WendyDeCora.com

Somewhere over Indiana, most likely.

Why do I always fly through Chicago O’Hare? I can’t remember the last time a flight through there actually went on time. I’m on my way to NYC for a weekend of Bonerama and fun with Connick kids and then off to visit Jeff out on Long Island for a couple of days. My flight from Cedar Rapids was scheduled to depart at the non-insane time of 9:56AM. It usually seems like I’m on 7AM flights out of CR half the time, resulting in leaving for the airport at way-before-the-sun-comes-up AM. Therefore, today it seemed odd to get up at my regular 6AMish time and be able to finish packing my way too much stuff before D came and picked me up. (Thanks, D! Don’t forget to feed Mac.)

Now the captain informs us we are somewhere over Michigan. Only 5 months until college football starts, but I digress…

Having already checked-in online, I only visited the ticket counter to check my suitcase, and was then greeted with the less than joyous news that my noon flight out of Chicago had been CANCELED. Weather or some other airline excuse. The earliest flight she could get me on would be 3:30pm, which was about an hour after I was supposed to be in originally. Anymore, I go into Amazing Race mode and try to think of how I can circumvent the standard system of getting bumped around to a later flight and get to my destination as soon as possible. There wasn’t anything more to be done from Cedar Rapids, so I just waited patiently and read my book, made some phone calls, and the flight finally left about 15 minutes after its scheduled time. Got into Chicago at about 11:20am, giving me nearly 4 hours until my flight was scheduled to leave. There was a 1pm flight to NYC, so I went to hunt down that gate and get on standby. Of course, the gate for the 1pm flight was at the farthest end of the K terminal, so I got some exercise. Took awhile for a person to finally materialize at K19, unfortunately, it wasn’t Harrison Ford.

Anyway, got on the standby list, still an hour to kill. Gave into the tempting smells and got some lunch at McDonald’s. Fastest. McDonald’s service. Ever. Seriously, and it was all perfectly hot, though the fries needed some salt, but I survived. Ate and read some more of Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. People began to congregate for the 1pm flight. Gate lady announced for us to all be patient because they had 80 people on the standby list. At this point I resigned myself to not getting on this flight but hoping for another NYC flight going at 2pm. They announced that they would rollover everyone on the standby list that didn’t get on the 1pm to the 2pm and that they were just going to send most of the standby passengers on to gate K7 for the 2pm flight except for a few people that they’d hold on to for the 1pm. She read a list of 7 names and “DeCora” was the last one. I must admit, I was elated. Boarding for the 1pm flight started and the first class passengers and group 1 had been called and were on the plane when we were informed that maintenance was now on board the plane and that boarding was being suspended. A few minutes later boarding was canceled and everyone got back off the plane. The plane had a mechanical problem with the de-icing whatnot and that they wouldn’t be using this plane because it would take 2.5 hours to fix, so the 1pm was going to get a new plane and go out of a new gate. Confused yet?

I was. Was I to stay with the 1pm plane on that standby list or go on to the 2pm gate and hope for the best there? The word was to say with 1pm group. We waited for awhile for a new gate to be announced and the announcement came that the flight was departing out of gate K7 at 1:45pm. Everyone heads to gate K7 where all the 2pm flight people were waiting. They then got shifted to gate H17. It was a giant mass of humanity being shuffled about. Apparently all the morning flights out of Chicago got canceled and some people had been waiting since about 9am. Ugh. Finally the 1pm flight starts boarding. Everyone gets on and they call a couple of names for standby. There are about 5 of us standing around waiting to see. A couple names are called and no one appears to claim those spots. One business man is really persistant with the lady at the counter and she tells him he’s about 6 down on the list and there may only be one more spot. A guy to my left asks another lady if she’s waiting on standby also. She is. He’s been waiting for a flight since 9am. Surely, he would get called before me.

My travel angel had worked her mojo and counterlady announces “DeCora.” Yes! I felt bad for 9am guy for a moment, but I’ve got places to be and glitter to put on. My first ever standby attempt was successful. Woot! I asked counterlady if my luggage would be there when I arrived and she said there was a good chance. I’m trying to not get my hopes up too high, but at least I’m on a flight.

We just started our decent, another 40 minutes and we should be landing.

I finished my book. Have now read both Bridget Jones tales. Fun to read them back to back. Feel my writing style has been overly influenced by the style of said book at the moment. Bear with me, I’m sure it will pass.

I’m a total geek, with my laptop, listening to iTunes while I type this up. I love it. How did I ever do anything without a laptop? How have I been tethered to a desk all this time? I had so much electronic equipment in carry-ons that I really expected to be searched at the security checkpoint. Have laptop, digital camera, cell phone, cords and chargers for each one, plus ethernet cable, firewire cable, and a powerstrip. But no one batted an eye. It was nice.

Alright, now I’m just rattling on. Will go watch a bit of a dvd or read some of my digital version of MacWorld.