Made It After Only 14 Hours

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Woke up this morning a little before 5 AM as Henri was doing is trick where he bangs on the closet door and then jumps on my head and then gets down and meows in a pitful mournful way, all in the name of being helpful in getting me up for my 7:30 flight. Drank some coffee, drowned the cat, called the airport taxi and made it with time to spare. The flight to Chicago was uneventful--a few crying babies that made me wonder why there aren't more cases of child abuse reported. This one woman was traveling alone with four boys between the ages of 2 and 7. I never would have been able to do it. I probably would've given them all adult cold nighttime medicine. Weird to be back in Chicago, if only at the O'Hare airport and I wondered if maybe I would see someone I used to know--maybe Christy or Bennett Weiss or Becky. I called Dan and was so engrossed in talking to him that I completely missed my connecting flight. Totally. I went up to the desk at 10 (the flight was supposed to leave at 9:48) and said, Has this flight been cancelled? No, the woman said. Are you Aimee? I've been paging you for the last half hour. What? So, she generously put me on the next available puddle jumper at 12:30 and I bought a Will Shortz Tuesday level crossword puzzle and hunkered down for another 2 hours. Was happy to find that I had a seat all to myself. We didn't crash. I always wonder if the plane will blow up on take-off or landing or like if I would be heroic or cowardly in the case of a hostage take-over.

My aunt JoAnne picked me up with little incident and we ate at the Cracker Barrel (they have the best mashed potatoes ever) and then drove to Giltner. It looks mostly the same except for the new community center; still remember the playground we had picnics and the miles and miles of cornfields and silos and the occassional cow dotting the field.

Now, I'm sitting in a computer class with JoAnne and my cousin Stephanie--they take classes every Thursday night. I don't know how long I will last, as I didn't sleep on the plane plus there's a one hour time difference (earlier) here. May just put my head down on the keyboard for the slightest, tiniest moment.

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