it's good to be back home again

...so says john denver, but i'm not so sure.

what was supposed to be a leisurely long weekend with the family at the south carolina beach town where i spent summers turned into an exercise in pandemonium, not to mention overeating.

let me set the scene: we were scheduled to leave on a redeye leaving LAX at 12:30 a.m. on thursday. tuesday and wednesday found me in the bay area for work, so i landed at burbank at 8:30 wednesday night, ran home to pack and squeeze the dogs (and squeeze in a drink), then proceed to the parking spot on sepulveda (my favorite place to park at lax...it's like heaven).

cut to: the mister and i standing at the shuttle stand waiting to be whisked away to our nearby terminal. my blackberry twinges. what do i find but an email from my sister (at 2 am her time). the youngest nephew is sick and it doesn't look like we can go to the beach. with the mister short on vacay time, he decides to jump ship (or plane) and head back home. i proceed onto the airport, only to find that my itinerary is cancelled. even though i have a boarding pass, there is no seat for me...not on my flight out of lax, not on my flight out of dallas to s.c., and nothing on the return. so, i manage to get all of that worked out (at one in the morning with a combined weekly total of ten hours of sleep to that point) and board the plane. which is populated solely with screaming babies and two good old boys who decide it is high time to tuck into the airplane booze as they sit directly behind me from 1 am to 4 am (pacific) and hold a redneck kaffeklatsch in my ear.

i make it to dallas, get a new seat on my flight and head to s.c. it is still up in the air as to whether we will be going to the beach. i crash for several hours (after accompanying the moms to linen-n-things...pinch me!), and wake up in a somewhat better mood. we grab some takeout from one of my favorite local joints and then go visit my grandparents. about twenty minutes into that, my mother starts itching uncontrolloably.

cut to: me at the emergency room with my mom at 9:45. guess what time we get out of there? that's right---2:30 a.m.!!!

the merriment continued from there, but i won't bore you with the details, other than to say i was supposed to arrive home last night at 9:30, but in fact made it home today at noon today. for those keeping score at home, that means i had to awaken today at 1 a.m. pacific for my journey home...and i have a full day of work ahead of me!

i will say that i never made it to the beach, but did get to spend four days with my nephews in their town. they are adorable and (almost) made the trip worthwhile (ok, they did, but only because i got to use them as an excuse to play air hockey and skeeball).

so, the moral of the story is: make your family come to you. or pack a hell of a lot more xanax than i did.

the end.