranger. However, what i found on the second floor were two all gender restrooms, with keyholes and handles, and access directly from outside. Somehow not at all what i was expecting, but once i saw it, everything made a whole lot more sense.
The bathrooms were nice! Plus i could see that porta potty from my 2nd story vantage point.
And that's the end of this, the first page-long urine tangent.
Since the car was more or less facing that way, i drove back around the building the other direction, completing my counterclockwise orbit, and wouldn't you know it! Nary a speed bump in sight.
I parked in front of the clinic and headed in. Peering through the window, i couldn't see Alyssa or our dogs in the waiting area, but once i entered i saw them to my left, beyond the recently-removed wall...and at the end of the very unfinished corridor i'd had my awkward conversation with that electrician in.
I paid a deposit on the exam up front, and was told that they'd call us when they had information on D. Alyssa and i herded the pack back out to the car, and we started another loop around the building, to stop at that donut shop. Alyssa got a sub sandwich. I got an apple fritter, a long john, and a bottle of orange juice, which i realized much too late is not, in fact, a caffeinated beverage. Brain still firing on just a fraction of the cylinders, apparently.
We headed over to Bouton Creek Park to eat our breakfast/brunch and let the dogs have some space to move around while we waited. I continued to work on my project of reconciling every different account of our New Zealand trip into a single unified timeline. I still can't believe i've never done this. Wish i had 14 years ago. There are continuity errors. Alyssa brushed Ghost, hoping to stave off some of the fluff which will inevitably be left in our hotel room. Within minutes the park was strewn with white tumbleweeds. I also chatted with Alyssa briefly about the project i'm starting to work on, making videos of our memories. This is the catalyst for the New Zealand timeline. It's largely to have Amanda's memories after she's gone, so i can share them with our nieflings. I want them to know who she was. Jack and Eylah are 6 and 5, respectively, so if she dies from cancer soon they may not remember her very well; Jadzia is 13, so...same thing, really; i mean, i barely remember anything from that long ago.
Bouton Creek is not a big park, either; it's a thin strip of land with picnic tables between a busy road and a concrete river spillway. I wouldn't be surprised if the only reason it's a park is because those features are too close together to construct buildings. Has grass, though, which is more than you can say for many public parks in the Los Angeles area.
We got to the park about 9:15. Just before 10, Amanda called to let me know she had successfully acquired her family, and was heading for Long Beach. I told her where we were, and that we were expecting to be there for a while, so she could come straight to us. We weren't able to check into the hotel until 3:00 anyway, so we would need to figure out what to do with everyone for a little while.
When they arrived another hour after that, Jack played with the floating tufts of Ghost's hair dancing in the breeze around the park for a bit, and we decided to go grab lunch. None of us know Long Beach particularly well, so we thought we'd just swing back over by the vet clinic. At least half of that strip mall is restaurants, and there's outdoor seating, so we could all kind of do our own thing.
During lunch, Tammi mentioned that she'd gotten an email that she could do online check in at the hotel, so that all she'd need from the front desk would be to pick up the keys. I had gotten that email as well, but i hadn't bothered to do it, because you need to download their app and i don't want to.
The app asked Tammi if she had pets staying with her, and she said yes, which failed the check-in process. We had planned on letting Copper stay with Amanda's family, because he used to be their dog (it's a very long story) and Tammi is his favorite person in the world. Even Phil loves Copper, and Phil has never been fond of any animal we've had in our lives. Copper is Phil's one and only. But apparently, if you have pets, you have to check in with a human at the front desk. No explanation given.
After we ate (and finally got that caffeinated beverage), we chilled there for a little bit, and started working on a plan. We were a little surprised we hadn't heard anything about D; after how hard we worked to get her to this clinic so early, it didn't appear they had looked at her yet. I mean, i get it; we brought her in early so they could do it whenever they had time. Alyssa texted Minneo to see where she was at with all that, and she responded that she was just about to stick a needle in the lump.
