From June
I apologize for not updating sooner. I got home on Monday, and what an eventful trip THAT was! My plane was scheduled to leave Tucson at 5:30 p.m. for Dallas, with a connecting flight to Austin. I got to the airport early because we really didn’t have any money to shop, and I couldn’t see any reason for Jill to hang with me when she could go back to the cottage and take a nap. (Points for thoughtful mom.)
So I’d been at the airport for only a little bit when a woman comes on the speaker and says, “If you have already checked in for Flight XYZ (my flight), there has been a delay that will cause many of you to miss your connecting flights. Here are the affected flights: connections to Austin…..” So I went up to the counter, and she said, “You’re in luck, there is a later flight to Austin that I can put you on.” So she printed out a boarding pass. The Dallas departure time on the boarding pass said 10:25, and she crossed that out and wrote 11:25. I didn’t think much of it, because there is a 1-hour time difference between Tucson and Dallas….
Now the plane was supposed to depart from Tucson at 6:40. Unfortunately, the plane didn’t show up to Tucson until 6:40, so by the time people got off the plane, and we got loaded, it was well after 7:00 by the time we took off.
We landed in Dallas about 10:15, and I kind of had to go to the bathroom, and I was very hungry since I’d missed dinner. I decided to go find my gate first. Of course, I landed in Terminal A and the flight to Austin was in Terminal D. I was sitting close to the front of the plane, so I got off pretty quickly, and made my way to SkyTrain.
Just as I got up to SkyTrain, the doors started shutting. I was tired, and didn’t know how often those trains run that late at night, so I leapt onto the train. The door kind of hit me in the shoulder, but I made it. Got to Terminal D. My gate was very near the front, and as I got off the escalator, I heard my name over the loudspeaker. As I walked up to the gate, the man said, “Are you Ms. Wiseman?” He said, “We’ve been holding the plane for you, but the pilot wants to leave and they just started closing the doors. You go on, and I’ll call them to open the doors.” Remember the person in Tucson who crossed off 10:25 and wrote in 11:25? Ya, that was wrong. The computer had automatically adjusted for the time change (which only makes sense).
So it I hadn’t been near the front of my plane from Tucson, if I’d stopped to go to the bathroom, if I hadn’t “jumped” the doors of SkyTrain, I’d have missed this flight too.
In retrospect, it was a good thing I didn’t know I was cutting it that close, or I’d have been in a panic. Of course, my luggage didn’t make the plane. There was one later plane from Tucson to Austin, so I waited 40 minutes at the airport while that plane got in and unloaded, and yes! my luggage was on it.
Finally I pulled up to the house at 1:30 a.m. The dogs were WILD, as they had been alone all day. They were going nuts, and both cats were calling from my bedroom. Everybody needed a piece of Mom. I ended up not getting to bed until 3:00 a.m., and then couldn’t sleep very well because I was too keyed up. AND I got up at 7:00 to go to work (an hour late.)
So that’s my long, sad story. The good news is that tomorrow (Friday) is my last work day before I have my total knee replacement surgery. I am so excited. Jill is not so excited that I’ll be invading her home-alone-during-the-day space for 6 weeks. And then I get to do it all again for the other knee.
Jill is getting close to home. I find out more about where she is by reading her Facebook than anything. Although I did talk to her this afternoon. She was B-O-R-E-D driving through West Texas. We will all be glad when she gets home.