E-mail to my Friend

I guess, basically, what I wanted to tell you was that everything went pretty much smooth all the way home. With the exception of one little glitch. When I packed my stuff back up, I thought it would be a good idea to put the stuff I needed in my carry on so I wouldn't have to lug in that big old suitcase into the motel with me. Bad decision. True, I didn't have to lug that heavy thing (straight up 50 lbs. by the way) up three flights of stairs with me at the motel, but it caused a small problem the next morning at the airport. Duh! I wasn't even thinking about that. I had to throw away my Mary Kay moisturizer (almost brand new), my toothpaste, my can of deodorant (brand new before I took it to Maine, so only used a week) a little motel size shampoo and a motel size hand lotion. The Mary Kay was the hard part. I think I even said shit in front of God and all the TSA people. But the worst part was having them stop me and go through my entire bag and my purse, while making everyone behind me wait until they were done. One of the stupid reasons why was when they asked me for my boarding pass I handed them what I thought was my boarding pass. Wrong! When I had reached into my purse for my boarding pass, I grabbed the whole little envelope thingie that they hand you at the check in counter, you know? Well, the boarding pass stayed lodged in between my camera and my coin purse and the envelope with the connecting flight boarding pass came out in my hand. So when I handed them a boarding pass, it said from Newark to Tulsa. The guy said "STOP! THIS IS NOT A BOARDING PASS!" I was like "WHAT? Let me see that" and I yanked it out of his hand. Well, I saw immediately what it was and told him that the other one must still be in my purse. So, he yells down the line for the other guy to get my purse after it's gone through the X-Ray to look in my purse for my boarding pass, and of course, it's right there. He brings it to us, hands it to me, then I hand it to the other guy, why the first guy didn't just hand it to the second guy in the first place, I have no idea. So, when I finally got to walk through, the thing squawks. Great. The guy asked me if I was wearing a belt and I said Yes, but the guy who made me throw away my toothpaste and deodorant told me I didn't have to take it off, I specifically asked him. He didn't care, he just told me to remove my belt and send it through the X-Ray. So, I did. Then walked through again and then it was okay. By the time I got to the end to my stuff, guy number two said "hold on", and started to go through my entire bag and my purse. He found my little bottle of motel lotion and motel shampoo that I had put in the appropriate zip lock baggie. He walks off to yet another guy, converses for a few seconds then comes back and when he looks at me standing there, holding my pants up with my hands because without a belt, those britches just fall right down to my ankles, he did seem nice and friendly enough, even smiled and looked like he felt some pity for me. He held that little baggie up and I said "Oh, for heaven's sake, just throw it away if it's going to cause more problems" and he smiled and said "Good, because that was your only option. You can put your belt on now." and he started putting everything back in my bag. Breaking the santa stick your Mom got for Shael in the process. Okay, first of all, what's up with the whole zip lock baggie thing? Second, that seems like a joke when it comes to national security. If you are going to let people go through with up to three ounces of lotion and/or lipstick, why the heck would you want them to put them in zip lock baggies? Like some body's going to get on the plane and try to make a bomb out of their lipstick and see it in the zip lock baggie and say to themselves "Oh, no, it's in a ziplock baggie, I can't blow this plane up now. Cursed ziplock baggies, I rue the day they were invented." That's ridiculous.
The people behind me during all of this fiasco were fairly patient. Not one word was uttered, or even muttered. I only heard one sigh, and heck, even I was doing that. After all that, I went up to my gate, sat for a few minutes, sent Roni a text asking her to bring me some more moisturizer, I was suddenly out, and sent Mike a text that I'd just lost my moisturizer, toothpaste, deo, lotion, and some shampoo, but all was well, I was finally on my way to the plane, in an hour and a half. The text woke Roni up and she was totally confused at 4:00 in the morning why I would text that I needed more moisturizer at such a weird hour. Mike got the text when he got up at 5:30 and he was somewhat concerned that maybe I got hastled and was all upset. Since I had an hour and a half wait, and the bookstore wasn't open yet, I went and got some yogurt and a bottle of water and watched TV in this bar that was open. I saw a guy order a beer. At 5:30 in the morning! When I finished my yogurt, I went back to the gate and sat there and people watched for the next 20 minutes or so until they boarded the plane. It left ten minutes earlier than I thought and since we were leaving at 6:40 instead of 6:50, that meant we boarded about 6:10. We actually left about five minutes ahead of schedule and things went smooth sailing from there on out, the rest of the day.