It was getting past noon, and we already knew that Minneo wanted to leave the clinic between 1 and 2, so we figured D would be done soon. Amanda was still driving her family around in the Vibe, so they wanted to head over to the hotel and see if they could check in early. We made a loose plan to meet at Rosie's Dog Beach after.
Well, Alyssa and i sat there for quite a while after they left. At almost quarter to 1, Amanda called to say that they decided not to check in, because while it was allowed, there was an early check in fee of $25, and fuck that, that's stupid. But also, they were informed that there's a $20 per night per pet fee. Which, um, wait what? I thought we picked this hotel specifically because it had no pet fees. It's a La Quinta. Amanda and i stay at La Quintas across the country when we drive back to Wisconsin. We've never been charged a pet fee or been given any trouble at all for our dogs. Hell, the only time they actually asked me if we had dogs with us, i said yes, two, and the clerk handed me two dog treats.
Alyssa mentioned that she had seen that pet policy before, and that she had sent us a screenshot of it. I scrolled back through our group text, and sure enough, September 22nd at 16:48, there's a screenshot of the pet policy. However, the policy on the web site says up to 2 pets for $20 per night to a maximum of $40 per visit, and a third allowed for an additional $20 per night. The lady at the desk had told Tammi it was $20 per pet per night, which would add up really fast. If we declared all of the animals, that's another $100 per night for three nights. Uh...no thank you. So we knew we had to deal with that somehow, but didn't make a plan quite yet.
Amanda asked Alyssa and i if we wanted to head to the beach, and go back for D whenever they called. We were hesitant to leave though, because we were sure she would be ready at any moment. I told her they could go to the beach without us; they don't have the dogs, sure, but there's a people beach right next to Rosie's. We've been scolded for having our dogs on the people side before, so i know it's there. They didn't want to, opting to come back to the clinic and wait with us.
Alyssa and i sat at the table for a little longer, then decided to walk over to the clinic and check in person. Alyssa entered the clinic with Vinz and Ghost, while i took Zuul and Copper with me to the car to drop off our food leftovers. As i was closing the car, Amanda pulled up right in front of me. We talked for a moment, and then i headed into the clinic with the dogs while she stayed with her family.
I found them in the unfinished hallway again. And there we waited. Soon after, Amanda came in to wait with us. Eventually Tammi joined us as well.
It was nearing 2 by the time Minneo came out to talk to us about D. Unfortunately, the thing in her mouth was definitely a mass, not a pus or fluid filled sac. She still didn't know what it was. She offered other possibilities that would be less serious than the worst case scenario Amanda had constructed, and we agreed to have a sample sent out to the lab for analysis. Back to the waiting game.
Minneo said they still had to finish preparing D to go, so it might be a little bit yet. Amanda and Tammi decided to head over to the race expo and pick up our packets. This year, they are allowing people to pick up packets for others, as long as they have a copy of that person's ID and their bib number. This is extremely handy! They didn't allow that last year, because something something Covid. We are obviously in favor of strong Covid protections, in many cases stronger than they ever were and definitely stronger than they are right now, but i do not see how disallowing people from picking up others' race materials helps, especially for people who live in the same household. C'mon, that one was dumb.
It was probably 15-20 minutes after they left that i got a call from the reception staff saying D was ready. I had a nice, normal back and forth with her for a moment before she said something about coming in whenever i'm ready to pay the balance, and i said, "Sure, i guess i could walk across the lobby and do that right now," and she looked up from over her computer monitor, like a prairie dog poking her head out of the hole, and i waved and she laughed.
Cat in hand, Alyssa and i headed for the hotel. I was crashing and i knew it. It had already been a long day - the day after a long day - and i was looking forward to checking in, calling it a night, and relaxing in the hot tub.
That is not what happened.
Alyssa, the prophet, made a comment as we pulled away from the vet clinic about going into the hotel lobby and "doing battle" with the clerk. What she meant was, over the pet fee discrepancy, which seems almost quaint now.
It was only 2:30 by the time we got to the hotel, so i parked in a shady spot and we waited in the car for it to turn 3.
