i'm #343.

my dear husband went to barnes & noble and got my wristband for me since i am at work and couldn't go. this wristband is my "golden ticket" to purchase my harry potter book when the clock strikes 12:01am. they started handing them out at 12p. he went by around 12:30 and there was a line all the way outside and around the front of the store. he went back about an hour later and got my wristband.

i'm #343.

i called to see if this did indeed mean that i would be #343 in line to purchase my book. it does.

so... i'm gonna go and see what happens. after i go to the big party in richmond, that is. there is a strong possibility i'll be jumping the b&n ship and headed to wal-mart instead. we'll see.

all i know is, i am so freaking excited.

not the perfect chef, the PAMPERED chef.

so the older i get, the more domestic i get. my mom likes to remind me that as a young teen, i cried when she tried to teach me how to make fried chicken (a skill i unfortunately never learned), and insisted that i would marry a rich man and would NEVER have to cook or clean!

ha. funny kids.

now, i love to cook. bryan reminded me last night that while i might think he buys nothing but stuff for the garage, i do the same for the kitchen. and he's right. i love kitchen stuff. i am totally into my real simple magazine and my better homes and gardens, too. i am becoming not just a career woman, but a housewife too! god forbid! ;-)

so it should come as no surprise when i tell you that this past weekend was spent almost in its entirety doing things that involve being domestic in some way.

saturday: a trip to the pottery in williamsburg with my friends tammy and hailey, wives of two guys bryan works with. we bought house stuff. we had lunch at a great little french bistro in colonial williamsburg, where we talked about being wives. :) oh, then we went to the christmas shop. and i swear to you, you know you are headed to june cleaver land when you shop for christmas ornaments in july. for real.

when we got home, i hadn't gotten everything i wanted, and needed a few things from the grocery store, so i went back out to stein mart and target, where i bought placemats, a rug and some curtains. and can i tell you that i now find greater pleasure from buying house stuff than clothes? how has this happened!

sunday: prepared for my 2pm pampered chef party by waking up and cleaning the house, then my college roomie arrived (she was our pampered chef consultant). we chatted while i finished up a few things, then we set to work in the kitchen getting things ready for the party. i made sausage squares, spinach dip and guacamole while she prepared our strawberry amaretto pastries.

the party started, and i was a total dork, gushing to my pampered chef newbie friends about all the things i love from them. (for those not in the know, pampered chef is a line of cookware/kitchen utensils, sold a lot like tupperware at parties.) seriously, if you open up pretty much any drawer or cabinet in my kitchen, you will find at least 2 pampered chef items.

we had a great time chatting about all these gadgets, and when it was all over i sat in my (basically) clean house reflecting on how much i dig being a woman. because this domestic stuff is fun! except for the house cleaning. still wouldn't mind having someone else do that part for me. :)

bookworm me.

i recently discovered that in spite of years of motion sickness while reading in the car, i can read on the bus! and in the car! i have no idea how this happened and will spare you the details of my discovery. the reason i bring it up is, this means i now have more than an hour a day on the bus that i can read, in addition to whatever time i find at home. this is thrilling to me.

for that reason, and because i have read a lot of good books lately, i started yet another blog, called leg's library. there's a link on the left side of this page. so, if you ever want a suggestion of a good book to read, check it out. it'll be my thoughts/reflections about the books that i read. i got this idea from someone i ride the bus with, actually. he told me that he was never much of a reader until he started riding the bus, and after he reads a book, he jots down a little paragraph describing it so he remembers what he's read. i thought that sounded pretty darned bright, considering i have a habit of reading something, jumping to the next book, and promptly forgetting about the one i've just put down. :)

just a note, in the next couple of weeks there may be more entries there than you think one girl can read in that time, and you'll probably be right. i'd like to put some already-read books up there now, too!

enjoy!

pottermania and motionsickness.

