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By the poxed visage of Mogg's bastard uncle… today has been one for the books. I don't even know where to start.
Let's cheat, and jump to the end of the story – I'm in the air, headed for Richmond, Virginia, with a stopover in Atlanta. So all's well that end's well, as I say often and don't care who hears it. (My that sounds familiar…)
I had more to do in my final day in Salt Lake than I actually had time for, and I ended up paying a pretty heavy price in terms of stress. But this morning, I was blissfully unaware of that.
I started with a quick visit to my doctor. I seem to have an insignificant but annoying rash developing, and I wanted to get something for it before I headed off into unfamiliar territory. My appointment was at 7:40, I was first on the doc's schedule, and it was in and out. Good start.
Next I took Molly to be oiled (if you don't follow my adventures, Molly is my faithful Prius – and to get her winter shoes off. I had purchased a maintenance plan in 2007 that took care of all those things up front, but today I learned that they only allowed 15 – supposedly 3 a year for 5 years. However, I've put 65,000 miles on her in the last 3 years, and I've used up my quota early. That was a surprise, but there it is. So she'll have clean oil while she sits for a while, waiting for my return. She got a bath, too – but the whole process took 2 hours, which I wish I could have had back.
Started shifting more stuff – I have more hqiz than I realized. At 5:30 I drove my van to park it in front of my ex's house – she graciously agreed to let me store it there while I'm gone, as well as giving me a whole empty shed to put my overflow in, since my 8x10 storage unit is full to the gills. I'm grateful for her kindness. Funny how things work… we're much better friends now than ever we were while a couple.
My son and his wife gave me a ride back downtown, and I stopped to have dinner with my Mother before leaving. She had forgotten I was coming, but that's pretty normal for her. At 93, her short-term memory is pretty much shot. But she enjoyed the visit anyway, and looked good today in a pretty blue outfit.
Walked home (she only lives about half a mile from me) and ended up making 5 more trips to the shed, getting my last load finished at 4 AM, plus dropping off the perishable food from my fridge at my son's house. Sleep? What's that? Mogg's teeth, I was tired.
By the time I got home, I had an hour to finish scrubbing my kitchen, finish packing, finish scrubbing my bathroom, get dressed, and get out the door to park Molly with a friend of my fiancée. I was just barely going to make it.
I had my keys in an envelope to turn back in to the leasing office, so I left my door open. I took two suitcases down to Molly, and realized that I had left my electronic sensor upstairs – I thought I was locked in the basement. By angel's providence, I had forgotten to take it off my keyring. Whoosh! Catastrophe averted! So I took a shopping cart up and brought down almost everything else that was left, put it in Molly and headed up for the last load… and my door was locked. The inertia of the door closer must have popped the button in. It's now 10 after 5, and the shuttle was to come for me at 5:30.
Hqiz. I was sure I was going to miss the flight. I called the shuttle company and cancelled, and then called the emergency number to get someone to come let me in (one of the benefits of a high-end gated community). Unfortunately, it took about half an hour to get through and get someone there, so I wasn't going to get to my parking spot until 6… and my flight was scheduled to leave at7:05. Talk about thermonuclear cortisol levels…
I called a cab company and ordered a taxi for 6 – the first one that answered (Yellow Cab) was manned by an escapee from the State Home for Cretins – he couldn't understand anything I was saying – so I rang off and called a different company, with better results. Then I called my sweetie and filled her in, with a caveat that I might miss my flight. The dear – she was very understanding and helped me get back to ground and center.
Parked Molly, got my bags on the curb, dropped the key in my benefactor's mailbox, and got into the cab at 6:05. The traffic was still very light, and this guy must have had wings. He made the 15-mile drive in 20 minutes, getting me to the airport at 6:25. A kindly Delta agent took me through a tesseract to bypass the line of people waiting, and I was pleasantly surprised both that there was no line at security and that the full-body scanners were not in use. The cattle prod up my ass stung like a banshee, though. (Haha, just kidding.)
