Getting back to normal*
And the bad news is . . . well, in the first place, they’re gone. I wrote Hannah an email last thing last night, saying, I’m going to bed and it’s still early evening for you. Had a return email this morning saying ‘I woke at 2 am’.**
Email is great, but she’s writing from three thousand miles away. They’re gone.
Although not without excitement. Sunday morning was not one of any of our better mornings. I woke up at seven, said ‘stuff this’ and rolled over. And stayed that way. Some while later I gradually opened one eye thinking comfortably, hmm, I actually did get back to sleep, didn’t I? And the one eye slowly swivelled toward the array*** of clock faces on the bookshelves† beside the bed.
They all said variations on a theme of ‘8:35.’ And I have to be up a ladder with my hands on a bell rope by 8:50, although 8:45 would be better.
You never saw any still-asleep person move so fast. –What is this? Never mind, just put it on.†† Hellhounds were outraged: they move slowly (and, in their case, luxuriously, which is a little beyond me) in the mornings too, and here I am hustling them immediately outdoors when they haven’t so much as finished stretching and purring††† yet–and where they stood around looking aggrieved–fine, come in, keep your legs crossed or your penises retracted or whatever you say to boys–and then back in the CRATE?! They’re used to Sunday mornings but this is . . . indecent.
In the tower we started off with the Fantastic Four‡ but eventually had enough for minor (six working bells) and I had one of those Moments That Count When You’re a Mediocre Ringer. I was on the lowly treble, but the thing that is regularly undervalued about the lowly treble, when you’re a mediocre ringer (the good ringers know better), is that the treble in ordinary methods really does keep the inside bells sorted out. When you’re ringing an ordinary touch–especially on Sunday mornings when you’re a hero by being there at all–lots of ringers, myself included, ring by when they pass the treble, which tells you which piece of ‘work’ you’re supposed to be doing. If you forget, where you are in relation to the treble is probably your first recourse. This requires that the treble be in the right place, which may not be happening if some of the other bells are going wrong because you’re going wrong. We had one of those moments Sunday morning where someone went rather shatteringly wrong. We had two blows of cacophony but I on the treble, for a wonder, had remained in the right place, and our third blow we were all rather miraculously back where we were supposed to be again. This is mostly down to our ringing master shouting orders, but it was also because the treble stayed in the right place and dragged everyone after her.
Thanks to last minute stragglers we managed to ring down all eight bells in peal too which is a glorious noise when you get it right, and we got it pretty right. So I was feeling comparatively okay despite the leftover cold trickle of ten-minutes-to-get-to-the-tower adrenaline plus the immediate prospect of saying goodbye to some of my nearest and dearest . . . when I saw Hannah’s face appearing at the top of the tower ladder. She’d said she’d come by for service ring if she could, but I hadn’t been expecting her because packing always takes longer than you think it will, and they needed to leave by ten. I was going to swing by the newsagent for chocolate‡‡ for the plane journey and go say goodbye.
The lock on the porch door won’t turn, she said. I had to crawl out a window. ‡‡‡
. . . . And they have four large suitcases and an airplane to catch.
Climbing down the tower ladder, and the adrenaline is starting to gallop again.
Hannah said, And we don’t have a key to the bolts on the sitting room door.
The sitting room door is a piece of plastic garbage which I want to replace but it has to get in line. When Third House was finally mine§ and the Lock Man came round to change all the locks he couldn’t replace that one because it’s integral to the stupid plastic door, so he added two locking bolts. The locking bolts have dumb little keys that the Key Man can’t duplicate. So only the master set of keys has the bolt keys. Which has never mattered because everyone goes in and out the side door. Which leads to the porch door.
Yes you do, I said.
No we don’t, said Hannah. I gave them back to you yesterday.
No you didn’t! I said, starting to panic. I gave them back to you again!
Two women standing in a churchyard staring at each other. And have I mentioned that there was a lot of bad-tempered weather circling like a tiger around a nilgai yesterday? Two women standing in a churchyard staring at each other while the thunderheads pile up.
Peter usually meets me as I come out from service ring, and he was there yesterday. So we all parted, Peter and I to hasten back to the mews and the cottage respectively for the spare sets of Third House keys in case one of them has a porch-door key that will work, and Hannah to go back to Third House and turn her handbag upside down in the hopes that the master keys are in there somewhere.
