I made it back to San Francisco, with only one mishap and a few minor annoyances. Most of the day was totally fine; I spent the late morning/early afternoon packing, talking to my mom, and eating 'lunch' (one last round of my favorite dip, plus a piece of pumpkin pie -- really not nutritious at all). We left for Des Moines a little after two pm, and when we got there, we had a very late lunch/very early dinner at Johnny's Italian Steakhouse on the south side. It's the restaurant that my parents have chosen to replace the now-dead Robin's Wood Oven and Grill, and it's pretty tasty; I made a mistake in my ordering, since I should have known better than to get the crab lasagna in the middle of the heartland (although in my defense, they 'upgraded' me to the dinner-style lasagna, which wasn't exactly what I wanted). But the calamari appetizer was delicious, and my mom's steak and garlic mashed potatoes were perfect.
We spent some quality time deciding what to do about each others' Christmas stockings, and we're abandoning tradition (in which we all pretend that Santa still exists, which means my mom has to fill all the stockings including hers, thus not having any stocking surprises on Christmas morning) to try a new method in which we all buy stuff for each others' stockings. We will see how it goes on Christmas, and whether it's a noble experiment or a recipe for disaster. Then, my family kicked me out on the curb so that they could go Christmas shopping (I encouraged them -- there was no sense in them waiting around the airport, although I was absurdly early considering that when I went up to security, there wasn't a single other passenger in line).
My flight to Denver landed early, and so I got on the standby list for an earlier SFO flight that would put me into San Francisco an hour earlier than planned. When they called my name, I asked the gate agent if I could pay to upgrade to economy plus (since I had seen some particularly nightmarish children in line and thought economy plus might be a buffer) -- and she said yes, but then said she was so busy that she would just let me have it. Score! So I got an exit row, which is obviously totally wasted on me, but I was pleased nonetheless. And, there was just enough room to stow both my carryons in the overhead bins. So, I thought I was rocking. I proceeded to read several more chapters of the 'Cambridge Companion to British Theatre 1730-1830' that I've been engrossed in, and I flagged about a hundred passages that I need to go back and take notes on.
The sad thing, though, is that since I didn't have a seat in front of me, there was no pocket in which to stow my journal and my pen. So I had my pen in my sweater pocket -- and when I needed it, I discovered that it had disappeared. It was my favorite pen, too; a beautiful icy-pink ballpoint that I got from Cross several seasons ago. I was somewhat heartsick, since the pen was a limited edition and long out of stock on Cross's website. So I crawled around during the flight, and couldn't see it. I tried to ask the people behind me if they could see it, but the most likely one to see it (the person sitting directly behind me) just gave me the sideeye. Admittedly, she was stuck in coach with a newborn while her husband and toddler sat in first, so she was probably not having a good night, but she didn't even feign interest in my plight. I waited for the rows behind me to disembark and searched thoroughly, but no luck. Either it rolled fifteen rows back during the flight (unlikely), or it dropped through the gap between my seat and the next into the woman's bag. I prefer to blame her, so that's what I shall do.
I made it home okay, despite the most full long-term parking shuttle I have ever seen, and some particularly frustrating incompetence by the parking lot staff (who had capitalized on the holiday by double parking a bunch of cars, including mine, and then taking their time unblocking me even though the bus driver radioed ahead to get my car unblocked). When I got home, I promptly went on ebay and found a new pen to replace the one I lost. I actually bought two; stupid, I know, but you don't know how much I adore this pen (and all pens, really), and so I want to have an extra one on hand just in case I didn't learn my lesson and someday fail to guard the pen with my life.
On that note of supreme dorkiness, I think I shall go to bed. I'm glad that I have tomorrow off; I need to do laundry and unpack and take care of a bunch of little things before going back to work on Monday. I hope that all y'all had a great Thanksgiving! December will pass by in a blur -- I'll be back in Iowa three weeks from today, so there is much to do before then. Goodnight!
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