ast night leslie and i went to see the new harry potter movie at the IMAX theater. i was totally stoked and forced her to arrive an hour before it started to make sure we got good seats. while waiting that long is annoying, i think it was a good idea. we didn't get the best seats, but our seats were pretty good. and even then, i was ill, as was she.

the movie itself was excellent. when i left i was so excited for the book to come out next week that i almost felt like skipping (almost). i can not believe that in just over a week i'll know how harry's story ends... it's thrilling, yet also so sad. i love watching the characters come to life on the big screen, and that ron weasley is getting more handsome by the day (harry's not too bad either, but reminds me too much of my little brother. :)). some things were condensed/switched around a bit, but i know jk rowling is consulted and understand that you can't realistically cram every page of a 3-inch thick book into a 2ish hour movie, so it's all good.

the problem was, watching a regular movie on an IMAX screen is a little nauseating to girls like me who get motion sickness. at several points, newspapers spin and flash onto the screen to cover the action quickly, and by the second or third time i had to close my eyes or risk hurling right down onto the heads in front of me. not only that, but because the screen is so big, you sometimes have to look all around you to see the whole picture. or their heads were so big that it took a second to figure out what exactly you were looking at.

i thought maybe it was just me, but i got an email from leslie this morning that said she went home to a vicious migraine accompanied by vomiting. lovely. she was sweet, though--immediately after sending that email, she sent one that said, "i had fun, though..." :)

so i think leslie and i concur--all future big movie releases will be viewed on regular movie theater screens. we'll save the imax for when we WANT to feel like we're traveling through space.

in the meantime, i am dancing in my seat with anticipation of next friday at midnight.

shakin' it.

so, after last night's belly dancing class, this is what you're gonna see me dressing like from now on! and if you hear bells ringing, that ain't santa, it's me!

okay, not really. although there were a couple ladies dressed like this there, and quite a few more with their coin belt thingys on, jingling all over the place.

belly dancing was fun! i was surprised at the turnout--i'd say there were at least 25 women there, ranging from late teens on up. i enjoy taking a class like that, because that means that the chances there will be someone in the class worse at what we're learning than me are pretty good. :)

i was glad to have my friend krystyna there to conspire with and make faces at when something wasn't working out quite right (ie, standing on the balls of your feet and moving your hips up and down at the same time... say wha? i'm not that coordinated/balanced). we did a lot of hip shaking a lot of circle walking, and i am proud to say that i'm not sore at all today! so we all know now that while my fitness level sucks, i am at least fit enough for day 1 of a belly dancing class. who knows what will happen next week. :)

after the class i headed up 95 to bryan's softball game. he wasn't playing, but they were going to be there for another hour so i figure i'd be social. i enjoy chatting with the other fan--another players wife who's usually my sole partner in the stands--and last night another wife showed up too! so it was like a big party. :) honestly couldn't tell you if the team won or not, but i was just glad my dear husband had the sense enough not to pick up a bat or a glove quite yet. i'm guessing it's not far off, though...

in just a few short hours: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at the IMAX! yes! can't wait.

go to PA for the weekend, take 2

alright, so after bryan's failed attempt to visit his family in pennsylvania the weekend before the 4th of july, we tried again this past weekend. this time, we were in a car, we were together, it was light outside and it was not raining. all of these things contributed to a nice, problem-free voyage up north. :)

our weekend in PA was very nice. saturday was the klinger family 4th of july picnic, which is always a good, relaxing time with tons of excellent food. (for all my southern peeps, you'd be happy to see that yankees have virtually the same things at their picnics we do... only they have weird (but yummy) turkey barbecue and pierogies. :) )

on sunday we had brunch with bryan's parents and his sister and her son stopped by, then we went to see one of bryan's high school buddies who's a school psychologist but is working at a local pool for the summer. ah, the life of a teacher... makes me daydream about summers off... must be nice! after visiting for a few minutes, we headed south and stopped off to watch bryan's cousin michael race his dirtbike.

