Welll...the snow-grinch stole my xmas
Dec. 24th, 2004 07:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatOh it's still intact in Hilton Head, SC - I unfortunately am stuck here in cold gray NYC. My nightmare started at 8:15 am this morning when I realized the flight had been delayed to 11:15. I'd been at the airport since 6:45am.
Then it was delayed til 12:15. Then cancelled altogether. Along with five other flights today all going to North Carolina, Georgia, and South Carolina.
Why was it cancelled? Heh. Glad you asked. The plane was fine. It was just stuck on the runway in Norfolk, Va. because the flight crew manning it were stuck in Cincinnati, Ohio. As my pal, whose a travel agent explained, when a major storm hits three cities it has a domino effect on everything else. So I stood in line for 3 and 1/2 hours to get a voucher refund on the $361.70 I paid. I'm out five bucks on the expenses, which Delta did not refund. Because I got it through travelocity. Also out the 60 bucks round trip to the airport by cab and car service. Been up since 4:45 am. Slept less than five hours.
Ate little. And well, you have no idea how depressing it is to return home after a cancelled trip you've been looking forward to for months, only to unpack and rush out to get food.
Didn't just get food. I got French Pinot Noire (very good), Baily's Irish Cream, Hazelnut linzer cookies (4), two chocolat rum balls, two slices of bourbon chocolat pecan pie, two florentine cookies. And rented the following DVD's : The Day After Tommorrow, De-Lovely, King Arthur, and Dodgeball (I needed something to make me laugh and they didn't have Grosse Pointe Blank or Noises OFF which I'd requested, so - I asked the video store owner if he had
a movie that could make me laugh and had *nothing* to do with Xmas. )Then after the requisite phone calls to my family - I made myself Veal Marsala with Rosemary and mushrooms over linguini, the french wine I'd had at Thanksgiving,
and broccoli. For desert? A linzer cookie, a rum ball, and a florentine cookie.
I'm oddly not that hungry. All I've eaten today is well that, cream of wheat and two pieces of luncheon meat and a few M&Ms.
Kidbro, according to my depressed mother who'd been looking forward to seeing me, did offer to have me visit him in Beacon. But, well, I'm so tired of travel and one day of travel headaches and travel anxiety is more than enough.
And well - it would feel awkward. My downstairs neighbor also took pity on me and invited me to her bar - on 2nd Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets, Dempsy's, for a party starting around 9-9:30pm. I'm wavering on that one. I don't know anyone and only sort of know her. But on the other hand? What do I have to lose? Except getting stuck somewhere else, alone, with people I don't know or barely do.
Oh, I'll still get the presents - probably have to hire a car service to pick them up at the post office which is in hell and gone. And Mom will send the fudge, spritz cookies, and magic cookie bars eventually. But...but...but...
somehow a telephone call isn't the same as a hug or smile. I miss my folks.
And I was looking forward to getting away just for three days. Looking forward to spending this holiday with them. This is the first Xmas I've spent alone in my life.
I shouldn't whine, I know. Afterall things could be worse. I could be stranded at an airport somewhere. I'm at home. I could be in Iraq. I could be working, although that's not so bad, as someone at the airport pointed out - you're getting paid. And I could be broke, unemployed, and alone. Yet...it's so frustrating to have what I was so afraid of happening, come true. And there is absolutely nothing I can do about it, except grit my teeth and somehow make the best of it. Hmmm - I think that was my moto for 2001-2004: "Grit my teeth and Make the best of it."
Then it was delayed til 12:15. Then cancelled altogether. Along with five other flights today all going to North Carolina, Georgia, and South Carolina.
Why was it cancelled? Heh. Glad you asked. The plane was fine. It was just stuck on the runway in Norfolk, Va. because the flight crew manning it were stuck in Cincinnati, Ohio. As my pal, whose a travel agent explained, when a major storm hits three cities it has a domino effect on everything else. So I stood in line for 3 and 1/2 hours to get a voucher refund on the $361.70 I paid. I'm out five bucks on the expenses, which Delta did not refund. Because I got it through travelocity. Also out the 60 bucks round trip to the airport by cab and car service. Been up since 4:45 am. Slept less than five hours.
Ate little. And well, you have no idea how depressing it is to return home after a cancelled trip you've been looking forward to for months, only to unpack and rush out to get food.
