The rest of my trip down south was reasonably pleasant, although it certainly went pear-shaped by the end.
Didn’t have much on the agenda. I was working from Dad’s place, and also working on Zoo and Pinafore stuff. I had a great hour-long zoom meeting with the Zoo director, that was entertaining. (and I really do appreciate that it’s tremendously beneficial that video calls are so easy to make, even when there’s an ocean between you)
I was plagued by other tech problems, though. I think I mentioned that right before I left home, my media hard drive crashed, and also (go figure) my electric toothbrush. Well, at Dad’s house, I’d borrowed an extra monitor of his so I could use my laptop and not just have the teeny-tiny built-in screen. I needed one extra cable to make that work, which I ordered on Amazon. And it worked beautifully. For one day. The next day, the laptop refused to see the monitor no matter how many unplug/plugs I did to all devices and cables involved. When we got back from Chattanooga, I had one more blessed day where the laptop decided to talk to to the monitor – and then it never worked again. Dad and I went out to Best Buy to buy new cables, expensive ones. They didn’t help. As I was bitching to Sam, debugging tech isn’t a problem if the situation is consistent from setup to setup, but this on again/off again for no reason was driving me bananas (and blind, from using just the little screen). So that was frustrating.
But otherwise, we had a good week. Dad and Sam and I had dinner with his friend F at her retirement community. I hadn’t met F before, she’s really fun. Dad and I did some cooking together, and I went over to Sam’s house on Thursday for dinner with him and his friend Michael. I also joined Sam in his daily powerwalks – he drives over to Dad’s house because there’s a lot of good walks there and Dad joins when he can.
So good bonding time, with each of them. Dad and I hung out on his porch (which overlooks a golf course) a lot, joined by Julian the cat.
There was a deer who kept wandering through the property behind, eating from the bird feeder.
Friday was when it all hit the fan. My office does half-days on Friday, and I’d timed it nicely so Dad could drive me to the airport noon-ish for a 2:30 flight. But lo! Dad had discovered a major water leak coming down into the home office. (Dad’s on the 2nd floor of a 3-story building, two apartments on each floor.) We assumed it was his upstairs neighbor, and Dad called him – upstairs neighbor was at his other home up north, but arrived in an hour. Poking around, and further research showed it was a building problem (meaning the management’s responsibility) affecting all three apts in the line, but Dad’s the one who got the major damage, with a big water bubble in the ceiling and shit falling down. So he’s dealing with that.
Off to the airport anyway, and things seemed to be OK. I noticed on the weather app that there might be rain in NYC about the time I was landing, but just for like an hour. Well… we got on the plane, trundled out to the runway, then did a few random loops and parked. Ground stoppage at LaGuardia. Eventually back to the gate (well, a gate) and off the plane again. Delays delays, hoping it will clear up. I’d been so looking forward to getting home late afternoon, going out for dinner or ordering a pizza. So now I’m plotting, ‘well, if I get home at this time, which restaurants will still be open? What about the pizza place?’. Finally, like six hours after our original departure time, we get back on the plane, all settled… and they cancel the flight. ARRGH.
So… it’s now almost 10:00 pm, and I call Dad (who easily might have already gone to bed, but hadn’t yet) to tell him I’m coming back. Reclaim luggage, get an uber, schlep luggage back to his place. We remake the guest bed, which I had stripped and washed the linens for when I left. Dad sits up with me while I eat the other half of the chicken parm sandwich that had been dinner, and then off to bed. American Airlines has been communicating, “We’re working on rebooking your flight.”
About 2:30 am, my phone rings. I’m like “whu whu is it American?”. No, random spam call on WhatsApp. Eff you, random call. Got up 6:30ish, fed the cat, no news on a rebooked flight. LGA had been down for all of Friday night, so I knew everyone and their mother would be trying to rebook today. Was going to wait until 8:00, but got antsy and called American directly a little earlier. Very few options for direct flights, but the nice lady found me a two-leg flight through Charlotte late afternoon that didn’t bump me back to coach, and sounded fine. So that was settled.
Dad and I had a fairly leisurely morning, except I helped him change out the litter in the litter box, which was awkward and complicated (It’s an automated box, and he only has to do this every couple of weeks) and disgusting. Clean up once again. I took him out for a late lunch at a Mediterranean place on 9th Street – good food, but neither of us were that hungry, so he got leftovers to take home.
Back to the airport, where I checked in again. Counter lady was kind of attitudy in that way where she doesn’t actually do anything that you can point to, but you know she hates you? But bags checked, through security. Back to the scene of my former failure, found the gate. I decided to try out the food thing they have where you order from various restaurant options using a kiosk, then pick up the order from a locker. So I wanted ice cream, but they had smoothies which sounded good. Ordered one, then I’m waiting for it and looking at the American app and – huh. that’s weird, the app says I’m flying from Charlotte to White Plains, not LaGuardia. No no no, that’s wrong. Was I so groggy when I booked this that I didn’t catch the mistake? No, looked at my emailed itinerary, I’d definitely booked RDU/CLT/LGA. Looked at my boarding passes and luggage tags – definitely says “Westchester County”. Fuck.
So, slurping my smoothie, I went to the gate agent, who told me to ‘call this number’. And I did, and she said, yeah, I see what you booked, and then you changed that second flight at 12:03. And I’m like, well I didn’t change the flight, and can you get it back? I’m thinking, christ, I might lose my flight, or get the flight, but be bumped to steerage. Why? I suspect checkin lady hit the wrong button at some point and it spiraled from there – or did she really hate me and try to eff me over? I swear I was nice to her!
Then of course my boarding pass is wrong, and although they assured me my luggage should go to LGA despite already being tagged for White Plains, I was leery.
Flight to Charlotte was delayed at most a half hour, but the line of people who wanted to reschedule or do something else was enormous. I don’t know what that was about, and there was only one gate agent and she was like on the mike going, “I have to board this flight, I can’t deal with your wanting to change reservations, do this instead”. And the line never shrank. But assuming we got out reasonably on time, I was fine for my transfer.
The flight to Charlotte (in completely the wrong direction for me, but who cares) was short and pleasant. It was a much bigger aircraft than the little dinky ones that fly between Durham and LGA – from that and the panic about people connecting, I gather that Charlotte is a big transfer hub for American. Landed, found my new gate (just down the hall from the one we exited), decided to get dinner. Got fried calamari and a cosmo – the cosmo was super-expensive, cost more than the food – but I didn’t care.
And the flight to NYC (also on a nice large plane, although I realized it was a 737 – not what you think of as a big plane, but so much bigger than those commuter jets) was lovely and we landed (hurrah!) at 9:30.
Because I’d come home with more than I’d brought (Dad’s old air fryer, some clothes I bought at the outlet mall), I’d checked not only my big suitcase, but a zip-up tote bag. The suitcase made it to LGA, the tote bag didn’t. But American was right on it, texted me right away saying ‘we know this one bag isn’t there, we’re on it, we’ll get it to you’. And uber home.
So that was that. Sunday was about laundry and resetting, and was very peaceful. I was home all day, and American kept texting me that the bag was on its way, but of course it actually showed up when I went out to dinner down the street with a neighbor. I told the delivery guy to just leave it in the front foyer, which he did. (he took a picture, send it to me, “is this OK?”. At this point, I could have just ducked out of the restaurant and met him, decided not to) And twenty minutes later, when R and I got back, it was sitting right there. The End.
PS the toothbrush is working again and I’d ordered a replacement hard drive, and spent Sunday restoring the backup onto it, so we’re good there.
Now a week of prep and doctor’s appointment, and off to the UK on Friday.
The Toast Point Page 