you win some, you lose some.

Tonight, I had a SUPERB dinner at Fleming's in Mt. Laurel, NJ. There was old scotch, and there was perfectly seared filet mignon and there was a great red wine. The weird little appetizer of Champagne-infused Brie was surprising, rich, and quite probably is the new love of my life. Except that I'm married. However, if you could marry food, Rose would totally have to armwrestle the Brie for my affections. It's just that good. So that is a win.

Also in the "win" column, and a significantly more important win, is the fact that my niece is out of the hospital. [here is where you must imagine me doing a giant, happy, rejoicing dance. there will be no live demo.] Seriously, this is better than any cheese ever. We still don't know anything, but she's feeling better, moving better, and is cross with her mama over all the poking, prodding, and testing she's had to go through. Mama was there to hold her, and in the 17-month-old-mind, is the agent at fault for all the discomfort. No fair, really. Keep her in your prayers. We all hope for her continued good health and a diagnosis that is easy for us to swallow. Selfish as it may be to ask that, it's what I want.

On to the losses. Monday, the TSA assaulted my dignity again. This time, it was over my freaking Tide pen. Yes, you know, those little gizmos you use when you spill something on your clothes and then have to go look like a reasonably well-put-together person in order to keep your job? Those things WHICH DO NOT CONTAIN BLEACH AT ALL or else you couldn't use them on colored fabrics? Yeah, the TSA lady pulled it out of my 1 quart zip-top bag and concluded that because it said "Tide" on it it must contain bleach and was therefore a threat to national security. Almost every word of labeling had been rubbed off the damn thing by its ongoing contact with said zip-top bag in my thousands of miles of air travel. It wasn't worth arguing over the single item. I wonder, though, if the PRINCIPLE isn't worth arguing over. Whatever I conclude on that score, I'm pretty sure that arguing with one liquids inspector at the DFW airport is not going to significantly impact the policy. And that's what I really want to argue with... not the policy IMPLEMENTERS, but the policy MAKERS.

travel roundup - jeffcity, mo

i just now am sitting in the airport in kansas city. it's not all that large an airport, and it's not all that fancy. but i'm in the admiral's club, enjoying my comfy chair and the fact that the bartender brings the drinks to me, and it could be a LOT worse. again, tonight, with the dallas weather and me being lucky: this is probably the fourth time this year that i've been scheduled on the one and only flight that is actually leaving for dallas because the weather has caused all the others to be cancelled. i guess that's the hidden blessing in the fact that i almost always end up on the last plane of the night. usually, by the time my flight is scheduled to land in dallas, the afternoon thundershowers have been robbed of their fuel by the setting of the sun, and so my flight is able to land.

whew. i really didn't want to spend the night in kansas city. getting here has already been an adventure, and all the adventure i need for a while. my flying day on the way here very nearly took over the top spot as my worst travel day ever. but it managed not to, and for that i'm grateful. the bullet-list of BadThings (tm, pat pend) that happened to me on my way out here:

• I missed my flight out and got redirected through St. Louis
• The TSA inspectors in Dallas decided that my hair gel might be in a container larger than the allowed 3.4 oz.
• The TSA inspectors in Dallas decided that my hair gel might be a threat to national security since it was in an unlabeled bottle and might not even BE hair gel
• The TSA inspectors in Dallas decided (after long deliberation) to throw away my hair gel and my Downy Wrinkle Releaser (the wonder drug that works wonders for the ironing-averse)
• The Dallas ticket agent who re-routed me through St. Louis neglected to change my second-leg ticket, so it still said I was flying from Kansas City when I was clearly standing in St. Louis.
• The delay caused by unraveling the Kansas/St. Louis conundrum caused me to check in so late that I was pulled aside for super-special seekrit sequiriti screening. At least those TSA agents were nice.
• The airplane from St. Louis to Columbia, MO seats TWO ACROSS. Not two on either side of the aisle, but TWO ACROSS the whole plane; it's tiny.
• The Enterprise desk in Columbia lost my reservation.
• The Enterprise employee was not at the desk for 30 minutes, so I didn't know he'd lost my reservation until I finally tracked down his manager with my cell phone.
• The desk clerk in my hotel SSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHH'd me while I was in the lobby talking on the cell phone about my travel misadventures. I think she took offense at the f-bomb I dropped regarding my hair gel.
• THE TSA THREW AWAY MY HAIR GEL!!! it was in a 3 oz. bottle, in a quart-sized plastic bag. clearly, they are haters of teh curleez.

the good things that happened?

