HAck. Wheeze. Cough.

So before all of you call it Martian Death Flu, I'd like to point out that while I hate this illness, I won't elevate it to MDF status.
What I have is a very annoying viral infection described as a 10 day thing. Why isn't it MDF? Well, for one thing I have never run a fever. For another, I can get up and walk around. I can speak.

And apparently, I can fly to California and participate in two days' worth of training.

I'm superstitious, so if enough people call this Martian Death Flu, I'm worried that I'll come up with a fever, or (God help me) Pneumonia. It's a cold with an attitude and separation anxiety. Since I really cannot afford a doctor visit, let's not send Kukla to the hospital, ok? I only invoke the name Martian Death Flu when I go non-functional for two weeks.

By that same token, I'm invoking "Leave us alone, Mel Brooks!" Don't call me unless you need to. Don't ask me to do anything. I'm not up for going out to dinner. I don't want to see a movie in a movie theater. Hit me next week sometime, ok?
Email is always Ok, though.

Flight and Fancy

After doing the event on Saturday, I bugged out and rested.

Then, early Sunday morning, we headed out. I had my housemate take me to the store so I could buy cat food and get cash. At the Airport, I got everything checked in and settled in to board our plane. My cough was annoying to both me and my traveling companion, but we managed.

We flew to Houston, and I made a mental note to return someday. Space city, after all. :D We flew from Houston to the Santa Anna airport and picked up a shuttle to the hotel. However, since it was only the early afternoon (local time) we also inquired about how to get around. The hotel was willing to take us anywhere within 3 miles, so we arranged to go to a restaurant called "The Claim Jumper". Little did we know that it was in the mall, so we got in some walking and shopping time. (This is good, having just SAT on a plane all day.)

The South Coast mall was charming and fun. I noticed that Microsoft has followed Apple's lead out there and done a store that is practically a clone of the Apple Stores. I also noticed a Sanrio store (Squee!) and a toy store that intrigued me.

DUDE. That toy store was amazing! In addition to current toys, they also carried some high-end items (Jun Planning! Madame Alexander!) and some vintage items. (They had a whole case of actual vintage Star Wars items, from loose figures up to perfect NRFP items!) Pretty nifty, but since the place was closing I didn't spend a dime.
There was a Lego store, too, and many other interesting places.
Claim Jumper has AWESOME food, btw.

Then I did two days of training. I was running out of stamina, but not a lot was demanded from me in the evening. We did go see "Underworld" in 3D at the other mall, and I got to have some delicious Pad See Ewe in a California Thai restaurant. (Thai Bamboo, I believe.)

We also returned to the South Coast mall, and I picked up some treats at Sanrio, and we cruised around. It had lots of name-brand boutiques, which didn't interest me much. Well, that is until I saw the La Perla store. Sigh. I almost bought my housemate a pair of stockings, until I found out how much they are. GAH! I did bring her a catalog, though.

It's the trip home that was eventful, though.
We got on our flight with no problem and then were told that they had to screw around with the hydraulics for a while. Apparently they topped off the fluid too full and had to pump some of it back out.
This cost us our connecting flight. By mere minutes, too. So we went to rebook a flight and discovered that the only other St. Louis flight would get us home after midnight.
Um. No. So they threw us onto another airline - and get this!- we had to fly BACK to California in order to get home from Phoenix! That's right, my trip went from Santa Ana to Phoenix to Los Angeles and *then* I got a direct flight home.
"Welcome to the Hotel California... You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave..." (Yes, it was playing in the airport while we waited for our flight from Phoenix to LA.)
Gah. However, I can say that I have been to LA (well, LAX anyway) and I did see the Hollywood sign. (From the window of the airplane, but still.) Plus, on those other two flights, we were able to both get a window seat and some solitude. (Sigh).

So here I am.
I'm going in to work at 5pm so that I can teach a class tonight. Then I'm coming right back home and going to bed.
I'm going to try to make a costumed appearance on Saturday for about an hour. I'm also going to work on Sunday.

In the mean time, down time.