They were the heady days of 2019, rounding out the turbulent twenty-teens, when one could travel at will and Pemulis had silver Aeroplan status which actually didn't give him that much in return but did allow him to enter the Air Canada Lounge at Pearson which wasn't all that useful given that he couldn't bring anyone with him and it was kind of a dumb move to have chosen Aeroplan over Miles&More, the much more lucrative customer loyalty program by Lufthansa that would translate Star Alliance flights into points worth much more in real-world value than anything given by Aeroplan. But alas his national loyalty won out and now, years later when Pemulis can again (for now) travel by air and in a very short amount of time help to spew more carbon into the atmosphere over the course of a day than most inhabitants of the 3rd world will produce in their lifetimes, although he understands the economic theory of a sunk cost, somehow cannot bring himself to give up his Aeroplan points and switch to Miles&More and quickly within a single round-trip flight to SF receive the required point capital to upgrade a future flight to business or even first. But despite all that, and the fact that while his employer will happily (?) fork over the dough required for a premium economy flight but the return flight's premium economy seats were already fully booked and so he will suffer during the return in the proverbial can of sardines that is Lufthansa economy class, after more than 2 long years tethered to the ground, Pemulis has flown again and finds himself in the hellscape that is modern America. But more specifically in San Francisco which is pretty cool for the most part but is really terrible in certain areas that are filled with drug-addicted, mentally unbalanced, and kind of frightening people who have not been so lucky with how their life has unfurled up to this point in time.
I will now switch to the first person because writing about Pemulis in the third both gets kind of tiring after a while and also feels a bit weird to do. I arrived in SF Monday night after a 12 hour fully masked flight (fully masked except for the 35 or so times that food or drink were served and also partially masked at all times for the man sitting next to me who never figured out how to get the mask to actually even come close to covering his nose [if you wondered pre-covid why condoms were only 90-some percent effective at preventing pregnancies, seeing how people wear masks makes one marvel that it is even that high]). My EBITDA-profitable employer had sent me and a couple of others to the great state of California to go to a few restaurants, "team build" by playing in a rock-paper-scissors tournament, and attend a SF Giants baseball game and I ventured out chasing the sun towards the west leaving Mrs. Pemulis (aka Joelle) at home to fend for herself and survive with our wonderful children. I checked-in to my hotel at Union Square and I wish I could say I headed out and experienced everything that San Fran has to offer but the truth is that I was exceptionally tired and went to bed around 9:30 pm only to wake up about 3 hours later just after midnight. I would go on to get minor chunks of very interrupted sleep for the rest of my "sleeping time" until around 3 or 4 am when I gave up and headed out for a walk up to the North Shore to check out the Bay. This pattern would repeat itself nightly for the rest of my stay, resulting in not feeling terribly well for the duration of the trip as one might imagine.
Despite my jet lag induced first degree sleep deprivation, I've had a nice week getting thoroughly sun burned at the baseball game, eating a (what should have been easily predicted given its name) fairly terrible tasting meal at a restaurant called "Zero Zero", partying long into the night at the trendiest clubs in the city (made up), and actually a whole lot of nothing if I'm being honest. I did, however, get to do some nice jogs along the North Beach and meet some nice work colleagues who I had virtually met before but seeing in person was quite good. As for the city itself, I would say that maybe it seems a little better than before but that is highly relative and the city of SF is as weird as ever. Depending on where and when you observe it, it is a beautiful modern city or a disgusting squalid worst-of-capitalism-and-severe-inequality nightmare and pretty much everything in between. One of these days I'll have to visit the surrounding area like wine country or the national parks or head down the coast to the glitz and glamour of LA. But until then, I shall shortly take a Lyft up to the airport, put on my FFP2 mask, and wedge myself in to a tiny seat in the back of the plane, blocked off of bathroom access at the window seat, more likely than not being crushed by the weight of larger than average human who will snore and refuse to properly wear their mask. And if only I had been collecting Miles&More points all this time I could probably have upgraded to First Class for free. Oh well, maybe next life.
