Return to the motherland

At long last, my much-anticipated month of vacation has arrived.  After the self-inflicted torture of kicking off my vacation with a two day standardized national medical board examination and a day-long physical with the military to step me in the right direction for my next job promotion, finally it was time to board a jet-liner and head eastward for some much needed Texas-therapy.

As I have always been a frugal (read penny-pinching, miserly) gal, I had never flown first class.  As this has been a trying few months as that this flight back home is my only vacation for the entire year, I decided to splurge a little on myself.  It would seem that I am historically a magnet for all of the worst of humanity when on board aircraft.  I always am next to that "average american" who's bodily excess oozes into my bought and paid for personal space, more often than not accompanied by striking body odor or strikingly overdone cologne/perfume.  Additionally, I am always seated in front of the octogenarian mexican woman who most assuredly has tuberculosis and spends the entire flight couching violently on the back of my head.  Also, should there be any small children on board that day, they are always either the world's most petulant toddler or a screamer who's parents' do not have the common decency to drug their own children before placing them in an enclosed space with unsuspecting strangers.  If not children, then I am most certainly surrounded by teeny-boppers (known generally to be the scourge of the earth.)

Needless to say, I was all kinds of excited to board the flight.  The catch that I had not realized?  U.S. Airways is the skeaziest airline ever.  The planes were dirty and old, and while I was in a wider, further distanced seat from the nearest person, it was still possibly the least pleasant of my flying experiences for the past five years.  On the first flight, my seat partner was apparently a heavy smoker, and despite federal law regarding smoking on aircraft, sadly the general populous is still exposed to smokers on aircraft.  To say he reeked would be to put it nicely.  Flight number two lacked an aromatic seat partner, but it was punctuated by delays due to a putrid, overflowed plane lavatory (I had only thought those couldn't get worse), passengers bitching about flight attendants and vice versa, and the flight attendant refusing to allow me to keep my purse with me in my seat during takeoff (really?  is that really going to mess something up?)  Needless to say, I have no future interest in first class rickets OR U.S. Airways.  Even free booze was not enough to have made this flight remotely worth the cost.

The grand news though?  My feet are back on good old Texas soil.  As soon as I stepped out to the airport, my hair grew thee sizes and my antiperspirant has ceased to adequately work since that time.  Ah, Texas.

What was truly wonderful was to walk out of that airport and run (in heels with a 60 pound suitcase in tow, mind you) directly into the arms of my darling K.  I have already danced in the Armadillo Palace, consumed glorious amounts of Shiner beers, visited the College Town and the grandparents there, hung out with the sissy and by fabulous friend L, and have even finally caught up on my sleep.  I will venture down to the Swamp this week to see the folks for a few days, and then will spend most of my remaining trip in Houston.  I cannot wait.  I am the happiest of all girls.  It is good to be home.