When Toyota invited me to attend the 2013 Lifesavers Conference in Denver as their guest, I knew that they would treat me well — which makes this as good a point as any in this post to insert some disclosure language: Toyota picked up the cost of conference registration, transportation, meals and lodging. I was not paid to attend and I have not received any kind of compensation or promotional consideration to write this post.
I had no idea what to expect at Lifesavers — other than some sobering lessons on automotive safety (no pun intended, even though there was a lot of material to ingest on impaired driving).
I am now trying to wade through pages and pages of notes I took over the three days of the conference, which need to be organized and condensed into a nice, concise round-up for my editors at AskPatty. So far, all I’ve managed to get through is the opening keynote; an emotional address by former MADD President Karolyn Nunnallee, who lost her 10-year-old daughter in a horrific school bus accident in 1988.
I’ve finished that portion of the post for AskPatty, but Nunnallee’s presentation was so haunting, I am having trouble letting go.
The bus crash in Carrollton, Kentucky was the impetus for today’s school bus safety standards, and is the subject of “Impact,” a documentary that will be released on May 14 — the 25th anniversary of the accident:
Nunnallee was the grief-stricken mother profiled in that trailer. Her daughter Patty was one of 27 people who perished in a fire that broke out on the bus after its fuel tank was ruptured by a drunk driver. Flammable seat upholstery caused the flames to spread quickly. Those who managed to escape the inferno had to squeeze through just one small emergency exit in the back of the bus.
“When it comes to school buses, safety should never be an option,” Nunnallee said.
Grief and anger spurred Nunnallee to join Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which has become her life’s cause. She was eventually elected President of MADD, and continues to fight for safety rules and legislation against drunk drivers. Her determination made me think of the parents of Newtown, who are now actively campaigning for gun safety legislation. I have a feeling they, too, will prevail.
No matter how short a trip, things can change rapidly while you’re away. Remember my Wordless Wednesday post from last week? While I was gone, THIS happened:
Copyright 2013 Gareth Mills
When I schedule travel, I need to learn to tack on a few extra days to cushion the transition from home and back.
The day before my trip was a flurry of preparation. And yesterday would likely have been unproductive even if I hadn’t been so tired out from my late arrival. The fact that I was missing my possessions did not help matters.
Yesterday was a waste. I used up most of my Skype allowance trying to locate my lost suitcase and phone. And then I ran out of steam. At noon, I took a nap and didn’t wake up until my kid got home from school.
I received word last night that my suitcase had been located and was finally at LAX. The delivery service asked if it could be delivered without my signature, and as I did not want to be tied to the house while waiting for it, I said OK.
I woke up this morning to find it sitting on my doorstep. An email reported that it had been delivered a little past midnight. I slept right through it.
There’s good news on the phone front, too: The van driver found it and I will be able to pick it up at Super Shuttle’s offices today. Better news: the driver works out of the Burbank Airport office, so I won’t have to make the trip back to LAX.
So I am almost whole again.
Today is the day I’ll try to catch up on work. I took pages and pages of notes at the conference. I need to figure out how to turn them into a coherent account of what I learned.
I was one of the lucky ones. I only had to wait about twenty minutes before the computer system went back online. I checked myself in to my 3:25 pm flight and stood in line to get my back checked.
Unfortunately, the system was busy printing out bag tags for hundreds of other people who had checked in prior to the system outage. And most of those people were on a Dallas-Fort Worth flight that had already been canceled. People were not happy. I decided that getting angry at the situation would not help.
Air travel these days requires patience, I told myself. And a sense of humor. After what happened in Boston on Monday, I expected security delays at the airports. Boston was a tragedy. This was just a nuisance. I stayed calm.
“Your flight to LAX is still on,” I was assured by the poor ticket clerk who was dealing alone with angry passengers and the backlog of luggage tags.
My own tag eventually spooled out of the printer. He placed it on my bag and instructed me to put it on the belt and I headed downstairs to the TSA checkpoint.
According to my boarding pass, I had just 10 minutes to get to my gate. I wasn’t going to make it. But I figured I wasn’t the only one, so I stayed fairly calm (mostly fixating on the fact that I was hungry and wouldn’t have time to grab any lunch before my flight). By the time I got to the gate, it was 10 minutes past my scheduled flight — which was OK, because it had been delayed until 5:00 (I was trying so hard to get there on time that I didn’t think to stop and check the flight schedule board).