now, i am usually pretty open to things that involve risk. i realize that risky things are usually a ton of fun if done properly. but we watched this one kid who was about 12 years old be basically run over by his bike as he somersaulted on it. he laid there for a few minutes, the EMTs came and looked at him, then he got up and got back on his bike and drove off! i wanted to cry watching that kid wreck, but he GOT BACK ON AND DROVE AWAY! i looked at bryan and said, "our children will not ride dirtbikes. i'd have a heartattack." remind me i said that if we ever have kids and i ever consider letting this happen.

we got back on the road and made it home late sunday night, and now back to the grind.

in other news, bryan is healing nicely. last night was the first night he went to bed unbandaged since the accident, so that's progress, right? his middle finger is still bothering him, but as you can imagine he's making the best out of that finger sticking up on its own... :) tonight he's going back to softball, but i'm hoping he doesn't play just yet... not like i can tell him not to, though...

tonight i begin a belly dancing class with my friend krystyna offered through the chesterfield county parks & rec department. this should be interesting. i have no idea what to expect, but i'll let you know how it goes. :)

and tomorrow... the new harry potter movie at the IMAX! woohoo! can't wait. this'll give me a little harry potter fix as i wait for book 7 to come out next week!

terrifying phone calls in the middle of the night

last thursday, bryan and i had a meeting with our financial planner and afterwards he was headed up to pennsylvania to visit his family for the weekend on his motorcycle. it needs a new clutch, so he was going to drop it off at home and we were going to go back up this coming weekend to finish repairs. i didn't go for the first weekend because i didn't want to use a vacation day when we were going back the following weekend anyway...

so bryan got on his way around 8:20pm and i headed home. i dozed off a little after 10, and around 10:45 or so woke up feeling funky about bryan's trip since it was dark and raining and he was alone. i had asked him to call me when he got home to PA, but i texted him and told him to either text or call me when he stopped for gas so i'd know he was okay. i fell back asleep.

at midnight, i am awoken to bryan's ring.

"i've got bad news honey. i wrecked the bike."

i didn't believe him at first. i said, "no you didn't." and he said "yes i did" a few times before it really hit me that he was not screwing around.

i can not tell you the combination and roller coaster of emotions i experienced in the next couple of minutes. he told me it wasn't bad and that he was fine but going to the hospital for lack of a better option and since the paramedics had suggested he get his fingers checked out. so i knew that it must be mild in the grand scheme of accidents if he was even ABLE to call me himself. so i tried to stay calm, but the fact remains that i love that man more than anything in my world and it COULD HAVE been way way way more serious, and at that moment i wanted to be next to him and hug him and know first hand that he was alright. but i was 3 hours away, it was dark and raining and i was tired and i had no idea if i'd be able to stay alert enough to make my trip up there to him safe. not to mention the fact that he kept telling me he was alright, so it didn't seem very smart to risk ME crashing on the way up there. i got off the phone after agreeing that i would wait a bit to hear from him once he got to the hospital, and i just started crying. it was midnight. i didn't know what to do. i wanted to go to him, but i wasn't so sure that was the best idea. i got up to get dressed, then got back in the bed, then got up to get dressed, then got back in the bed, until ultimately that's where i stayed.

i eventually learned that as he was driving down 695 outside of baltimore a little after 11pm in the rain, a car was coming up behind him in the middle lane. he didn't want to speed up, so he decided to get into the right lane. unfortunately he didn't notice that lane had been repaved, making about a 4 inch bump up into that lane. he equated it to riding your bicycle down the street and then just gently trying to get up on the sidewalk, rather than angling your wheel to make the jump. so the bike went down when the wheel brushed the curb, and off came bryan. he thinks he must have tried to stand up and put his hands down on the road, which really screwed up his fingers on his left hand especially. as luck would have it, the car he had been moving out of the way for was a cop who had just gotten off duty. he called in the on duty guys and they tended to the accident.

