I won't see my message for a while. I can't read whitefont on the iPhone.

It wouldn't do you much good until you get home, anyway.

I will have to come back and check it when I get to my hotel tonight. I have a screaming child in the seat in front of me.

I've flown twice this summer. Both times one or more of my bags didn't make it to my destination with me. The first wasn't a surprise, as I'd Bambi-eyed the gate agents into putting me onto an earlier flight out of Seattle upon learning that all flights into Chicago were delayed, because otherwise I'd miss the last Chicago-Albany flight of the day. But the utter incompetence of American in dealing with my missing bags WAS a shock. Their agent in Albany didn't give me a claim number. They were hopelessly confused by the fact I'd flown on a codeshare (originating flight was with Alaska Air). The agent at Albany had entered a bewildering variety of incorrect information--he mistyped my street address and cell phone number, neglected to enter my hotel info, input my missing green bag as being black, and somehow got it in his head I'd flown out of Dulles rather than Sea-Tac--and it took three phone calls to customer service to get everything straightened out. My bags did get there the next day, but I give no credit to American's customer service and all credit to the O'Hare baggage crew having the simple common sense to put the bags on the next Albany-bound flight. Oh, and I ended up taking the hotel shuttle back to the airport to pick them up, because despite the bags being there at 1:00 and despite the hotel being ten minutes away, they couldn't guarantee delivery before 6:00, and the writers conference I was there for started at 5:00.

In contrast, when we flew to Birmingham on Southwest, Annabel's car seat didn't show up. The friendly, efficient agent took down our information correctly, gave us a loaner seat, and was able to immediately trace the seat as having accidentally been sent to San Antonio and already routed for the next available flights to B'ham. We had it by noon the next day, despite my mom's house being an HOUR from the airport.

Guess which airline I've vowed never to fly again.

My mother is trying to convince me that I want jewelry for my birthday. I'm trying to convince her that I want a Wii.

Oh fucking joy. We have not even closed the door and there is a child screaming at the top of their lungs in front of me. I need a tranq dart.

Guess which airline I've vowed never to fly again.

The proud bird with the cast iron tail?

Ed Gein:

Go wii, choose wii.

Wii! You can't fake bowl in your living room with jewelry!

Wii! You can't fake bowl in your living room with jewelry!

See? This is what I'm saying.

Also, I don't really wear jewelry on a daily basis. I've got some nice things that I wear when I want to be dressy, but it's just not something I usually think about.