Catching Up

So, the day after Jack picked a fight with another cat, Mike and I went to Chicago for the weekend to go to his cousin's wedding. Mike had to work in the morning so we rushed to LAX to catch our 6:00 flight, only to find it was delayed an hour and a half. I might have known that if our DSL was working that day, but it wasn't. So I was actually glad because this gave us some breathing space and time to check in. When we checked in we found that we did not have confirmed seats. I asked the attendant if this meant that we were not guaranteed seats on the flight and she sort of hesitantly said, "no". We were flying United and they have this upgrade feature where you can move to the cabin with more leg room for a $44 charge. Since they had exactly 2 seats available in this section, we took them. I am glad we did, because when the plane finally arrived (4 hours late), they made the announcement that the flight had been oversold by 15 seats and they were refusing to pay for hotel rooms. Although, they didn't word it that way. They didn't use the word "refuse", but rather made the announcement that no hotel rooms were available anywhere in Los Angeles. So getting the seat upgrade was one good thing, I guess, after the plane being 4 hours late and TSA taking my camp fork away, which I had brought with me so Mike could eat the fruit salad I made for him. Oh yes, I know Mike saw my face fall when they told me I could check it or chuck it. Mike said, "we'll check it. how do we do that?" And they said, "go buy a suitcase and then put the fork in it and check the suitcase." though not in so many words. So I reluctantly left my nice camp fork behind. That cost me $8 and I never even got to use it once.

I was still in good spirit when we got to Chicago and got our car at 4am and then found our hotel even though the driving directions referred to an expressway that was closed. But the Sheraton refused to honor my "guaranteed late arrival" reservation, which made me feel like I was in that episode of Seinfeld where he's trying to explain what the word "reservation" means (only in my case I was grasping at the meaning of "guarantee"), but we found a nice Marriott hotel a block over which was lovely and had the most comfortable bed in the world.

In the morning we ate breakfast at a place that I think was called the Egg Cafe and it was quite nice, and then we went shopping on a street called Michigan Ave, which later Mike's family told me is even more posh than Beverly Hills and oohed and aahed that I had bought something there. This was fun because I had no idea, though I suppose I should have since there was Burberry and Tiffany's and Van Cleef and Arpels.

The wedding was lovely and Mike's family was so nice. Genuinely nice, we got so many invitations to visit people and stay at their homes.

On Sunday Mike showed me the house and neighborhood where he grew up. Then we went back to the airport and upgraded our seats again since we found out that only one of us had a seat assignment (me). I watched Stranger than Fiction at my seat on the way home and it was not quite what the trailer made it out to be.

On Monday I worked and ran an errand and then all of sudden Monday night came down with flu. By Tuesday morning Mike had it too. I guess we got it in Chicago or on the plane or something. It sucks. I am mostly over it now but Mike is still sick.