Didn't just get food. I got French Pinot Noire (very good), Baily's Irish Cream, Hazelnut linzer cookies (4), two chocolat rum balls, two slices of bourbon chocolat pecan pie, two florentine cookies. And rented the following DVD's : The Day After Tommorrow, De-Lovely, King Arthur, and Dodgeball (I needed something to make me laugh and they didn't have Grosse Pointe Blank or Noises OFF which I'd requested, so - I asked the video store owner if he had
a movie that could make me laugh and had *nothing* to do with Xmas. )Then after the requisite phone calls to my family - I made myself Veal Marsala with Rosemary and mushrooms over linguini, the french wine I'd had at Thanksgiving,
and broccoli. For desert? A linzer cookie, a rum ball, and a florentine cookie.
I'm oddly not that hungry. All I've eaten today is well that, cream of wheat and two pieces of luncheon meat and a few M&Ms.
Kidbro, according to my depressed mother who'd been looking forward to seeing me, did offer to have me visit him in Beacon. But, well, I'm so tired of travel and one day of travel headaches and travel anxiety is more than enough.
And well - it would feel awkward. My downstairs neighbor also took pity on me and invited me to her bar - on 2nd Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets, Dempsy's, for a party starting around 9-9:30pm. I'm wavering on that one. I don't know anyone and only sort of know her. But on the other hand? What do I have to lose? Except getting stuck somewhere else, alone, with people I don't know or barely do.
Oh, I'll still get the presents - probably have to hire a car service to pick them up at the post office which is in hell and gone. And Mom will send the fudge, spritz cookies, and magic cookie bars eventually. But...but...but...
somehow a telephone call isn't the same as a hug or smile. I miss my folks.
And I was looking forward to getting away just for three days. Looking forward to spending this holiday with them. This is the first Xmas I've spent alone in my life.
I shouldn't whine, I know. Afterall things could be worse. I could be stranded at an airport somewhere. I'm at home. I could be in Iraq. I could be working, although that's not so bad, as someone at the airport pointed out - you're getting paid. And I could be broke, unemployed, and alone. Yet...it's so frustrating to have what I was so afraid of happening, come true. And there is absolutely nothing I can do about it, except grit my teeth and somehow make the best of it. Hmmm - I think that was my moto for 2001-2004: "Grit my teeth and Make the best of it."
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no subject
Date: 2004-12-24 06:48 pm (UTC)Good move. Honestly, it could be worse - we could
be stuck like those poor folks on the Greyhound bus in the middle of Indiana - although they appeared to get something out of it. (It was on ABC News tonight - how these folks bonded on their bus after being rescued by the National Guard and finally sent on their way again.)
I know you were looking forward to this time with your parents, just having the break from everything and being where you're comfortable.
Yes that was it in a nutshell. As a friend put it to me tonight - I sort of wanted to go back and be their kid for three days. To be taken care of. To be in a house with a lagoon and walk on the beach...
But it wasn't meant to be, I'm afraid. I can't help but wonder if there's a reason for it? After all - my greatest travel fear was to be stuck - to not make the plane or have it cancelled. Now it's happened. No longer just a fear but a reality, and in truth it's not that bad. Disappointing, hurts, yes. But the world didn't end. My family still is here. I have people who care about me and love me even if they aren't physically present - and I think sometimes I take that for granted. Here in spirit if you will if not in body.
Heck my downstairs neighbor went to the effort to give me a card, talk to me when I told her what happened and even invited me to her party - I won't go, because of exhaustion, emotional and physical, but the fact she invited me was a nice warm gesture. She also told me she loved having me as a neighbor. Plus the people behind me in line at the airport were kind enough to lend me their cell phones to call my parents and my friend who was a travel agent. Then my friend - spent time on line checking the situation and explained it to me, calming me down and telling me to go home. She spent time tonight as well - making me feel better. Those moments are important, I think. They remind me that we do affect one another and as chaotic as the world may seem, as long as we have one another...it's okay.
Sometimes I think we make too much out of holidays.
Put too much pressure on ourselves to be with people to do certain things... instead of making an effort to do those things every day. Maybe this experience is teaching me to take advantage of those other times and not put too much emphasis on one day because it happens to be Xmas or Thanksgiving or
what have you?
Don't know.
At any rate - thanks for the hugs and the kind thoughts. I send mine to you as well. Dear friend.