we kept in touch either via text message or phone calls when he could get a signal all night and as the night wore on i was at least satisfied that he was going to be alright and that waiting til morning was the best idea to decide on what i was going to do. when we last talked at 4am, he thought he was going to just go to the tow yard, pick up the motorcycle and drive it home. he even considered just continuing on to PA, but little did he know if he tried to tell me that the next morning i was going to have to put my foot down--i needed to see my love in flesh and blood and know he was still in one piece, only with a few chunks of flesh missing. (check those out here and here and here--i won't post the pictures because some are gross and i'll let you view at your own discretion. the first is just a brush burn on his arm though, safe for the squeamish.)

on friday when he got to where the bike had been towed, he realized that it was in much worse shape than he expected. so we decided i would rent a pickup truck and come up to bring him and the bike home. i was so happy to see him, but for some reason i had to whack him in the arm and yell at him a bit, which really surprised him. i don't know... i was just so upset at the idea that i could have lost him that i needed to get that out somehow. so i punched him in the arm for almost dying. (hey, i never claimed to be the most emotionally stable person in the world.)

we made it back fine, and i was so glad to have my husband in the bed with me that night. the motorcycle is gonna be out of commission for a while... but i think that's alright. you can bet i'm gonna be putting up one hell of a fight the next time he thinks he's riding in the dark/rain, though!

never having seen our motorcycle before, these pictures might not mean much to you. but it's pretty torn up. for one thing, there used to be a windshield...







all i can say is, in the way of terrifying phone calls in the middle of the night, i'm glad i got the one that i did and nothing worse, but i'd be extremely happy to never get one again.

happy-nings.

well, since returning from paradise, things have pretty much settled back to normal. i think i had vacation withdrawals for a while, as i had headaches for about a week afterwards. i am convinced this was my body yelling at me for depriving it of the glorious sunshine i basked in on vacation. unfortunately it has been too bleeping hot to go outside in the sun!

i guess that's not entirely true, though... we did go to busch gardens a couple of weekends ago, courtesy of dominion virginia power's dominion days perk. very nice. 2 tickets, free parking, and a free meal. we went with our friends tammy and justin and their son caleb. it was lots of fun, and lots of waiting in line! we rode the new "dive coaster,"the griffon. it was a good thrill, but i still like alpengeist better. :) a few photos of the day:

bryan and i on the log flume

the griffon! what a drop!

tammy and i looking way cool in our 3-D glasses, preparing to ride The Curse of DarKastle

since busch gardens we've done a lot of, well, nothing exciting... bryan has been working on our fleet a lot (of 5 vehicles, there was about a week where not a single one was in full working order. now we have 1, perhaps by tomorrow we'll have 2!) and i've been doing laundry. :)

this past weekend, though, we did spend a very nice father's day afternoon with my dad and neener. we had grilled flank steak with tomato, avocado and cucumber salsa, grilled asparagus and roasted red potatoes. i thought it was pretty good if i do say so myself. :) of course, the best part was getting to spend time with my dear old dad on father's day!

living on island time

well, i know i neglected this blog for much of may and totally skipped over my actual trip to toronto and our trip to atlantic city and pennsylvania the following week, but what i can't stop thinking about right now is our trip to turks & caicos. so i'm skipping the earlier adventures of may and getting right to the most beautiful place i've ever been....

we left on the wednesday after memorial day for the turks & caicos islands. if you've been reading this blog for a while, you may recall me mentioning this place as a potential honeymoon destination last year. if not, it is a small island country east of the bahamas, owned by great britain. we had accumulated quite a few credit card miles in the past few years and decided we wanted to take a vacation and use them, and this was one of the places we could go for free. a friend of mine had been there a few years ago and loved it, so we booked the trip and off we went for a week of fun in the sun.