I arrived at the gate just in time to board my flight. The only other hitch was that the plane was full, and I had to check my roll-on all the way to Richmond. May the Luggage Gods smile kindly on me, unlike my son who just returned from a week's vacation in London, of which half was spent without luggage thanks to some weather delays and some unbelievable cock-ups by Virgin Atlantic. (Cxhhhht! P'too!)
I haven't had a middle seat for a long time – that's all that was available by the time I booked my ticket. I cannot fathom how the airlines continue to reduce available space in all four cardinal directions – I felt like the poor bastard in the middle of the clown car. Hadn’t had any breakfast to speak of, so I ordered a "Travel Treats" box, which, for $5.00, was about 4 times the value I would have gotten on the ground at the airport. Chips, jerky nuggets, cheese & crackers, dried fruit, shortbread cookies, chocolate and some hard candies.
I'm sitting here typing this in the most uncomfortable position imaginable – there's not enough room in front of me to use a laptop properly, so the laptop is resting about on my solar plexus, and my arms are pinned to my sides by my neighbors. But by Mogg's unobtainium claws, I was going to get this log written. It's 10:10, and it feels like we're headed down for Atlanta. I'm frightfully grateful that everything worked, in spite of the huge rush at the end, and an unexpected disaster. There were angels dogging my steps this morning.
A brief stayover in Atlanta, and a quick 1-hour flight to Richmond - I had a whole row to myself, and was able to sleep almost the whole hour - it felt glorious! I was met at the airport by my beloved fiancée - how wonderful to be with her again. We drove back to H'burg, stopping on the way to have phenomenal Korean food at the Bamboo Hut [groan *belch* groan].
Slept well last night and almost feel human today. A new life begins!
I know I'm in a different world - The WalMart here has designated parking for Mennonite horse and buggies...
For what it's worth, I'm going to be less visible here for a while. To my F-list, if you don't see me commenting on your entries, that's why - but I will be reading...
Let's cheat, and jump to the end of the story – I'm in the air, headed for Richmond, Virginia, with a stopover in Atlanta. So all's well that end's well, as I say often and don't care who hears it. (My that sounds familiar…)
I had more to do in my final day in Salt Lake than I actually had time for, and I ended up paying a pretty heavy price in terms of stress. But this morning, I was blissfully unaware of that.
I started with a quick visit to my doctor. I seem to have an insignificant but annoying rash developing, and I wanted to get something for it before I headed off into unfamiliar territory. My appointment was at 7:40, I was first on the doc's schedule, and it was in and out. Good start.
Next I took Molly to be oiled (if you don't follow my adventures, Molly is my faithful Prius – and to get her winter shoes off. I had purchased a maintenance plan in 2007 that took care of all those things up front, but today I learned that they only allowed 15 – supposedly 3 a year for 5 years. However, I've put 65,000 miles on her in the last 3 years, and I've used up my quota early. That was a surprise, but there it is. So she'll have clean oil while she sits for a while, waiting for my return. She got a bath, too – but the whole process took 2 hours, which I wish I could have had back.
Started shifting more stuff – I have more hqiz than I realized. At 5:30 I drove my van to park it in front of my ex's house – she graciously agreed to let me store it there while I'm gone, as well as giving me a whole empty shed to put my overflow in, since my 8x10 storage unit is full to the gills. I'm grateful for her kindness. Funny how things work… we're much better friends now than ever we were while a couple.
My son and his wife gave me a ride back downtown, and I stopped to have dinner with my Mother before leaving. She had forgotten I was coming, but that's pretty normal for her. At 93, her short-term memory is pretty much shot. But she enjoyed the visit anyway, and looked good today in a pretty blue outfit.
Walked home (she only lives about half a mile from me) and ended up making 5 more trips to the shed, getting my last load finished at 4 AM, plus dropping off the perishable food from my fridge at my son's house. Sleep? What's that? Mogg's teeth, I was tired.
