I was on call on Monday, and didn't get called by 4pm. By then I was at the airport, assuming that they wouldn't call me. I listed on a flight to Dallas on American Airlines, since we have a sweet agreement with them, and hoped that I could get on. It's always uncertain (I was gonna say it was "up in the air"... but yeah). I was number 24 on the standby list, and there was another lady on standby ahead of me who had been trying to get on a flight to Dallas since 6am!! Sooo I had no idea what would happen, and waited. Everyone ahead of me got on... then they called my name and gave me a boarding pass. When I went to board the plane I told the flight attendant where I was sitting, and he said, "not bad." Well, "not bad" turned out to be amazing. I was in the first row of business class in the aisle, on a 737. I had a big fluffy pillow and a nice thick blanket... none of those thin blue blankets or tiny pillows you get in economy! I had more levers and buttons on my chair than I knew what to do with. It was great. One of the flight attendants came and chatted with me for a bit, then hooked me up with some headphones so I could watch a movie (I had my own screen in my armrest). It was a beautiful flight.
I got to DFW, and eventually connected with Nate and Beth. They took me to one of their favorite taco places, Taco Cabana, and it was super duper yummy. After dinner we went to their house. I love it! It was so fun (and kinda weird) to finally see their place... I say weird because being married and having your own house seems like such a grown up thing... but they are married... =) and we are past our mid-20's. I guess part of it is because I don't have my own house and I just now started a job that pays more than minimum wage. Good stuff. The other thing too is that I've never lived anywhere where you could pay less on a house payment than you would to rent an apartment, which is the case for Nate and Beth. Anyway! All that to say, it was great being able to visit them in their house.
We didn't do anything terribly unusual or exciting, but it was nice to just be with them. On Tuesday Beth and I went to the store because she had a bunch of groceries and house stuff to get. Jason came over and had dinner with us that night, and we all went and walked around the harbor of the lake afterwards. I hadn't seen Jason since Nate and Beth's wedding in 2004. We got to talk through a few things that I think we've both been thinking about for the last couple of years, and I was thankful for that.Wednesday we went and had lunch with Beth's parents at a delicious sandwich place called Sandwackers. Jason came and brought his roommate, Johnny Walker with him. We had good times catching up over lunch and then some more when Beth and I drove over to the SIL center to see who we would see. We ran into a couple of different people that had been in PNG, and that's always awesome. Afterwards we went to Beth's brother David's place. He has a new wife and a new tiny baby! Crazy!
Thursday was a looooong day. Understatement. =) I checked the flight loads earlier, and it looked ok for me to get on a direct flight from Dallas to Chicago on American. Beth and I left the house at 6am to give plenty of time for me to get back. I checked in when we got to the airport at 7:00... then tried to get on a flight until 1:00. No luck. I was number 60 on the standby list. It just so happens that American had canceled 4 flights the night before because of "weather." And it very well could have been... you never know about Chicago. Close to noon, I was starting to get concerned. I was sitting next to a lady and her two kids, also trying to get to Chicago. She said the same thing had happened when they tried to get to Dallas a couple days before. In their case, they had to come back and try again the next day before they finally got on.
Anyway, while we were sitting there waiting, I saw a man who looked familiar... turns out it was Dr. Tony Evans, one of my favorite speakers. The church he pastors, Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship, is an amazing place. While I was in Dallas during the summer of 2000, I went there every week... Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings... could NOT wait to go to church. Awesome worship, solid teaching, and just good stuff. Sadly, it's the only time I have ever been at the point where I couldn't wait for Sunday (or Wednesday night) to roll around. I have always felt so at home there. So it was a surprise to see Dr. Evans and his wife at DFW. At first I wondered if they were one of the many trying to get to Chicago, but soon saw that they were flying first class to Charlotte, NC.
Back to trying to get back to Chicago. I had been trying to figure out where I could connect through to get to Chicago, and not much was working out. Finally I saw that there was a flight to Orange County leaving in half an hour, so thought I could try to get on that, somehow get to Long Beach, and fly JetBlue back to Chicago. I called up Dad, my hero of the day, and asked if he could pick me up if I could get a flight into Orange County. He said of course he would! Next I had to see if I could get on JetBlue... and wouldn't ya know it, their systems were down when I tried to call. So I called Dad and gave him the info, and asked if he could call them for me. Which he did. =) The flight attendants on my flight to OC were so sweet, and hooked me up with food and extra drinks. Said that had to take care of "family," me being a fellow flight attendant. They encouraged me and took great care of me.
When we got in, Dad met me and we got on the
405 to go to Long Beach. I checked in, number 15 on the standby list and the ticket agent said there were 15 empty seats, so I should be good. Dad and I went upstairs to the restaurant and got a bite to eat and hung out for awhile. That was awesome!!! It was a long, insane day, but that was the best part of it. We got chicken caesar salads and got a sweet airport employee discount to go with them.Our plane ended up being an hour late leaving Long Beach, because it was late coming in from Chicago... then I got to wait for the train... then I finally got to my stop. I took a taxi home instead of walking, at the request of Mom and Dad, and that was fine with me. I probably would have fallen over before I got to my place, I was so exhausted! I got to my bed just before 2am, and was on call starting at 4am. It was the biggest blessing that they didn't call me the next day, as you can imagine!!! I slept, rested, relaxed, it was wonderful! Got a call bright and early the next morning... but that's another story. =)
No comments:
Post a Comment