ah. well, i am back in california after a nice and mostly relaxing week seeing friends and apartment-hunting in houston. so what did i learn? let’s see… even though i think dogs are cool, i do not qualify as a “dog person” based on the fact that i was not entertained for hours by watching two dogs play. ron is/was only, like, the coolest roommate ever. curt doesn’t kiss and tell. the cheesecake factory is still my favorite restaurant. i have lots of awesome friends, as i discovered on my birthday. becca has totally taken over my group, and has laid claim to rich’s desk–grr. 😉 i should be able to afford quite a nice apartment. (yay!) and oh, perhaps most important of all–there are days in houston when you’re not stifled by heat and humidity. in fact, march is a nice month there.
the trip back was less than pleasant, due to fierce thunderstorms around dallas/fort worth. my plane from houston left an hour late, and had to be rerouted over corpus christi and san antonio to avoid weather before making it to dfw. (if you know texas geography at all, you will realize how out-of-the-way that routing is.)
so i landed in dallas one hour and 40 minutes late, and 40 minutes after my flight to san francisco was supposed to take off. however, the weather had kept my sfo plane on the ground and it was supposed to take off exactly 10 minutes from the time i landed. the plane from houston stopping at some podunk terminal and we were bussed over to the main terminal and dropped off at gate a0, and of course i had to get to gate a29, all the way at the other end. i jogged for about 15 gates, and then found one of those guys with the little cars to drive me the rest of the way. as i finally reached the gate, the ticket woman said “are you sarah?” apparently they had been waiting for me. i thought that was very nice, but then they decided to search my bags, which made me less appreciative. oh well.
so i cruise down the jetway and board the plane, everyone on board staring at me wondering why i am so late, and probably hating me for delaying the plane a few minutes past what had already been delayed for weather. we push back from the gate, but spend an unusually long amount of time sitting about 50 feet from the terminal. the captain finally comes on the explain that the little truck that pushes the plane back from the gate got the arm stuck on the nose gear–“nothing wrong with the plane, folks, just a problem with the arm”–and so now we have to wait for a few other planes to clear out before we can continue. finally we reach the taxiway, and sit. and sit. and sit. suddenly we all hear the unmistakable sound of the engines winding down. ugh.
sure enough, the captain comes on and jokes about the sound of silence, and explains that a ring of thunderstorms has conveniently enclosed the dallas airport, and that air traffic control has stopped all departures. i sit in my seat, my butt already beginning to ache, and watch the rain pour down outside. finally an hour later–at 8:00, two and a half hours after our originally scheduled departure time–we take off! hooray!
the flight itself was uneventful, and it is quite nice to be back “home” and see nick and emily and susan, who all gave me wonderfully belated presents for my birthday, since i wasn’t here to celebrate with them on my actual birthday last week. they are awesome. so i am happy to be back in california, even if my room has a slightly funky odor from being shut up all week. it smells vaguely like nail polish remover. weird, eh?
and now, off to bed i go, looking forward to 1) seeing harry connick jr. in concert tomorrow, 2) opening day with the a’s on monday, and 3) carter’s arrival on wednesday.
