Two weeks into my LA arrival, I was greeted with a family emergency that would require me to fly home a few days later. This would be in addition to all of the difficult adjustments that I had to make over the course of those first 14 days. I didn’t have a bed, I didn’t have a desk and I didn’t have a TV stand. Whatever I owned I brought in my Toyota Corolla and, since I wasn’t sure I’d be staying all of a sudden, I was hesitant to shell out hundreds of dollars on these big-ticket items that couldn’t go back with me. Consequently, my faux-HDTV, which was actually a 23″ widescreen PC monitor, sat on an opaque storage bin that all of contained my clothes. My air mattress doubled as my bed and work station, a highly humorous, but no recommended combination. Every time I worked on my laptop and decided to move a muscle while seated on the air mattress, the air would shift and bubble up to the other side. It was almost as if I was at sea and I always felt like I was one sway away from needing Dramamine.

Worse, my apartment’s air conditioning unit wasn’t reaching my room. If you’re not familiar with “The Valley” during the months of August and September, it’s hot. Without proper air circulation, it’s even hotter. At least sticking to the air mattress while trying to work on my website and advance my writing career meant that I wouldn’t slide off of it with every extreme transition of the air mattress bubble. Outside of the apartment, the trouble continued. I didn’t have a parking space and was forced to seek out street parking. This wasn’t an immediate problem since Burbank has plentiful, suburb-like street parking. However, in worrying about my family at home (everything’s okay now) and having my ear glued to the phone, I was blinded by the fact that Tuesday came and went. I found out about “street-sweeping Tuesdays” the hard way.

Hitting every pothole on the way to Best Buy where I bought a cord to make my cable TV work, I tried to keep a very positive outlook on all of these LA growing pains. Exiting the store, I remarked to my roommate, “You know, as much as these two weeks have been difficult, I’m in a great city where the sun is always shining, there are palms trees in front of us, beautiful mountains in the distance and even clouds on top of those mountains.” I paused for a moment, then realized aloud, “Oh, wait, that’s a forest fire.” We couldn’t help but laugh at my futile attempt to keep everything gleeful.

On September 10, I flew home to Philadelphia 34 days after saying goodbye to my parents and 19 days after ending my one-way roadtrip. I didn’t expect to be back visiting so soon, but it was good to see them for the week I planned on spending at home. That week home turned into a day shy of two weeks, as I delayed my flight in order to be there for my dad’s birthday. My dad and I did two important things that we had always meant to accomplish, the first being to traverse a simple skybridge that spanned the width of a highway near our house. This might not mean anything to anyone else, but we had driven under the skybridge for years and repeatedly mentioned, “One day, we have to walk across there.” This was the perfect opportunity to fulfill this long-sought-after goal.

My 13-day visit home ended with fulfilling the second accomplishment: touring the USS New Jersey, docked in the Delaware River across from Philadelphia. Having toured a handful of US Navy destroyers while on vacations through the years, we were determined to visit this ship that was right in our backyard. The cramped quarters and ability to man the controls to this floating museum made for some of the best pictures of my dad and me.

As soon as I got back to warm and safe LA, my two roommates and I went to dinner at Olive Garden, then had a hilarious time seeing the new comedy movie Zombieland and finding the nearest hospital in a very unfamiliar Burbank because my one roommate accidentally slammed the door on my other roommate’s finger. It was a wild and unforgettable night and, I can thankfully report that it ended with all 10 fingers and all 10 toes on each of us. One of my roommates and I also went to the 2009 NLCS, which I previously blogged about (read: I survived being a Phillies fan at Dodger Stadium…twice).