6:45am Board flight to Fort Lauderdale, and finally allow myself to look through beautiful photo/journal book that Becca and Jess made for me
6:50am Get rather sentimental, although I cheer up after reading the hilarious note written by my cat Lina (translated by my housemate Anne)
7:45am After relaxing 60 minute wait at the gate, the flight is officially canceled due to fuel imbalance mechanical issues
8:30am Good: Lovely re-booking woman gets me the only available flight to Fort Lauderdale still leaving today Bad: Flight doesn’t leave till 12:55pm and takes me through Dallas
8:31am Pretty sure I will never truly understand flight re-routing, previous trip involved Chicago-Kansas City-Albuquerque-Seattle, so Chicago-Dallas-Fort Lauderdale = not too bad
8:45am Call lots of people, get airport shuttle arranged, so far customer service is 4 for 4 in the pleasant and helpful category
9:15am Decide to take the coffee route, despite only 5 hours of sleep, due to inherently uncomfortable airplane seating
9:27am Find new gate and pull out iPod, listen to the awesome mix Becca made for me, am reminded how much I love Peter Paul and Mary
9:41am Play mix still great, however I discover that I am pretty horrible at most non-crossword related puzzles
9:45am Decide to get pictures from the weekend off my card and edit on my laptop.
9:55am After repeatedly wrestling with new but quite cheap carry-on I am successful – photos!
10:15am Editing and reviewing – I have a lot of gorgeous friends and Chicago is a beautiful city
10:40am Out of coffee
11:23am Done editing photos, kind of want a nap, but instead will go wander the terminal for a while
12:05am Finally I get to board a plane and hopefully this time take off!
I did indeed finally make it to Fort Lauderdale and only 12 hours after I boarded that original plane at O’Hare. Plus in additional American Airlines fun, my new co-workers and I missed our return connection out of Dallas yesterday due to a delayed flight out of Fort Lauderdale. Fortunately we were able to catch another flight only 2 hours later and they only lost one of my pieces of luggage along the way (which they just delivered to my new address(!!!) this morning).
Mennogirl 