Quick Trip

My two days in Spokane were lovely. I got a quick tour of the family,
a super fantastic dinner with my Aunt and Unkie, another dinner of
Chinese food (my favorite) with Mom and Paul. The conference had a
great turn out, I got to chatter about water rights all day and answer
goofy questions.

Then came this morning. First, let's not forget that I am NOT a
morning person. Second, let's not forget that after years of
uneventful travel, my travel karma is now all debacle. My flight was
scheduled to leave at 6:20 am. I couldn't sleep anyway, so I was up
and out on time. That's when the floor fell out. First, I lost the
key (the only key) to the borrowed car somewhere between mom's front
door and the door of the car. No mind you, I have never in my life
lost a key. I've locked keys in cars, while the car was running,
TWICE. But I've never actually lost a key. This one is somewhere in
the grass at mom's house. This was after I was expressly admonished
NOT to lose the key, it's the only key for that car. I lost if FOUR
times this week. I looked, in the dark, as long as I could, then had
to wake mom up to take me to the airport. By the time we got to the
airport, it was too late to get a boarding pass for the 6:20 flight.
They put me on the 9:00 flight, there was a long line at security (of
course). Then I got stopped in security because I had a jar of
almonds in my bag. At PDX I thought to take it out, but I was too
flustered at GEG. Already in tears, with a flight scheduled to leave
in 12 minutes, I had to wait for them to go through my bag AND find my
boarding pass again because they check it with your id, then you need
it AGAIN to get through the gate. By the time I got to the gate, the
ticket lady was just about to leave to do the final count and close
the doors. I had to call her back, in tears again. I got on, sat
down, looked for my phone to call Don (I'd already called to tell him
I would probably miss the flight, so I had to call him again let him
know to pick me up. I had stuffed it in the outside pocket of my
suitcase to get it through security. I told the flight attendant, you
could tell they were really happy with me, but the rules say--you must
turn your phone off on the plane. I don't want to be the one to bring
the thing down! I had to go to the front of the plane (from the very
last row of course), talk to the front flight attendant, talk to the
gate person, who called the grounds crew, who had to REOPEN the cargo
hold to get my bag. When they saw who it was, they knew who's bag it
was because we'd already had a last minute scene about getting the bag
INTO the hold. I got the phone, threw a quick text to Don, turned the
phone off, then tried to pretend the whole thing happened to someone
else while sitting in the back of the plane. All that before 6:30.

Basically, all the airport staff at GEG now knows me and will run for
cover next time I'm in the airport. I should also mention that I
spilled a cup of water on the seat next to me during the flight
(happily, unoccupied).

All so I could be at Hannah's Jog-A-Thon at 9:45 this morning, and
chaperon Bailey's choir trip to the ballet in Portland. Wow, no one
said this job was going to be easy.