Guys! Sorry again! I keep going out of town and then vanishing for 3 months. This time I don’t have any terrible news to report, so that isn’t my excuse, it’s just that I’m so damn busy. I don’t know if I’ve told you this before, but I don’t have Internet at my house (I know. I live in a cave with a guy named Gnnnrddd). Normally this isn’t a problem because I sit at my computer at work almost all day and I have plenty of time to waste, so I pretty much get my Internet fill while I’m there. But lately, we’ve been really busy, so I just don’t have time to sit and blog (or read blogs for that matter. My feed reader has something like 500 backlogged entries that I have yet to read).
And it isn’t like I don’t have anything to tell you! No adventures with bats or anything disastrous like that, but I do have some stories. Would you like to hear about the one when I flew home from Boston on Monday Tuesday? About how I sat in the airport for 3 hours on Monday night, slowly watching is my flight got more and more delayed, only to have to turn around and call Pete to tell him that, in fact, I was not leaving that night because there were storms in Philadelphia where my connection was made and if I went ahead and flew into Philly I would be stranded in the airport for the evening so instead I opted to re-book a flight for the next day? That was fun. Also: waiting in the re-booking line for 2 hours while I listened to people literally screaming at the poor, harried guys behind the counter. I’ve never understood why people get angry at airline employees in situations like that. It wasn’t like it was just our airline. Both the departures and arrivals board had maybe 10 out of about 150 flights actually on time. Most of the others were either severely delayed or cancelled outright.
But I did learn a valuable lesson in PR. When you are standing in a line for two hours and everyone in front of you is really, really angry and vocal about it, if you walk up to the exhausted-looking guy behind the counter, smile a lot, and really exaggerate your southern accent while you tell him that you’re “real sorry y’all are havin’ to deal with all this trouble,” the guy behind the counter just mightt upgrade you to first class when you re-book your ticket for the next day. When he told me about my upgrade I said to him: “Oh my god! Really? Is that because I was nice to you?” and he replied: “Yeah, it helps.”
Lesson learned. Check.
I also opted to make a connection in New York instead of Philly for my return flight, since that’s where a lot of problems were stemming from the day before, and I was treated to a magnificent view of Manhattan as we flew down the Hudson river, the turned in the harbor right over the statue of Liberty, and flew back up the river. That was pretty awesome in my very comfy first class seat, especially since I’ve never been to New York. Just a little bonus I suppose.
Of course, naturally, despite the beautiful day our flight was 3 hours delayed leaving New York, 1 1/2 of those spent sitting on the runway in a very hot, small, smelly plane. Grrrrrr. I think all these issues are messing with me, since last night I had a dream that I was trying to meet up with my mom and grandmother in Rome and somehow I got re-routed to Rwanda. And then I had to spend 12 hours in the Rwanda airport waiting for another flight. Let me tell y’all, that is one ragged-ass airport. There were goats on the runway, but I did get to eat a very delicious meal of black beans and bread (which, do they even eat black beans in Rwanda? These tasted very Cuban). It was extremely surreal.
But do you know what the very best part of this entire thing was? All I could do the entire time was remind myself that this was the last time I had to fly to see Pete. It was the last time I had to sit in the airport all antsy and frustrated that I wasn’t there yet. It was the last time one of our afternoons had to be cut short so I could make it to the airport on time. It was the last time I had to try not to cry as I packed my suitcase. And it was the last time that I had to go through security and stop at the very last possible step when I could still see him waiting outside of the ropes to wave goodbye to him and try to memorize the ways his eyes crinkle up when he smiles.
That felt good.
Oh, and also we saw some cute Geese:
