Climbing the Third Stair

I do not travel well. I can adapt to new places just fine, but getting there is usually fraught with trauma (real or feared) and it's not often I think the trauma is worth the experience. One of the times I think it is worthwhile is when I go off to visit my best friend, who now resides in Maryland.

The run-up to this trip was more stressful than most; for various reasons I didn't get an apartment sitter in place until Thursday night and I was still packing Friday morning, but I thought I had everything together until the travel agency's computer called and cheerfully informed me that my flight out of Omaha was going to leave 50 minutes later than scheduled. I realized immediately this left me unable to make my connecting flight, which is pretty much my worst nightmare in flying. (Well, after not making my originating flight.) I spent the next few minutes being panic-stricken and found my copy of the Inferno so that I would have some comfort reading on hand should I find myself stuck overnight at an airport. (Not sure what this says about my taste in comfort reading, but whatever.)

By the time I'd found my book and packed it away in my carry-on I'd pulled myself together a bit and decided that since I could do nothing to change my plane's status I would just regard everything that happened that day as an adventure and not a crisis. This helped my mood a great deal. By the time I got dropped off at the airport I'd had a second brilliant idea: Ask at the check-in counter if I could get retickted to a connecting flight that I could make. (No, I can't explain why this took two hours for me to think up.)

So that's what I did. The agent at the counter was very helpful and polite, and even apologized for things I didn't think needed apology--"I'm sorry, I wasn't able to route you though Minneapolis; you will go to Atlanta and then to Baltimore." "As long as I show up in Baltimore tonight I don't care where my connection is. Thank you."

Everything after was smooth sailing. My flight for Atlanta left on time, I got to the gate for my connecting gate on time; we landed in Baltimore on time and neither of my suitcases were misplaced by the airline. It was the most boring adventure ever and I was perfectly fine with that.

My spring is going to be interesting and filled with travel.

Towards the end of April I'm going to attend the South Sioux City Kotei. (Kotei=a particular type of big L5R tournament.) It should be a lot of fun--Bob runs a nice Kotei, and Shawn will also be there. Someone else has volunteered to be the scorekeeper at the event (traditionally I've helped Bob run that), so I'll be playing this year. And losing a lot, unless I get some practice in!

I had wanted to go to more Kotei this year, but I don't think I"ll have the funds since I'm now going to Wiscon over Memorial Day weekend so that I can hang out with yhlee and helenkeeble. We shall drink tea and eat buttered crabs and giggle madly over exploding possums. I am, obviously, looking forward to it. Before that happens I need to confect a hanbok, which should help advance my resolution to do more sewing this year.