Being home! And fun flying times

Yay for getting home safely! I’m now at my folks’ house in Austin, up at almost 4 in the morning thanks to the wonders of jet lag. It’s been awesome to be home—mom is recovering from surgery, so mostly we’ve been sitting on her bed or on sofas and talking for hours, but I wouldn’t want it any other way, as that’s exactly what I love about my family, our friendship and ability to just sit and talk for as long as we have time for talking. I feel deeply blessed to be able to count my family as some of my closest friends.

All my luggage is here, and all is right with the world—there are tons of little things to be done before I ship out for New York in a few weeks, but all of them are manageable so long as my several 3x5 cards covered in to-do lists don’t disappear.

I had amazing luck with all my flight connections and with customs—nothing took more than five minutes, and it all went beautifully. On the flight from D.C. to Austin I also got the most amusing flight crew I’ve ever had—here are a few snippets of their banter, which actually managed to keep me paying attention to the safety demonstration:

“For the sake of us keeping our jobs, please sit up and pretend to pay attention as my friend leads us through our safety instructions…”

”In case you haven’t driven a car since 1965, this is how a seat belt functions…”

(My mom told me about a better one she had heard from a flight attendant on Southwest: “Here is how a seat belt functions: however, if you don’t know how a seat belt functions, you probably shouldn’t be out by yourself”)

“In the case of a reduction in cabin pressure, oxygen masks will fall from the area above your head. When you’re done screaming, please secure the mask over your own mouth like so. If you’re accompanied by a child, or someone who acts like a large child, please only help them once you have secured your own…”

“Remember that this is a non-smoking flight. If you insist on smoking, we might have to ask you to step outside.”

“In the case of a water-landing, which is pretty much impossible as we won’t pass over a single body of water, but just for the sake of argument, there is a flotation device under your seat…”

“Please be careful while removing your things from the overhead compartment. The reason we ask to use caution is, well, **** happens.”

“Thank you for flying United Express. We hope you have enjoyed flying with us. However if you haven’t, then…thank you for flying Delta.”