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amanda_loddenThe first section of our three-part trip is no more; we've moved on to the "Ashland and OSF" section.
Our hosts for "San Jose (Part One)" were R & L, who were delightful. We did not get to see as much of them as I might have liked, for various and sundry reasons detailed below. We got to their place Saturday evening around... 9ish maybe? and chatted for a bit, but 9ish local time was midnightish Amanda time. I do try to stay up for a bit on the first night of westernly trips because it helps ease the jetlag, but by 10pm local time I was pretty much dead to the world.
Sunday was "get up, shower, dress, and hit the road" for Baji's by 10:30am. CJ fretted that he hoped people would show up, because he's like that; when we pulled into the parking lot there was a crowd of people standing around waiting for us. I believe the final headcount was 12 people, including us, only one of whom I hadn't ever met before. (Sadly, Z-amber wasn't able to join us this time, and I missed her. Luckily, she's an AmberCon person, so I won't have to wait another entire year to see her.) From Baji's, CJ left with LA & E, while I headed off to spend some quality time with T & P (and E and S, who were also there). There was much chatting, and I got to inflict JourneyQuest on them. Then we all made our way over to Satsuma, just in time to take over the table from CJ, LA & E-- this was planned, as they had a play to get to, and only about 20 minutes from the start of all-you-can-eat sushi til having to leave. We figured that a table of 9 would naturally get slower service and require more time, so we gave them a head start. (Confused about who the ninth was? A joined the first group but wasn't going to the play, so he stayed to socialize with us.) Then it was Baskin Robbins next door for dessert and back to T & P's for Gamers and Gamers: Dorkness Rising. CJ got dropped off at T & P's and we chatted for too long before belatedly realizing that we didn't have keys for R & L's, and that meant they had to wait up for us until we got back. (It turns out, they didn't, exactly-- the kids were happy to stay up and let us in.)
Monday was breakfast at Hobee's with T & P & E & M, except that M forgot about it. After repeated phone calls he did finally show up. Then it was hanging out for about a half hour and on to lunch at Fiesta Del Mar, to meet up with S and W and T2 & P2 and their new baby T3. And when I say "new" I mean "not yet 2 months old." Since there wasn't a lot of time between breakfast and lunch, I was less interested in eating and more interested in holding T3:
After lunch, CJ went off with W for a hike, and I went back to T & P's. CJ and I had plans to take R & L out to dinner to thank them for letting us stay. Plan A was to meet back up at R & L's place around 6-6:30ish.
I arrived back at R & L's at 6pm, and found the place strangely quiet. There was a car in the driveway, which I was pretty sure belonged to their roomie (who is also an R, so I'm going to call him Roomie instead of his initial. Also, I would turn out to be wrong; the car was L's and in need of repair.) R had warned us when we left that morning that depending on how certain test results turned out, they might have to ditch dinner in favor of being at the hospital, so after I knocked on the door a couple of times, I called R's cell phone to find out what was going on. The call went to voicemail, which I took to be a bad sign, and I left a message explaining that I was outside the door and hoping that everything was okay. Then I sat down on the low garden wall and waited patiently. Well, sort of patiently-- I also called CJ's cell phone and got *his* voicemail. But I did sit around until 6:20ish, when I started to think, "You know, it's really odd. If they'd gone to the hospital, I would have expected them to call CJ and CJ to call me to let me know. If they hadn't had a chance to call, I would have expected a note on the door at least, or specifically leaving Roomie here to let us in. However, if contact hadn't been made, I would have expected CJ to be on his way and thus back in cell phone range. This is... kind of odd." (I did know that CJ's planned hike would take him to places that didn't have good cell coverage. I figured that his not-returning-voicemails meant that he was still off hiking, which would imply that he knew dinner was off but hadn't told me, which was an irksome thought... but also an indication that he thought there were be someone around to let me in, too-- because while he might not think far enough through the implications to get to "Maybe she would rather stay where she was and socialize," he's definitely pretty good about "she'd rather not sit outside with nothing to do for hours.")
So, I started to think that maybe provisions HAD been made, and I just hadn't found them. Perhaps Roomie *was* here, but was upstairs/far from the front door, and couldn't hear me knocking. Perhaps he was taking a nap-- a definite possibility if the older children had wanted to stay near their mom to know what was going on as soon as possible and Roomie was only looking after the youngest child. Perhaps a door had been left open so that I could get inside. i checked the front door, but was not surprised that it was locked-- if they were going to leave a door open, it really wouldn't be one that announced to the neighborhood "hey, come break in!" I checked the garden gate, and discovered that it was locked. I wandered around the other side of the house, found a door that couldn't go much of anywhere (later, they said it leads to a small computer room) and knocked on it anyway. No answer, and no luck when I tried the handle, and then I was out of doors. But something about the garden gate made me look at it again, and I found that it wasn't locked, it just sticks a little. That led me to the patio, where I found the back door. Again, no response when I knocked, but this time: Score! The handle turned. I opened the door to let myself in. And swore.
