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May 1, 2000 |
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I had spent all night putting my place in presentable shape, and
that's even questionable. However, it is in much better
shape than it was even last night, so it'll have to do. I have a friend,
Jenna arriving here today and want her to be
comfortable. Relax, she's got a boyfriend. She just wanted to come out
here to see the city. Her job has positions all over the country, and
she's toying with the idea of Seattle. I told her that she could stay at
my place; she took me up on it.
She also has another friend in the area, but he lives hours away. And
besides, I had the spare room. She had made plans to spend time with him,
so I was really doing very little entertaining. I also had a spare set of
wheels, so her getting around
wouldn't be a problem.
Now, one of the things about my friend, Jenna is
that I haven't met her… Well, not face to face anyway. We have been
exchanging mail over the course of the last few months and spoken on the
phone a number of times. I had even started helping her daughter put
together her web page. No, I don't make this offer to just anyone.
Today is a moderately busy day at work and I had a number of things to
attend to, one of which was picking her up at the airport. Work is funny
in some ways, there's always something going on, meaning that there are
multiple things that need attention. Granted, there's typically one thing
that takes priority over the others, but there's always something that is
in the back of your mind. Unfortunately, that feeling lingers even when
I'm away from work. I suppose maybe part of the reason is that this is
simply the way I think. I often think about multiple things at a time. I
suppose that I'm the prototypical problem-solver.
The trip to the airport was uneventful. Her flight arrived on time with no
other mishaps, although she seemed to be the last one to get off the plane.
We exchanged greetings. It's always a little strange putting together the
voice and the face of someone; they just seem to be two separate entities
running amock in one person. Okay, I know that I'm not making much sense,
but I haven't gotten much sleep. We wondered down to baggage claim and
retrieved her other bag.
We made a couple of stops before heading back to my place. The first was
getting some food. We went to a local teriyaki place called
Sapporo. She seems to be fond of spicy food, so I suggested the
Spicy chicken. My friend Christian keeps plugging this place and
its spicy chicken, so I figured that it would be a reasonable dish. I
don't happen to care for it that much, it just seems that the pepper
overpowers the taste of the chicken. If I wanted to taste pepper, I would
have it straight. I had the regular boneless teriyaki chicken, which
turned out to be a little bland. [Oh, the irony!!]
She wanted to see some of the landmarks from the company's campus. I took
her to one of the more noteworthy fountains. I remember seeing it a few
years ago when Len moved to one of the
surrounding buildings. The fountain is simply put together beautifully, it
starts off a bit quietly but the water runs down a number of places,
including at least one small waterfall. No kidding. Everytime I see it I
note that it seems to run much longer than I seem to remember. I'm glad I
went back to see it.
Well, I dropped her off at my place and gave her a small tour of the
facilities. It wasn't a big deal really. I showed her how to operate a
number of things including my alarm system; I had programmed a unique code
for her just for this visit. I showed her the spare bedroom and answered
some of her questions. I gave her keys to my car and the front door. I
think she had made plans with her other friend in the area. I wasn't
particularly worried, she could always call me if she encountered problems,
and she did have a car.
Unfortunately, I couldn't stay very long. I had to head back to work.
There were still a number of things I had to attend to at work. I did fix
one important bug and was ready to submit the changes, but there were a
number of things we had to attend to before we got the green light
to do this. It's a long, involved process and I don't want to bore you.
Suffice it to say it is never as easy as it would seem. It was a few hours
before I was able to get this done.
Oh, yes. And I was very tired. If you remember, I still had not had any
sleep since Saturday night, and only about four hours of sleep that night.
Once I got home, I went right to sleep. It must've been about 7pm or 8pm.
Jenna was already out, presumably with her friend.
I just needed some rest.
Zzzzz…
May 1, 2000