It is impossible to write from the empty nest (the focus of this blog, when I stay on task), when the laundry room is piled up and the nest is not empty.
I have not blogged for a month (thank you to the four people who noticed, not including my loyal and devoted husband). I will use as my excuse technical difficulties, travel, the comings and goings of our children and my husband's recent job change.
Today I have plenty of time to catch you all up. It is minus-15-freaking degrees outside and I am not leaving the house. I flipped a coin. Heads write. Tails clean out the refrigerator.
Here we go.
Our daughter flew the nest Saturday, for Paris, where she will be working and studying, while waiting to hear from graduate schools. She prepared for this exodus for months so the weekend blizzard that paralyzed the Midwest was not going to get in her way. She would have helped to de-ice the plane if she was asked.
After three weeks of R&R, meddling parents and searching out summer internships, our son was going back to college in North Carolina yesterday, even if he had to run there. It was 60 degrees there.
Mother Nature did her best to sock-in my family during the past 72 hours. But we prevailed.
Adding to the anxiety of going off to au pair for a family she had only Skyped with, our daughter was not going to let "a little" snow get in the way of her Saturday night departure. The most stressful part of her travel was packing clothing for six months and three seasons without having to fork over extra luggage fees.
A savvy traveler, who has been flying around solo since middle school and battling consulates in several languages for last-minute visas, our daughter opened a credit card that would wave foreign transaction fees and give her more bang for the Euro/$$$. The card also claimed to give her a free checked bag.
Lost in translation: Free for domestic travel (like she would ever send a bag thru on a domestic flight). Travelers already get one free 50-pound bag for foreign travel. That second bag, even with the braggart credit card, $100, not so free.
Did I mention she was going overseas and away for six months and three seasons? As per usual we were packing too many pairs of boots, lots of sweaters and bathing suits only hours before, trying to now beat the airline at the luggage game.
The space saver bags and vacuum cleaner were in play. So were a 30-inch roller bag, a 21-inch roller board, an unstructured duffel bag and a backpack.
No one could lift the duffel when we first packed it. It was obviously over 50-pounds, weighing more like 80 pounds. We did the math. Pay $200 for a bag over 50 pounds or $100 for an extra 50-pound bag.
No brainer, divide and conquer. We arrived at the airport, where some folks had already spent three days trying to get out of Chicagoland, with one bag weighing 50.7 pounds and the other 38 pounds. Combined weight of backpack and carry-on roller board, maybe around 60 pounds. No ask, no tell.
Kindness of a weary check-in agent -- priceless. He did not charge her for the second checked bag after hearing the saga of the credit card and looking up at the growing number of people standing behind her in line.
After waving and saying bon voyage and blowing kisses from the security line as she stuffed her cross-body purse into the small roller board, so as not to exceed the carry-on rules, my husband and I headed for the car and began the quiet adventure home in the storm.
As we exited the airport our son called to let us know his Sunday, 2 p.m., flight was cancelled and the airline had already booked him on a Tuesday flight. Not going to work. And, that airline's automated system was down so we could not even call them to tell them this was not going to fit into our son's back-to-school plans.
Stuck at a railroad crossing that was compromised by the gates getting stuck in the falling temperatures and snow and sleet, my husband used a hands free phone call and his super powers from flying too many miles on a different airline to get our son on a flight Sunday morning out of O'Hare that would at least get him to Charlotte (where it was a balmy 55 degrees).
Our son would have been happier if we had just swooped him up and returned to the airport to get him on another flight to Atlanta, Saturday night. So would a lot of other people, as hundreds of flights were being cancelled.
Sunday we left for the airport at 4:30 a.m. to make sure our son would catch the morning flight my husband booked for him. The phone app said the flight would be leaving "on time," so we were encouraged despite being one of only a dozen cars of people out and about in the horrid weather.
We literally dumped our son at the curb and wished him Godspeed. We then drove off for breakfast, to a wonderful place our daughter once worked at that pays for her wanderlust. We were the lone customers.
While standing in an endless security line our son was already texting frat brothers to arrange back-up rides from Charlotte, should his Chicago flight be delayed.
"Delayed" was all the app allowed, as we tried to follow his departure. After several SOS texts that documented the plane's next few hours of sitting at the gate, de-icing and moving to the tarmac, he signed off to preserve his phone's battery.
Despite the app still saying the flight was delayed, he landed in Charlotte hours later and was swept up by a friend after missing the connecting flight to Raleigh. Two hours later he dropped his single clean-clothes-stuffed-duffel in his room and all was good in Durham.
He was actually back before the original cancelled 2 p.m. flight would have had him on campus. However, it took longer to get him to Durham than it took our daughter to get to Paris.
Just so they both are safe and happy. So many people are still fighting the weather and the airlines today.
This morning I was awoken as my husband, who twice yesterday had to clear the driveway as the snow continued non-stop in northern Illinois, could not get the garage door to close in the sub zero weather. The sensors were wigging out. I had to bypass them by holding the button in as he backed out the car and rushed off to catch a train to his new job in the city. Thank goodness he was no longer flying.
I put up a pot of half-caff. Started to flip imaginary coins.
Now I am off to clean out the refrigerator.
No comments:
Post a Comment