The Lessons of Being Late

1. Late to bed last night because I visited too long with the ladies at Catherine's and then still had to eat dinner and pack.
2. Late to wake up this morning because I accidentally turned off my alarm because of #1.
3. Late to work because of #2.
4. Late to leave work because of #3.
5. Late to airport because of missing the off-ramp while trying to get toll booth money ready.  Had to go to next exit and then had no idea where I was.  Ended up paying for the GPS service in my cell phone for 24 hours so I could find my way back to the airport finally after an extra 25 miles or so.
6. Late returning my car so I barely made it to be able to check in my bag because of #5.
7. Late getting to airport so had to sprint down the terminal to get to the gate.  Good thing the baggage agent told me my gate had changed AGAIN (3 times since this morning - a common occurrence at O'Hare).
8. Late checking in online so didn't get high enough in the upgrade request queue to be upgraded (quite yet anyway).
9. Late getting on the plane because standing around waiting for the last 1st class passenger to arrive to see if I can be upgraded or not.
10. Finally got on the plane in first class - yay.  Sweating like a pig though.  Not yay.  I was the 3rd to the last person to get on.  At least I got this dinner...since because of #1 through #9 I never got anything to eat today.  It was a little shrimp cocktail, a tiny salad that I didn't care much for because of the artichokes, olives, and capers on it, and three stuffed pasta shells.  The shells were okay.  I would have rather had 4 more shrimp cocktails!



Melon Man is always hounding me about being late.  Well, I REALLY tried not to be today.  But, the whole thing with the alarm clock really threw me off for the rest of the day.  I will work on improving this!  I guess I learned my lesson.

I can't wait to get home to Melon Man, Dog, Little Dog, our bed, our truck, our home, my life.  I used to always want to travel.  But, not so much anymore.  It's a rat race.

There are a few good things about traveling though...you can see the beautiful clouds...

This next picture is of Rock Island Arsenal near Moline, which is where our new neighbors are from.  I didn't even know what this place was until I started working on my blog entry and happened to use Google Maps to identify the odd shaped little island.  Then, just now, I looked up what the island is used for.  Apparently, it's used for manufacturing of artillery, tank parts, and some guns used by the government in war.  Wow!  Had no idea I was taking a picture of something so fascinating!

One last thing that I took a pickture of was this man's hand.  The colors and wrinkles were so intense.  When he put his head in his hand, it made me think of Uncle Bob for some reason.  He was sitting in the row just in front of me.



We soon landed in Phoenix and I waited for Melon Man to pick me up.  While sitting there waiting for him, I saw a member from church and we exchanged hellos.  He works for the FBI, but that's all I really knew.  So, we had a small conversation about that.  It went something like this:

FG:  So, you work for the FBI, huh?
FBI Man: Yes.
FG: What do you do there?
FBI Man: Um, investigate stuff.

Inside my head I was thinking, "You idiot!  That was the dumbest question you could have ever asked him!  Duh....FBI...Investigate stuff."  But then, I just laughed at myself because I really did ask a lame-o question!  Oh well!  :)

Melon Man finally rolled up in our truck (thank goodness he didn't bring the science experiment instead) and we got my bag loaded in and off we went.  We stopped at Der Wienerschnitzl on the way home, spent some time together, and then he left for work and I went to bed.  Ah...being home feels so good!