I'm familiar with burglar alarms-- more than once in my life, someone has set an office alarm without realizing that I was still there. I'm aware that trying to disarm them without the right codes is worse than just letting them go off. I'm aware that once they go off, the alarm company will try to contact who they have on record... and if they can't do that, or the person they contact doesn't say "sorry, that was us" and confirm that it's a false alarm... the alarm company will call the police. I'm also aware that if you find yourself in the position of having set off an alarm with no proof whatsoever that you're supposed to be there, it's a bad idea to be INSIDE the alarmed area when the police shows up-- they're much more likely to approach you with guns drawn, on the assumption that you are hostile. (No, not always, but the chances are substantially higher.) I closed the door and returned to the garden wall outside, and sat down to wait. A few minutes later, the police car pulled up and stopped near the house. I noted that while only the officer got out of the car, it was a K-9 unit, and was doubly glad that I had chosen to stay outside. I greeted the officer, who seemed a little surprised to see me, and explained what had happened. It was touch-and-go, because there were certain key pieces of information that I do not have: for example, last names for R & L (R is an old friend of CJ's, but I didn't meet her for the first time until we arrived at her house Saturday evening). He asked for my ID and called it in to his dispatcher-- at the time, I presumed that it was just to check to see if I had any warrants outstanding or a history of not-quite-breaking-in to people's houses, but I later found out that when they called L, who was the person of record for the alarm company, they asked him about me specifically, rather than just "a person" or "a woman" or "a woman matching X description." During the explanation, it finally occured to me that there was one small thing that could help prove I was the houseguest I said I was, and I asked the officer, "Would it help if I said that upstairs, there is a suitcase with an airline tag with my name on it?"
After calling in everything, he asked me to show him how I'd set off the alarm. I felt bad for the neighbors; the alarm goes for many minutes before shutting itself off, and the officer and I set it off a second time as we went in the back door. Then he asked me to show him the suitcase. There was a bit of confusion there; I was a little nervous and I pulled the tag off but didn't look at it before handing it to the officer-- so when he looked at it and looked at it and then said accusingly, "this doesn't have your name on it" I nearly had a heart attack. I looked at it, and it had CJ's name on it, and I said, "Oh god, I'm so sorry, mine must be on the other bag" and grabbed that one for him. After we'd cleared that up and he looked less inclined to arrest me on the spot, I sheepishly asked if he would mind if I grabbed my Kindle out of my bag and remove it from the house, as I clearly had some time to kill until everything was sorted out and I could enter the house properly. He grudgingly agreed. I wanted to ask if I could take my entire laptop bag, but I was pretty sure that would be pushing it. Plus, being able to locate my Kindle and pull it out quickly was more evidence that I was exactly who I said I was; grabbing an entire bag full of high-value stuff would have pointed more towards a potential robber. I didn't think I needed to create any more doubt in his head.
We exited the house again, he asked if I had a car and took down the license plate number, and told me to find something to do. I said that since I was expecting CJ still, if he didn't mind I'd just as soon stay there but outside, in order to try and prevent CJ from going through the same thought process and finding the open-but-alarmed door. (The police officer had tried to lock in on his way out, but it's one of those that required a key to lock from the outside.) He didn't seem thrilled, but he said "Well, don't set off the alarm again" in a tone that strongly indicated that if I did, I could look forward to spending the evening being arrested, and I promised that I would not. I did take the precaution of saying "... but if [CJ] does not arrive by 7 or 7:30, I will probably leave and find some dinner, and then I can't promise that he wouldn't set off the alarm," because I didn't want to be blamed for it if he did, and the officer sort of shrugged at me.
On the upside, having the alarm company call L (whose number I did not have) prompted R to check her cell phone, and while she couldn't check her voicemail she found the missed call, and I got a text saying "I hope this is Amanda" and indicating that Roomie would be there in 10 minutes, including Roomie's cell phone number in case he wasn't there in 10 minutes. Fortunately, he was, and I got to go inside like a normal person instead of like a skulking thief.
Comparing notes with R & L later, I found out that while the alarm company told L that it was the back door alarm, the police officer who contacted them asked "if [my legal name] was supposed to be going in through the window." L commented to R, "I think [going through the window] violates houseguest etiquette." As proof of how awesome R is, her response was "Yeah, but Amanda seems pretty reasonable. I bet she had a good reason for it." I like R & L a lot. I bet you can see why. (I have offered to pay any false-alarm charges that might result from the whole incident, of course. R is pretty sure that the alarm company doesn't charge for it, and I'm pretty sure that ours did charge for the last time B left without realizing I was still there, but that might be a difference between a residential contact and a commericial contract. Or we might just have a shitty alarm company.)