It was raining by the time Peter and I turned up at Third House with our useless keys: some piece of the lock has fallen down in the keyhole and you can’t even get a key in. But the boot of the rental car was full of Large Suitcases: the master keys were in the bottom of Hannah’s handbag. Whew.
It was really pelting down by now. And–I’m not kidding–the first lightning zapped across the sky and the thunder crashed as Hannah and I threw our arms around each other. They drove off in the-bridge-is-out-and-how-will-the-doctor-get-to-the-kid-with-diphtheria-now? weather, the water sheeting off the roof and geysering out from under the wheels. Peter splashed back to the mews and I went wetly back to the cottage to commiserate with sulky hellhounds.
But Hannah and Cormac and Rebecca and Ruby are all home and dry today. And three thousand miles away.
* Nah.
** This shouldn’t happen if you’re taking your arnica for jet lag. Arnica is brilliant for jet lag^, nine people out of ten, or even nineteen out of twenty, ^^ and I started Hannah on it several years ago. You take your first one–usually a 30c is enough–about an hour before the plane leaves, another one as soon as you arrive, and a third when you go to bed that night. This puts you on local time: if you’ve lost a night’s sleep you’re still short of sleep and it won’t cure that, but you’ll be short of sleep on local time. And be sure to go to bed that night on local time. I know it has worked for Hannah–I probably told you all this last October when she was here before: I do my little arnica tap dance as often as I can create the opportunity–so I hope this is an aberration. If it isn’t we may fiddle with the potency a little. One of the lovely things about homeopathy is you can always adjust.
^ As well as for horseshoe-shaped bruises and an assortment of other damage.
^^ For the twentieth person there are other homeopathic remedies to try.
*** At the moment there are three of them. Plus the 24-hour kitchen timer that is the only time-appraising apparatus that does what I tell it to. Long, er, time readers of this blog know about my dogged^ inability to come to terms with the fourth dimension.
^ And dogs do have something to do with it
† In front of the books
†† And no, I did not show up at the tower with my pants on my head. Not, I will add, that this necessarily would be noticed, since Sunday mornings are a trifle drastic generally. Which is doubtless why more Sundays than not we’re extremely grateful if we are able to ring six bells. Weekly heroism is in short supply in the modern world. Especially weekly heroism that happens at 8:45 Sunday morning.
††† Sic
‡ Although we’re three girls and a bloke so some reassignment of superpowers is perhaps in order. Although I’d like to be the lumpy one that bursts into flame easily. I already have a tendency to burst into flame easily. I’d quite like to be able to back this up by burning things down when they peeve me. I’d also like to be able to point my finger at aggressive off-lead dogs and make them disappear to the Planet of Odd Socks. And then fry the owners.
‡‡ Definition of civilisation: somewhere you can buy Green & Black’s on a Sunday morning. We have a very enlightened newsagent.
‡‡‡ What a good thing I do not have civic-minded neighbours. Although if the next-doors–the ones with the Evil Terrier–called the cops on me it would be war. I found seven balls in my back garden Sunday afternoon from over the wall. Seven. Five tennis balls and two black and white soccer balls.
§ I suppose all real estate transactions have an epic quality . . . like a few millennia of Sunday service rings all in a row. . . .
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Please join the discussion at Robin McKinley's Web Forum.
Congratulations– on surviving a crazy morning, getting the bells rung, and rung wonderfully well, then managing the rest as one crisis followed the next!
I applaud you.
Oh, and I had a question– I was in Stop and Shop yesterday morning [to get money for train fare because we went to Columbia to sing in a concert, and I have to go to Stop and Shop if I want cash because the atm on campus charges me something like seven dollars extra if I want to withdraw anything-- it is a pain, but the point is, I was wandering around Stop and Shop,] and I saw a shelf full of Green and Black’s chocolate and thought of you, and almost bought some. But then I turned around and saw, in the freezer behind, that there is Green and Black’s ICE CREAM! Did you know that?
It just occurred to me that you have said that you are avoiding dairy, so maybe you do know and just choose to not eat it.
But I thought I would mention it when the occasion arose, and you talk about the chocolate here, so I was reminded and thought now would be as good a time/place as any…
And I think we’ve got your rain now– we had a good week and a half of 70-80 degree weather, but the last few days presented a marked decrease– 61, then 48, and mid 40s again today, but POURING on and off all day. Even the ‘off’ wasn’t a cessation of the rain altogether, just a slowing down. I’m glad I have an umbrella and rain boots– walking to class on the opposite side of campus when one is soaking wet is not terribly pleasant. Oh well.