while this trip wasn't as luxurious as our honeymoon in mexico (rather than all free food and drinks, we were eating pop tarts for breakfast and ham and cheese for lunch, etc.), i must say that the beaches of turks & caicos are the most beautiful thing i've ever seen. every time we went out onto the beach i am sure i looked like an idiot with my mouth hanging open and drool trickling down onto my shirt... okay, i wasn't really drooling... but it was really that beautiful. i don't think pictures really do it justice, but of course i'll share them with you anyway. :) i'll try to keep this blog reasonable in length and just hit the highlights of our trip, but it may get a little lengthy even leaving a couple things out....

we stayed on providenciales, the main tourist island of the country. bryan was keen on checking the place out, so the first day we rented a "jeep" and went exploring. i find it amusing when you say you want a jeep and what you get is a daihatsu terios direct from japan (the owner's manual was in japanese even) that is the size of, oh, a pinto. only taller. :)

it did the job though. one of my favorite pictures of the trip is this one, where we were trying to take our own photo by sitting the camera on top of the terios (we started calling it the cheerios) and a nice gust of wind came up and bryan ran to catch the camera before it could fall. i love how i appear to think i can catch it from waaaaaaaaay back there. :)

we took the cheerios to lunch at da conch shack, probably our most unique dining experience on the island. this place is literally a couple of huts (not enclosed) on the beach, and they have pens where they keep the live conch in the ocean and then when someone places an order they go in the water and get it, then a guy cracks it open, pulls out the conch, then someone else takes it in the kitchen and cooks it up. neither of us had ever eaten conch before and we both enjoyed it... i guess it tasted kind of like your other typical shellfish, like clams or mussels or something like that.

we also took our cheerios down the one road on the map that said "FOUR WHEEL DRIVE." of course. there was a button we deduced must be the four wheel drive button on the cheerios, so we pushed that. unfortunately neither of us read japanese so we have no idea if we actually coaxed the car--excuse me, jeep--into doing a better job handling the insane terrain or if we just made the tires drive crooked.

the road led to a place called malcom beach, which we had all to ourselves. this road was out of control, and having never been four-wheelin' before, i was squealing like i was on a roller coaster and terrified we were gonna get stuck. but we didn't, and we spent a nice relaxing afternoon on this quiet beach.

friday we took back the cheerios and had the car rental guys drop us off at a place called bight reef, which is known as the best beachfront snorkeling on the island. you walk maybe 15 steps into the water and there's the reef. very cool. we snorkeled around for a while and saw lots of rainbow colored fish and even a barracuda! mr. barracuda was my cue to get the hell out of there, because i didn't like that he was within striking distance of my toes. even though he was minding his own business, i don't trust any fish with a big snapping jaw like that. (note: this picture is not the barracuda.)


friday evening we went to dinner and hung around for the band that was playing that night. they were a fun island music band and we heard our new favorite song. it goes something like, "i love you like a fresh veg-ah-tib-ul, i love you like a fresh veg-ah-tib-ul" over and over again. good stuff. :) the moon was full that night, and being in the open air and island breeze with a good band was a fun evening.

saturday was my day of the vacation--we did pretty much nothing but lay on the beach, read and play in the water. :) bryan's not into the nothing-doing, so on our vacations it's rare to have a day where we do NO other activities. but he indulged me. :) we had dinner that night at a restaurant right on the beach where we ate in a little cushioned sofa facing the water with candles and tiki torches all around... beautiful, and excellent food. we took pictures. :)



sunday: scuba diving! we went with a great company called caicos adventures and did two dives. the highlight for me was seeing a stingray. very cool. we also saw all kinds of amazing coral and sponges and different kinds of fish, and lobsters and crabs and all sorts of underwater creatures! the man who owned the dive company and captained the boat was a 50-something year old french man named philippe, who went by fifi. fifi was a very stereotypical french man living in the Caribbean--extremely tan, wearing a tiny little speedo, and brought his tiny yorkie dog named butchie on the boat with him and carried him around most of the time. he was fabulous. :)


monday we borrowed the hotel's bicycles and went for a ride. it became clear to me after a couple minutes of the bike riding that bryan and i had set out with completely different intentions. me: ride bikes to shopping, shop, go back to hotel. bryan: ride bikes all around the island for a couple hours. so we decided that perhaps it would be best if we split up and did our own thing for a little while, and that worked out well. i didn't have to endure the hot sun beating down on me and he didn't have to endure following me around in boring shops. :) also, i remind me of the wicked witch of the west (aka mrs. gulch) from the wizard of oz on the bicycle.