I fell asleep.
Alyssa gave me a poke around 3:15. So i woke up and went into the lobby to check in. Even though Alyssa had made the reservation two or three weeks ago, using her debit card, it was under my name because she had used my Wyndham Rewards account to book it.
I walked into the lobby at 3:18. There was no one there, just a sign that said "Back in 10 minutes." I texted Alyssa to let her know the situation, and that i was going to wait around for a bit to see if they showed up. The timestamp on that text says exactly 3:20.
A minute later, a man did appear behind the desk. I told him i was checking in, and gave him my name.
He said he couldn't find the reservation.
Puzzled, i gave him Alyssa's name.
Still not coming up.
I pulled up my email and showed him the confirmation number.
"That reservation has been canceled."
what
excuse me
The reservation had been canceled by an automated system, because the credit card used to book it was declined. You canceled my reservation and didn't inform me? No, the system sends out an email. Here's my email, you can clearly see i have not received it. The last email i have from your hotel is from 8:15 this morning, asking me to check in online, which i did not want to do. Maybe it went to your spam folder. First of all, it wouldn't do that if all the rest of the emails i have from you are in my inbox, and secondly, here's my spam folder, here's my promotions folder, here's my social folder in Gmail. It's not here. It's not in any of these. I have an email from you asking me about check in at 8:15 this morning.
When was this reservation canceled?
3:15 pm.
I looked at my watch. It was now 3:23 pm.
You canceled my reservation eight minutes ago, while i was sitting in your parking lot. I was here. I was on the premises.
It doesn't matter where you were. The system sends an email, and it gives you a number to call to resolve the issue, and you have to call it.
You canceled this reservation eight minutes ago, and sent an email asking me to call? You gave me less than eight minutes to find an email and make a phone call? Why didn't you just call me yourself? Even automated systems can make phone calls these days. You have my number on file.
Look, i'm here now, just reactivate the booking.
I can't, we don't have any rooms available.
You gave my room to somebody else in the last eight minutes? This is unacceptable. You need to fix this.
i'm sorry, there's nothing i can do, i can't give you a room that i don't have.
So you're telling me that you made a mistake, you screwed me over, and it's my problem? I need to talk to a manager.
Uh, that would be me.
Then get me someone from corporate. I don't care. Someone higher up. Because this is unacceptable and someone needs to fix this.
I don't remember how the rest of that conversation went but i let this fucking guy have it. There were people in the lobby waiting behind me, and they saw the whole thing. I was absolutely furious. You know, as any reasonable person would be.
This guy was clearly uncomfortable. You know, as any reasonable person would be. I'm sure he just wanted to get me out of there. I yelled at him for somewhere between three and six minutes while a couple plus another family stood behind and just watched. And he never refuted any of my points, because how could he? He just kept explaining over and over that it was an automated response, because the credit card had declined, and i kept saying that first of all i don't know why that card would decline, but if true, you could have called me and i'd have given you a different card, or fixed the issue, or literally anything but you're telling me you emailed me eight fucking minutes ago and gave away my room before i could call back.
He did eventually tell me there were still rooms available with a single king sized bed, rather than the two queens we had initially reserved. Well, can you give that to me for the same price? Actually it's ten dollars cheaper. Fine. I will take it. We can get 3 people in a king size bed. We're not happy about this, but we can make it work. Oh, and we should be able to move you to a room with two queen beds for tomorrow and Sunday nights. Great, i'd love that. Cool, i'll just put a note in the system to hold that for you.
At the end i did apologize for the outburst, and thank him for making the situation work, and tell him to please pass on my displeasure with whoever manages that absolute dogshit automated system of theirs and get. it. fucking. fixed.
I went outside and exhaled for like 45 consecutive seconds, and walked back to the car. I approached the open passenger side window.
"Alyssa, you missed the fireworks. I just screamed at that guy for like six straight minutes."
"...Because of the pet fees?"
"They canceled our reservation."
"W H A T !"
