So Close and Yet So Far Away

Today was a great day. I woke up feeling like the place could burn down and it'd actually help me pack. Oh well, I was able to have my apartment contract extended by two days. That means I won't need to find a bridge for my friends who are coming to town on Friday to sleep under.

I worked a bit today, but mostly recovered from our trip to San Diego and my sleeplessness before that. I feel good and very excited to be moving up to Anchorage in four days. I think Amber is worried. She may have been using reverse psychology on me at the airport yesterday, something about me not being able to deal with her not being there and pretty much dying. I will miss her, but she'll be in Anchorage with me until October 26th. Quite convenient because I don't even have to worry about missing her till November.

I also had two friends visit today, which was really nice and took up most of my day. I really am going to miss a few people from this area.

Okay, now it's story time! For those of you who don't know me, I am afraid of flying. I'd like to be able to insert the phrase "terrified to fly" but the truth is that I am still able to force myself onto a plane, so I must not be "terrified", but I am SOOO beyond happy that we're driving the 3,000 miles to Anchorage. Anyhow, I HATE sitting near my mother (love you Mom!) because she has a fantastic little ability to talk about the most inopportune things at the most inappropriate times. I'll give you a for instance.

Earlier this year we were flying to Phoenix. Amber and I are sitting in the row in front of Mom and our friend. As we take off and begin experiencing turbulence (and I've taken my "let's-calm-down-so-I-won't-have-a-heart-attack" pills and they are NOT working, mind you), my wonderful Mother decides she should start relaying all the horrific plane accidents that have taken place in the last few months. I naturally go into a tissy and ask her to stop talking or else I'll have to ask the stewardess to remove her from the aircraft.

Yes, that is my Mother and the best part is that I'm pretty sure she does it on purpose. So it really shouldn't have been surprising when, sitting next to her and a stranger, I had to ask her to stop speaking to me so that I could work through the turbulence. That was the second time on a flight that day that I had to ask her to stop talking about plane tragedies or What-If's as to parts of the plane falling off. This was also after our last pilot must have been learning to land a plane and bounced us down the runway, as well as loosing "an astheic" piece off the wing and asking us to not panic and then making us move planes. But seriously? Don't panic? I'm so happy you found that we were missing something off our plane, but if that fell off, what's next? The left wing? "Hey guys, yea, so the left wing just fell off, and we're in a downward spiral, but please, don't panic, the wing was mostly just for astheic value." I'm pretty sure that would have been good for my fragile demeanor.

Back into the situation at hand, Amber was no where around to save me as she was having an in-depth conversation with a trash metal lover in the row in front of me. Good thing I had that stranger sitting next to us. He distracted Mom and I was able to not throw up or have a heart attack.

This story is basically an extended "Thank you" to our flying buddy who isn't a stranger anymore, Mr. Kevorkian. Even though I did get a kick out of it, I truly am sorry that you're a chemist with that last name and that you have so much difficultly ordering chemicals :)