Back to California

Safely back in Long Beach. Utterly exhausted.

I stayed up all Monday night with the exception of an hour spent snuggled in my bed, enjoying my last few minutes of tempur-pedic glory. Lidia and I left home at twenty to four and got to the airport at 4:40 am.
I checked in in plenty of time and had a fruit cup for breakfast ($4 for a fruit cup!!!) before settling in to a chair in the gate lounge, half-asleep until boarding. The plane was full, but luckily there was an empty seat between me and the lady in the aisle seat. We talked a little, she's a DC businesswoman and she travels a lot for work. She had an iPad and was studying some sort of business report most of the flight.
Just as we were sitting in the plane the pilot came over the loudspeaker and said there was ice on all the runways at Dulles airport so we had to sit on the tarmac and wait for the all-clear to fly there. I took out my phone, turned it on again, and started to text Mom, but before I could finish the message the pilot came over the loudspeaker again and said the edict was lifted and we were going to take off immediately.

I slept for most of that flight, it was a major relief to get some sleep. We landed at Dulles and it turned out we landed at the exact gate (66) that my plane to Long Beach would be at! It was also the same gate for the plane I took to Orlando in December...kind of funny actually.

Storms delayed us for an hour at Dulles, I had a burger and fries and had to throw most of the fries away because it was just SO much food. I spent most of the time at the gate, trying to sleep comfortably in those tiny chairs with the fixed arm rests...it almost worked.

Luckily we managed to fly quickly and made it to Long Beach just half an hour late. I slept for the first couple hours, then watched Friends and Law and Order - I do appreciate Jet Blue's live broadcast tv! The only unfortunate bit was when I got back to the apartment and turned on Friends it was the exact same Friends episode I'd watched three hours earlier!

Once we landed and I'd picked up my suitcase (I nearly had a heart attack, it took so long to come out) I went to the taxi stand and was helped into a taxi. The driver was confused by my address - no one seems to know my apartment complex - but I managed to explain where it was and we got there in $15 worth of minutes. I did choose an excellent apartment! I got into the complex, and checked to see if my car was there - it is! (very dusty though) - and managed to drag my suitcase up the stairs and collapsed into my apartment.

I replugged the fridge and turned to unpack and found out that the TSA had cut the lock off of my bag and inspected it!! WHY does the TSA have this infernal infatuation with my luggage?! Luckily nothing seems to be missing, but one of my nail polish bottles came mysteriously uncapped and my nail polish bag is coated with my very expensive gel strengthening coat. Now I have to find a Sally's Beauty Supply around here to replace it...what a pain! At least it didn't get all over the entire contents of my suitcase, it's only the bag that got messy so I'm in the process of cleaning it and the other things that were in that little bag.

I'm unpacked now and everything is organized except for all my toiletries and jewelry...I'm too tired to get onto that now, it's 1 am to my brain and I already had a half-hour nap. I got a bunch of groceries as well as takeout for dinner, and tomorrow I'm going to take care of my car and go to Sam's Club, Albertsons and Trader Joe's. And I have some emails to send...I'll deal with that tomorrow.

I'm so so so sleepy...I think it's bedtime now.