"Yeah, they said the card that was used to reserve it got declined."
"Oh!" And suddenly the anger left her, and she looked serene, like she fully understood what had happened, and reached into her purse and pulled out her debit card. "Because i forgot to change it to the new one."
And in that moment, i remembered why the card they had on file would have been declined. When she had flown back to Wisconsin for Slushie and Andrew's wedding, Alyssa had gotten McDonald's at the airport. Upon receiving her food, she had absentmindedly placed her debit card into the bag. She ate her food, did what we all do and crumpled the trash into the McDonald's bag, and threw it away. Only after she landed in Wisconsin did she realize her debit card was missing. At first she thought it had somehow been stolen, but there were no new transactions on the account. Then she realized.
"It's too late, i already put it on my credit card. But the point is, they canceled it over this without calling first. Want to guess what time they canceled the booking at?"
And she just gave me the most look. Like certainly a lot of look. So much look.
"3:15."
"While we were in the..."
"Yes."
And then the yelling began.
During that whole debacle, i never even got around to mentioning the dogs. He never asked. I'm certain he just wanted to get me out of the lobby. The check in sheet he had me sign had said something about the pet policy, i didn't really look at it. But i'm pretty sure there was a line next to it to initial, and i did not initial that line; only the one for the parking pass.
As a result, i didn't want to load anything in through the lobby. I didn't want to go through the lobby at all, i was still very worked up. But certainly, i didn't want to tip off that we had dogs. I'd rather just not deal with that at all at this point. Our room was 401. Fourth floor, closest room to the elevator. The elevator comes to the first floor in the lobby, directly facing that guy's check in desk.
The stairs, on the other hand, are right inside the back door. This is a pretty small hotel, especially for a La Quinta, and i think these are the only two points of egress. I had walked around the hotel to check for a non-lobby entrance, found this almost immediately, and returned to the car. I pulled around to the back and parked one stall away from the door.
Amanda called at that moment. I put her on speaker phone. "Hey, have you not been getting my texts?"
"Um, let me check...oh, i have one here from 3:25 that says 'did you get into the hotel room?'"
"Yeah. Did you?"
And Alyssa and i shared a look. The most look.
"They canceled our reservation."
" w h a t "
And then the yelling began.
And a lot of good, valid, new points came up. Such as, what are they doing running the card before we've checked in anyway? And other ones that i was thinking about while i was heatedly typing the tale up above that are just escaping me now. I've cooled down a little since i wrote the paragraphs before the last line break. I've been petting my tribble.
We brought the dogs up the stairs as quietly as possible, two at a time. Alyssa stayed in the room to keep an eye on the dogs, especially since there was not yet a good way to secure Vinz. She asked me to bring his crate up next, but i brought D instead, and then his crate. Which, lugging this giant fucking metal dog crate up 4 flights of narrow stairs with 8 sharp bends is no small feat.
From there, i probably could have piled the rest on a luggage rack and pushed it to the elevator, but i still had some issues to work through. So i continued to bring everything up the stairs, load by load, while Alyssa set up the animals and organized the room as i brought her more and more things. I don't know exactly how many trips it took, but my Garmin watch gave me 32 flights for the day. Looks like 24 of those were between 3:30 and 4:45, so if accurate, 8 trips. I sweat so much it looked like i had just dunked myself in the hot tub without changing clothes.
Yeah. The hot tub. Literally, the reason we had booked this hotel in the first place.
See, at our last race, the OC Marathon/Half Marathon, the race was far enough away from home that we decided to actually get a hotel the night before instead of just driving down the morning of the race, like we had for the previous Long Beach and Surf City races. That hotel had a hot tub, which we enjoyed the night before, and then after our race we really, really wanted to get back into, but we were already past check out time. I managed to convince the desk staff to let us stay and soak for a few hours after we'd vacated the room. It had been absolutely perfect. So for this marathon, we really wanted to continue that success, and make sure we could soak in the hot tub all night rather than driving home right away. We'd booked the extra night.
