If we end up sick on this trip, we are so way totally blaming this woman. She spent the whole freaking flight, all six hours of it, coughing and hacking and snotting. We spent much of the flight with our faces covered. Gah.

When I purchased the tickets for this flight, I selected the 'vegetarian meal' option. I'm particular about selecting these options, though I try to be high maintenance only for Kris instead of for both of us. When dinner came through, I made sure Kris had more than the chicken option, but was disappointed to learn they had lost my vegetarian selection.

The attendants were, however, fabulous in recovering after the error. I quickly received a tray of delicious non-meats:

I was pleased to learn we were served Irish butter ....

... but a bit puzzled at the lack of Irish cheese.

Now, the kiwi threw me off. I've never eaten a kiwi before, choosing to pass along the furry fruit to anyone who will eat them. I'm on vacation, though, so, hey, why not try it? Really? Why not? Just because it's furry, and has slimy jelly flesh, and tiny annoying seeds, I mean, why not?

I had some. It was better than I was expecting.

Whoo! Okay, let's try this again.

Go to airport. Check.

Get chocolate milk shake I've been craving. Check.

Buy snack items for the flight. Check.

Wait forever in the airport. Check.

See a Le Mutt in the airport. Be surprised. Check.

Board the plane for takeoff. Check.

Go go go! Check.

On the way back to the airport, I noticed the hotel shuttle bus had this sign:

We tried to comply, but had a moment of confusion. Something about a lack of seat belts:

Kris went ahead and tried away, to my delight.

Mom told me she wanted pictures of our trip to Ireland. Me. Taking pictures? Really? I mean, really really? I mean, will this be a problem?

Well, here's my first picture:

Wow, it looks an awful lot like a view from a Washington DC Dulles Airport hotel window.

Oh wait, because IT IS.

Kris arrived nominally on time yesterday afternoon and wandered down to baggage claim for his bag, only to be Hobbes by me on his way to the carousel. We wandered back up to the ticket counter, checked in, wandered through security (where, OF COURSE, we were put in the slowest line where some incompetent TSA agent was "speeding things up" by micro-managing the process, causing 3 people to go through our line for every 20 in the next, unmanaged line - I wish I were kidding, I'm not, I counted), sauntered to the gate and waited.

The incoming flight arrived about two hours before our flight was supposed to take off, so the ground crew had plenty of time to clean out the plane, restock it, etc. Around 6:30, though, for a 7:45 flight, we were informed the maintenance crew was doing work on the plane, and our flight was delayed until 8:30.

It was later delayed again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

Around 11PM, I had just started complaining to Kris that the uninformed delays were seriously making me not want to take this flight. He asked why, and I explained. If you tell me what's going on with the repairs, I'm informed, and can feel comfortable in the fact that the flux capacitor needed to be charged to work at 88mph. If you just tell me, We're working on it, I'm uneasy. I don't know what you're doing. I don't know what repairs you're making. I don't know if you're replacing an engine or repairing a bullet hole, or what you're doing. I'm not going to be comfortable in the solution you provided because my imagination is much worse that what you can throw at me.

Kris commented that most of the engineering problems are well defined, and they don't really need to tell us what's happening. I retorted back quickly that, gee, the engineering problems had been well defined and solved in 1987 when the pilots turned off the wind-shear alarms, weren't they? They were well defined when the auto-pilot disengaged because it was unable to continue its severe controls correction in the adverse conditions.

Lots of problems are already solved, but clearly not the problem of effective communication.

Just as my tirade was winding down, we heard the announcement the flight was cancelled. The airline did take care of us, though, as hotel rooms were available for travelling customers.

We bypassed the massive crowds around the gate counter, split from the small crowd going to baggage claim, and went straight to the ticket counter where the hotel vouchers and instructions were being issued. Kris was a little hesitant to skip the baggage claim, but agreed when we walked away with our hotel voucher and saw the line was twenty couples deep.

I suspect we walked down to the baggage claim, grabbed our bags, caught a taxi, arrived at the hotel, checked into our room, and got jiggy with it before some of those people even received their hotel voucher.