The Sunday in June that I moved to camp felt like the longest day ever to me: getting up early after not having slept, the airport, the movers, the storage place, the Bay Bridge, the full-to-the-gills Subaru, the carpooler pick-up in the Mission and the drive to camp, the campfire, unpacking, bedtime snack, a midnight shower and finally some rest.
I can say now that there might be a tie for the longest day, that the day I moved out of camp certainly did not overshadow but at least rivaled the day I moved in. Waking up early after a debaucherous staff banquet the previous night (at which everyone wore costumes but I will only tell you about mine if you email me directly) with dinner and dancing lasting until beyond the wee hours of the morning, all of us who had lived together the past ten weeks sang our songs and said our goodbyes and got our paychecks and were headed home…
Except that my two carpoolers, whom I was driving to the East Bay in a van belonging to the camp therapist, were not at all ready despite my requests they be packed in the morning. This prompted huge stress on my part because I had promised the therapist her van would be back in Oakland and ready for her to pick up at a certain time, which now seemed impossible and as a result disrespectful of her letting us use it to get home.
Finally in the van and headed down the curving mountain road that connects camp to the rest of the world—if the rest of the world can be considered Groveland, California, the nearest town or perhaps a better word is "hamlet", about 25 minutes down the hill from Tawonga—we came upon the staff bus, stalled in its efforts to take those with no cars or rides back to the Bay Area by the fact that it was pulled over on the side of the road. A complete caravan of cars full of camp staff soon joined us on the shoulder and those who had been on the bus but needed to get back to the city in order to catch flights home were swiftly distributed among us since it was impossible to know how long the bus repairs might take.
Piled into the van we now had my original carpoolers, Aaron and Ariela, along with two of the Israeli staff, Tamar and Ayelet, and myself at the wheel. We drove into Oakdale moments after the bank closed at 2 p.m., arriving at the Wells Fargo just fifteen minutes too late to cash the Israelis' paychecks before they left on an international flight that evening.
Next stop Manteca, California, a town with a Spanish name that in English means "lard." Thanks to my constant super-hero, Wes Reeves, I had found a Wells Fargo branch open until 4 and that is where we stopped next to try and get Tamar and Ayelet their money. The teller and later her manager told us they would not cash the checks without being able to speak directly with an agent of the organization to verify their validity since they were for relatively large sums of money, so it was looking like we had driven all this way and spent all this time for nothing. "But it's a Jewish organization, it's closed today for Shabbat, we don't even usually DRIVE today…" Ariela was trying to explain to the Latina bank teller with a large, gold crucifix around her neck who knows nothing about and couldn't care less about the business practices of the Jews.
Think, Sarah, think…I knew I had to be able to find a way to solve this problem. I had already gotten all of us a ride, had already found a Wells Fargo branch open late on a Saturday afternoon. I was not going to be daunted by some minor financial policy verifying check values. I was feeling stuck until inspiration struck moments later on the sidewalk outside the bank—of course! I have not established all these connections, complicated as they might feel at times, to the San Francisco Jewish community for nothing. An unanswered phone call followed by swiftly-returned text message gave me the information that, despite the fact she was on the windblown upper deck of a ferry sailing back to Seattle from Bainbridge Island, Deborah would be more than happy to vouch for the validity of the checks with the Wells Fargo teller so that the Israelis could get their money.
Of course the person who verifies the checks has to answer the phone and the number printed on the organization's check…foiled again. Claiming semi-victory at getting Ayelet's check cashed, admitting semi-defeat that Tamar still didn't have her money we went to the neon-lit twenty-four hour check cashing place advertising, among other things, the skills of attorneys specializing in bankruptcy and divorce on flyers that plastered the windows. After waiting almost twenty minutes we were told that Tamar could have $500 of her money but would have to come back Monday for the rest. "She lives in Israel, she's not going to BE here Monday," I tried to explain to the woman behind the bulletproof glass. No luck.
By now I insisted we stop to eat something because it was four o'clock and although we had snacked on trail mix and strawberries much of the way down the mountain, none of us had had a proper lunch and anyone who knows me is aware that like a very small child I require frequent feedings. Aaron chose a real, live taqueria for us and while waiting for my nachos to be prepared I hatched the next part of our plan.
