Are You Kidding Me With This?

So as I've said, we're going to San Diego for our summer vacation this year. Used to be we'd go to Savannah, but this year various circumstances have changed that will disallow or discourage this. So we're going to watch the Rock n Roll Marathon in San Diego. I'm the uber-planner, so I was handily put in charge of flight, car, and accommodations.

This is good and bad. Good because I don't want anyone else doing it, and bad because I am an over-analyzer. I have to look at every possible angle, weigh it 100 times, and ensure all the facets align to refract 100% of the light I direct at it. My "vacations" sometimes include suggested itineraries. So I am an over-analyzing, perfectionist, compulsively over-planning organizer. Yeah. I'm easy to live with.

I decided that Yahoo travel did not help much, since its search capabilities were inconsistent at best. I switched over to Orbitz/Hotels.com and they did a better job. Orbitz is now my favorite travel site, BTW. So I'm looking at the eight thousand options and trying to determine which hotel will satisfy every one of my 200 requirements. I'm perusing through some photos of a hotel that I thought I had landed on when I saw this.

Are you KIDDING me? You're going to keep that monstrosity up on your hotel in the hopes that it will lure people to you? How long has it been since anyone, anyone wore a spandex french-cut thong workout pantie over white spandex shorts? Certainly not to work out. Maybe to a strip club or something... to perform a Flashdance tribute or flail about to ONJ's "Let's get Physical." Notice the clever use of mirrors to make the microscopic workout room look twice as wide. The 1984-dated water cooler nestled beside the artificial foliage says, "Come, work out here. You will be comfortable and oddly relaxed. Get physical." Shudder. Thanks, Olivia. Get that elongated mons out of the shot, for the love of good.

Then it got worse. Behold, Hell's Lobby.

You're serious about the over-the-balcony shot looking down on the overdressed matrons? The demure spiral-perm-caught-at-the-nape maiden in a white skirt? The nondescript male and overdressed, flight-attendant-suited clerk? A cravat, people? I cannot imagine a more boring way to spend an afternoon, or a more boring group of people to spend it with. And these are supposed to draw people to your hotel? You got some bad advice, my friend. Baaad advice. Snap some new photos to update your image, or you will find yourself attractive to geriatrics only. People who remember the 80's and the enormous shoulder pads as the prime of their lives. Shudder.

In spite of this, shortly thereafter I landed on one, and I feel good about it. Facets aligned. Mission accomplished.

I talked to AB about going to California. Then I got frustrated about a hotel I liked that was too far away from the airport and AB said, "I'm sad." Why are you sad? "Because I wanted to go to Tali-fornia." Oh sweetie, we're still going. I put her down. "Ippee! I can't wait to go to... Talifornia!" She has no idea where or what California is. Can you imagine getting that excited about unknowns again? Something so unfamiliar? No.

I must be irritable from lack of sleep and hotel hunting. Let me add to this tirade the following tidbit: if you're interested in a 2-hour nap please go see Hannibal Rising. I literally closed my eyes and went to a happy place during several of the more melodramatic, poorly-written scenes. When it was over the first thing I said to hubby was, "That was the longest eight hours of my life!" The most exciting part was when I got up to go to the bathroom. That's always nerve-racking. Other than that our date went very well. We had a great dinner with expectedly terrific conversation. Sans interruption from the little one. It was nice.

I'm going now. I'll try to grump less tomorrow. Or you could just not read this one, I mean, what careth I? I'm not making money from this, just uncovering a few skeletons.