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December 23, 2005
All The World Seems To Be In A Hurry
But darling we'll just keep on taking our time...
Line from a nice song from the 1970's that I heard a few weeks ago, before all the radio stations in Philly starting playing nothing but horrible Christmas music.
I thought of this song this morning as I reflected on my very long travel day yesterday. My flight to LA from Philly was horribly delayed, due to a missing part that apparently was only to be found in Mexico, so they put me on a flight to Chicago. Then I had a four hour layover in Chicago, followed by a three hour flight to Calgary. That flight was late too, and my bags seem to be either in LA or somewhere between LA and Calgary... no one is quite sure. So now I'm hanging out in MR's flannel longjohns, rolled up so that they fit me, and a pink cashmere sweater that I left here last June. We're back in the old condo, which MR will be packing up to sell so we can put a downpayment on our own house... as much as we love the possibly haunted house that we are now renting, we want to move back to the town where I work asap so that I can stop commuting and paying Philly city wage tax. We kept the condo for a few months so that if we decided we couldn't stand each other, MR could move back to Canada and not be homeless. But as it turns out, we tolerate each other rather well, and we can't afford to keep a Canadian vacation home in an industrial park in Calgary, so on the market it will go.
My trip yesterday turned out to be rather entertaining. I try to have a very good attitude about travel, and to assume that things will go wrong. I found a very respectable Salad Works in the Chicago airport and ate a salad with turkey, lettuce, tomato, green pepper, onion, and broccoli. I try not to eat meat more than about three times a month, but on occasions when I'm travelling it's sometimes the only low calorie protein source. Then I went to the airport bar right by my gate to have a glass of cabernet and read my book, but I got to talking with the person next to me who turned out to be a hospital CEO, and we had a long discussion about health care, insurance, nursing, and how to run a hospital. Very entertaining. He bought me a couple of glasses of wine and I shared my megamuffin with him. Then I proceeded to sleep through most of my flight to Calgary, which was lovely since I had been up since 4 am my time and didn't land until after 8 Calgary time, which is after 10 my time. As you know, bedtime in the April and MR house is around 10, so I was quite exhausted. MR's dad picked me up at the airport, which was wonderful since I didn't have to wait for and pay for a cab. We finally got to sleep around 11.
Now I'm trapped in the condo all day waiting for my bags to be delivered, but that's not too bad since MR will be doing some grocery shopping then I'll cook our dinner. It's nice to have a day of downtime. Then the family Christmas events at the home of MoMR begin. My mom is staying with them, and I trust she is petting Maxine the small dog. MR is missing the cats terribly, of course, but I think he'll be all right as long as I meow loudly at him several times a day.
Posted by april at December 23, 2005 8:37 AM