Adventures in flying

Today was an... eventful day.

Here's the time line:
5am - Accidentally wake up. Don't ask me how. Go back to sleep.
7:15am - Really wake up this time.
8:30am - Get to work. Have treats and coffee and act generally tired from waking up once at 5am.
11:40 - Leave work to get meet a friend for lunch.
12:15 - Call friend. He was late. I did get to see Alyssa while I was waiting though. I ate at the Longfellow Grill.
1:30 - Get back to office. Experience... intestinal distress. At least I won't gain too much weight from that meal. Get a series of troubling phone calls about one of my clients. Feel totally inept because I can't do what everyone wants me to do.
2:30 - In the middle of dealing with above crisis get the first (of what turned out to be many) phone calls from Northwest regarding my flight status. Flight delay: 49 minutes.
3:10 - Leave work. Go home. Try not to stress. Try to make decision about when to leave for airport. Find I am unable to make such a decision and instead watch television.
4:30 - Next call from Northwest. Flight delay: 1 hour, 50 minutes. Call my Dad who asks if I just want to call when I get in. (No, I don't want to fly in at midnight and wait another half hour for you to come get me. Parking is $2.00. Suck it up.) Call my ride to the airport. Instruct her not to hurry. Make dinner plans with non-hurrying ride to airport. I've got time.
5:00 - Next call from Northwest. Flight delay: Zero. What the heck? I thought I had two additional hours. And now I have to instantly leave for the airport. And not have dinner. And instantly prepare to leave including garbage and dishwasher and other general items.
5:30 - Meet the now hurrying friend, arrive at airport. Wait in what has to be the longest security line I've ever seen in the airport. Go through screening. Am putting shoes on when...
6:00 - Next call from Northwest. Flight delay: bite me.
The flight time was changed twice after that but at a certain point they just stop calling.

Here's how that lined up:
Scheduled departure: 7:00pm
Actual departure: 8:50pm
Reason for delay: no flight crew to operate the plane.
Number of schedule changes (calculated by the number of email reminders I received): 5
Customer satisfaction based on flight attendants performance: Wow, she was really funny.

On the airplane we had the longest taxi ever. It was then that I learned that my voice carries sometimes more than I expect. Because I made the comment (under my breath I thought) "what, are we driving to Cincinnati?" And then other people started to laugh and repeat my comment. Because we really were taxiing for longer than is normal. Like 20 minutes. Not sitting there, driving around the outskirts of the airport.

When the pilot tried to welcome us to Cincinnati he had a little Fahrenheit Celsius trouble and our flight attendant had a little time zone issue. The time zones is where the wheels fell of the wagon for her because then she kept getting tongue tied and then had trouble reading all the things she was legally supposed to be reading because the lights were off to allow all of us to sleep. It was pretty late by then. The flight attendant was the most hilarious thing ever. Again, I was the first one to laugh but pretty much everyone joined me. Hee hee. I hope I have her again.