So now, I had time for lunch. Hooray. I bought a sandwich, found a seat near the gate and settled in.
There was a long line of people at my gate. I wondered if there was some kind of additional check-in procedure for this flight. I asked one of the women in the queue. “We’re all trying to reschedule our flight to Dallas from this morning,” she told me. She had a toddler with her. They were not happy campers. I felt bad for them and grateful that my flight was merely delayed a couple of hours.
Five o’clock came and went. I stayed calm.
At 5:15, the airline announced that our plane had arrived. “We just need to get these passengers off, clean it out and then we’ll get you all to Los Angeles,” they said.
At 6:00 they let us know that they were waiting for one more member of the flight crew to arrive.
I texted my husband and daughter updates on my flight status. My original plan — when I was landing in the middle of rush hour — was to take the Flyaway and get picked up by one of them in Van Nuys around 6:00. Now that I’ll be landing around 8:00, I might be able to get my husband to pick me up at LAX, I thought.
Twenty minutes later, a notification from my Tripcase app flashed on my iPad. It said that my flight was now canceled, but the info board at the gate listed it as going out at 6:30. I got into the line behind the last two remaining Dallas folks — and was in position when American finally announced that my LAX flight was canceled.
“We can get you on a United flight that’s going out at 10:00,” the airline rep said. That meant I wouldn’t get back home until after midnight. Not ideal, but I was happy to take it. By now, all I wanted was to get home. There was just one problem.
“I checked my luggage. Do I need to go somewhere to get it?”
“No, we will move it over to United for you. You just need to check in to your flight over there,” she said. She handed me a meal voucher and my original boarding pass from American. The receipt from my luggage tag was stuck to the back of it. “You’ll need this to get your bag,” she said.
At the United desk, I asked again about my checked luggage. “Is it going to make it on to the plane?” I asked. I was assured that it would.
You know how this story ends, don’t you? The flight to LAX went smoothly and arrived 20 minutes ahead of schedule. I made my way to baggage claim, where a clerk was arranging bags from another flight.
“Are these the ones from Denver?” I asked.
She told me I had to wait.
So I waited.
And waited.
I was nodding off against a column when she called me. “Are you waiting for someone from Denver?” she asked.
I told her I was on the flight from Denver and was waiting for my bag. She shook her head. “I thought you were waiting for a passenger,” she said. “We got all the bags from that flight. We’re done.” She looked at my tag from American.
“Your bag is not lost,” she said.
I was tired. I wanted to cry. “It’s not here, so it kind of is,” I whined.
“The problem is, because the computers were down, your bag never got scanned. It has to be matched with your name manually. It’s probably still with American. You can either make a claim to have it traced here, or go over there to look for it.”
It was now 12:30 in the morning and the last thing I wanted to do was march across LAX to the American terminal. Besides, if I wasn’t able to fly to LAX on my canceled American flight, how could my bag have made it here?
I made the claim at United. “They’ll find your bag and deliver it to your house tomorrow,” she assured me. “And you can trace it on our website here.”
As of this writing, it is nearly lunchtime. And so far, the United website is reporting that “the tracing process is continuing” and I should check back later.
I wish this was the end of my pitiful tale — but it’s not. While I was eating my dinner alone in the United terminal last night, I arranged for Super Shuttle to take me home. The van I ordered did not arrive until nearly 1:00 A.M. And on the ride, I noticed that my battery was running low. I turned the phone off and placed it back in my computer bag. Or so I thought. Because once I was finally home and had access to a charger, I could not find it.
One of the traits I really hate in myself is absent mindedness. It gets worse when I’m tired, as I was last night. I waste a lot of time trying to locate things I’ve misplaced. I spent an hour this morning trying to reach Super Shuttle’s Lost and Found.
So far, my phone is in the same boat as my lost luggage.
At least, I made it home all right. And after I get a little more sleep, my sense of humor may return.
But I did not notice how pretty the weather was until late afternoon, when I was loaded down with reading material I had picked up at the Lifesavers Conference.
Disclosure: I am attending the conference devoted to improving highway safety as a guest of Toyota, which is picking up my expenses. They will not be compensating me in any other way. I will be reporting what I have learned over at AskPatty.com.
