Travel. Fun...?

I wrote this post two weeks ago on a plane, but only got around to posting it today: 



The sun isn't up, and I've already had a more interesting day than I planned.
Last night I talked to my mom, and the week has rough on her. Her brother is on the hospital, it's serious, and I said I'd fly out to spend the weekend. Tickets were about $400 cheaper out of Austin, so I booked them, and called our awesome friends R and M who live there. Air mattress arranged, I mangled the pizza (not enough flour on the peel, toppings all over the stone, smoke alarm got upset), so Mita and I went out to Green, a delicious vegetarian restaurant. Mita and I then went to Shabbat services at temple Beth El (beautiful, worth going again, and a whole different post), went home, and then I drove up to Austin. After a worth-it-but-sleep-robbing conversation with M and R ranging from politics at Beth El (M's temple), Chinese Jews (Mita used their supposed non-existence to underscore her ethnic out of place feeling at temple, five minutes before the Rabbi invited a Mr. Wu up to the podium), to the self selection in dorms (Shafer at Wellesley was apparently the lesbian one).

And then I slept, with my alarm set for a perfect schedule without wasted time to catch my 6:20 flight. And I woke up, dressed, and looked at my boarding pass: flight at 6:05. Firetruck. The math didn't really leave much room for error, so I rushed out the door, easy enough since my bag was packed. Got to my car, and to text Mita so she'd know all was well, I pulled out my...double firetruck. Phone is in the apartment. No biggie, it's not nice, but I'll just wake up M and have her let me back into her building. By calling her. With my...phone.
Here I am, 15 minutes late with minimal margin of error to start with, no phone, and no way to get back to where it is. I give myself 5 minutes to recover my phone before giving up, and try the stairs. Key card access, but the door is barely cracked, so all is okay. But wait. There is an imposing gate at the bottom of the stairs, with another prox card reader, and this one is closed. I look at the metal gate, look at the 18 inch gap at the top 8 feet off the ground, silently thank UTSA for their climbing wall, and pull myself over.

Why yes, I am kind of proud I could scale that

Run up (5th floor, did I mention that I'm starting to suspect my ankle is broken, not sprained?), grab my phone where it's still charging, slip out, race to the airport, park in expensive parking because I'm late, in line for security I rifle through my bag checking for any of the box cutters I use as cheap disposable pocket knives, go through security smoothly, put my passport back , and see a friendly green box cutter poking out at me. Oops. On the other hand, the sky off our starboard wing is gorgeous.