( continues...) TO ME. Please. Since your father Mr BigCheeseMinionOfGreatestCheese telephoned me, and in the course of the conversation assured me that the travel agents would call me, I have not left the house. I have been waiting for the phone call for a week. It has not come. PLEASE GET BACK TO ME ABOUT THIS.

Still nothing. The next day I emailed him and said, right, okay, I do get that this isn't a big important thing for you, but it is really having a significant impact upont he quality of my life right now and I need to sort this out. Since nobody has contacted me yet, I'm going to assume that you're not expecting me to be in Cairo on August 24th, and that I'm therefore free to go up to Edinburgh. This being the case, I would far rather fly out to Cairo from Edinburgh than pay £170 to travel from Edinburgh down to Heathrow by train. So what I'd like to do is go ahead and make my own travel arrangements, okay? And I'll definitely be back in Cairo by September 1st, if not before. If that's a problem, just tell me, okay? And I won't do it. I mean, I really want to go to this show, and it's my birthday, but I'll totally prioritise my responsibility to my employer above my plans for my birthday. Just tell me now, please? Because what I really don't want to do is spend several hundred unrefundable pounds of my own money on a ticket from Edinburgh to Cairo, just to find that your travel agents have already made travel arrangements for me. So I'm going to go ahead and do this, if you don't get back to me tomorrow to tell me it's a problem. I hope this will lighten your load, rather than add to your problems.

And of course I heard nothing. And you know? I didn't go ahead and make the travel arrangements the next day. I waited for 3 days. Today I went and booked a coach up to Edinburgh and spent £260 on a ticket from Edinburgh to Cairo on August 29th. Nonrefundable. Naturally.

And I come home to find a breezy little letter from the Motherfucking Travel Agents telling me that my ticket is on its way to me by TNT or DHL or something, and that I'm flying down to London from Leeds on the 27th, should spend no more than £50 on accomodation overnight, and will then be flying from Heathrow on 28th.

And right now I want to kill something.

I know, I know, it's all typical standard Egyptian behaviour. This is how it is there. But right now I'm NOT living in Egypt, and right now the sheer selfishness of this assumption that my time is worthless, and that I can be left hanging and hanging and hanging like this, makes me absolutely furious beyond my power to express it. I want to rip off SonOfBigCheese's overeducated fucking head and shit down his neck.*

Let me just reiterate - they told my flatmate her travel details (which, as it turns out, are the same as mine) nearly two months ago. Me? Nope. I get 7 days' notice.

My intention at present is to go right ahead with travelling up to Edinburgh and flying out on the 29th. If my employers are expecting me at work before then, I shall go ahead and use their ticket, and just suck it up. But I am NOT impressed.

*well, maybe not entirely beyond my power to express it.

Also, I'm supposed to be switching to heat about now.

No heat, vw, until at least tomorrow. If you sprained it, it will feel better if you wrap it with an Ace bandage.

That's a cool tornado picture, Sail. I'm glad you didn't get a really close-up look.

...You do know that there are Harry Potter fanficcers who write squidslash, yes?

Actually, yes I do. It baffles me, because I don't even remember where squids figure into the books, but I do know of their existence.

There is a Guardian Of The Lake Outside Moria Giant Squid in the lake next to Hogwarts.

Fay, first let me say Happy Birthday in England!!!

And on the travel arrangements, let me say: BOLLOCKS. What a fucking pain in the ass.

Happy Birthday, FAY!!!

I am so sorry your employer is being so ignorant. I don't care if this is standard Egyptian behavior, or not. You explained yourself quite clearly, and cultural understanding is a two-way street.

I would tell them to cancel their ticket, and expect to reimburse you for the ticket you've purchased, instead. And, I mean "tell". I would not ask. I would "tell" nicely, and all, but it would be telling, just the same.

Ooh, happy birthday, Fay!!

Happy Birthday Fay!

In bitter news, I do not feel any better today. Grump grump grump. I should feel better by now!!!

The correct answer, btw, is "hardly anyone Australian, darling."

This is very true.

"My turn next! I'm going to need a diapering after this, ma'am."

Ew? Though first I read this as a friend of YOUR dad's, and was really grossed out. Then realized you meant of the dad of the baby. I hope.

"But, um, maybe we could, um, y'know, do it some other time? Soon?"

Go Jen, go Jen! Let him know your birthday is coming up! Tell him to buy you a birthday drink, get him one, take advantage...

I instead have about three feet of a shared countertop with drawers every couple of feet to try to hide the fact that I'm sharing the room with twenty or so other teachers

OK, that sucks a lot.

As a matter of fact, every medical professional in my birth was a woman.

It's interesting, I've read a couple things lately from guys who either are or want to be Ob/Gyns who are upset by the fact that it's becoming a women-only kinda profession. OTOH...not like *I* go to a male gyno...

When this guy asked about his hobbies, Christopher said he was hoping to start training for the lumberjack olympics

I knew a girl once who did that stuff...she went to college in Maine. And was a lesbian. Um.

And her apartment is all maggot- and horsefly-infested

OMG, that's awful! And so sad that no one would find the guy for six weeks.

Would it be unhealthy to bathe in a bleach mixture? How about Lysol?

Dunno about sensitive bits, but I used to wash my hands in bleach all the time when working in chem lab. Kinda destroys your fingernails though.

I bought my hubby and I tickets to New Zealand in November for my cousin's wedding. I'm so excited!!

So cool! I hope you're going to stay extra time and have fun! It was SO pretty there, and I was there in winter!

Sitting in my very own classroom, eating a burger, getting ready for the first day of school

Go Erin! Yay you!!

and left a tray with champagne on ice and a bottle of Johnnie Walker.

Now that's something I suspect you don't see much in teh states...

now I'm in a line that goes on forever to get my picture and thumbprint taken.

OK, but if you can post to b.org while you're at the DMV? You're a step ahead of everyone else, baby.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FAY!!!

Happy Birthday, FAY!!!

What's the story on your tag?

Yup, it's from Lost. Crazy French lady answering a dumb question. Kind of like Crazy Spike telling the Scoobs he's crazy, not deaf. Also, it reminds me of Diego Garcia. I knew so many guys who hated being stationed there. I had a blast, so my reaction was always similar to the tag.