Our hosts for "San Jose (Part One)" were R & L, who were delightful. We did not get to see as much of them as I might have liked, for various and sundry reasons detailed below. We got to their place Saturday evening around... 9ish maybe? and chatted for a bit, but 9ish local time was midnightish Amanda time. I do try to stay up for a bit on the first night of westernly trips because it helps ease the jetlag, but by 10pm local time I was pretty much dead to the world.
Sunday was "get up, shower, dress, and hit the road" for Baji's by 10:30am. CJ fretted that he hoped people would show up, because he's like that; when we pulled into the parking lot there was a crowd of people standing around waiting for us. I believe the final headcount was 12 people, including us, only one of whom I hadn't ever met before. (Sadly, Z-amber wasn't able to join us this time, and I missed her. Luckily, she's an AmberCon person, so I won't have to wait another entire year to see her.) From Baji's, CJ left with LA & E, while I headed off to spend some quality time with T & P (and E and S, who were also there). There was much chatting, and I got to inflict JourneyQuest on them. Then we all made our way over to Satsuma, just in time to take over the table from CJ, LA & E-- this was planned, as they had a play to get to, and only about 20 minutes from the start of all-you-can-eat sushi til having to leave. We figured that a table of 9 would naturally get slower service and require more time, so we gave them a head start. (Confused about who the ninth was? A joined the first group but wasn't going to the play, so he stayed to socialize with us.) Then it was Baskin Robbins next door for dessert and back to T & P's for Gamers and Gamers: Dorkness Rising. CJ got dropped off at T & P's and we chatted for too long before belatedly realizing that we didn't have keys for R & L's, and that meant they had to wait up for us until we got back. (It turns out, they didn't, exactly-- the kids were happy to stay up and let us in.)
Monday was breakfast at Hobee's with T & P & E & M, except that M forgot about it. After repeated phone calls he did finally show up. Then it was hanging out for about a half hour and on to lunch at Fiesta Del Mar, to meet up with S and W and T2 & P2 and their new baby T3. And when I say "new" I mean "not yet 2 months old." Since there wasn't a lot of time between breakfast and lunch, I was less interested in eating and more interested in holding T3:
After lunch, CJ went off with W for a hike, and I went back to T & P's. CJ and I had plans to take R & L out to dinner to thank them for letting us stay. Plan A was to meet back up at R & L's place around 6-6:30ish.
I arrived back at R & L's at 6pm, and found the place strangely quiet. There was a car in the driveway, which I was pretty sure belonged to their roomie (who is also an R, so I'm going to call him Roomie instead of his initial. Also, I would turn out to be wrong; the car was L's and in need of repair.) R had warned us when we left that morning that depending on how certain test results turned out, they might have to ditch dinner in favor of being at the hospital, so after I knocked on the door a couple of times, I called R's cell phone to find out what was going on. The call went to voicemail, which I took to be a bad sign, and I left a message explaining that I was outside the door and hoping that everything was okay. Then I sat down on the low garden wall and waited patiently. Well, sort of patiently-- I also called CJ's cell phone and got *his* voicemail. But I did sit around until 6:20ish, when I started to think, "You know, it's really odd. If they'd gone to the hospital, I would have expected them to call CJ and CJ to call me to let me know. If they hadn't had a chance to call, I would have expected a note on the door at least, or specifically leaving Roomie here to let us in. However, if contact hadn't been made, I would have expected CJ to be on his way and thus back in cell phone range. This is... kind of odd." (I did know that CJ's planned hike would take him to places that didn't have good cell coverage. I figured that his not-returning-voicemails meant that he was still off hiking, which would imply that he knew dinner was off but hadn't told me, which was an irksome thought... but also an indication that he thought there were be someone around to let me in, too-- because while he might not think far enough through the implications to get to "Maybe she would rather stay where she was and socialize," he's definitely pretty good about "she'd rather not sit outside with nothing to do for hours.")
So, I started to think that maybe provisions HAD been made, and I just hadn't found them. Perhaps Roomie *was* here, but was upstairs/far from the front door, and couldn't hear me knocking. Perhaps he was taking a nap-- a definite possibility if the older children had wanted to stay near their mom to know what was going on as soon as possible and Roomie was only looking after the youngest child. Perhaps a door had been left open so that I could get inside. i checked the front door, but was not surprised that it was locked-- if they were going to leave a door open, it really wouldn't be one that announced to the neighborhood "hey, come break in!" I checked the garden gate, and discovered that it was locked. I wandered around the other side of the house, found a door that couldn't go much of anywhere (later, they said it leads to a small computer room) and knocked on it anyway. No answer, and no luck when I tried the handle, and then I was out of doors. But something about the garden gate made me look at it again, and I found that it wasn't locked, it just sticks a little. That led me to the patio, where I found the back door. Again, no response when I knocked, but this time: Score! The handle turned. I opened the door to let myself in. And swore.
I'm familiar with burglar alarms-- more than once in my life, someone has set an office alarm without realizing that I was still there. I'm aware that trying to disarm them without the right codes is worse than just letting them go off. I'm aware that once they go off, the alarm company will try to contact who they have on record... and if they can't do that, or the person they contact doesn't say "sorry, that was us" and confirm that it's a false alarm... the alarm company will call the police. I'm also aware that if you find yourself in the position of having set off an alarm with no proof whatsoever that you're supposed to be there, it's a bad idea to be INSIDE the alarmed area when the police shows up-- they're much more likely to approach you with guns drawn, on the assumption that you are hostile. (No, not always, but the chances are substantially higher.) I closed the door and returned to the garden wall outside, and sat down to wait. A few minutes later, the police car pulled up and stopped near the house. I noted that while only the officer got out of the car, it was a K-9 unit, and was doubly glad that I had chosen to stay outside. I greeted the officer, who seemed a little surprised to see me, and explained what had happened. It was touch-and-go, because there were certain key pieces of information that I do not have: for example, last names for R & L (R is an old friend of CJ's, but I didn't meet her for the first time until we arrived at her house Saturday evening). He asked for my ID and called it in to his dispatcher-- at the time, I presumed that it was just to check to see if I had any warrants outstanding or a history of not-quite-breaking-in to people's houses, but I later found out that when they called L, who was the person of record for the alarm company, they asked him about me specifically, rather than just "a person" or "a woman" or "a woman matching X description." During the explanation, it finally occured to me that there was one small thing that could help prove I was the houseguest I said I was, and I asked the officer, "Would it help if I said that upstairs, there is a suitcase with an airline tag with my name on it?"
After calling in everything, he asked me to show him how I'd set off the alarm. I felt bad for the neighbors; the alarm goes for many minutes before shutting itself off, and the officer and I set it off a second time as we went in the back door. Then he asked me to show him the suitcase. There was a bit of confusion there; I was a little nervous and I pulled the tag off but didn't look at it before handing it to the officer-- so when he looked at it and looked at it and then said accusingly, "this doesn't have your name on it" I nearly had a heart attack. I looked at it, and it had CJ's name on it, and I said, "Oh god, I'm so sorry, mine must be on the other bag" and grabbed that one for him. After we'd cleared that up and he looked less inclined to arrest me on the spot, I sheepishly asked if he would mind if I grabbed my Kindle out of my bag and remove it from the house, as I clearly had some time to kill until everything was sorted out and I could enter the house properly. He grudgingly agreed. I wanted to ask if I could take my entire laptop bag, but I was pretty sure that would be pushing it. Plus, being able to locate my Kindle and pull it out quickly was more evidence that I was exactly who I said I was; grabbing an entire bag full of high-value stuff would have pointed more towards a potential robber. I didn't think I needed to create any more doubt in his head.
We exited the house again, he asked if I had a car and took down the license plate number, and told me to find something to do. I said that since I was expecting CJ still, if he didn't mind I'd just as soon stay there but outside, in order to try and prevent CJ from going through the same thought process and finding the open-but-alarmed door. (The police officer had tried to lock in on his way out, but it's one of those that required a key to lock from the outside.) He didn't seem thrilled, but he said "Well, don't set off the alarm again" in a tone that strongly indicated that if I did, I could look forward to spending the evening being arrested, and I promised that I would not. I did take the precaution of saying "... but if [CJ] does not arrive by 7 or 7:30, I will probably leave and find some dinner, and then I can't promise that he wouldn't set off the alarm," because I didn't want to be blamed for it if he did, and the officer sort of shrugged at me.
On the upside, having the alarm company call L (whose number I did not have) prompted R to check her cell phone, and while she couldn't check her voicemail she found the missed call, and I got a text saying "I hope this is Amanda" and indicating that Roomie would be there in 10 minutes, including Roomie's cell phone number in case he wasn't there in 10 minutes. Fortunately, he was, and I got to go inside like a normal person instead of like a skulking thief.
Comparing notes with R & L later, I found out that while the alarm company told L that it was the back door alarm, the police officer who contacted them asked "if [my legal name] was supposed to be going in through the window." L commented to R, "I think [going through the window] violates houseguest etiquette." As proof of how awesome R is, her response was "Yeah, but Amanda seems pretty reasonable. I bet she had a good reason for it." I like R & L a lot. I bet you can see why. (I have offered to pay any false-alarm charges that might result from the whole incident, of course. R is pretty sure that the alarm company doesn't charge for it, and I'm pretty sure that ours did charge for the last time B left without realizing I was still there, but that might be a difference between a residential contact and a commericial contract. Or we might just have a shitty alarm company.)