And Hannah, Cormac, Becki, and Rubi– if you are reading this, I am glad that you made it home safely, even though Robin is undoubtedly missing you!
there is Green and Black’s ICE CREAM! Did you know that?
********* Yup. I just try not to THINK about it. :)
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Op. Then sorry for bringing it up! :)
Bad, BAD Julia. :)
Oh no.
Guess it is time to grovel again!
*grovel* *grovel* *grovel*
*virtual chocolate chip cookies*
*more virtual chocolate chip cookies*
… hey, it worked last time!
Oh, and let’s throw in some shameless praising and admiration-ness and so on for good measure.
*admires from afar, then tosses some more virtual cookies in the mix*
And a hug.
HUG
:)
“As well as for horseshoe-shaped bruises and an assortment of other damage.”
Yes, and it works on the horses too. I didn’t know about its use for jet lag, though. I will have to remember that if I go anywhere that involves crossing time zones.
So sad. Sunday sounds like it was full of excitement, and not always the fun kind. *sigh* But yay on the ringing! I’m really looking forward to the video.
But I’m glad to hear that the faithful Guest Bloggers are home safe and dry. Welcome back to this side of the pond, guys!
I’m glad you woke up (just) in time – half awake is a treacherous state when brains will tell themselves anything to get that extra sleep…
and why are pants on head such a universal indication of lunacy? I’ve never ever seen anyone, sectioned, voluntary inmate or other, who wore pants on their head…
Keys!! Handbags!! Full of useful , nay vital items including extremely smal portable sinks, under which keys can lurk, and be impossible to retrieve. Very glad they were found before the suitcases had to warp through another dimension to leave third house :)
I hope there’s a remedy for missing friends; I will send you browies just cooling on the wire rack to help.
… and I’ve just started rereading Sunshine for the umpteenth time. Thank you, thank you, thank you for writing it and all your other books, which are ALL comfort books to me.
thank you, thank you! :)
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Your ringing achievements are piling up recently. Maybe venting on the blog is allowing you to coast on the actual ringing? As much as anyone can coast when yanking a rope attached to a massive iron bell, that is? But seriously, maybe going over your concerns in writing means that subconsciously you are dealing with your ringing issues, so when you are in the bell tower, you don’t have as much to obsess about and you get on with the actual ringing? Anyway, I hope progress is a one way street.
Sorry it was a drama departure, and I hope you are bearing up under the ME. Our temperature dropped 15 degrees in two days and is due to go back up at the end of the week. What can I say? It is being an indecisive spring. But I prefer that to burning hot summer any day.
so when you are in the bell tower, you don’t have as much to obsess about and you get on with the actual ringing
******** What a delightful thought. Maybe I’m just getting . . . NORMAL. Naaaaah . . . And this *is* how ringing goes: you lurch forward and then you get nowhere, nowhere, nowhere, then you have a classic DISASTER and decide to give up ringing . . . but you keep ringing while you’re thinking about stopping . . . and then you take another lurch forward. It happens to everyone. It’s just a little less DRAMATIC when you’re TALENTED rather than merely STUBBORN. I think I’m past the worst of the ‘giving it up’ stage . . . but I could be wrong. I certainly regularly have runs when I am getting NOWHERE and will NEVER GET ANY FURTHER FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. I’m still in shock at the Stedman Triples . . . and if I don’t blow it the next time I ring it, I’ll blow it the time *after*, because that’s also how it goes.
It’s BUCKETED it down most of today and got cold again. We’ve all got whiplash from the changes in direction. *Spring.* Sigh. But daylight *late* is still a treat, EVERY day.
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I’m on Easter holiday from my one job (still translating like crazy, though) so I am enjoying the balcony and the sunsets.
I didn’t say earlier how impressed I am at being able to be up and out of the house so quickly, with added hellhounds. I crawl out of bed and take a minimum of half an hour before I am willing to do anything but growl, and then all I can do is mutter.
As your planting is going so slowly I made an effort and loaded up a few of my photographs, so here is your first few of our sixth-floor balcony in Athens.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/susan_from_athens/
(Pictures carefully chosen to look tidy-ish, although I notice that in one my pillow is out on the fer forge furniture airing – at least it’s for a good purpose). Enjoy some of my blooms. Having got the hang of it (and thousands of photos on my computer) you might be getting updates from this and other photo obsessions. (I currently have a thing about skies and sunsets and also about recording art graffiti from the streets in my neighbourhood).