The automaker is treating its blogger guests like VIPs. We are staying at the Brown Palace Hotel, which has been the nicest place in town since it first opened in 1892.
It is a lovely historic hotel, and my room is large and comfortable. But I did not sleep well on Saturday night, and the result was that by the first afternoon session (on the future of graduated drivers licenses), I was nodding off. So at the break, I left the convention center in search of a Starbucks. The nearest one was closed. The air was cold and bracing, and it felt better to be out, so I kept on walking until I made it back to the Brown Palace, where I took a nap.
I had a better sleep last night and hope to make it through the entire second day of sessions. Besides, the weather outside looks kind of nasty (blustery winds and lots of snow, but not cold enough for it to stick, so it’s just icy and wet). So I think I will make it.
I like to travel. That is, I like getting out of Los Angeles and visiting other places. The problem is the part about “getting out.” Road trips are fun, but it’s hard to find the time to drive longer distances than between here and my sister’s place in Sacramento.
Today, I had to travel to Denver – and that meant taking an airplane.
I am not afraid of flying. I am, however, afraid of becoming one of those travelers from hell who ends up being walked off the plane by the Air Marshals.
Flying these days means subjecting yourself to one indignity after another, beginning with the airlines’ crazy policy of making you pay for the privilege of bringing a suitcase.
I truly admire people who have the knack for packing everything they need into a little carry-on bag. I have friends who were able to do that for a two-week vacation in London – and it was in the winter, when you need the extra heft of warm clothing.
I have never been able to do that. What if we end up dining someplace fancy? Better pack a dress. And heels. What if it’s really hot? What if it rains? What if we do so much walking that my feet blister and I need different shoes?
And now that I’m older, it’s even worse. I can’t leave town without a bag full of creams and makeup and lotions, all of which are too large to fit in a TSA-approved transparent bag. And don’t get me started on how much tougher it is to dress now that I’m getting hot flashes several times a day. The only way to deal with that is layers of clothing. This takes up more room. Especially when you check the weather and discover that it may snow in Denver this weekend.
Snow? I tossed my daughter’s ski jacket into the suitcase. It’s costing me an extra $25 each way, so I may as well fill it to capacity.
And don’t forget the electronics. Twenty years ago, I didn’t fly with anything that needed to be plugged in. Today, I can’t go anywhere without my cellphone, iPad, camera, camcorder, Fitbit…and all the chargers and cables that go with them. I almost brought a laptop, too. I am praying I’m not sorry I left it at home.
But in the end, despite the hassle of packing and the airport and the lines and the waiting… There’s nothing like getting out of town to break yourself out of a rut. And now that I’m here, I’m happy.
Until Tuesday, when I get to do it all over again to get back home.
We were driving downtown last weekend, my husband recounted his latest conversation with his mum in the UK.
“They’ve opened a new tea shop down the road from her,” he said. “They’re charging an arm and a leg for crap like ‘artisan’ bread and ‘locally sourced food’…”
He shook his head, and repeated “… Artisan bread,” and shook his head. He’s not into the latest foodie trends. All he cares about is if it tastes good. And lately, if it is vegan.
Fortunately, our destination, the newest Mendocino Farms sandwich shop, has a pretty nice variety of vegan dishes. I refrained from telling him that it is known for locally sourced and artisan foods, especially freshly baked bread. I thought it better to keep that information to myself.
The firm that handles the restaurants’ PR has been sending me mouth-watering menu information for a while now. Saturday’s occasion was a mom blogger event in their newly-opened shop at 7th and Fig, and it allowed us to combine two of our favorite activities: eating and taking photos of the sights downtown.
I was greeted by Mario and Ellen Del Pero, the husband and wife team who created the upscale sandwich chain. Mario took me on a short tour of the joint:
You may have noticed in that I am wearing different clothes at the end of the above video. That’s because while I took still photographs of our lunch on Saturday, I neglected to do a wrap-up on video. So my only choice was to go back and order another sandwich.
It’s a tough job, you know.
The only problem I faced while writing this post is that just thinking about Mendocino Farms makes me HUNGRY. Their menu of gourmet takes on classic sandwiches combined with more adventurous fare (including dishes for vegans and vegetarians) hits a sweet spot for my family, which consists of three individuals who cannot agree on one thing we might all want to enjoy at a family meal.