By the time I got home, I had an hour to finish scrubbing my kitchen, finish packing, finish scrubbing my bathroom, get dressed, and get out the door to park Molly with a friend of my fiancée. I was just barely going to make it.
I had my keys in an envelope to turn back in to the leasing office, so I left my door open. I took two suitcases down to Molly, and realized that I had left my electronic sensor upstairs – I thought I was locked in the basement. By angel's providence, I had forgotten to take it off my keyring. Whoosh! Catastrophe averted! So I took a shopping cart up and brought down almost everything else that was left, put it in Molly and headed up for the last load… and my door was locked. The inertia of the door closer must have popped the button in. It's now 10 after 5, and the shuttle was to come for me at 5:30.
Hqiz. I was sure I was going to miss the flight. I called the shuttle company and cancelled, and then called the emergency number to get someone to come let me in (one of the benefits of a high-end gated community). Unfortunately, it took about half an hour to get through and get someone there, so I wasn't going to get to my parking spot until 6… and my flight was scheduled to leave at7:05. Talk about thermonuclear cortisol levels…
I called a cab company and ordered a taxi for 6 – the first one that answered (Yellow Cab) was manned by an escapee from the State Home for Cretins – he couldn't understand anything I was saying – so I rang off and called a different company, with better results. Then I called my sweetie and filled her in, with a caveat that I might miss my flight. The dear – she was very understanding and helped me get back to ground and center.
Parked Molly, got my bags on the curb, dropped the key in my benefactor's mailbox, and got into the cab at 6:05. The traffic was still very light, and this guy must have had wings. He made the 15-mile drive in 20 minutes, getting me to the airport at 6:25. A kindly Delta agent took me through a tesseract to bypass the line of people waiting, and I was pleasantly surprised both that there was no line at security and that the full-body scanners were not in use. The cattle prod up my ass stung like a banshee, though. (Haha, just kidding.)
I arrived at the gate just in time to board my flight. The only other hitch was that the plane was full, and I had to check my roll-on all the way to Richmond. May the Luggage Gods smile kindly on me, unlike my son who just returned from a week's vacation in London, of which half was spent without luggage thanks to some weather delays and some unbelievable cock-ups by Virgin Atlantic. (Cxhhhht! P'too!)
I haven't had a middle seat for a long time – that's all that was available by the time I booked my ticket. I cannot fathom how the airlines continue to reduce available space in all four cardinal directions – I felt like the poor bastard in the middle of the clown car. Hadn’t had any breakfast to speak of, so I ordered a "Travel Treats" box, which, for $5.00, was about 4 times the value I would have gotten on the ground at the airport. Chips, jerky nuggets, cheese & crackers, dried fruit, shortbread cookies, chocolate and some hard candies.
I'm sitting here typing this in the most uncomfortable position imaginable – there's not enough room in front of me to use a laptop properly, so the laptop is resting about on my solar plexus, and my arms are pinned to my sides by my neighbors. But by Mogg's unobtainium claws, I was going to get this log written. It's 10:10, and it feels like we're headed down for Atlanta. I'm frightfully grateful that everything worked, in spite of the huge rush at the end, and an unexpected disaster. There were angels dogging my steps this morning.
A brief stayover in Atlanta, and a quick 1-hour flight to Richmond - I had a whole row to myself, and was able to sleep almost the whole hour - it felt glorious! I was met at the airport by my beloved fiancée - how wonderful to be with her again. We drove back to H'burg, stopping on the way to have phenomenal Korean food at the Bamboo Hut [groan *belch* groan].
Slept well last night and almost feel human today. A new life begins!
I know I'm in a different world - The WalMart here has designated parking for Mennonite horse and buggies...
For what it's worth, I'm going to be less visible here for a while. To my F-list, if you don't see me commenting on your entries, that's why - but I will be reading...
