scarecrow dreams

I made it back from Denver today, but it was not at all a smooth journey. First things first, though; I woke up around 7:45 to bid a fond farewell to Katie and James, who had to go to work well before I needed to leave for the airport. After they left, I went back to bed and slept/dozed for another hour, then got up, showered, packed, took care of some pressing emails, and decided to go to the airport early so that I could eat something before my flight. Smart plan, right?

Except it's not so smart when you end up sitting in the Denver airport for six hours. Oops. I got there at 1:30pm for a 3:40pm flight, which is not all that over-aggressive given how long their security lines sometimes are. But this line wasn't bad at all, so I got to the terminal, grabbed a jamba juice and some iced coffee, answered some more email, and then got to my gate approximately five minutes before boarding -- and approximately five minutes before they abruptly canceled the flight. Luckily I pay for a TripIt Pro membership (it's like $50/yr for a pro membership, which is worth it on days like today when things go wrong), and so I got an email on my phone saying the flight was canceled before it showed up on the board or the gate agent said anything. So I quietly and quickly vacated the boarding area and sped down the concourse to the nearest bank of United kiosks; there wasn't an agent there, but I picked up the phone and connected with a United ticket agent, who immediately rebooked me for a flight out later that evening. I was rebooked by the time the first main wave of people started showing up, so I felt super lucky about that - yay!

Or boo, since that flight was supposed to leave at 5:25 and instead was delayed until 7:40. I still took it, though, since it was a direct flight and I got an exit-row aisle, and it looked like everything was getting delayed anyway. I found out much later that United had five different Airbuses go out of commission this morning, and having mechanical problems on that many planes screwed up their entire schedule all over the west coast/mountain areas. But many people were having worse days than I was, and I wasn't really annoyed at all. Instead, I had Mexican food, inadvertently got totally soused (I forget that two margaritas in Denver's altitude feels like four margaritas at sea level), and worked on Nick and Ellie at the airport and again when I finally boarded the plane. That was a bit awkward, since the guy next to me appeared to be working on a lecture or thesis or something on Christianity, including mentions of how decadent and awful our society is for treating sex so casually - needless to say, I did not regale him with tales of the Chocolate Mangasm from this past weekend.

And now that I'm home and in my own bed, I must go to sleep - I need to write, write, and nothing but write this week, and the slog starts in the morning. Goodnight!