In Newark, I got off the plane, went to my next gate and found a Borders right across the hall. I went in, bought me a couple post cards and a Nicholas Sparks book and went and sat down at my gate. I got out my ticket to make sure and good thing I did because I had sat down at the wrong gate. I guess I had a dyslexic moment, because my gate was number 110 and I was sitting at 101. So, I got right back up, feeling kind of silly since I had just sat down, and went on to gate 110. Gate 110 had a bathroom right next to it, so I went in and used it, then came back out and sat down to wait. I had only read about five pages when they called us to board the plane. I forgot to mention that my foot was hurting like a bitch, so I was using those moving sidewalks like crazy and holding my foot up like some out of place flamingo. I hobbled up to my gate, walked to my seat in the plane, and was never so grateful for a plane seat in all my life. It hurt so bad! We took off from Newark right on time and I felt a sigh of relief because up to that point I was still in the back of my mind thinking something could happen that could delay me. But, nothing did. I read for two hours, slept an hour, and when I woke up, we were about 20 minutes away from landing. I raised my window shade and watched the brown land go by below me (wow, we are a parched land here in Oklahoma) trying to figure out exactly where we were. I saw a huge river, and what I think might have been Vinita, but I never was sure because you know how everything looks so different from that point of view. When we landed, I went straight to the bathroom and then to the baggage claim. It hadn't even come out yet and there was only one lady standing there. I don't know where everybody else was. When my bag came out, I grabbed it and I kid you not when I say it nearly dragged me onto the belt with it. It was so heavy it nearly yanked me out of my shoes. I finally got it off the belt and went out side and waited for the Fine Parking dude to come get me. He finally showed up and me and this other guy were his only riders. I got out my phone to turn it back on and it felt so weird, it wasn't even noon yet. It was like 11:53 or something. I got to my car and had to take off my hoodie before I could drive because it was so warm out. I paid the outrageous amount of money for them to let my car sit on their parking lot, and drove off. When I got out on the freeway I called Mike to let him know I was in Tulsa on my way home.


When I got home, the trash was taken out, and hauled off, kudos to Mike on that one. His laundry was all washed and dried, but sitting in a huge pile on the bed. My side of the bed. He had done his laundry then slept with it on my side of the bed for who knows how many nights. I was so tired, I wanted nothing but a nap, so I got on his side of the bed. YUCK! Crumbs! He had been eating in bed and it was full of crumbs. So, I got up, put away all his clean laundry, changed the sheets, and layed back down. Then Shael comes in and won't leave me alone, and then Mike gets home. So much for a nap.The next day I got up and took Shael to school, went to my parents and gave them the stuff from your parents, picked up Nikolas while I was there and went to Joplin to pay a bill I hadn't paid before leaving. I got back to Wyandotte in time to pick Shael up from school and go home. No nap again. Then that night we went to church. The next day, Thursday, I had a thing to go to for unemployment at 9:00 in the morning in Miami. After that I did some running about town with Valerie and Linda from the day care and we ate lunch together. I got back to Wyandotte in time to pick Shael up from school again. No nap again. Friday, Valerie and I went to Branson and spent the entire day at Silver Dollar City. No nap again. Saturday I spent the entire day trying to entertain Shael, do laundry, and general house cleaning. No nap again. Saturday night I had a complete mental melt down. That's a whole other story I'll have to wait till next time to explain. Sunday was HORRIBLE. Pastor appreciation day. Very emotionally stressful day, to say the least. I took Shael to see Flicka to try to get away from it all. Monday, I somehow can't even remember Monday very clearly. I was such an emotional mess, my eyes were puffy from crying so much, my throat felt raw, as did my heart. I called my mother in law and talked with her for about 45 minutes and felt better when I got off the phone. Tuesday, I invited Mike and his friend Cory over for lunch. I cooked like a maniac all morning Tuesday and they got here about 11:15. After lunch, they fixed a cabinet that had needed fixed for a couple weeks and they finally left around 1:00. I sat down to eat my dessert, and around 1:30 I felt myself crashing. I turned the music off, crawled into bed, and the next thing I knew it was 2:55. I got out of bed, took off to go pick Shael up and when I got home, I cooked supper, ate it and felt like going back to bed, but didn't. I waited up on Mike who was up at the garage trying to iron out last minute details before leaving for his hunting trip. Wednesday, repeat of Tuesday. Mike and Cory got here around 11:30, ate and left. Around 1:30 I started feeling it again. I crawled into bed and didn't know another thing until 5:30! I slept like a rock for 4 hours! It was great, except when I woke up this time I kind of felt like crap. When Mike got home I told him that I thought the last couple of weeks finally caught up with me. I paused for just a moment and something slammed into the back of me and knocked me down. It was my butt, catching up with me.