I Have Spent Entirely Too Much...

...Time in the Houston airport.  Like most of yesterday.

 

I flew to TEXAS last Thursday.  I went to see Froggy!  She lives near Austin, so I flew into the Austin airport.  My transfer flight was through Dallas, Southwest uses Love Field and I liked the airport.  The Austin airport was nice.  Along with the Tulsa airport, they have good gift shops.  But I didn't want to spend all my money in the airport before I even got on the plane (Otter did that once!).

 

The visit was nice (more in a minute on that).  The trip back was not.  Froggy and Uncle Crazy got me to the airport in plenty of time, I had time (and still had money left!) so I wandered around a couple of gift shops and bought a couple of things.  My flight left on time.  And it was a really bad flight, there was major weather in the area and it was very turbulent.  In fact, the drink service was suspended because it was too rough for the attendants to be up and around.  I don't normally get airsick, but I was feeling slightly nauseated by the time the plane landed in Houston.  I originally had about a 2-hour layover, so I planned on lunch in the Houston airport.  It was a little while before I was brave enough to eat!  The Houston airport is smaller than you would expect and the gift shops are not very impressive.  After I ate lunch, I found my gate and wandered around a bit in an attempt to buy something.  Shortly before I was going back to my gate, it was announced that my flight was being delayed at least one hour.  Then it was delayed again.  And again.  And yet another time!  It was about 3 hours late by the time it finally left.  Part of the reason was that Southwest just didn't have enough pilots working yesterday.  Which means that they didn't have a plane there, and had to bring in another one from somewhere else.  More than one flight was rearranged because of that.  And the weather contributed to the lateness, since it was raining and storming in a lot of places.  At nearly 3:00, there was a plane that was supposed to have left before 10:00 a.m. to Seattle and it was just boarding then.  My plane finally arrived, we finally got to board and it was a full flight.  The flight should have taken around an hour, but due to the weather it had to be diverted around storms and it was 5:15 before we landed.  The drink service was offered, but we were nearly to Tulsa before the turbulence subsided enough for the attendants to leave their seats.  I had a quick coke because that was all I had time for, I would have had an actual drink but there really wasn't time and I did not want to chug a drink with alcohol!  There were several young children on the flight from Houston, some of them were fairly young babies and they had a really hard time which was not helped by how rough the flight was.  I remember flying with Otter when she was young like that and how hard it was because that age just isn't capable of understanding why their ears hurt and how to pop them.

 

I was absolutely exhausted by the time we got home.  Bill waited over 2 hours in the 15-minute limit area at the airport.  I had my flight times arranged so that he could take me to the airport on his way to work Thursday morning, which worked out pretty good.  My return flight was originally to land about 2:40 or so, which would have given me enough time to get my luggage and then he would have come to get me when he got off at 3:30.

 

The visit with Froggy and Uncle Crazy was a lot of fun.  We shopped (a LOT) and ate at several fun restaurants.  We went to a yarn store in Austin, a yarn store in a little town near Austin that I forget the name of, we went to a couple of craft stores and several thrift stores.  On Saturday, Froggy and I drove to San Antonio and stopped for breakfast tacos in Sequin (small town north of SA).  We met Bill's mom at the tiny restaurant we refer to as the Hole in the Wall (it's that small) that we used to live close to as kids and ate at frequently.  We went to the SAS (San Antonio Shoe) outlet/store/manufacturer and I bought shoes.  Lots of shoes.  We went to my favorite yarn store in SA and I bought a few things there that I'd been wanting - not all of it was yarn, either.  We went to the cemetery and put flowers on the family graves.

 

We also met Toadles for lunch and I got to tour the bingo hall he works at; he's kind of the Super and does just about everything.  He came to Froggy's house on Sunday, too.

 

There was one other store in the Austin area that I talked Froggy into taking me to.  A Coach outlet!  I did NOT leave empty-handed from that particular stop.  It's no secret that I love Coach bags.  I had seen one I really liked, but I didn't really want to spend $398.00 for it at one of the local stores.  However, the outlet had it and I bought it - for $129.00!  It's gorgeous, a really pretty tan leather and I'm very happy with it.  I actually paid more for one of my other good bags at Dillards a couple of years ago, which was a good deal for that particular purse.  But I got a very good deal on my Coach at the outlet so I am not complaining.  I don't particularly like the "C" pattern bags, I like Coach for the quality but I don't feel the need to advertise for them.  However, I will have this bag for a long time - years, in fact.

 

Last Wednesday was my 20th anniversary at my job.  They had a cake for me, a gift card to a local Mexican restaurant and pretty good (very good) bonus as well.

 

Otter and Bill were on their own last weekend, I left plenty of stuff cooked for them and Otter took over the dog's bedtime routine for me while I was gone.  (Frasier was noisy several times, he was probably looking for me.  I gave him two pills last night and will probably do that tonight as well.)  Bill wasn't the best, he woke up Saturday morning not feeling well but he didn't tell Otter because a) she would have been worried about him and b) she would have told me!  I wasn't happy with him about that.

 

Froggy, I really like your new house.  Well, I guess it's still new even though you've been there two years!  It was new to me, at least.

 

There was no problem taking crochet hooks through security at the airports.  I did mange to get some crochet done, mostly in the airports themselves and some at Froggy's house.  I bought a pair of rounded school scissors and they were allowed as well.

 

I'm really too tired to type any longer, so I'm going to post this and then relax.