It only took a few phone calls to learn that Aubrie was in the city having tea with Sofia at the Palace Hotel. Time was running very short as far as getting Tamar and Ayelet to the airport in order to make their flight to Miami and on to Cancun and a check-in with my info man Wes confirmed my fear that traffic across the Bay Bridge was at a total standstill. I decided that we'd drive together as far the Dublin-Pleasanton BART station where Tamar, Ayelet, all their stuff, me, and my daypack would get on the train while Aaron and Ariela—neither of whom usually drive on Shabbat—would take the van and all our luggage the rest of the way to Oakland so Jessica could get it back at some time relatively close to what we'd agreed upon originally.
At the BART station my usual constructivist nature fell away quickly. I did not ask Tamar and Ayelet "How do you think you might use the ticket machine? What makes you think that? What clues does it give you?" I did not even use the didactic but still somewhat engaging approach of saying "First you look on this chart to figure out how much your ticket costs. They you go to that machine and put in your money. If you need change you subtract value from the amount you put into the machine…" I made them both give me ten dollars, shoved all their money into the machines, got them their change, printed their tickets, and herded all of us, filthy and heavy-laden with backpacks of various sizes as we were, through the fare gates and up to the platform. The train pulled up just as we got off the escalator which was the only thing that saved us since had we missed it, the next one would not have come for 20 minutes and we would have been late to the airport for sure.
The ride from Dublin-Pleasanton to SFO is not one I had ever made before but I learned by doing yesterday that it takes about an hour and fifteen minutes. During this time, when not in the tunnels, I was texting madly with Aubrie about what time I'd meet her at the airport and fielding phone calls from Aaron's "I cannot hear you now" cell phone about what stuff was mine in the van and when I was coming to pick it up. Off the train and into the terminal, our adventure seemed almost at a rushed and hectic yet successful end when we made it to the American Airlines ticket counter. Until…
"They cannot travel with these tickets," the reservations agent told me. "Do they have others?"
"No," I answered, confused, "these are their tickets."
"They have one-way tickets to Cancun but no return?" the agent asked.
"Yes, they are traveling overland to Guatemala and will purchase their return travel there. They don't leave the states until December so they haven't made all their plans yet, for now they are just traveling," I explained.
"You can't 'just travel' into Central or South America on a one-way ticket," the agent retorted. "If they travel with just these tickets they will not be allowed through Mexican customs and will be deported to the States immediately."
"Mah? What?!" Tamar was asking, confused as Ayelet, who had understood the conversation, slumped to the carpet in front of the ticketing desk and started crying.
After much negotiation, many conversations with the manager on duty, and with only twenty minutes left until their outbound flight took off we bought the women $900 dollars worth of fully-refundable tickets on Mexicana for dates they had no intention of flying, solely for the purpose of getting them through Mexican customs after which they would cash the tickets back in on the other side of immigration at the American desk in Cancun.
After quick, tearful hugs outside security and a huge rush through the x-rays and metal detectors I watched Tamar and Ayelet sprint towards their gate down exactly the same hall I had to run when headed home for Christmas with Jim Browne one time, the time I vowed never to fly American again—a vow only finally broken last summer on my way to summer school in Jerusalem, San Francisco to New York to Zurich to Tel Aviv. Frequent flier miles much?
The Israelis safely on their way, or as safely as one can be on the way when a hurricane is threatening your final destination, I went outside to find Aubrie at passenger drop-off where she and Sofia were waiting in their new Subaru wagon to pick me up and take me back to the East Bay. We swapped stories and chewed endless globes of bubble gum and the quote of the day, after everything that happened, was inarguable attributed to Sofia when she said, "You know what? You were gone too long, Kotleba…" I agree, kid, I agree.
We got my luggage from Ariela's cousins' house and dropped me off at Mark and Rebecca's where the cats, having been left alone since the day before when their guardians drove to Los Angeles for a wedding shower, had flooded the bathroom. After visiting with the Reeves, cleaning the bathroom, doing laundry, and packing for my own departure to Burbank at seven in the morning to meet my housemates for the shower Mark's mom was throwing them at some air-conditioned villa in The Valley, I went to sleep at 3 a.m.
Such a day as this better have earned me some karma points for my upcoming travel this next year is all I have to say…
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