Monday, January 3, 2011

Planes, Trains, & Automobiles Part II

     Phew.  What a crazy week and a half it's been!  I wish I hadn't neglected Oliver the way I had, but I didn't want to bog him down with complaints.  Sometimes it's hard to not become miserable when you're around miserable people; that was happening to me, so I resisted sharing it.
     However, fast forward to the New Year holiday and it was all fun, games, drinks, and cake!  My mom was scheduled to leave DC on the 30th, and I was scheduled to head to Boston.  For reasons that don't matter, we were flying out of the Baltimore airport.  We took the train from DC to Baltimore.  And then our lives got taken over by an eighties sitcom writer.  Well, mine did anyway. 
     I went with my Mom as far as security and waved good-bye.  My flight wasn't for several hours, so I meandered a little bit.  But then it turned out, there wasn't much to do, so I checked in to my flight at the kiosk.  The kiosk informed me the flight was delayed about 40 minutes.  That's a bummer, but I'm not going to have a fit about it.  Turns out, I was in the same terminal as my mom.  So I accosted her at the Wendy's and tried to steal her Frosty.  I hope strangers enjoyed the show. 
     She got on her plane and flew away.  I settled in to a seat near a plug and charged all of my electronics.  I considered a nap.  At the same time, my friend, let's call her Blate, was in Norfolk VA attempting to fly back to her home in Boston- so our super fun New Years Weekend in Boston could commence. Initially our flights were scheduled to get in about 20 minutes apart.  Perfect.  Then mine was delayed.  But so was hers.  So not so bad.
     There are no direct flights from Norfolk VA to Boston MA.  Her layover was in DC.  For a brief moment she thought "that's almost convenient!  Maybe we'll be at the airport at the same time."  I had to inform her no, because I was in Baltimore.  Ridiculous. 
     My flight was further delayed for really good reasons that make perfect sense.  Her flight was also delayed, and she missed her connection.  She sat in DC, and I sat in Baltimore.  It's a 20 minute train ride.  How excruciating.
     Our mutual friend, Blemily, who lives in Boston, was actually spending the New Year's holiday in DC.   She was driving.  There's a word for this type of buffoonery.   We were all so close, yet so far away.
     Eventually I made it to Boston, approximately 45 minutes after Blate did.  We cabbed it to her place because it was late, and dark, and we were tired.  Totally worth it.
     The weekend was fantastic- the perfect combination of celebration and recovery time.  And then it was time for the painful good-byes and for me to head back to the district.  Not so fast.
    For more really good reasons, the flight back to DC was canceled.  Hey, it happens.  So I traded my plane ticket in for a train ticket and rode like a hobo back to the city.  That is actually not a good representation at all.  I purchased a lovely coach class ticket on the train, took a few NyQuil, and slept my way back to the district.  My train pulled in at 7am, I took the Metro home, took a quick shower, put on respectable clothes, and headed in to work.  Happy New Year!

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