OOOOOOOOOH. Bougainvillea. Oooooh. Sigh. At least I can grow snapdragons, although mine are little green things at the moment. (Although to my amazement I have SEVERAL second-years coming on, and one third year.) So your balcony is a long thin ‘L’ with your bedroom blocking one end?
I would/will love photos of life in Athens. Ordinary life in what is to me an exotic landscape.
I have to ask Blogmum about my Gallery of the Usual Suspects. I have so many things to ask her I FORGET. Now I want a photo of YOU!
Who is Akrokeramo? (. . . Sp?)
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The big front balcony is a long L with the living room in the angle of the L, and my bedroom off the side of the top of it and next to the ledge with a bunch of plants and some of our Akrokerama (plural). An akrokeramo is an architectural element that is used to edge a roof. In ancient temples they were made in marble like an acanthus and sometimes with a face on them. The idea was copied in neoclassical architecture, using ceramic figures to edge the pottery roof tiles. These particular ones are from the house my father was born in, in Piraeus, which was torn down in the eighties. They are quite old, as his father salvaged them off the previous house that was on that site, and I am fond of mine. I like the idea of something as fragile as pottery surviving for thousands of years or something really humble in this case for over a hundred.
The bougainvillea is from last year. It is slightly fried from the snow, but will probably recover, but its season is later on in the year.
I like the idea of something as fragile as pottery surviving for thousands of years or something really humble in this case for over a hundred.
********* Yes. VERY cool.
Thank you, Susan, I love the views (and the apricot blossom). :)
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You’re welcome. I’ll add more as I get my act together
I feel your pain… my best friend moved to Belgium… *sigh* But, like you (and your friend), at least there’s a place to stay if we travel.
(./me sends happy, energetic music instead of sugar… maybe to help with the dancing to work off the sugar ;)
(I tried to post this under the post, but it kept giving me WordPress errors.)
******** 200 lbs and 5?3? I admit that I agree with your doctor that you should lose weight. (You posted about this a while ago.) But different bodies want different things. This one actually does function better thinner, but my build is peculiar. I think of myself as a stretched-out medium. :) Your body may like being chunky. Just a little less chunky.
I know I need to lose weight. Part of the problem is metabolic–I’m insulin resistant, and they have me on diabetes medications for it, but I still don’t lose weight. I did Weight Watchers for three solid weeks, religiously, and didn’t lose a single pound. It’s just a very depressing subject.
I can cut down on what I eat; I can eat more fruits and vegetables; I can eat less calories, but the weight doesn’t come off. Exercise helps, a little.
Currently my weight is redistributing itself, so yay, smaller jeans size–that doesn’t help with the health problems though.
I have been to nutritionists; I have been to Weight Watchers; I have started exercising. I weigh exactly the same. I’m going to end up dead by the time I’m 30. =(
You’re not going to be dead by 30 with nothing more wrong with you than too fat. How many of the alternatives have you tried? I’m *going* to mention homeopathy, you know. There are some ‘weight loss’ remedies but the best bet is always to go to a proper homeopath and get your entire ‘case’ taken. If the homeopath is any good–and I realise that’s the big important if–ONE of the things that will happen is that you’ll lose some weight as a kind of by-the-way. Acupuncture might help and Bowen Method massage might help. Those are the ones I know about; there are others.
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Congratulations on successfully getting through Sunday morning. Oversleeping and awaking in panic is a #$&%@ way to start a day. And then to follow up with key panic–shudder. Glad it all worked out and that Hannah and family got home safely.
It’s interesting that your hellhounds purr. I have had a couple of Danes that did, and it was expressive of absolute deep contentment.
I read the comments about shoes from yesterday and so will give you this web site for extremely cool shoes — http://www.thoseshoes.com. I have a pair of clogs with one of my dogs painted on them (puppy on one foot, adult on the other) and covet some that tie on. These are guaranteed to make a statement.
OOOOOOOooooooh . . . Hmmmmmmmmm. . . . (But do they ship to the UK . . . )
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They’d probably ship anywhere as long as the charges were covered. You’d be in good shape, given the current exchange rate!
