shaky start

It was a good thing that Mom called me last night. I was originally under the impression that my flight left at 7 this evening, when it actually left at 7 this morning. I somehow read the itinerary wrong, and it was only when Mom said "we'll see you tomorrow for lunch," that the penny dropped. This meant that everything that I had planned to do today before the evening-flight-I-thought-I-was-going-to-be-on had to be done in the space of a few hours last night, which meant very few hours of sleep before my flight this morning.

Driving to the airport at 5:30 this morning wasn't too fun either, especially with the the torrential rain. It's amazing the huge waves of wind and wet that the big trucks create when they pass you. It makes one feel very small and vulnerable.

My first flight was a puddle-jumper to St Louis, which was not fun in the horrible weather. It's odd, I always seem to be on the puddle jumpers in bad weather. Fortunately, the i-pod was fully charged, and I had Neil Gaiman audiobooks to keep me calm. The Crowded House song "Weather With You" was playing on the plane's radio. Hearing it made me wonder if the Universe might be playing games with us. The original members of Crowded House are getting back together to record and tour, by the way. I'm looking forward to that.

The second flight was St Louis to LA in a normal-size plane. I got to see Casino Royale during the flight. Not a bad flick, as far as James Bond movies go, and Daniel Craig was rather yummy. I saw him in Munich and Sylvia, and he's a great actor. I now want to read the book version of Casino Royale, and I've also got a craving to see the original spoof version with Peter Sellers.

The only good thing about the flights was that the pilots got the planes above the clouds to minimize the turbulence. It was nice to have warm sunshine coming through the windows for a change.

San Francisco was sunny and windy, though warmer than Baltimore. I needed a good thaw. The cab driver was a very talkative and flirty Brazilian. Mom asked him to "pop the boot" so Steve could get my duffle bag in the trunk. I had to translate for the cab driver that this meant "open the trunk."

I had a scrumptious salad for lunch with lots of fresh seafood in it. Good protein can be soooo reviving.

We made a stop at the Ghirardelli chocolate factory. You could smell it a block away - the BEST aromatherapy. When you walk in, the greeter gives you a sample of chocolate. Today, it was dark chocolate with caramel filling. Cleverly, the entrance leads you right into the shop, and naturally, I wasted no time in chocolate shopping - several large bars in various flavors and two bags of samples. I blame it on the chocolate aromatherapy - it makes a girl giddy and lightheaded and less in control of her wallet. Worth it, though.