One of those days...

First of all, let me tell you how much I love my future husband. I tend to think of him as a pretty cool kid. He likes sports and he's never met a person he doesn't know. But, most people don't know his dirty little secret: David watches the NASA Channel. Seriously. Anyway, tonight, I was talking to him on the phone and I told him to switch his TV to the Discovery Channel (I know, my favorite channel. But, I freely admit to being a geek, remember?) because "When We Left Earth" was on. It's a show all about NASA programs and missions.

David's response? "I'm in retard heaven - like, full on. With padded rooms and blinking lights and everything!"

I thought it was funny. His little comment made my rough day a little better, and my Aunt Cheryl followed it up with the funniest mental image I've ever had. I hope she reads this post - just so she knows that I was doubled over laughing my head off in my hotel room. My neighbors probably weren't too happy with the ruckus I was making.

The story behing the email Cheryl sent me is this:

I'm not going to go into too much detail, to spare Cheryl from certain humiliation. But, just picture a full-grown man on a three wheeler, with his tiny little wife riding along. With them, actually on the three wheeler is their big, floppy-eared hound dog that likes the three wheeler too and the wind in her face. Then, picture a fast pase, lots of bumps and a woman screaming repeatedly. Now that's comedy.

Anyway, now for the explanation of today's title.

I've been in New York for half of the week for a conference for work. I got in Thursday night (after being delayed in Cleveland for a couple of hours) and was supposed to leave today. Yep, supposed to. My flight out of Albany was supposed to leave at 1:05. When we were supposed to start boarding at 12:30, they told us we were going to be delayed for just a bit because Newark had a ground stop on everything.

This is that point in the story where the most experienced of travelers insert, "Oh no. You were connecting in Newark? What, are you stupid?" Apparently.

Ok. We're delayed for a little bit. They told us Newark would give them an update in about half an hour. At this point, I'm okay with that. I was supposed to have a three hour layover in Newark anyway, so I knew I would have plenty of time to make my connecting flight. SIX HOURS LATER, we were still delayed. In fact, at around 4, they went ahead and put us on the plane because they had finally gotten clearance from Newark. We boarded, taxied, and then waited -waited for an hour and a half - before we waited some more and taxied back to the gate.

I decided when I got back off of the plane, I was just going to cancel my ticket. I knew that if I ever did get to Newark, even if my connecting flight had been delayed too, it probably would have been delayed enough that they were going to cancel it anyway. And, I knew I would much rather tackle the smaller Albany airport than the nasty, bad-reputation Newark airport OVERNIGHT. So, I canceled my flight and had it re-booked, called a hotel and got a room and a shuttle, and settled in for the night.

The good news? Continental couldn't get me out of Albany until about 6:20 p.m. tomorrow night. Even better. Oh well. I'll still get home. And, I have my computer with me so I can sit in my room tomorrow and get some work done that has to be finished.

So, that's my ranting and raving for today. To put it all in perspective is my friend Kristina. But, that's nothing out of the ordinary. Even before her accident, she was usually the one responsible for helping me to rethink things or look on the flip-side.

Today, Greb had a little set back. They found a little bit of pneumonia in her lungs, but the doctors don't seem to be too worried about it. I guess there isn't any fluid surrounding it, so that's a good sign. They were able to culture it and will be able to start her on some antibiotics today. And, after her antics last night, she was wiped out today. So, there wasn't much 'waking' today, just resting and some physical therapy.

I'll leave you with this:

Be sure to thank God for crappy days like this and the moments that make those crappy days mean something more.