The View from Here

Today was the day! All the preparations, all of the anxiety, all of the excitement, all of the neurotic packing, unpacking, and packing again…Belgium! Except that we’re in jammies with the critters here at Chez Gainey as I type this- and not on a plane heading to Copenhagen. While we were eating a snack waiting for our house sitter to come take us to the airport, I heard Dan use a word he rarely invokes. Uh-oh. Sure enough, our flight to Chicago had been cancelled. That always starts the domino effect, and things rarely turn out well.

I grabbed my computer and my phone and called United, the carrier for the first leg of our journey to Brussels. After being on hold for ten minutes, the woman informed me that the ticket had been issued by SAS and they had to fix the problem. I called SAS, another ten minutes on hold, and then had a conversation with a very cold man who said it wasn’t their problem and United had to fix the issue. I was beginning to feel like a ping pong ball.

Shiva was happy our flight was cancelled.

Another interminably long wait on hold listening to too loud bad music that sounded like it was blasted through blown speakers, and I finally got through to United again. The woman asked if she could help, and I said, “I sure hope you can…I’m about to weep.” This woman listened to me and got to work. We weren’t going to Belgium today, but we’d get there tomorrow- and with one less stop. Bless that lady.

Dogs never sweat the small stuff…

We found out later that over eight hundred flights were cancelled due to inclement weather in and around Chicago. Always better to be safe, even if it means losing a day of our precious free time in Belgium. It was actually sort of a relief- after all of the frantic running around trying to leave things perfect for our house sitter (note to self- nothing about our home or life will ever be perfect…dog hair will always prevail), we were left with an evening at home with the critters and no responsibilities. Cool!

A good sign from our garden.

We finished the list of things we had said we’d wished we done before we thought we were leaving at a relaxed pace, enjoyed a quiet dinner on the sunporch, and I made cookies for our house sitter. I didn’t realize how much I needed that relaxing time before truly heading out to face the rigors of international travel.

Life happens- we’ll go with it. Another night at home in our own bed with our sweet animals is never a bad thing. Fingers crossed we’ll be on a plane to Belgium to start our adventure soon!