Friday, November 18, 2016

we ain't never getting older

Surprise! I am in Iowa!

I will only be here for a couple of days, since I came to surprise my dad for his sixtieth birthday, but I think the trip was worth it. It was even worth getting up at 3:30am so that I could catch my 6am flight. That was all slightly more stressful than usual - I flew American, which I haven't flown in perhaps half a decade, because I had miles on American that I realized I should use on something like this (a last minute trip, which I booked on Sunday). Surprisingly, I was able to find a ticket flying in today and back Monday, and it was all smooth (other than the fact that I'm not at all familiar with the American terminal at SFO and also have never flown through Phoenix, and so my usual SFO->DEN->DSM routine was totally thrown off and I was hungry all day as a result of my poor planning and lack of obvious gluten free options).

So I slept on the plane from SFO to PHX, and then I wrote on the plane from PHX to DSM (good stuff, albeit not enough for my tastes). When I got to DSM, I picked up my rental car, drove home, and rendezvoused with [censored] in our hometown. [censored] was the only person in Iowa who knew I was coming, and I had been texting him off and on all day, but apparently I am not destined to be an expert spymaster (although [censored] was able to translate my Mongolian at some point, so not all is lost). We met up so that he could drive me to our house without ruining the surprise by having a strange car show up in the driveway - and we succeeded rather well, I think. My parents were definitely totally surprised, and if they weren't happy to see me, they are excellent actors.

We hung out around home for awhile, and we eventually went to supper in Seymour, where I had a ribeye and a baked potato to make everything better after a day of limited foodstuffs. My dad has a special relationship with them and they'll make him eggs to go with his steak even though they'll make eggs for no one else at night - he uses his talents for eggs, and I use mine for free wine at bars, but it's all in the same vein. So we ate supper and told jokes and I finally warmed up from the frigid temperatures just in time to go back outside again.

Then we came home, I watched some tv, and now I should sleep - I didn't get nearly enough sleep last night, and I should maximize my time here (although I'll be back in a month, so it's not like I won't have plenty of time then, but still). Goodnight!

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