Monday, January 07, 2008

Still in Halifax

And generally, happily so.

My flight was fogged out this afternoon. On the Ottawa side apparently, though when I looked out Shelley's window, I couldn't see the bridge just a few kilometres away.

It was lucky that Jennifer was going to pick me up. I never check my flights, just assuming that things will run smoothly. But Jennifer was going to pick me up, and the timing needed to be reasonably precise and so I checked the flight online. When I saw it was cancelled, I was flabbergasted. It's never happened to me before. I had no frame of reference.

I did what any sensible person would do in such a situation, and asked Steve for advice. His advice? "Call them." Brilliant!

Easier said than done, however. The machine hung up on me twice while trying to transfer me to a person. When I did get transferred to a person, they really had to work at being helpful. Like it hurt, or something.

"Is that flight to Montreal tomorrow at 9:55 am?" I asked.
"Yes," she replied.
"Great, I can bus home from there."
Tappity tappity. Tap.
"Okay, your flight will arrive at 10:40 pm..."

Now, I have not flown between Halifax and Montreal ever before, but I'm willing to bet that it doesn't take more than 12 hours. The direct flights to Ottawa only started Wednesday morning at 6 am. I took a more reasonable 8:50 am flight.

Luckily, I'm all set up to work from home. And by home, I mean "my computer." So I won't take another holiday day, but will probably ensconce myself on the red couch, drink tea, answer email and call into the 1:30 meeting, all while wearing Shelley's housecoat.


I do miss my cat and my fish and my stuff. My regular routine is pretty important to my overall well being. But that's all there waiting for me yet, and I am lucky to have friends kind enough to take care of my animals for two extra days on a moment's notice.

Being here is lovely. Not so much Halifax, which is a great town, don't get me wrong, but I'm pretty much Ottwegian through and through at this stage. What I mean is here at home with Shelley and Steve. It's easy and fun. We split a couple beers, we made dinner. We talked about bathroom renos. We watched a few episodes of my new favourite TV show (The I.T. Crowd). We laughed a lot. We drank port and ate chocolate. Milo sat beside me on the couch with his nose on my thigh. I knit.

I definitely don't mind the cancellation.


Bonus Question: Did anyone get the late-80s music reference in the title?

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Re: 80s musical reference, I'm going to go with Concrete Blonde. Although if you really wanted to go super-obscuro, you should have gone with "Knockbacks In Halifax".

EK said...

I heard about the I.T. crowd through a friend and have been trying to watch it ever since. Is it on cable TV at all?

Asteroidea Press said...

Sloth - You win! Except there's no prize except the glory of being right and one-upping the writer. I tried to find that song to no avail. If you have a copy, would you email it to me?

LaC - I don't know from cable. As far as I do know, Steve waved his magic hands and god delivered the discs. If he reads the comments, he might tell you where he found them.

Anonymous said...

I know they play the I.T. Crowd on G4TV (channel 250 on Rogers), though I'm not sure when it's on.

Anonymous said...

I read the comments at my leisure. Hopefully others also return to them late. "God" in this case is spelled "bittorrent" and perhaps more specifically "The Pirate Bay."