A Well-Timed Airfare Sale, Followed By An Anticlimactic Weekend Wrap-up (with photos!)

When I woke at 3 this morning with a headache starting, I didn't think it was going to lead to anything good.

And at first, it didn't. I tried applying heat to the back of the neck, which sometimes helps, and dozed off, but woke with worse pain, so I took a pill and went back to sleep. When the alarm went off, my head felt somewhat better, but not completely, and I decided that getting more sleep and going to work a bit late was a better idea than getting up and having the pain return and spoil the whole day.

Two more hours of sleep and I felt a lot better. I turned on the computer and e-mailed my boss that I would be in late, then looked over the inbox. Hmm, Jet Blue is having a one-day sale. Wonder if it covers Boston to Fort Myers this time? Often it doesn't, or the price is less of a sale than one might hope for. Let's see.

Ooh. Oooh. I picked an itinerary, then e-mailed it to my mother, saying I was tempted. One thing led to another, and I'm going down for a week, a lovely six whole days plus an evening and a morning, of peace and Mom and beach and Mom, in three weeks. I just keep smiling.

And the headache connection? Their e-mail was sent at 7, when I would normally be on my way out the door. I would have seen it later, but would the seats still be there? One flight that I chose was down to mostly center seats and pay-extra seats: I got one of the last window seats available without the $40(!) surcharge*. And the price of my flight down increased by $5 in the hour between finding and booking. It might well not have worked out, if I hadn't been home and reading my e-mail later than usual. (As of right now, the website says there's one seat left on the flight I'll be traveling down on, and it costs twice what I paid.)

*Jet Blue offers extra-legroom seats for an extra cost "starting at $10". I decided I would pay $10 to not be way at the back of the plane, but when I chose it, it was $40 extra. No, thank you, the back of the plane is fine! Maybe if there were only center seats left; otherwise, that's too much for me. My entire round trip, with fees, is under $175.

Life is short. Nothing like being in a funeral home last week to remind me of that.

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I called the dentist today, in response to a message I got last week about rescheduling my appointment in January (which, WTF, but also whatever). I was hoping to get another evening appointment, but they're only open late one night a week (not that I'm not grateful for it). She was pretty snippy about my asking for another Monday night appointment, and I wanted to say, "Lady? I'm not the one who wanted to reschedule, so don't give me a hard time about it." I certainly understand having a bad day, but taking it out on the customers isn't a great idea.

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As you may have noticed, I'm not an early adopter of new technology (see: have had an MP3 player less than a year; don't have a GPS), nor am I in a hurry to replace still-functional items that the market has long moved past (I still own a VCR*, use an answering machine in preference to voice mail on my land line [and still have a land line, for that matter], and I bought my TV in college, twenty-ish years ago). Which leads me to the new cell phone I got over the weekend.

*Sadly, I don't think I can call it functional anymore. The last time I tried to use it, it wouldn't play. I have dozens of tapes; I'm kind of crushed.


I last got my cell phone replaced when I was moving into my new condo, which makes it almost four years ago. Verizon will replace your phone every two years (coincidentally, just when your last service agreement runs out), and I had had that phone just under two years, but the battery wouldn't hold a charge past a five-minute phone call, so I traded it in, grumpily. The one I got lasted much better, though in recent months the battery did start to show signs of weakness. But it worked, and I knew how to use it, and it had pictures of Pan and Harold in it, and I kept it.


Last week, though, it started to creak when I opened it, and I decided that if I went to open it one day, and found myself with half a phone in each hand, I would be very sorry I hadn't gotten around to replacing it, so I bumped the task to the top of the list. Which is how I ended up with little boy blue here:


Hey, there are worse reasons than color to choose a phone.

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Saturday was my shopping day, culminating with the phone experience. I also returned library books, got my watch battery replaced, bought some new slacks for wearing to work, stocked up on cat food, visited Savers and walked out with a dress, two good sweaters, and a pair of slacks for $27, and got some socks. I also took my it's-your-birthday postcard into Starbucks and got a large caramel frap with extra caramel sauce. Yum.

I learned again that the front of the package makes claims:


And the back of the package gives details.


I can't imagine why this skirt was 80% off, can you?


I didn't buy it, though, nor this bag:


There are some amusing names in the pet products.



I saw that there are some mighty weird book titles out there. All these books got published!





And despite the shelf tag, I can't imagine there are many children reading Plutarch.


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Sunday was my day in (except for dinner with friends). I'm away the next two weekends, which was pretty motivating.

I did laundry and dishes, changed the sheets, made chili, ran the dishwasher, balanced the checking account, wrote a note to mail, boxed up something else (and took both to the post office on the way to dinner), flattened some cardboard to put out with the recycling, and scrubbed the litter boxes.

Now, my head is not 100%, so I'm taking it to bed early tonight. Cross fingers for me.