Shutting things down - 10/1/13

Today was the last day of our Cape Cod retreat. It was another glorious day of sunshine and sparkling blue water. But the overarching theme for today was "shutdown."  Along with the federal government shutdown, today marked the shutdown of our women's retreat. Members of our group started leaving at 5 am. The last of us left Cape Cod around 4 pm after shutting the house down for the season.

Ken's flight arrived in Boston an hour early. However, he lost the hour when his taxi couldn't find the hotel. One of the reasons I had picked this hotel was because they had an airport shuttle service. When Ken called for a pickup, he was told it would take an hour, so he decided to take a cab, but the cab took more than an hour when it got lost, so the Universe just didn't want Ken to benefit from the early arrival of his flight.

I was dropped off at the hotel by two of my friends who were heading to Logan Airport. The hotel was rather hard to find due to road construction, more than one street with the same name, lack of street signage, and lack of hotel signage. Apparently many people have been unable to find this hotel, even with a GPS. The hotel needs to do something about this.

It was great to see Ken, but not so great to see our room. It was pretty shabby. The carpet was covered with stains, the seat of the desk chair was very stained, the headboard had visible grease stains, and even the telephone was covered with stains and schmutz.

It looked even worse in person

Thank goodness for cellphones

Lost your appetite yet? I went down to the desk to complain about the cringe-worthy room and they gave us another room that had been remodeled recently. It was much nicer. We brought our bags to the new room and I only left one item behind in the icky room. I did get it back after making another trip to the front desk.

Charlotte's Big Fail

I had arranged to have dinner with a long lost cousin who moved to the Boston area last year. I did everything right. I looked up the restaurant on MapQuest and determined what T stop it was near. I entered my cousin's cell phone number into my contacts. I allowed enough time. . .

The Universe got me, too. At the T station we couldn't even figure out where to enter to get the appropriate train. We went the long way around. Then we couldn't figure out how to work the vending machine for the tickets. If you ever go on the T, you will need to know the difference between a Charlie Card and a Charlie Ticket. (Of course I know the song about Charlie, but that was not useful in this situation.) We finally got to the platform, thanks to the kindness of strangers. You can call me "Charlotte."

The train arrived and it was incredibly crowded but we squeezed on and I held on to Ken and Ken held on to a pole. We got to the purported stop and got off. There were two choices. Choice A led to a little Chinese neighborhood that was conspicuously lacking in trendy restaurants. We went back into the T station and exited via Choice B which led to a deserted parking lot. I tried to call my cousin but could not get through. I tried with and without dialing a "1" first. I tried a few more times and I tried texting a few times. Nothing worked. Charlotte, I am

Long story short: It was the WRONG stop. I finally contacted my cousin through Facebook. I had transposed digits in her phone number. We managed to get a cab (through the kindness of strangers, again) and we got to the restaurant 45 minutes late. It was NOWHERE near where MapQuest said it was. What is it with South Boston and addresses and maps? Be very careful if you ever go there. And the photo of me and my cousins didn't even turn out. (But it was great to see her and her smart and adorable daughters.)

Do I looked stressed?

Shut down. Yeah, that describes my day.  And 31 days to go.