951 Nephew

Monday, October 30, 2006

Very brief email from Sister this afternoon. Nephew's viewing is Thursday evening, funeral is Friday morning.

Airports:

• Newark and JFK are both a little over two hours away, and I can get non-stop first class flights from there.
• Newburgh is a little over an hour south, but there's no first class and no non-stop flights. It's like it's just commuter flights to Philadelphia or Detroit, where you change to "real" planes. On the other hand, all the flights are relatively cheap.
• Albany is also a little over an hour north, and flight choices are more convenient, but it's been my experience that everything out of Albany costs about twice what it would cost from any other airport.

Daughter wants to go to Orlando, too. She lives about a half hour from the Newark airport, so if I used Newark, and if the time was convenient for her, we could be on the same flight. But I cringed at the thought of the drive, since the Suzuki is sick and I'd have to take the (still don't trust it) minivan. Alternately, she might be able to join my connecting flight in Philadelphia, but the flight that worked best for me had only two seats remaining. What a pain. Phooey. Let's just do the best I can for me. She can figure out what she wants to do. We'll meet in Orlando.

I was online looking at three different sites simultaneously, trying to put together the best round-trip package, when Piper called. He asked if I had tried Southwest out of Albany. I explained why I didn't even look at Albany, and next thing I knew he had me on a conference call to Southwest. Straight through, non-stop, Albany to Orlando round trip, both departure times ideal, half the time in the air as from Newburgh, arriving four hours before the viewing, for only $7 more than from Newburgh. Wow. I booked it. That was so quick! Thank you, Piper.

Since I'll be gone only two overnights, Miss Thunderfoot can stay home. She won't be happy, but I just happened to have bought her absolute favorite (cat candy!) dry food this morning - I don't know why, something told me to - so I think she won't suffer too badly.

Off topic - back in post 944, "Rochester Strange", I complained a bit about Jay's sister. To clarify, I do like her. She is smart and has a good and very soft heart. It's just that I have learned a few things about how to avoid friction with her, and I was a bit annoyed on that trip because even though I KNEW what to do and not do, I didn't listen to myself and was just the usual relaxed and bumbling me. Which I knew wouldn't work.

One thing age has taught me is that sometimes it's ok not to be yourself.