I’m in very BAD shape because I earn 99.99% of my money in America!
The trick is to ship them to friends in the US just before they come to pay you a visit and beg them to bring them with you… If you are evil, you keep shipping things to them (with the occasional hostess gift, so they don’t dump the lot in the bin) for the sole purpose of forcing a visit.
I have a dear friend in Seattle and I always get in a big CDbaby shop before she comes here, for independent music. Poor girl must also sometimes feel like she’s doing a grocery run to Athens. I load her up with things I can’t find here, and she leaves with a bag full of things she can’t find there… Tons of honey and honey and sesame sweets and Cretan rusks etc., etc. and so forth.
Somewhere or other I have a recipe for apricot and peach granita that I will have to unearth before summer fruit comes into season. I also have a wide variety of boozy granitas (margarita, mint julep etc.). If you feel the need for ice cream hitting you too hard. Also worth an investigation are Movenpick (a Swiss make) ice creams, as they have some marvellous dairy-free granitas including lemon and lime or raspberry and strawberry.
Yes, lovely granitas! Also I think of them as the ‘rough’ kind so you aren’t constantly stirring the beggars while they’re freezing. I’ll look for Movenpick. Thanks.
Good tip re the arnica. I find all your homeopathic stuff fascinating. I’ve never tried it but I have a couple of long haul overseas trips coming up in the next few months, will have to try it. Off to the internet to find some places to buy homeopathic remedies here in Australia.
There’s quite a lot of homeopathy in Oz. But it’s a bit like it is in America–there’s a lot there too but it’s a big country and it’s easy to be somewhere it *isn’t.* Good luck. At least you can get remedies by mail order.
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I can point you in the direction of a recipe for a double chocolate sorbet, if you like – no dairy, just chocolate….
Some of us get up regularly at 6:00 am on a Sunday for 90 minutes’ ice-skating before church at 10:00!….. and it does occasionally happen that we have a mad shattering rush to be on the ice before our teacher at 7:30!
YES. WHY ARE YOU EVEN ****ASKING****?
Before 7:30. Well I used to go to *bed* before *2*. . . .
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A fellow sufferer from the skating madness?
I think I could do before Church … I skate from 6 to 8:30 (p.m.) on Sunday and find myself suffering from pre skating over exertion due to the gardening madness from which I also suffer.
However when I return home I often find that Robin has posted and I can go to bed smiling.
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You know, since locating your blog a couple of weeks ago (all right, it wasn’t difficult to locate, I’m just computer illiterate and it never occured to me that you might have a blog, so I didn’t look for it) my normal derise to eat Green & Black’s has increased tremendously.
If someone would come up with a remedy for missing friends, I would appreciate it. I’m thinking a simple, inexpensive teleportation device.
I’ll refrain from enthusiastic fan burbling- aren’t you glad?- but I will be thinking of you at the grocery store later today, as I buy more unnecessary chocolate. And mock the cat, who’s named Aerin-sol. It’s a pity she’s as sharp as a sackful of wet mice.
Chocolate is NEVER unnecessary. :)
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Well, I’m glad to hear that everyone made it home safely (even if I’m sorry they had to leave), that bells were rung, keys found, and so on.
Your story reminded me of one of my own traveling experiences a few years ago and I thought I’d share. I don’t know if it’s as amusing typed as it is explained outloud with hand gestures and such, but I’ll try anyway. It was my first furlough home to the States from Romania after having been away for several months (June to April). We’d had to change my ticket, and my boss had emailed me the changes. Great. I have an electronic ticket, right? So I printed it off and put it in my packing pile.
Let me also mention that I was flying out on this particular day rather than a day or two later because they hadn’t been able to find anything on any other day anywhere close to this one. Let me also mention that two days after I got back to the States I was flying down to Georgia for the wedding of one of my good friends; this was a bit early for me to fly down, but there were no flights on any later days to Georgia. So this is my ONLY day to fly if I’m going to make the wedding. Let me also point out the new culture and language.
My (Romanian) housemate came with me into the airport to get everything straightened out. This was back in the day when there was a metal detector BEFORE the check-in lines, but also in the day when non-passengers could go through that metal detector. We made our way through, and she helped me navigate the lines to figure out the right place to go to get my new boarding pass (remember changed ticket).
