---

Despite my fears of flying, the actual time in the air wasn't too bad. Unfortunately, our scheduled take off from O'Hare coincided with one mother of a nasty thunderstorm and deluge rain. So...after taxi-ing and getting into line to take off (we were #25!), we heard the general announcement from the captain that all outgoing flights from O'Hare had been suspended.

So we sat.

In the Plane.

For 2 hours.

I think we were so relieved to take off that we almost forgot to be scared. Although we had several turbulent reminders throughout the flight. At any rate, once we landed we'd had our assess plastered in an upright position in the sardine can they jokingly call a jet for over 6 hours. Can we say "Oh, my aching back?"

I had a bit of a laugh over the whole upright position deal. It pisses me off the Ellen Degeneres beat me to the punch on this one, but really. Who the hell decided that a seat was dangerous when tilted back no more than 8 degrees? | = safe. / = dangerous. What hogwash. And the flight attendants were really diligent about it. I damn near had a cocktail over it, but it would have cost me 5 bucks, and what with my free diet pepsi and not one but TWO backs of miniature pretzel bites I figured why bother.

The landing was smooth enough, even though both Ally and I had our feet through the floor trying to Flintstone-stop the damn plane. Once off, we only had to get our luggage, duke it out with the bitch at the Alamo counter, hitch a ride on the Alamo shuttle and pick out our car (we chose red, why not) and then get lost on the way to the condo. I have to say I wish I'd had the camera ready when a homeless person (one of a bazillion) walked up to our car as we waited for a light to turn green. I thought she was going to run him over, it was damned funny. Especially since she managed to miss him without ever looking at him.

We finally found our way to the condo, slightly disturbed by the number of people walking around at 10:30 at night. It was even more disturbing to see the CEO of our company come out of the condo to greet us. HELL NO! But it turned out that she was there cleaning the not-yet-completely-rehabbed condo. It was very nice, although the fumes from plaster and paint were migraine material.

It took awhile to settle in, to choose our beds. I knew I was in trouble when I sat on the bed and the mattress rose up on either end like a bad joke. And the wonderful down pillows flattened nicely into nothing. ~sigh~ Between the tension of the flight, the fumes, the caffeine ingested throughout the ordeal, the mattress, the pillows and the fact that I'd been up since 5 am, it was no wonder that when we finally turned out the lights, I tossed and turned for nearly 2 hours before falling into a fitful sleep.

Fitful...and embarrassing.

I was having this very vivid dream. I dreamed that I was "sleeping" as it were in the bed I was actually in. And there was an animal under my bed, it seemed like a cat, but I wasn't sure because I hadn't seen it. The animal was reaching up from under the bed, between the bed and the wall and was trying to paw my face. It was totally freaking me out, and I was trying to call out for help, you know how it is in dreams when you try to scream but nothing comes out? Well, I must have been like REALLY geared up because I finally screamed out "ALLY!" and sat upright in bed.

She called from the other room, "Are you OK?"

Jesus, how embarrassing. I looked around, like I could actually see anything without my glasses, and told her I guessed it was just a dream. We giggled for a few minutes before passing out into another fitful sleep. Morning gave us a new perspective on the whole dream scene. I actually had small pillows stuffed between the bed and the wall, as if the allow a small animal to exist under the bed, but not allow it to paw me. And in Ally's room, proof of her dedication to my as a friend. A stuffed doll sat menacingly on the chair next to her bed. She'd grabbed it to ward off the beast that was mauling me, put gratefully tossed it aside when she found out the beast was in my dreams. I would have loved to see her actually come in swinging with it, though.

It sounds like we hated the trip and our accommodations. Aside from the fact that sleeping on gravel may have been more comfortable, it actually was really nice, and Phoenix was much prettier than either of us thought it would be. The orange blossoms were so fragrant...

And that leads me to the next adventure...

Stay tuned.

---

Won't you PLEASE leave your feedback here?
0 readers left their mark on this one!

TagBoard

Name URL or Email Messages(smilies) Read the previous entry - Read the next entry Who's Who in Ibe's Diary (last UPDATED September 21, 2008) If you would like to be notifed each time this page is updated, stick your email addy in the form and click on "join." Your email address: