tire trouble

So when I was dropped me off at home I was supposed to go meet Sophie's breeder to pick her up, but when I went to my car I found I had a serious flat (like rim on the ground flat) - so I called the breeder, and she offered to drop sophie off instead of me meeting her (she's so sweet!). Then I set on the task of changing the tire, only to find I don't seem to have the tire wrench... I couldn't get to my bike (car jammed in the garage pretty tight) so I took my roommate's bike to WinCo. That was an adventure in itself - it was way too short for me, my knees were knocking the handle bars, and I couldn't figure out how to change the gears! Fortunately, the closest store, Winco, had 'fix-a-flat', so I bought it, biked home and put it in the tire, and drove to les schwab to get a patch/replacement. They had a waiting line and said they'd call when they were done. I had a hard time telling the guy which tire, he kept repeating it back wrong. After 1.5 hours of me browsing up and down shops on 9th st, I decided to just go back there and find out how much longer it would be. Turns out they finished a half hour before and didn't call. The tire I had wanted patched looked exactly the same as when I dropped it off (fix-a-flat left it slightly underpressured, and it still looks that way), and they said no charge for the patch but wanted me to spend $600 on new tires and alignment. They told me I could buy a wrench there for $15, and after waiting 10 mins for them to dig one out and ring it up - it was $25, so I didn't buy it (I priced wrenches at 3 stores while i was passing the afternoon waiting for their call). &%$& that... I actually have a rip in another tire - I'll need to replace them, but I'm not going back there. Frustrating afternoon... BUT, if that's the only issue I have coming home after a month away, I'm not doing too bad!!!

Airplane seat-mates

As we've probably all experienced, a good seat mate can make a long flight more tolerable, where a bad one can make even a short flight horrible. I fortunately had no bad seat mates on the unreasonably long trips too and from Cape Town (roughly 35-40 hours even with good connections).

On my way, from London to Cape Town, I sat next to a polite but chatty man - and after only a short while we discovered not only that we were both physics professors, but that he is at Stellenbosch University not far from UCT. He invited me to come give a colloquium, so we exchanged business cards, and I ended up visiting their department, having a lovely time with the students and faculty during my talk, and a very nice lunch after. They were really interested and engaged, and I was very glad to have made that connection. I appreciated meeting him, and was glad he was so friendly - though it was embarrassing for me to be talking professionally with someone after ~40 hours with no shower, and feeling horrible from traveling! (It upsets my stomach, gives me a headache, I feel very conscious about being smelly, and I just want to hide after so long on airplanes!)

On my way home (London to San Fran), I sat next to a lovely lady a few years older than me, from Beirut (though raised abroad and living in the US). She was very excited to tell me about a 24 hour romance she had with a man she met on the beach with amazingly beautiful green eyes. But as she told me more and more about her love-life, it became a conversation i was more and more uncomfortable about having. She wasn't shy AT ALL!! At one point she started using a bunch of cuss words about male and female body parts to explain how upset she was that her 3rd cousin (a marriage option for her) had two kids with his mistress in England. At least it made for a more entertaining trip - and I wish her much luck finding a husband who can afford her but does not want to impose plastic surgery (as the potential one she had just returned from meeting had said on their first 'date'!!)