OUR LIFE IN 3D

Birthday Wishes…

I know this blog has been uninspiring lately  and I really hope this is the last.

I wish things would work like they are supposed to work. Now this could be anything, from a car to the Internet to a service to an airplane. If it is supposed to work one way or do just one thing you count or rely on, it needs to do its function.

Yes, cars get old and wear out and don’t perform. Things like that are expected. It may be disappointing sometimes but it doesn’t set me off.

Going to a restaurant, for instance, and being placed on a wait when you can see plenty of open tables is what I am talking about. If I was asked to wait and the place was full it is understandable. But when you see open tables and you are hungry? Restaurants aren’t supposed to work like that.

Or movers that show up late with out the agreed upon number of staff, or vehicles. Or lawyers getting paid to do their jobs but missing some  very important details. Or an airplane ride that says it will have a plane ready for you at a certain time, at a certain terminal, with a seat for you, only to find out this isn’t your plane at all and you have to scurry through half the airport to find the plane that is meant for you, only to find its not leaving for several hours, making you miss your connecting flight so you can’t kiss your girls that you missed the lat two days good night that same night. Yea stuff like that really sets me off.

And so it was Friday night; birthday eve. I raced through the streets of Philly, stuck in traffic, fracturing more than a few traffic laws, relying on a GPS that knew more of where I was than I did, going though all that stress to make my flight home to see my girls before they go to bed.

I made it with moments to spare.

US Air, ya gotta love them! I swore I would never fly US Air again because they did this very same thing to me and my family the last time we flew them…at this very airport.

I make my flight, against the odds (a demise of my own actions this time). We get called on board only for the grapevine to pass around, “this isn’t our plane. this isn’t our plane. did you hear, this isn’t our plane”

The flight attendants call us back out to the gate and say its not our plane (who’s plane is it then? It looks like our plane! It could be our plane. Why can’t this be our plane?) They tell us our plane is resting down at terminal A10, the International terminal.

Like the Liberty Bell, the US Air service out of Philadelphia needs fixed

Now I want t stop here for a sec. If this sounds vaguely familiar well this is the exact same ordeal my family went through on our last family vacation to Jamaica this past September..with American Airlines, who we also swore we would never use again.

So like a herd of angry buffalo we stampede against the flow to this new terminal; new plane.  The illustrious US Air staff was prepared telling us  this plane just arrived and it would need to be cleaned first.

Oh, it just arrived on a flight from Athens Greece!

OK clean it up. How long can that take, even with that long flight?

Oh, and I notice my cell phone is dying so I have to switch it off to save some power.

Then they tell us the plane will need some maintenance issues addressed before we take flight so our plane will be ready in 90 minutes. (!)

And that 90 minutes along with the time of the flight just made me miss my connecting flight for the second half of my journey home. Now what?

By the grace of God, the man standing behind me in this now unfortunate line in front of the US Air terminal was from Charleston too. He was on the phone to his travel agent it sounded like. I showed him my ticket going to Charleston and held up the peace sign, asking him if he could find TWO seats to Charleston.

I heard him say the next connecting flight was already filled up. Several long minutes later he smiled and said they found a direct flight to Charleston leaving Philly at 9:00pm. He handed me his phone and I gave my details to the agent.

Phew! Crisis averted! But I was not going to hug my girls tonight before they went to bed. And made to suffer dinner in a foreign place with huge prices for inferior food (finding out 30 hours later just how poor a quality this food was).

I spent just about the whole amount of a birthday check in a ‘Bistro and Wine’ bar directly beside my new gate to freedom. I wasn’t going to miss this one no matter how many chardonnays I had! I found a delightful ‘Menage a Trios’  that I never tried before. Ordered a 3 course meal at the bar, trying to pass the next 3 hours with the bartender without being asked to leave.

Time passed and boarded this tiny plane and slept all the way home uneventfully. I turned my cell back on and found a text from mommy asking me to be sure to give Dylan a hug when I got home; she asked Mommy to tell me that. I was more than happy to oblige! This morning she sat on my lap the entire service during church. It was pretty cool.

All dressed up for when Daddy gets home

And so I didn’t begin my birthday waking up in some strange hotel room wondering how and what flight to catch to get home, which is what was running through my head some 4 hours before.

OK, some good news!

Our construction team says the leak in our house turns out to be the supply line feeding water to the wash machine. So they don’t need to tear out the brand new virgin shower and tub after all! And that will be fixed sooner than later! ( Hurray!!)

My parents drove into town last night. We have two b-day cakes and a tub of homemade banana pudding, a gift from my wife while I was away (my favorite).

So much for the 2 pounds I lost this week riding my bike to work! Ahh, it’ll come off again. I got some small puny weights for my b-day in which I can rehab my shoulders from at home, instead of waiting for the day in the gym.  So life is good.

Now if you can wish me luck as we review the results of my prostate biopsies on Tuesday. My reservoir for handling bad news is about drained.

A perfect transition into the saving theme of last year’s birthday drama….

Sorry, again, for this parade on depressing news. I will try to do better next time! 🙂