Merry Day-After-Christmas! (posted by Lani)

You guys were so in the Christmas spirit! Your house looks fabulous, and the picture with Don and the dogs is priceless. And speaking of Don ... either Don, Steve, or Gene Ann (or possibly all three?) must be psychic. How hysterical that they got you a swift and I got you a ball winder! And how perfect, even if they DID ruin my planned next-birthday-gift for you. My Steve and I haven't even opened Christmas presents yet, and have no plans to do so until after dinner tonight. We didn't decorate or put up a tree this year; it seemed pointless, since I wasn't going to be home. Now I rather regret that decision, actually; next year I'll have pretty pictures too, I swear it!

I'm recovering from a loooong day flying yesterday; yes, I did fly on Christmas day, and I look forward with great anticipation to being a total slug today and for the next couple of days. Flying on the days preceding Christmas is, well, the less said about that the better. You've seen it on the news. But flying on Christmas -- the passengers are happy, loads are generally light, the airport is festive, and it's just not a bad experience in general.

Unfortunately, yesterday wasn't really "in general", if you know what I mean. The first part of the day was great; easy flights, happy passengers, and the powers-that-be in Philly provided us with a Christmas meal in the airport. Sadly our last turn of the day turned out to be, um, Not So Great. It had moments of greatness; at one point we actually had the children onboard singing Christmas carols to us over while we sat at the gate (for almost 3 hours) with a broken airplane. It had moments of hilarity, like when our FO was making an announcement warning about turbulance just as we hit a nice little pocket of it and his announcement went something like this: "Ladies and gentlemen, we've turned the seatbelt sign back on because we do anticipate that we may hit some pockets of turbuWHOOOOAA!" (cue sound of captain cracking up). And it had moments of not-at-all-greatness, like when the turbulance, which really did get pretty bad, caused an epidemic of airsickness among the poor passengers. Fortunately our passengers were very understanding about things like broken airplanes and missing international paperwork and turbulance, the day did eventually end even if it was hours and hours and hours late, Steve came to pick me up in Newport News after I wasn't able to make the last Norfolk flight out, and at 1:30 this morning I was finally home.

So, what have I been doing since I last posted here many, many moons ago? Well, let's see. I've flown -- since my last post I've been to DAY, YUL, RDU, ISP, ILM, ATL, BGR, GSO, and YYZ (Mom, that's Dayton, Montreal, Raleigh-Durham, Islip, Wilmington, Atlanta, Bangor, Greensboro and Toronto), several of those multiple times, and with of course many stops in Philly in between those trips and a couple of trips back home to Norfolk. I've discovered why everyone says Wilmington is our best overnight; it's because it is, and I'm going back there and taking Mom and we're going to hit all the fabulous shops along the Riverwalk and you should come. I got all my Christmas shopping done and everything wrapped and mailed out except *sigh* Mom's present, which will be delayed. I've gotten most of my stuff moved back from Philly to Norfolk. And I've slept. One thing this job has taught me is that sleep is not overrated, and you can never get enough of it.

My plans for my next three days off? I'm making our "Christmas" dinner tonight; we're having a beautiful prime rib roast with all the trimmings, even Yorkshire pudding. After dinner we'll open a bottle of champagne and then our presents. I'm going to putter in the yard, I'm going to finish the plans for my January-in-New-York trip with Laurie (and you? are you coming?) and I'm going to sleep. And on Thursday I'll go back to Philly for the final time. YAY!