I fully believe that I am cursed.

Yes, I am back safely in California after a wonderful visit to the East Coast. Why yes, my flight home was awful and got me to San Francisco almost 3 hours late, why do you ask? It just makes me tired to think about. And thankful that the next time I will be on a plane probably won't be until October. My dad and I sat through about 45 minutes of traffic to get me to BWI in the first place, but he got me there on time, even a little early, as he always does. I had time to check in, and grab some dinner and as I was eating, I could see down to my gate. As I start looking closer, I see this man who clearly is upset, harassing and yelling at the gate attendants. (Yeah, the one place you don't yell at people is at airports or on airplanes. Wow, what a quick way to get arrested.) Eventually, some security shows up and they take the guy down the jetway toward the plane, and close the door behind them. Shortly, two lovely police officers show up and join the party. The gate attendant then comes out and tells everyone that the flight is going to be delayed until "the situation is handled." (Translation: Until this crazy man is off the plane.) so after about 10 minutes, the door opens, crazy man is escorted out by police officers, and we finally board. I find out from the flight attendant that the flight started in NY and on the way he created a ruckus, they kicked him off in Baltimore. And he wan't pleased. His brother dd go ahead and stay on the pkane though, which made me laugh. SO, we're already delayed for about 20 minutes, but all seems well - the flight is really smooth, I did the entire "difficult" crossword puzzle, etc. We have to make a stop in Phoenix. Phoenix has thunderstorms and 50 mph winds. We circle. For 45 minues. We eventually land (right before we got diverted to Tucson which would have made me hurt myself) and then we sit. For another hour. Thankfully, there were only about 30 people on the plane, so everyone had their own ow to lay down. Ugh I was tired when I got in, as it felt like about 5 in the morning to me on East Coast time. Seriously, even though both of my flights were awful and the stuff of nightmares, it was really nice to be back in DC and to see everyone. My mom and I went up to Johnstown for Fourth of July weekend to hang out with my grandparents, who my mom and my aunts think are "slowing down." But, seriously, my grandfather is 83 and he still works out at a gym a few times a week, and is active in the Knights of Columbus and carves and...I don't know what to say about that. I mean, he's obviously slower now than when he (and they!) were younger, but seems like he's doing pretty darn well to me. The last time I saw my grandparents was at Christmas when my entire family was at the Sheep Farm, so it was nice to be there when only my mom and I were there. It's much quieter. We all spent some time on the Fourth hanging out and eating (really, what else do you do for the 4th of July?), celebrating my aunt Debi's birthday, and then the next day we also all remembered my uncle Bill, who passed away two years ago July 6th. It was...sad, obviously. (I bet you all would have inferred that if I hasn't said anything) Also, fun fact: We stayed at a hotel where the desk clerk mentioned that Barack Obama and his entire staff had stayed a couple of months ago during a stop. Who knew that candidates came to Johnstown? (It didn't do any good with my grandparents. Staunch Democrats, but they're voting for McCain. *sigh*) I do start to miss Reston everytime I go back. But, as I was discussing with Brian, I think it would be different if everytime I went back no one was there. Do I really miss the place or the people? This time, Jess was there, being all engaged and such, Brian was home visiting (for his birthday!), Missy and Franklin were obviously there, my mom, my dad, my aunt/uncle/cousins, etc. So I don't know. I had a great time enteraining myself during the day (which mostly entailed going to coffeeshops I really like that had free WiFi) and then meeting people at night to do fun things. Franklin, Brian and I saw "Wanted" one night. WOW was it bad. Funny thing is, Dan actually refused to see it with me. This is odd for a few reasons. 1) Angelina Jolie. 2) He LOVES bad movies. Movies that you think are going to be horrible, Dan gets psyched up for. He can't help it. 3) Angelina Jolie. I wanted to go because the premise seemed fun - get messages from the future about who is bad bad bad and assassins kill them in the present to prevent the future badness. I think as a concept, that has potential. However, they kind of sort of completely squashed it and just made it horrible. I haven't seen a bad movie in the theater in a while (I try to avoid them, as it's friggin expensive to see movies these days) but this one wins the prize. I think the last one I saw that falls into this category was "Crank" with Jason Statham (the guy in the Transporter movies) who I swear can NOT make a good movie. Anyway, Crank was also horrible. Annnnnd I'm rambling. OH but there was a preview for the Batman movie, which creeped me out (the whole Heath Ledger thing). So yes, it was lovely to visit, but I'm home again with Dan and the kitties. While today is the 12th, I will be postponing 12 on the 12th for another edition of 13 on the 13th because we're going whale watching tomorrow! Woot.