And it’s a problem because as of this writing, there is no Mendocino Farms outlet in the San Fernando Valley. Co-owner Ellen Del Perio assures me that will change this summer, when the chain launches a new location in Sherman Oaks. I did my best to convince her that she would find a willing new market up here in Northridge/Granada Hills, but I don’t think I was persuasive enough. I will just have to keep trying.
DISCLOSURE: I was not compensated for this post, other than our free lunch.
Every spring, the eaves that face our front door serve as a home for nesting birds. This year, we decided to take some photos.
Three weeks ago:
Start of construction.
Photo copyright 2013 Gareth Mills
Two weeks ago:
Nearly done!
Photo copyright 2013 Gareth Mills
Last week:
All moved in!
Photo copyright 2013 Donna Schwartz Mills
What she’s guarding:
Precious cargo.
Photo copyright 2013 Gareth Mills
This year, it appears that there are only three eggs – a good thing, as in the past, an egg has fallen out of the nest. And once, I had to shield my then very young daughter from seeing a dead hatchling that had been shoved out before its time. Three looks like a manageable brood. Will update when they hatch!
I may live in the Valley, but I consider myself an Angeleno. I was born right here in Los Angeles and have always been fascinated by our mythical, colorful, multi-ethnic city. And I jump at any excuse to go over the hill and experience it.
I am also something of a foodie. I love trying new dishes, whether in restaurants or cooking it myself. I am on a lot of travel site mailing lists, and I spend way too much time poring over the restaurant reviews in cities I know I will visit some day. This is why I love the idea of taking a food tour, where you learn about a city’s history from the primal perspective of how its residents EAT. Instead of traipsing through museums and climbing monuments, you stroll through farmers markets, snack on street fare and sample regional cooking in family-owned restaurants.
And you can do all this without leaving LA, as we have an entire world of exotic cuisines right here — along with a handful of tour operators who can give you the inside scoop on where to find them.
Last year, I covered one such tour for CBS Los Angeles. I had so much fun on the Boyle Heights tour that I dragged my husband back to the neighborhood a few weeks later. And he liked it so much that we’ve gone back a couple of times, just to eat and take photos of some of the historic landmarks.
And last month, we embarked on a different tour in a different LA neighborhood, offered by a company called Los Angeles Urban Adventures. Ethnic Neighborhoods Food & Culture takes you on a walking/bus tour through L.A.’s Koreatown, Thai Town and Little Armenia. These neighborhoods are part of my personal history: The hospital where I was born, the approximate site of my parents’ first home, and the office building where my dad worked were all seen during the course of the tour, which originates at the historic Gaylord Apartments, which used to make my husband snicker until he learned that the building was named for Henry Gaylord Wilshire, the socialist entrepreneur (yes! only in Los Angeles, right?) who developed this part of the city and whose other famous namesake is the lengthy Boulevard that stretches from downtown to Santa Monica.
Our tour guide, Summer, told us the fascinating history as we walked a couple of blocks north to the first of several stops on what was supposed to be a three-hour tour. It turned out to be a bit longer, partly due to the variable of Metro bus schedules but also because the proprietors of just about every dining establishment we visited insisted on plying us with lagniappes — extra dishes that were not on the menu carefully planned by the Urban Adventures tour guides. This is not a complaint, as the tour operator warned us to arrive with empty stomachs… and who doesn’t like getting more than your money’s worth?
So the delicious Korean barbecue kalbi we enjoyed at Ham Ji Park was augmented with additional calamari… The handmade Thai sausages Summer ordered for us at Spicy BBQ was just the appetizer for an amazing coconut flavored Thai chicken noodle soup… the taste of middle eastern cooking at Carousel turned out to be a full dinner plate… and don’t get me started on all the desserts! The only reason I did not gain five pounds from this excursion was the fact that we made the entire trip on foot (aside from a short bus ride up Normandie, from 6th Street to Santa Monica Boulevard).
As I said before, this part of the city is really familiar to me — but it’s been years since I’ve done more than just drive through. You miss so much when you are watching through a car window. When you are led on a walking tour with an enthusiastic guide like Summer, you really see the sights. And when those sights include places to shop and eat, you engage all your other senses, too.
