You can stop checking the wire services to see if a Phoenix-bound plane
crashed. We are very much alive. Tired---very, very
tired---but alive.
First off, I want to apologize for even mentioning the possibility of
liveblogging the debate. I should have known better. So, I'm sorry if I
raised anyone's hopes, but it's not like I haven't warned you people
before about my lack of reliability. This is
The Cake Eater Chronicles: where our promises don't mean a damn! (TM).
It's really not my fault you people never listen! Sheesh. One would
assume that you all knew that the only thing I reliably produce around here is crap. It's really not my fault that you're all delusional.
Anyway, it's been gogogogogofreakin'go!
since Tuesday. Everything that needed to be done before we left got
done, and when the husband shook me awake at 4:15 a.m. CDT yesterday
morning, I thought that life was pretty damn cruel, as I'd had about
four hours of sleep. But we managed to get over to the airport and into
the check-in line for our flight, only to be halted when the nice lady
at the counter said, "Mr. Nelson, you're on the Do Not Fly list. We're
going to have to check this out. So, I'm going to ask you to stay with me while we get your name off the list."
Wooooh. Scary stuff when they tell you can't go anywhere, but as it
turns out it was no big deal. There, apparently, is a Michael Nelson on
the list, but it's not my Michael Nelson: they ruled him out
using his birthdate and middle name. But it took them about fifteen
minutes to take care of the problem and now I have to make sure he
takes care of it before we fly back to Minneapolis on Monday. The
ticketing lady said they have about four people every flight who have
the same name as someone on the list. When we were walking away, the
very unperturbed husband commented, "So, this is what Teddy Kennedy was
bitching about? What a puss!"
The rest of the flight was uneventful and we arrived at the inlaws
house at around eleven. The thing that's screwing me up right now is
the time change. You see, Arizona doesn't do the whole Daylight Savings
Time thing, so we're two hours behind our time zone...so when the
husband returned from the bachelor party and finally went to bed at
four a.m. local time, it was actually six a.m. at home. I, of course,
was awake when he got home, so I think I've got an hour on him, as far
as sleep is concerned. All told, I've slept a total of nine or ten
hours in the past forty-eight. I'm living on caffeine and cigarettes
right about now. And I don't know that it's going to get any better.
The husband, not surprisingly, is doing better than I am. Travel
always, always, always wipes me out. I'm not really at peak performance
until about two days into a trip. By tomorrow I should be fine. It's
just getting to tomorrow that's going to be a bit of a problem. I hate
to tell everyone this, but I didn't even watch the debate last night.
Even though I WAS HERE! I have absolutely no idea what was said, who
said it and who got the most points for being obnoxious. I have no
clue. I haven't checked any blogs. I read the newspaper---an actual
dead tree edition!---but it didn't tell me anything new. So,
essentially, I have no clue about any of it. Instead of driving to
Tempe, we had to drive to pick up the husband's tuxedo for the wedding.
Then we went over to the bride and groom's house and chatted before the
boys took off for the bachelor party. Then I went over to the groom's
sister's house with another old friend and we sat around, drank wine
and had a girls' night. And it was fun! So, on the whole, I think I had
a more fulfilling life experience than if I'd fought the traffic in
Tempe, found a place to park and then tried to figure out what was
going on where. If I'd had a few more hours to figure everything out, I
probably would have come up with something, but I didn't. We got here
at eleven. We had lunch at noon. We slept for a few hours and then by
the time we had to leave, the debate was about ready to begin. I didn't
have time to moblize my efforts. Ah, well. Such is life.
So, here's post #1 from sunny and hot Arizona. How many more of these
you'll get, I don't know. I can't imagine that, with the minimal brain
activity I've got going on right now, I'm not really impressing anyone
with my witty writing. Pffft.