Winners/Losers

Despite all that's happened, there were some definite winners over this past week. And some definite losers as well:

WINNERS

1. Marshall. He, upon hearing of my dad's passing, left church and came to our house immediately to know if there was anything he could do. He was there 30 minutes after I found out. I'm pretty sure he had no clue what to say, but the fact that he showed up meant a lot to me. I didn't actually see him since I was upstairs in my panties.

2. Holli. I was sitting there thinking, "Oh, if only I had a dog. A dog would help me feel better." I swear to you the spirit must have been speaking to Holli because not an hour later, she dropped off her perfectly trained, well behaved golden retriever, Ellie. She let me keep her overnight. Ellie slept in the bed with us, snuggled me when I cried, and gave me something to do beside wallow in self-pity. Oh, and I might mention that Cleaning Fairy Holli (and Kyle??) also cleaned my house while I was gone as well as picked up my mail. I couldn't ask for anything more.

3. Husband. Husband used his charisma to talk his professors into letting him take some tests early even though they hadn't had the lectures for them yet. Then he dropped everything else and we left for Nevada. All this after I may have semi-yelled at him because he wasn't moving fast enough and he didn't even care and I have to go home RIGHT NOW WHY AREN'T YOU PACKING??!!

4. The Delta employee who secretly snuck us ahead of another standby passenger for the flight home. I think she must have seen me sitting in the middle of the airport crying the day before and felt extra sorry for me (see note in Losers section).

5. Heather and Chad. My cousin's husband is a pilot. They hooked us up with buddy passes.

6. Ruby Valley. While it will never, ever be the same without dad, Ruby Valley calms me. I got to do just enough raking to get the rake stuck in a ditch (I got it out before my brother found out...Traitor Husband later on informed him of my mishap), do enough irrigating to get my shoes and shorts wet (and have two of the nephews jump in with me), and do enough walking down the road with no one else around to ease my Beaumont-tightened nerves. I also got to see every single one of my siblings and their children. We haven't all been together in who-knows-how-long.


LOSERS

1. Continental Airlines. I'd bought tickets to go home a couple of weeks from now and called to see if there was any way I could switch them. Continental said I could...for a $150 changing fee per ticket....and we would have to pay the $686 fare difference for each ticket. Bringing all the changes to a grand total of $1672. Ummm...yeah. I could have bought a brand new ticket on Frontier for $550.

2. Revlon mascara. Blast you, false advertisers. Their waterproof mascara is most decidedly not waterproof.

3. My digestive system. Good grief. I can't get it back on track. It doesn't matter what I eat or don't eat, I've been sick since last Sunday. I also didn't sleep until last night.

4. The parking attendant at Temple Square. Since we were stuck in Salt Lake waiting for flights we drove up to Temple Square and parked in the underground parking. Little did we know the only way to get out was to have $10 in cash. Naturally, all we had was a debit card or a check. He couldn't believe we'd been so careless. In the end he swiped his own pass and let us out but not after a lecture on responsibility and proper parking procedures.

5. Flying standby. While I can't thank Heather and Chad enough for the buddy passes and the saved cash, flying standby when you really need to be somewhere is hard on the nerves. We missed eight flights and were in the Salt Lake Airport for 30 hours before we finally got on one. Under any other circumstance, it might have been an adventure. Under these circumstances, I thought I was going to projectile vomit. Repeatedly.