The hot tub at this place is outside, right next to the door to the stairs. There's no pool, just this sad little hole in the concrete big enough for four, perhaps three people. I became more and more disappointed every trip i took past it.
Back upstairs, the windows in the room didn't open more than two inches. We had to turn the air conditioner down below 60 to even get it to run consistently, and it still took 30 minutes to get any appreciable work out of it. The art hanging above the desk had smashed plexiglas in its frame. The lamps didn't match. The wifi cut out randomly and was honestly absent more than active.
I'm not 100% sure what happened after we got the room arranged. I was about crashed from the lack of sleep and lack of caffeine and lack of anything resembling a healthy habit. Amanda and her family arrived not long after that, about 4:30, bearing the fruits of the race expo. She had all of our marathon bibs and shirts, plus the free swag of a dozen vendors, including sports drink samples, beer cozies, slap bracelets, and more. They showed me the spoils, but i clearly was not paying attention to any of it. This moment would be referenced the next day, and i would have no recollection of it. Consciousness was a myth to me.
We should have focused on getting dinner so we could get to sleep early. Instead, Tammi and Amanda came up with the idea to go get some groceries. Amanda asked me to start making a list in Google Keep and share it with her while she ????? - i honestly don't remember where she went at this point. She asked if i wanted some soda, and i said yes, so she said put it on the list. I created the Keep note. She left the room. I added soda. I went back to sleep.
When she returned, she looked at it and it just said "soda." So she asked about some more things, filled it in, and then she and her mom headed out.
I stayed awake at this point, and did some more work on my New Zealand reconciliation project. David went out for a four mile run. Jack stayed in the room with Alyssa and i, and we watched Bob's Burgers until the wifi cut out again.
I don't know what time they left, but i got a text from Amanda at 6:30 asking if i had a Ralph's card. Since they had only gone out to pick up a few snacks, it seemed like they had been gone for a reasonable amount of time that she would be asking me this from the checkout lane.
But...they didn't return. I was so absorbed in my project that i hadn't noticed how much time had elapsed, but Alyssa said something about it. It was 7:10. So i texted her, are you still shopping? getting kind of late for dinner. She responded, checking out now.
She would later posit that sending her and her mom to do all the shopping was the least efficient team we could have put together, and she's right; plus they went shopping hungry, which is such a well-worn trope you'd think we would just know better. I would later say something about how, if we'd taken like four seconds to think about this, we would have prioritized dinner and done snack shopping after, but that would have required one of us, literally any one of us, to be operating at higher than 10% brain efficiency.
We were all fading fast, but dinner needed to happen. Not only because it had been a stressful fucking day, but because we've got a marathon in two days and we need to be carbo loading. Pasta needs to happen, specifically.
I selected Ameci Pizza and Pasta in Los Alamitos, 7 minutes from the hotel. I texted this information to Amanda one minute after she told me they were checking out at Ralph's, but by the time they got back to the hotel, we still had not figured out our order. We didn't get one placed ahead of time at all; Amanda was still looking at the menu as her, David, and i drove toward the pizzeria. I got the eggplant parmigiana (naturally), Amanda got mushroom ravioli, David got the chicken pesto rigatoni, and Alyssa got...chicken tenders. Not exactly high in carbohydrates but Loosk gonna Loosk.
Phil was asleep by the time we got back. The rest of us made quick work of our food, and then followed his example. I entered the bathroom to spend some time with my dying cat, and started writing this log at quarter to ten. I could hear Amanda complaining out in the room that "there's no way this bed is a king," but i thought it was fine. If there's one thing, literally only one thing, about this hotel i have no complaints about, it's the bed. They were both asleep when i finally emerged from the lavatory and i slipped in, no problem. I know i moved about the room and tied off some loose ends before hitting the hay but damned if i can remember what. According to Garmin, i was asleep at 23:07.
If i've got one more complaint though, it's that the included soap, body wash, and shampoo are all patchouli scented. Great. Just what i want, to run a full marathon smelling like i still miss Jerry.
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