We waited our turn, made our way to the front of the line, and she handed him my print-out ticket information. He looked over it, said, “That’s great. Now where is her ticket?” We looked at him with this feeling of utter horror. She said, “That’s her ticket.” He said, “No, this is not her ticket. Where’s the ticket?”
It was now 5:30 in the morning. My plane was leaving at 6:45. Our apartment was a half-hour drive away from the airport. She looked at him again and said, “Can you help us?” He said, “I can schedule her for another day.” Remember earlier comments about other flying days NOT BEING AVAILABLE.
We drifted out of line and looked at each other, utterly dismayed. It was my first time going back home (this was before Romania had really become home, although I was working at it), and my friend was getting married, and now I was maybe going to miss it. It was too awful for words.
Then I remembered… my OTHER housemate. She was Canadian and had only arrived in Romania 2 months earlier. She had also decided to stay home and sleep (which, considering that it was 5:30 in the morning and we had been gone from home at least an hour already, was a sensible choice). But she was my only hope. I called her, saying, “I’m so sorry… so sorry to call you at 5:30 in the morning. But I REALLY need my plane ticket!!! So I hope you don’t mind calling a taxi and coming down here right NOW.” Fortunately I knew exactly where it was (it wasn’t a matter of forgetting; I honestly had believed that the old paper copy was no longer necessary and had just left it in my top desk drawer). Fortunately again, she managed to navigate the complexities of calling a taxi in Romanian (for those who have never lived in a country speaking a foreign language, talking on the phone is about the hardest interaction you have to do because you have no visual input to aid understanding).
While she was in the taxi, her taxi driver stopped to get gas. She told us later that he pulled over, casually filled up the tank, and sat around chatting with his buddies for awhile, telling them, “Yeah, I have this girl here that needs to get to the airport as soon as possible. Her friend needs her plane ticket, and the plane is leaving pretty soon. She’s in a real hurry.” Etc. She didn’t understand all of it, but said she sat there wishing that he would quit talking about what a hurry she was in and start hurrying.
Meanwhile, my Romanian housemate and I knew nothing of this. She went around frantically working minor miracles while I sat and nervously babysat my luggage. Somehow she got things figured out so that the check-in counter people were ready to take my stuff in a moment’s notice if it worked out, figured out everything about where we needed to go in what order, etc. I watched the clock and thought miserably about weddings in Georgia.
Finally, at 6:23 my Canadian housemate showed up at the airport. The Romanian housemate rushed outside (she had been going back and forth to watch), grabbed my ticket, and raced me over to the ticket change counter. “Please! We have her ticket now; can you help us?” she panted. The guy looked at us, shrugged, and typed something up on his computer. Within moments we were racing to the check-in counter, where she gasped out, “Her ticket got here; can you check her in?” (I felt a bit guilty; there was someone else waiting to fly stand-by and they were just checking them in when I showed up and they were bumped. But not too guilty.) They grabbed my bags and rushed them onto the conveyor belt. Then she ran me over to the passport check, took me to the diplomats line (which was empty; I assume that the diplomats had more sense than to fly out at that hour of the morning), and said, “Please, she’s in grave danger of missing her plane; can you let her through?” He barely glanced at my passport, stamped it, and waved me through after a quick wave goodbye at my (wonderful, amazing, miracle-working) housemate.
I ran all the way through the airport (which fortunately is tiny) to my gate. The man taking boarding passes said, “Oh good; your ticket arrived!” I was a bit embarrassed, realizing that probably the whole airport (or perhaps just everyone at that company, but it was small enough that I wouldn’t be surprised if it really was the whole airport) knew about all of my ticket adventures, but still grateful that he was letting me on (which at many US airports would not be the case). I sprinted down the gateway (although this was a bit irrational; they were hardly going to let me on the gateway and then slam the door in my face. But I couldn’t help it at that point), trotted down the aisle, and dropped breathlessly into my seat at 6:32 on the nose. Score one point for small airports and staff who really care about helping their customers make it.
(The wedding was great.)
Anyway, that’s it. Hope you appreciated it. I still get teased sometimes about forgetting my ticket, which I personally think is unwarranted since I most decidedly did NOT forget; I honestly believed that I had an electronic ticket. A couple of years later they did start using electronic tickets, but I was always paranoid for some reason when using them (although this helped get rid of my Romanian housemate’s last lingering doubts, once she used an electronic ticket; she had believed me more or less, but had still wondered if I really knew what I was talking about since she’d only ever used paper tickets before that).