bryan found some neat spots and took a few self-portraits.


every month, a couple of days after the full moon, the glow worms mate and create quite a little spectacle in the ocean. since we happened to be there when this was going on, we took a little cruise out into the water to watch this phenomenon. it was actually pretty neat, but a little sad that after all the green glowing swirls, the males died. poor little glow worms. we didn't get any pictures of them, but we did get some great sunset pictures the day before from the beach in front of our resort!



our last full day on the island was tuesday, and we decided to take an excursion recommended to me by my friend who had already been to t&c. we were taken by boat to our own "private island," where they dropped us off with an umbrella, two beach chairs and a cooler full of lunch, rum punch, water and soda. we spent about half the day there, and snorkeled around and frolicked about on the beach. :) it was fun to have our own little paradise for a while.


dinner for our last night was at a place called coco bistro, which is situated under a forest of palm trees lit by lots of little white lights. it was beautiful and very romantic, and the food was excellent, too!

wednesday we had to come home, and we were both very sad. :( turks & caicos was a beautiful place, and i would love to go back some day. i highly recommend it to anyone considering a caribbean vacation! unfortunately since my vacation time accrues by the pay period, i had to go right back to work the next day while bryan had thursday and friday off. yesterday was a bit of a rude awakening for him, but i think it was all worth our week's worth of living on island time. :)

delta: if they love to fly, it doesn't show.

so, i spent the last 5 days in toronto for work at a conference. more on my feelings on that city and my trip in general in a different post. this one is devoted to my newly crowned least favorite airline, delta.

before yesterday at about 4:32pm, i didn't have much about which to complain, besides horror stories i had heard from friends. typically unless the experiences of others verge on tragic, i don't boycott or talk smack about businesses. i like to form my own opinions. and form i did.

so, my flight was scheduled to leave toronto at 1:40pm, fly to JFK airport in NYC and arrive around 3:30p, then my next flight departed at 4:30p arriving to richmond sometime just after 6p. excellent. home in time to stop at chipotle for dinner.

at about 1:30, we get an announcement that air traffic control at JFK has delayed all incoming flights by 30 minutes and that most flights departing from JFK were delayed this much as well, so everyone should be fine with connections. cool. no worries.

we finally get on the plane about 2:10, then it takes us a while to actually take off. i'm still not stressing. we land at a little after 4:20, and are all still under the assumption that all flights are delayed, so i'm anxious to get off the plane, but again, not stressing. they open the door, then make us all stand there as they take out the luggage people checked at the door of the plane, the pink tag bags. i do not have one of these, and so am annoyed that i have to wait when i have a plane to catch, but am staying calm.

i haul it inside the terminal and because no gate had been established for my richmond flight when i checked in at toronto, i need to find out which gate i'm going to. i see two guys standing there telling people connection gates, but they're surrounded by a group of women, so i go to the board which is directly in front of me.

gate 25--and it says ON TIME and BOARDING. ah damn, now i'm stressing a little. okay, where is 25? i look up, no signs. i look to my left, see no sign. to my right, see no sign. WHERE ARE THE FREAKING GATE MARKERS?! so i haul it down to the gate on the left, where there is a mob of about 200 people standing in front of the check in lady. i see this is gate 25 (but only when standing DIRECTLY in front of it) and push my way through the crowd and ask the ticket taker lady if this is richmond. "no," she says, "richmond moved to gate 23."

