Friday, February 17, 2006

forget chocolate, a mimosa makes it better

normally i reserve mimosas for those special occassion brunches. this morning as i sat down at the airport friday's for breakfast, when the waitress offered a mimosa as a beverage option, it was all i could do to restrain myself from leaping up and hugging her. i settled for ordering one rather enthusiastically. i'm rather impressed with this energy burst since i'm currently a woman who's only had about 3 hours sleep and has been wearing the same clothes for about 23 hours.

in the previous post i mentioned i was taking a red eye to tampa. so far this has not been the smoothest of trips. first we had delays in san diego. then in denver, we got to board on time, but had multiple delays once on board including waiting for late luggage and de-icing. when we finally took off, the captain announced that we'd have a good tailwind and be able to 'make up time in the air'. i was personally grateful that he fulfilled his prediction and we arrived only 15 minutes late. he managed to make up a good half hour. my gratitude was geniune as the flight was not one of my better ones. the person next to me, although nice, was a loud talker. never mind that 95% of the plane is trying to sleep including at least one person next to him. my ipod was as loud as i could go and not end up deaf and i could still hear him. when he finally dozed off he did so at an angle and since he was the middle seat, i was either sharing my seat with his shoulders or my legs were dodging his. had we been in coach, i might have been a little more charitable, but we were in economy plus--the plus being 5 more inches of legroom. really, it was all i could do not to push him over.

nevermind that though, we were here, fairly close to ontime. all i had to do now was pick up the rental car, go to my hotel and climb into a nice comfy bed for a few hours. oh how silly i am to think after the delays and sleep-n-sprawl man that those could go smoothly.


after waiting nearly an hour for the shuttle to take me to the offsite car rental place, i find that my reservation is all screwed up and i'll be unable to rent a car from them. okay, so, take the shuttle back to the airport and call other rental car companies on the way. i finally find one that will have a car that i can pick up in the afternoon. no worries, i can work with that. i'll just take the complimentary shuttle to my hotel and come back on it later to pick up the car. i then call the hotel for the shuttle only to discover that they oversold last night and that it will be at least 3-4 more hours before they'll have a room ready for me. they were happy to come get me and i was welcome to wait in the lobby for however long. that was it. i nearly burst into tears on the phone. it was almost 7am here in florida--4am my time and i'd been up for the better part of 23 hours. instead i pulled it together and decided to go find food rather than cry or scream at the poor apologetic man answering the phone at the front desk. i found a bathroom, dug out my makeup and hairspray and made myself look a little less like a walking zombie complete with a red eye.

as i left the bathroom, i saw friday's which brings us back to the mimosa. surely after a little champagne with breakfast, the day will get better, right?

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