houseguest

i left for islip, long island last friday morning.

after a full day of flying, i landed in islip and drove a rental car out to southampton.

of course i got lost.

but when i reached the house, our hosts gave me wonderful instructions for how to get in the house, disarm the alarm, and take a nice, hot bath.

the rest of the weekend went along the same lines.

we spend saturday outside. swimming, sunning, reading, eating, basking. we went to the beach. it was more than lovely.

saturday night the steaks and the martinis came out. i indulged. cigar and all. mm. just the six of us. catching up.

we slept in on sunday and walked around town for a while. late afternoon, i left for the airport, with the bf in tow.

i will leave out the gory travel details*, and just let you know that the flight from islip to philadelphia was delayed, which meant i would miss my connecting flight to phoenix. the bf and i then took a bus from islip to new york, where we barely got on because the bus was so full and there was only one seat available. needless to say, we did not get to sit next to each other. once we arrived in the city, i pricelined a hotel and made a reservation at a marriott courtyard by the JFK airport. my flight was to leave at 7a, but as i stepped out of the shower at 5a, an automated service called my phone to let me know that my flight was delayed by 126 minutes, which in my delirium i took to mean an hour and a half. the bf set me straight on the timing though. i took a quick nap, took a shuttle bus to the airport and arrived just in time for the operator to tell us that traffic was poor so he would drop us off at the rental car station so we could take the air tran. wonderful. i found the correct terminal, and walked up to the security line...

...where i was promptly rejected for having my old boarding pass.

i was told to obtain a new boarding pass, so i went to a kiosk. it wouldn't let me check-in since my boarding time was within a half hour. i looked back at the agent line and knew that i wouldn't make it through in time to catch my flight.

so what did i do? i broke down.

exhausted. crying.

a tsa agent took pity on me and let me go through the employee security line.

only one of my shoes came through on the belt. i looked over and said, "only one shoe came out." he pulled out my other shoe from behind the counter and said, "can i keep this as a souvenir? you are beautiful." like i needed that.

i pulled up to my gate and finally felt like i could relax. i grabbed a starbucks and a scone.

boarded the plane.

and we sat on the runway for an hour more, as we were 35th in line for takeoff.

the joys of flying.

*okay, okay, so i included all the gory details.