PhilaHellphia

I was supposed to be back at school today. Instead, I slept in til 9, laid on the couch and watched all of the TV shows I DVRed while I was at convention, and knitted up a storm. I had cream of wheat for breakfast, drank diet 7Up and Gatorade, and chicken soup for lunch.

I awoke at 3:30 in the morning Sunday, with what I thought at the time was a raging case of food poisoning. I had eaten out for breakfast, lunch and dinner on Saturday, so it could have been any number of things. Thing is, Amy ate almost exactly the same things I did, and she wasn't sick. It must have been a stomach flu of some sort.

I feel really bad for Amy, since basically she woke up at 3:30 a.m. also. Pretty much the worst time to be as sick as I was is when you are sharing a hotel room with someone. I was getting up just about every 15 minutes for some sort of trip to the bathroom.

Normally I love to fly, travel, stay in hotels, etc., but Sunday was pretty much the worst day of my life. I hate being sick away from home. And I don't get sick very often so I'm pretty much a wuss about it. I had originally planned on sharing a cab with Amy, and trying to go standby on an earlier flight so I could get home before 7 p.m. Couldn't do that in the state I was in. Luckily, I had packed almost everything on Saturday before I went to bed, so I didn't have too much travel prep Sunday morning. I got to the airport pretty early (my flight wasn't scheduled to leave until 2:30 p.m.) and the ticket agent told me I couldn't check in/check my bags until 12:30. It was 11 when he told me that. Sick as a dog, I was carrying a backpack, totebag, purse and my rolling suitcase. I went back to the agent, asked if I could go on an earlier flight, and he said it was oversold.

But, as the tears started to well up in my eyes, he must have taken pity on me, because he allowed me to check in at 11:15. At least I shed the backpack and the rolling bag, so I only had to schlep my totebag and purse to the gate. I hadn't eaten anything all morning, and I had been up since 3:30. I could barely walk I was so worn out. At this point, I still had two hours until departure.

I laid across the chairs, hooked my tote straps under my arms, and put my purse under my head like a pillow, and slept. And slept. And slept some more.

Finally, we got to board the plane. I fitfully slept in my seat (in the fully upright position because it was in the last freaking row and wouldn't recline) until the flight attendant came with beverage service. Stupidly, I asked for a Diet Pepsi. I hadn't had any caffeine at all and thought it might help my headache. About 2.5 seconds after she handed it to me, I knew I didn't want it. All I wanted was to sleep, and I didn't want it spilling off of my tray table and on to the girl next to me. (Poor schmuck, I hope I didn't contaminate her.) I was so tired that I actually asked a kid who passed me on his way to the bathroom if he would throw it in the trash for me, because I couldn't wait for the flight attendant to come back. Thankfully, he did, and I went right back to sleep.

I had an hour and a half layover in Milwaukee. Still felt like crap, but at least I got a little knitting done while there. Once I FINALLY got on the plan bound for KC, I slept again - the whole flight.

I have never been so happy to get home in my life. And, Adam had the house all cleaned, stuff put away, new sheets on the bed - the whole nine yards. I wonder if he'd been working on that the whole time I was gone, or if he started when I called him from the bathroom floor of my room in the Downtown Philadelphia Marriott at 4:30 in the morning?