This weekend I headed back east for the second time in two weeks. The whole family (including the four youngest ones) converged on my sister's new house in Pennsylvania, and we had a Thanksgiving holiday unlike any other. For most of my life, Thanksgiving was fairly predictable: it would be hosted at my mom's house in Cheshire and people would show up in the afternoon for a big feast, football, drinks, dessert, and board games. Only in the past few years, as the family has grown, did I have Thanksgiving anywhere but Cheshire. But with a new generation of family ready to take over the holidays, it was clear that the old traditions needed to evolve.
Cari and Matt purchased a new (huge) four-bedroom house this past summer, and we needed every bit of it. The very spacious kitchen with abundant counter space made meal preparation much easier for the multiple types of food that needed to be prepared. Nobody ended up sleeping on a couch or on the floor, and the common areas were large enough to accommodate all the children's toys that were repeatedly strewn about. After a big meal on Thursday, we spent the remainder of the weekend doing things like visiting Santa and seeing the Christmas lights, cutting down a Christmas tree, and revisiting family pictures and video from the last few months.
However, the most drama from this weekend occurred during my return trip to San Diego. Devin and I traveled back east on the same flight Wednesday night, but our return flights were on different airlines. Fortunately, they took off and landed within an hour of each other, so we planned to rendez-vous at the San Diego airport on Sunday afternoon. However, my flight was late getting out of Philadelphia due to some human errors from Delta (couldn't agree on the departure gate, leading to the inevitable delay). This caused me to miss my connection in Atlanta (despite my best efforts to sprint from one end of the airport to the other), leaving me on the standby list for the three inevitably overbooked remaining flights for the evening. I actually reached my gate with the plane still there, but the door was closed, and, well, the rest is history.
Figuring that since (a) I was flying first class, and (b) I missed my connection due to Delta's ineptitude (rather than my own lateness or weather or some other act of God), I might have a good chance of moving to the front of the line for the next flight. Hardly. I got to the gate for the next flight out to find that I was 15th on the standby list to a flight that was already overbooked. At this point, I decided to revisit the rebooking desk to voice my displeasure at the situation, and to see if they could remedy it any better than Monday morning. Originally, they told me that they could confirm me through Dallas on American (first class, even!), but then explained that my record was "locked" and they couldn't make changes. Not quite understanding what this meant, I inquired about flying into Orange Country, and she was able to book me on a middle seat in coach -- hardly ideal considering the O.C. is about 80 miles north and Devin would have to come pick me up. But rather than going to my gate, I decided to give the re-booking desk one more shot to right a wrong, and this time they came through. The agent was able to confirm me on the 7:26pm flight, almost five hours after my original flight, but I still got to fly first class and still got in at a reasonable time (9:15pm). As I write this from the Atlanta airport, I only hope there is no more drama for this day!