During the course of eight stops from Wilshire and Western to the Red Line station at Hollywood and Vermont, we learned the history of Wilshire Boulevard, the old Ambassador Hotel (now the site of the Robert F. Kennedy School complex), the gorgeous Chapman Market complex on 6th (the first shopping center built for cars! Who knew?), and the origins of the Little Armenia and Thai Town communities.
It was all fascinating. But what I will remember most is the food. And I don’t think I’m ever going to be just “driving through” the neighborhood any longer, because now I know exactly where to stop.
DISCLOSURE: I was not compensated for this post, but I was comped my spot on the tour. We paid a discounted price for my husband to come along. And for a limited time, readers of SoCal Mom can do the same when booking a tour with LA Urban Adventures: Just enter the code SOCALMOM13 good for 20% off any tour booked by June 1st (depart any time in 2013). This includes their other tours, like Stars and Bars Tour (which I think would be a blast for a birthday celebration or Girls Night Out – hint hint), Hollywood 101 and the Beverly Hills Golden Triangle Tour. This is great fun for visiting family and friends or just to get out and learn more about our great city. Summer can even create a customized itinerary that includes more kid-friendly spots for a family outing.
As your kids get older, the toys they want for their birthday get more expensive.
My daughter let me know that what she REALLY wants is a car. But she would be happy with the same present she has asked for at every gifting opportunity for the last couple of years: an iTunes card.
This is a relief, because shopping for her is no longer easy. She has her own taste in clothes, in music, in games, in entertainment.
“Next year, I will be an adult,” she tells us. As if we need to be reminded that she is all grown up. Almost all grown up. “Next year, I will be moving out of the house,” she says.
Oh yeah?
“To go to college.”
I will worry about that next year. This birthday snuck up on me. Maybe I have been in denial, but by the time I realized it was close, it was too late to order a custom card. She drove my car to school yesterday; so I did not get a chance to sneak out to the mall until late afternoon.
I used to be able to find plenty of good cards at the Hallmark store. Alas, while there were plenty of cards for daughters turning 16 and 18 and every year younger, I could find nothing for 17.
The humorous cards were all inappropriate; better suited for people heading toward middle and old age than a newly minted young adult.
There was a large section of elaborate cards with sounds and buttons and pop-ups. But they weren’t all that clever. I got the feeling that Hallmark is relying too much on gimmicks these days. They can charge more for a card that plays “I Feel Good.” (I bet they have to; I cannot imagine what the James Brown estate charges to license that.)
So I ended up in the aisle with the mushy cards, addressed to daughters, each one more sincere and flowery than the next. The kind of cards I never buy. And as I scoured the rack to find something that might sound a little like US, I started to cry. Yes, she was the most amazing child. Yes, we cannot imagine our lives without her. Yes, we are so proud of the young woman she has become.
I got the prettiest, simplest, most direct one of the bunch, held back the tears and got the hell out of the Hallmark store. And hope next year doesn’t come too quickly.
Spring break for my daughter began Friday night with a friend’s birthday party: a sleepover at her family’s beach house out in Malibu. This meant driving out there Friday after school and then again to pick her up on Saturday morning – before my husband and I had to race to an appointment near downtown Los Angeles.
Needless to say, come Sunday morning I was a whirling dervish of Passover cooking and cleaning. And I somehow managed to get all the matzo balls, kugel, roast chicken and silver polishing done in time to sit down for our tiny little family Seder.
At the ritual’s midway point, when we break to enjoy the result of all that cooking, I realized I had never called my sister in Sacramento, to wish her a Happy Passover.
“What are you talking about?” she said. “Passover is tomorrow.”
Oops.
Entering the wrong dates in my calendar appears to be my thing now, as I have been doing that a lot.
I tried hard not to feel sheepish as we finished our meal. It was tough, as my husband and daughter were laughing so hard.
I decided to think of last night as our dress rehearsal – and for once, I am facing the first (actual) night of Passover relaxed, because the cooking and cleaning are all done.
When Toyota invited me to attend the 2013 Lifesavers Conference in Denver as their guest, I knew that they would treat me well — which makes this as good a point as any in this post to insert some disclosure language: Toyota picked up the cost of conference registration, transportation, meals and lodging. I was not paid to attend and I have not received any kind of compensation or promotional consideration to write this post.
