The morning started off as well as can be expected on a day that I was leaving town...With one minor -- or at least now it seems minor -- exception. I didn’t have ink in my printer so I made sure to leave plenty early to get to Mom’s to print my boarding pass, my Gray Line double decker tour bus voucher and my tickets to Wicked...Or at least that was the plan...
Airline Boarding Pass...Check...Gray Line Tour Voucher ... Check... Wicked Tickets...Wicked Tickets...Hmmm...There’s an issue with my Wicked Tickets...SO...
I logged on to ticketmaster and for the life of me could not get my Wicked tickets to print. I searched and searched and searched for a phone number for ticketmaster...Finally, I found one. I called and talked to a ridiculously awful voice activated system. When I finally went through nine menus, I finally heard the news that finally made it all make sense...My tickets for October 8 were no longer available to print ...Ummmm...what??? So, I say to the automaton at the other end of the line...Please Repeat...
And she said it again... October 8...Interesting since I wasn’t even going to be in New York til October 14...Yep, that’s right apparently I paid for orchestra seats for Wicked one week before I actually planned on being there...
Needless to say, this started my day in less than a happy mood. I was a bit addled and anxious -- by addled and anxious, what I mean is I could not even find my purse...It was hanging on my shoulder...And so I had to get in Mom’s Tahoe and head for the airport...and I was not feeling great about heading off to NYC...
But as soon as I got to the airport and got the expected, and maybe at this point anticipated (( -- and I say anticipated because I’ve decided that in order to endure the inevitable pat down that comes with being chock full of metal that I would just think of this otherwise annoying security check as a free three minute massage...sometimes making things better just means changing your perspective...)) and after the massage/ pat down, I was feeling better and ready to roll...
The flight to Dallas was ok...well, it would have been absolutely ok if it weren’t for this annoying man who sat across the aisle from me. This man seriously went on ad nauseum about everything...(and no, he was not talking to me, but I think we’ve covered the over-listening thing before...I can’t help but hear if it’s being said within 10 feet of me...and in an American Eagle everything is going on within 10 inches of me...) He started talking to this man in line, he talked on the skybridge, he talked and talked and talked. He never shut up...Ok, occasionally he took a breath and let his seatmate say a sentence or two... But seriously, this guy talked about everything from Lubbock real estate and weather to parking situation at the Texas Tech football games to how many years he’d lived in Lubbock to where else in the world he might want to live to the economy to personal watercrafts...I’ve never been so ready to land at DFW -- geez, shut up already...He even stood in the aisle chatting this guy up while I was trying to get to my next flight...And I barely made it to my next flight. I got to the tram, got to my gate, had time to use the bathroom and then board...This was really only a problem because I took off from LBK at 11:50 and wouldn’t land at LaGuardia til 6:30...Normally, that’s not an issue, but to my surprise and dismay it now costs $10 to get a Boston Market sandwich on American Airlines -- my 6 ounces of Diet Coke was oh-so-generously complimentary (and 6 ounces isn’t exactly enough for a girl who drinks two Sonic diet DPs a day...) but about 3:30 in the afternoon when they finally decided to serve the in-flight ‘snack’ I broke down and bought the sandwich...But I didn’t complain...I had heard enough complaining to last a day. People were seriously ugly in the boarding of the plane from DFW to LaGuardia...Of course, the plane was full...There was this super skinny chick with long black hair that got a bit combative with the flight attendant...While I will admit that the attendant wasn’t overly kind, she was just doing her job in regards to carry on luggage. The attendant simply said ‘if you would please, store your bag in this compartment...and this chick looks at her and says... ‘ummmmm, if you would please just speak to me with some respect.’ It was an incredibly impolite exchange...I just don’t get why people act that way...so rude and rushing about...They seriously don’t seem to get that we are all leaving DFW at the same time and getting to LaGuardia together...and getting terse with one another won’t get us there any faster.
On the flight to LaGuardia, I finished reading Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil...(Great book and now I cannot wait to go to Savannah...and started reading Freakonomics...) The flight for the most part was good...I did develop a terrible crick in my neck. I’m not sure if it was from reading with my head bent slightly forward for over 2 hours or possibly from leaning away from the stranger on the right who of course claimed the arm rest between us the minute he sat down. While I am sure he was a nice enough person, I just can’t bear to lean toward someone I don’t know. In fact, by the time the plane landed I had worse than a crick in my neck, I was really pretty sore in my entire upper torso...
A few things worth mentioning in regards to the final part of the flight...One is the fact that I was really underwhelmed by landing in NYC...I somehow expected to see a beautiful skyline and a bustling city...I’m sure that probably wasn’t realistic, but I was still somewhat disappointed. The second thing worth mentioning is that landing at LaGuardia was a bit stressful...Coming in to the runway, I was not by the window, but I never ever saw land until the wheels touched the ground. I kept thinking about the miracle on the Hudson and how I absolutely did not want to be a part of a miraculous water landing...And besides, I had not paid any attention about how to use my seat cushion as a flotation device, so I knew it was not going to go well for me at all. The last thing about LaGuardia worth mentioning is that the airport itself is unattractive and not at all interesting. I’m not sure exactly what I expected -- except maybe a Broadway-esque musical medley greeting me as I walked off the plane and possibly a line of Rockettes kicking up their heels to the perfect and same height as I parted through the line of them and headed to my baggage...unrealistic, maybe (but you can play slots in the Vegas airport...so...) somehow I expected the airport in the most incredible city in America to be...well...incredible.
The incredible part was that I landed 25 minutes early AND I actually found Jessie as soon as she got off her plane and headed to get her luggage...Getting her luggage was a bit of a snag...Apparently, there were only about 15 people on her flight from Cleveland and only 4 of them checked luggage. Their luggage never came up on a carousel and about 25 minutes after she landed, we finally saw her luggage stacked against the doors of the customer complaint/claim or whatever office it was at the far end of the baggage claim area.
She grabbed her luggage and we headed out to get a cab...An NYC cab...something of a legend...something Nikki text me about after I landed, so I assumed that it would be a very exciting and or at least incredibly interesting adventure...
Honestly, driving from LaGuardia to Brooklyn was not bad at all...I saw more of the city and I started to get excited...I think it helped my sense of calm that I was sitting behind the driver who was enclosed in a totally bulletproof casing -- (think Pope-mobile...there was no way I was seeing the scariness of this man’s driving around that thing...) Jessie on the other hand, actually saw what was going on all around us and was less than excited about the cab ride...
When we arrived at Chris Ann and Jeremy’s apartment, I immediately thought of the Huxtable’s house...And Jessie informed me that when Cody visited he thought of Sesame Street...Both are pretty accurate descriptions of where we are staying...Chris Ann and Jeremy greeted us with a great dinner of salmon and asparagus AND great conversation... While we chatted, I fixed the ticket fiasco by going online and purchasing tickets to Mamma Mia online. No, not Wicked...Mamma Mia just seemed like a great show to see with a great girl friend...So with that one problem averted and the plans roughly made for our first big day in NYC, it was shortly after midnight and Jessie and I headed for bed (we had a early morning and an extremely busy day planned) in the city that never sleeps...
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