Notes from me to you

oh friends, forgive me for the long blog... its been quite a ride, thus far. i'm ready for things to calm down, but the following is my account of the last few days... so interesting for this farm-girl-at-heart.

if you should get bored mid-way.. at least read the second-to-last paragraph! ;-)

Thursday's events: Ingrid helped me move my stuff into my lovely (thanks, travel nursing company) apartment! its not huge, but its bigger (and nicer) than the studio on Grand, though i'm pretty sure this one doesn't come with 6 fantastic neighbor boys. despite this, i'm definitely enjoying the fact that i'm not paying for this great place of residency.

once everything was moved in, ingrid took off for work and i ventured to target, after getting directions to "the nice one" from a lovely woman working in the apartment complex office.

the directions were very good but "nice" target ended up being farrrrrr away.. like West Hollywood/LA far away! i had to park underground, take a parking ticket, and an elevator to get into the store. like seth mentioned in his blog, it was certainly comforting to walk into a very familiar setting..... at least... so i thought.

i'd been in target for 15 minutes browsing the "home goods" looking for items to replace that which i was unable to bring with (fan, towels, bath rugs, shelves, etc), when suddenly, i was unable to locate my empty cart. you know the drill.. you leave your cart in one aisle for a few minutes while you meander down another, and you come back to it. right? oh no.. apparently not in LA! my cart was g-o-n-e. nowhere to be found.. argh!!

it was only a few minutes of back tracking to get another one, but seriously.. who does that? i wondered if perhaps a target personnel assumed that someone had just left an empty cart. either way, a new one was obtained. tied to the handle of this new cart, was little piece of a plastic bag. "good," i thought, "this way i'd remember my cart and wouldn't lose it."

so i put the few things i'd chosen, thus far, in the new cart and headed back to the home section. i figured this time no one would take my cart containing items, because they'd know it was actually being used. hmmm... guess not! (("I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.")) my cart was swiped- AGAIN! i'm sure you're thinking, "well, laura.. why did you leave it unattended?" and that's a great question, friends... but i haven't a great answer.. :/

so.. i was fairly frustrated by this point and wanting to cry on the inside, just a little. i began looking for my things thinking someone would have just dumped them off somewhere. after 4 minutes of this searching, i remember the plastic bag tied to the handle and i spot the bandit. she was a middle-aged latino woman. strangely enough, i didn't hesitate at all to call her out on it: "excuse me, ma'am, i believe this is my cart. it had a few things in it." "oh yes," she says, i put them back." confused, i wonder if she works there.. oh no.. she just took my cart. quite kindly (i say sarcastically), she retrieved my items for me, as she knew exactly where she'd put them, took her things out, and the cart back to me. i thanked her and said i'd just moved from minnesota and wasn't used to that happening, to which she laughingly replied, "well you're in the city, now, girl. people will take it and run if you don't hang on to it."

"you're in the city, now, girl." that was my piece of advice for the day.

so i got my stuff and got out of the crazy city target. despite the frustration, i was strangely sort of proud of myself like a 4-year-old who's just learned to tie her shoes for the first time, after making my first successful trip to target. is that odd? :)

i then made a quick jaunt to the grocery store before dark last night because its so close i could walk. i purchased only the necessities: red wine, frozen pizza, broccoli, cauliflower, cheese, milk, and cereal. came home, crashed with the pizza and wine and went to bed.

Friday:

got up "at the butt crack of dawn," drove to the airport, followed signs all around the place to drop my rental car off (good-bye fival!). by the time i followed all of the signs get to the area where the car belonged, i was pretty sure i wasn't even in LA anymore!

it was there that i had to pretend i was moving to Honduras in the very near future, so as to avoid giving my phone number to the nice gentleman working at the car return! that did not work, however, as he said he'd been "wanting to go to honduras.." to this i replied, "well, there's always a lot of volunteering opportunity." then he said he didn't want to live there, he just wanted to visit it! of course!! i then told him i wasn't dating because i was probably becoming a nun! ha... that didn't work, either, so then i just had to say, "i don't think so, i'm sorry!" i smiled and shook his hand. mom asked me if he was "a freak or something?" ha.. no.. but if you meet a guy and 30 seconds later he's following you and trying to schmooze you're number out of you.. i'm not sure its a good idea to follow that lead.. well, its not my style anyway! i later concluded that he and his counterparts probably have a daily contest to see who can get the most numbers!! oh LA...

then i flew to sacramento where i jumped through hoops and crawled through tunnels to get my CA nursing license endorsement for a temporary license. i won't even get into all of that but let's just sum it up:

$30 for a 5 mile cab ride
fingerprint scanning place was closed so i was told i had to go into the city of sacramento (12 miles away...can you imagine that cab tab?)
so i asked a complete stranger, who i heard also had to go there, if i could ride with her. she said yes!
found out i had to verify my MN license online and there wasn't a computer to be found for public use so i had to ask brother brian get online and enter all of my personal data into a website
had my fingerprints scanned
back to the nursing board
gave them more paperwork
waited for an hour with a bunch of other fun travel rn's
was then scanned into splitting a cab with another girl to the airport
prayed for an hour straight for a fax machine to be fixed so i could fax my newly obtained ca license to florida so my recruiter could fax it back to the CA hospital
my prayers were answered after an hour or so when the machine was fixed
had a well-deserved, tasty beer and an unfortunately tasteless sandwich at a bar in the airport
met a super nice gentleman who was flying to Tuscon to drive his daughter's car back to CA as she had been diagnosed with cancer and her and her mom were flying back in between chemo/radiation treatments while her counts were high (prayers for her, their only child!)
caught an earlier flight back to LA (praise be! or i probably would have sat in the bar until my plane left at 8pm)
sister sarah picked me up at the airport and drove me to our friends' house where my new-to-borrow vehicle was waiting and where i got to hang with some of the CA fam..

the fortunate thing was that with every bump in the road or hurdle i faced today, the bond of travel nurses was quite a blessing!

and now i'm home. :) yay! still a mess from the move but its home! for the first time, i have a patio (yay!) so i was sitting outside with my computer when something caught my eye. i looked over and there i saw my version of Friend's "naked guy." oh yes.. i have a neighbor across the courtyard/pool, who was meandering around his apartment in his very tan birthday suit with his blinds open and lights on. i was shocked, of course, so i had to look again with hopes that i'd be proven wrong. but alas.... my eyes hath not deceived me.

and that pretty much sums up my first few days in LA! how about that big, warm welcome to sunny CA!? going well, so far! i'm missing st. paul and my family.... i was on the verge of tears all day thursday but i just kept in prayer, remembering that i was never alone and that wonderful, dear friends are just 30 miles away.

i still miss you all!

love
laura