That Time of Job, Again

I've been sentenced to Death By Work, again. This month has taken me away from Mrs. Farrago for more than two weeks, already. In addition to the trip to New Hampshire and Philadelphia earlier in the month, the latest has been a marathon affair.

I was off Tuesday, March 13, for Goleta, California, about 15 miles north of Santa Barbara, and the ridiculously ritzy resort called Bacara. It was five days of a paranoid meeting planner, a competent-though-clueless photographer and June Gloom three months early.

On the night of March 17, the client had their final night dinner party, for which I had to be around. Nothing like being at a party where you can neither participate nor vacate. Finally, around 10:00 I was cut loose...to pack my suitcase and make the 2-hour drive with a co-worker to Los Angeles.

You see, I had to be on the Sunday morning 6:00am flight from LAX to Chicago in order to make the two-oh-something flight to Toronto for the next meeting. So we left Bacara about 11:00pm, and arrived in the area of LAX around 1:15am. We did the math at that point and it was this: arrive to hotel around 1:25am. Check in, get to rooms around 1:45am. Prepare for bed, lie down around 2:05am. Wake up around 3:00am to shower and dress, and drive to the airport in time to turn in the rental car and be to the ticket counter by 4:30am. Grand total hours of sleep: approximately one.

So we said a mutual "Fuckit," chose not to even find the hotel, and just stayed up the rest of the night, seeking out a Denny's not too far from the airport to chew the fat and chug down coffee until it was time to turn in the car. One hour of sleep would have been infinitely more difficult to deal with than none.

As usual, when I most need it on a plane, sleep escaped me. I dozed for an hour at most, and arrived in Chicago feeling like I had ridden in the cargo hold at the bottom of the piles of luggage rather than in First Class. Honestly, I can't remember any part of the layover in Chicago, except the excruciating part where we taxied out to the runway only to be called back to the gate for the airline to rectify a "cargo discrepancy" that no one could figure out why they didn't fix before we left the first time. Only when you're sleep deprived....

Toronto is a pretty city. Cold while I was there, but pretty in the sunlight. I discovered the next morning, in the view from my room, an ice-skating rink and a building that looks like a docking site for UFOs.

I did my usual thing there, making the people happy, or at least appear so. And Wednesday morning I was off to the airport again. After a brief delay I was on my way to Chicago...but not home.

I went to baggage claim, retrived my luggage, and caught a cab for the office. There I swapped out a few things between my large suitcase that had been with me to California and Canada, and the small suitcase I had pre-set at the office to take on the last leg of the journey. I packed the one remaining shoot package (the other was sent to Canada), and put everything in the cab, which had waitied outside while I turned everything around.

Back at the airport I was witness to one of the worst weather-related travel days I've ever experienced. I'll just keep it short: scheduled departure on flight A, 5:45pm. Actual departure on flight B, after A was cancelled, 10:40pm. Arrival to hotel in Houston, 2:00am.

The client for whom we were shooting was kind enough to let us start an hour later than originally planned, which allowed us one more hour of sleep. Then it was a day and a half of rigorous shooting.

Finally we were on our way home, but not without more weather delays, only this time it was only a matter of about 90 minutes.

I was home by 11:00 Friday night, all of Saturday when I got to visit my father at the hospital where he's been kept since Tuesday while they cut out parts of his body and run tests on them (hasn't spread so far...), and Sunday morning, when I departed for yet another trip.

Tonight I'm back in southern California (San Bernardino). Shoot tomorrow. Fly home Tuesday. Fly Wednesday to Tampa, shoot Thursday. Fly home Friday. Sunday night to Raleigh, North Carolina. Shoot Monday morning, and go home in the evening. Drive Tuesday afternoon to Springfield. Drive home Wednesday night. Then I'm done. I think.

If I think about it all, I'll go crazy. If I just do it, I'm fine.