evidence

I had heard rumors of another cat, but I just didn't think she could do it to me. But here it is. Visual evidence of my owner cheating on me with another cat.

I better get one heckuva treat to celebrate our five-year anniversary if she wants back in my good graces.

Jill's Baby vs. Jessica's Baby

The sister of the nice lady who feeds me had a baby yesterday. Who's cuter me or him? You decide, but I personally think it is no contest. Actually, I think we're both very cute. I can see the family resemblance between us.

Welcome to the world, baby Jacob.

Gimme Those Doritos!!!

The nice lady who feeds me usually gives me enough to eat, but sometimes I like a little something else. Especially when she is not looking.

Exhausted

Jessica wakes up early and gets us moving. She wants breakfast. Too tired and mentally exhausted, Jessica and Brian reconstruct the past few hours from text message conversations with their friends and family. It goes something like this:

Jessica and Brian are stuck in Michigan. After our plane arrived in the Detroit airport, Jessica bargained for flights (through Philadelphia) to Scranton on December 27 and a night in a Best Western in Detroit. The shuttle passes us by twice, and Jessica, Brian, and several new friends decide to hail a taxi.

At the hotel, we learn the hotel is full. The only remaining rooms all have problems. The manager decides to bus us across the street for the night. Jessica and Brian check in (at 1:55 a.m.) and go straight to the bar to beat last call. Two drinks later, they grab their bags, coats, and phones and head toward their room.

Jessica and Brian get to the lobby restaurant, but are greeted by a hotel employee offering them a ride to the airport. Jessica (remembering the problems leaving the airport the night before) jumps at the chance. Ten minutes later, we're being screened at DTW nearly three hours before flight 1776 is scheduled to depart for Philadelphia. (He updates the blog using his phone to pass the time.)

Standing at the line for Starbucks, Jessica examines her boarding pass. She's in seat 4A - first class! Brian's shocked, then learns he is in 1A. More than two hours later, he boards the plane, hands over his coat, and graciously accepts a small juice while other passengers trudge past him. Jessica scrambles to the front of the boarding line. The airline employee gives her a nasty look, and Jessica responds with "you just let my husband in." Jessica boards, takes her juice, and immediately falls asleep as the remainder of the passengers stare enviously at her.

During the flight, Brian learns the dirty little airline secret. Nobody seated in first class paid for the special treatment. Everyone was bumped up as a payoff for delays, cancellations, etc. Whatever. Jessica and Brian weren't upgraded on their honeymoon. They deserve it this year. They'll gladly take it as a belated Christmas present.

The rest of the trip is as uneventful and expected as you'd expect by this point. We switch airlines, get new boarding passes, must pass security (again) in Philadelphia. We arrive in Scranton, but there's no luggage. The next morning, Brian's suitcase shows up - but there's no suitcase for Jessica. She and Brian finally pick it up from the baggage guy in a CVS parking lot on their way to her parents to celebrate faux Christmas on the 28th.

"We'll drive," Jessica tells her family, "the next time we go somewhere."

Holy Toledo!

Ohio and Michigan fought over the Glass City in the 1830s. Ohio "won" when Congress decided the Buckeye state would keep Toledo and Michigan would receive the Upper Peninsula.

So when Jessica and Brian left Port Columbus (and Ohio) for the Detroit airport (and Michigan), how did they end up in Toledo?

"Sorry folks the weather suddenly got bad" as we were circling Detroit over and over and over again, the pilot announced when he told Jessica, Brian, and the other passengers of their new destination. "We'll talk to you again upon landing."

He sure did talk to us again when he landed. The pilot also got his boss, and his boss's boss on the radio. Turns out, the pilot had just finished a 16-hour day, and he really wanted to get to his hotel room in the Detroit metropolitan area. Our airline did not normally run flights through the Toledo airport so we didn't even get to pull up to a gate. The pilot was not in a mood to sit on the tarmac in Toledo. (Neither were his passengers.) Before we had much of a chance to complain, however, the pilot had radioed half of the Northwest supervisors asking for the chance to take off again.

The pilot eventually summed everything up for us. Company policy (if not federal regulations) mandate that planes must have 2400 feet visibility to land. Detroit had suddenly been covered with fog, and we had only 1100 feet visibility. We made two landing attempts at Detroit before we were redirected to Toledo. The National Weather Service expected five hours of the dense fog, but after about 30 minutes in Toledo the fog had appeared to lift enough for flights to get in and out of Detroit.

"Let's just see how lucky we can get," the pilot said.

It took another hour for the airline to arrange to get us additional fuel and to get all the proper clearances to leave.

So, after a 90-minute wait sitting on the plane, Jessica and Brian's flight returned to the air and landed in Detroit at 11:05 p.m.

The pilot's response?

"We barely made it," he told the flight attendant.

Might want to keep those thoughts behind the sealed cockpit door next time. Now, to see about a new flight (the Dec. 26 flight to Scranton was cancelled). We also have to find a bed in a state that we'd rather not be in right now.

Who hurries to get to Michigan?

Time to go back to Pennsylvania. Jessica and Brian left St. Marys at 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday. The flight was supposed to leave Port Columbus/CMH at 7:10 p.m. for Detroit. Jessica and Brian arrived at the airport and were checked in by 5 p.m.

The flight schedule showed a delay, with the flight now scheduled to leave at 7:59 p.m. Jessica and Brian sought out Brian's parents for one more meal and a few more memories of the trip. Finally, at about 7:30 they said their goodbyes and went through the security checkpoint.

They made the announcement at 7:45 p.m. The flight to Detroit/DTW would leave at 8:54 p.m. Jessica hurried to get to the front of the line, and she was able to get us bumped to another DTW-bound flight. (The departure of that flight was originally scheduled for 5 p.m.) The plane pulled away from the gate at 8:25. We landed in Toledo 70 minutes later.

If you drove here, you'd be home by now

DETROIT - The problems withour flight from DTW to Port Columbus really weren't (comparatively) that bad. In fact, they were rather routine. Jessica and Brian arrived at their gate (A21) and sat down. Brian went to McDonalds to scrounge for food; Jessica began chatting up our future traveling companions.

About 20 minutes before boarding, they finally announced that they didn't think we'd be flying from that gate. The plane arrived and its passengers disembarked looking frazzled and stressed. After a respectful delay, they announced that there were mechanical problems with that plane. They'd look for a new plane - and new gate - for the flight to CMH.

We were sent to gate A9 where we were told that Northwest had found a new plane for us. They even offered that the plane was in the air from Memphis. Brian called home quickly (his parents were picking us up for the two hour drive to St. Marys) and learned that his parents were arriving at CMH at that minute.

Jessica and Brian's plane finally arrived, and (with several other slight delays) we were finally airborn to Ohio. We were supposed to arrive at 10:48. We arrived a little after midnight. (Not bad, considering.)

By the time we had the luggage, left the parking garage line, and nearly sideswiped two deer near Wapakoneta, we arrived home at 3 a.m. It's normally about a 9 hour drive from Scranton to St.M. Driving - we would have arrived around midnight.

This entry written on Brian's cell phone in the Detroit airport on the return trip. More on that in parts 3 and 4 (and 5!)