Beggars Can't Be Choosers...

But boy, does a beggar's life suck! Yeah, I played the beggar this past weekend. But before we discuss the first line, let's start with the happy side of the weekend.

My friend Natalie invited me out to her wedding a few months ago (the invite occurred a few months ago; the wedding occurred this weekend.) and offered a buddy pass (aka standby ticket) for $80 to fly to Phoenix from Kirksville. Not bad. Not bad at all. Probably would have normally cost upwards of $350 (off the top of my head). I procrastinated giving her a solid answer until shortly before the trip because I wasn't sure how standby worked and didn't want to wind up stranded halfway to Phoenix or something. So when it was pretty clear that the flight wouldn't be full, that I would have a seat, I went ahead and got the ticket.

For those who are wondering, yes, I left the girls home with Derek. Just that is the makings of a beautiful vacation...

The flight over was perfect, went without a hitch. Natalie picked me up at the airport, we went to her parents' place where I met her family, did our nails and watched episodes of The Office (brilliant, absolutely brilliant). Saturday morning we went and got pedicures. I've only ever had three, so I can't really say this with much authority (as far as that that comes from experience), but that was honestly the best pedicure EVER. For $25, I got your basic pedicure, plus a 10-15 minute hot stone massage for my legs, the best nails ever and a cute little flower (with glitter!) on each of my big toenails. The girl who gave me mine did an amazing job and we all agreed that I got the best one.

I won't bother to mention that I haven't completely weaned Xandri yet and did indeed forget my pump, because anyone who hasn't nursed a child can't really understand the level of pain that that causes. Fortunately, Natalie's sil had one to lend...

The rest of the day was spent helping Natalie get ready for her big event, helping her keep a cool head and convincing her that no one would notice the giant basketball hoop that her dear family had failed to remove (the thing takes 6 men to take down--- at least half that number essentially refused to help). She looked absolutely amazing in her wedding gown and her wedding went really well. Her parents have an amazing yard, with the most beautiful pool I've ever seen (short of a really cool resort we went to in Mazatlan. Yeah, it was that cool). The food at the reception was great and her family was fun to hang out with and chat with. I enjoyed being able to hang out without the concern or whining of small children. Well, the ones that were mine anyway. It was almost music to my ears to hear it from children who weren't mine. No responsibility!

After the reception, Natalie and Pete left and we helped take everything down and clean up. My flight was to leave at 9am. Unfortunately, forgetful boob that I am, I left my phone at the hairdresser's and we had to stop by before we went to the airport. So we left at around 6:30, grabbed my phone and checked in at the airport... did the whole security thing, went to my gate (of course it was at the end of the horrible terminal, but no big deal... yet). Here's where it started to curve downhill. I checked in at the gate to find that they were overbooked by three. There was essentially no way I was going to make that flight.

I began to evaluate my options. I asked the gate attendant a few questions and learned that there was a flight leaving at 3pm that was almost as full as the one leaving at 9am; a flight leaving at 6:23pm that was wide open; a flight going to St. Louis leaving 10 minutes before mine that had an opening or two; and that Monday's flights to KC were essentially the same as far as times and bookings. I proceeded to call Derek to find out what he was willing to do and what time the Amtrak left for La Plata.

Driving the 2h45m drive to KC with two little girls was impossible for him. Nothing real stood in his way aside from the inconvenience. That ruled out St. Louis as well. The Amtrak wouldn't work out either.

All things considered, my best option was to leave on the 6pm flight that evening. Fortunately for me, Natalie's wonderful parents had left me their phone number and they were more than happy to pick me up from the airport to wait until it was time to go again. (I owe them.)

Summing up, I stayed with them until my 6pm flight, flew into KC at about 11pm. (Before I left, A. kindly called and offered to hotwire a hotel for me... My response: "Mmm, no, $50 is too much for now." I'm sure I'll be able to sleep at the airport, right? No problem.

About halfway through the flight, I started to get a migraine. I define migraine by a throbbing headache accompanied by nausea. I tried to sleep on the flight, but was definitely uncomfortable. I arrived feeling extremely cranky, tired and overall sick. And with nowhere to go. Ok. So the benches that I had planned to sleep on? Yeah, they ALL had armrests. I literally had to curl up into the space of one seat and sleep on my "borrowed" airline pillow on the cold, hard, metallic arm rest with my legs tucked up into my chest in a severe fetal position. I "slept" for about two hours this way.

At 1:30 I woke up and tried various new positions. Nothing really helped. I tried to sleep on the cold linoleum floor. HA! That was awful. Next option: bathroom countertop. No better. It was probably about 2:30 or so by the time I wandered down the hall in search of carpeted floor. Luckily I found some. Unfortunately, every time I "fell asleep", I would wake up what would seem to be an hour or two later only to find a measly twenty minutes had passed. I have never passed such a long night in my life. Not even when I was giving birth. Finally, I went and checked in at 4:30 when they opened and went to wait for a gift shop to open so I could get some Excedrin. Meanwhile, I tried to eat a little bit. I ate a couple bites of a croissant I had and half an apple. Yeah, all that nausea? Good thing I was next to a trash can. Do you think I remembered toothpaste? How about gum? Any kind of breath freshener at ALL? Course not.

So I spent the next three hours trying to ignore the vomit-taste in my mouth and trying not to vomit again. Still trying to catch even a little shut-eye.

The plane ride went quickly and naturally Derek was late picking me up. As it happens, that was probably the best sleep I got the entire night-- Kirksville's airport has futons.