• i got pizza and cookies for dinner.
• the hotel had NOT lost my reservation.

and now, in spite of the evil weather that's coming on... i think i'm going to end up on a plane bound for dallas tonight. i had to drive up to the airport instead of flying back here on the tiny plane from Columbia. the weather in Columbia was threatening, and they tend to cancel flights on those tiny planes for much less weather than it takes to cancel a big jet flight. i had the time to drive up, and it was more appealing than sitting in Columbia on the hard plastic chairs for four hours to find out they were cancelling my flight. i actually got to the Kansas City airport before i'd have arrived if I'd waited for the flight in Columbia to take me. plus, they don't cancel the freeway for light rain, so i was guaranteed to get there, barring the usual highway travel perils befalling me.

and here's something funny for you... the airport bathrooms in Columbia, MO (where they have one gate and everyone waits outside security because they don't open it until the plane lands) were a helluva lot nicer than the ones in Minneapolis/St. Paul. in Columbia, there were self-flushing toilets and automated paper towel dispensers. the place was clean and smelled not unprofessional.

sunday morning sidewalk

my sister and her boyfriend stayed over last night. aside from the fact that that entailed a massive housecleaning effort yesterday, it's great to have company. i needed the kick in the butt to make me crack out the vacuum and do the stairs, anyway. so, on this sunday morning, i'm kicked back in my living room sipping my mocha with my dog at my feet and blogging. for reasons unexplainable, i've slept well into the PM for the last two days. this morning, at 7:30 AM (!!!) i woke up and was unable to go back to sleep. i ran off to einstein's and procured breakfast for the masses, and i'm still sitting here waiting for the ungrateful louts to roll out of bed an hour and a half later.

on the upside, i did get to watch my computer clock roll through 05/06/07 08:09:10 this morning. nerdy, huh?

okay, maybe the sleeping in wasn't entirely for reasons unexplainable. i just got back from my place-of-employ's annual conference on the left coast. the most inexplicable part of that is that i never once ate sushi while i was out there. not even at the airport! food was provided at almost every meal by my employer, and it was tasty, and i had precious little time to go in search of dinner between all the various socials that went along with the conference. i must declare that the most fun was probably at the canuckistani social on tuesday. i still owe paul a couple of beers. somehow, he got stuck with the tab for my scotch, and i was drinking good scotch that night. hey, it's not my fault the bar was so well stocked. i finally got to try lagavulin, which really IS laphroiag's politer younger brother. and they had both talisker and oban, two of my all-time faves. if i'd been able to hold another drop while still maintaining vertical positioning, i would've gone for the dalwhinnie and made the night a grand slam. as it was, i retired at just the right time, because i was wearing my enormous hair down and loose, and it had gotten so large and wild that it was about to achieve sentience and crawl up to the room for some shut-eye without me.

here i am...

So, I'm in Ohio. It's cold, but not bitterly so. I was chatting with a coworker today who was here just last week when it was 20 degrees and snowing. I'm grateful for 40 degrees and overcast, thank you.

Things I learned while spending too much time at the airport yesterday: When reviewing one's past through scotch-colored glasses, one should maintain a sense of humor. When one is not fond of talking about one's feelings, one should not expect to find a lot of detail regarding them, even in one's own journal. In fact, one should expect a two page entry to summarize three months of holidays in a page and devote the next entirely to the process of selecting and installing a door in one's home. Or, better yet, to summarize two months of depression thusly, "well, that sucked." just before one spends two pages writing out a list of upcoming expenses. that, ladies and gentlemen, is my journal. i have whole YEARS that are completely unrecorded in it (i'm serious) and then i've got seemingly trivial parts of my life emblazoned in five-page-long daily entries.

sure, i do some of that stuff online, but i really need to get after that pen-and-paper journalling on a more regular basis. you can just hush now about the irregularity with which i update this space.

finally, on reflection, i think i told three stories at dinner tonight that were about seasickness or some other really un-dinner-ly conversation topic. i'm not sure what got into me. i usually manage to avoid such, but in my defense, i wasn't the only one.