WHAT? so where the hell is 23? she points, to the other gate i had seen when i came off the plane. it's very close, but again is mobbed by the 200 people trying to board the five freaking flights they're boarding through this ONE gate. i push and shove my way through, and the lady tells me, "richmond is closed."

you've got to be kidding me. "the sign still says boarding and i just got off my connecting flight," i tell her. "richmond is closed." she tells me again, not looking at me, entirely unsympathetic. the clock? it says 4:32. i missed it by TWO FREAKING MINUTES.

now i am pissed that i have missed my flight and upset because i just want to go home. i head to the long reticketing counter between gates 23 and 25 (how convenient, wonder if this happens often?) and after a few minutes get my turn with one of the 15 people working this desk.

i explain my plight and am informed that the next and last flight out to richmond, at 6:45pm, is full, and the next flight out after that is 8:25am the next morning. i begin to cry. later i decided i wasn't crying because i was so sad not to be headed home immediately, but because in probably 50 times flying i have never had this happen to me and i'm pissed because i was two minutes late and this should not have happened.

he looks for flights out of la guardia--all full. other airlines--all full. at this point i am very upset and he's trying to tell me not to cry and he's annoying me and he and the woman assisting him (this is his first week, he informs me) have by this point told me multiple times that if the delay is caused by "air traffic control," delta is not responsible.

he goes to find someone more experienced who can figure out what to do. he comes back with a man who feels the need, after being informed all flights from JFK and laguardia are full, to tell me YET AGAIN that "delta is not at fault for air traffic control delays."

that's when i got pissed. i mean, i had really been trying to sweet talk these people and seem sympathetic so they'd help me, and by this point i had had enough. i said, "honestly, if i had not had to wait for the door checked luggage to be taken off the plane, i would have made my flight. if delta had not moved the gate or had the right gate on the board, i would have made my flight. if you had made a 2 minute exception and let me on the plane, i would have made my flight! the last thing i care about is whether or not it is your fault, i just want you to find a solution to my problem!"

so then they decide to put me on standby for the 6:45. i get some b.s. line about how they don't book every seat on the flight so i'll probably get on it, now go away goodbye. i thought this was lipservice and figured i'd be back there in two hours (at this point it was still no more than 15 min after my intended flight left), and went and made some angry phone calls to my husband and friend krystyna--not angry at them, just venting. i realized after i hung up the phone that i had been throwing the "f bomb" out quite a few times, so decided i should apologize to the ladies sitting next to me and leave so as not to scare them. i did, and headed off for a starbucks frappucino. i deserved it.

while i sat waiting to discover my fate, i met at least 5 other people in similar situations to mine. all of whom were as pissed off at delta as i was at that point. none of whom were taking a flight that was on time. (now how is it not a single delta flight that left JFK yesterday was on time, except the one i was supposed to catch? and how did they not know that my plane was parked RIGHT THERE and i just had to make my way over to them? bastards.)

finally, the time has come for the 6:45 flight. they call for boarding at about 6:50 and i go up, and praise jesus i've got a seat! i get on the flight, settle in, chit chat a bit with the guy across the aisle. the flight attendant begins to make her announcements...

"welcome aboard delta flight 6390 with service to montego bay, jamaica..."

you have got to be shitting me. how have i gotten on the WRONG PLANE?! at this point i look at the guy across the aisle who has already told me he's going to richmond. he says to the flight attendant, "um, this isn't the flight to richmond?" she says, "no, jamaica mon!" he's like, "but we're going to richmond..."

at this point i am gathering my stuff and getting ready to deboard the plane and find a hotel because god knows they've probably already closed the flight to richmond. i look behind me and many people are getting out of their seats doing the same, and i look back to the flight attendant...

"oh, okay then, we'll go to richmond."

she was joking! lord god, if she had known what i had already been through trying to get back to good ol' virginny!! i swear had that plane really been going to jamaica i might have just said screw it and stayed on.

so, finally, i was on my way... after we sat on the runway waiting our turn for an hour, of course.

got home around 9:30 and boy was i glad to be here. i don't know how much of my experience was delta and how much of it was JFK, but i can tell you for certain that delta will not be on my preferred carrier list from now on.