Planes, Trains and Ubers

 Dear Friends,

I want to thank you for several of your sweet responses to my nonsensical blog of last week.  I realized after I sent it that it had no connection to anything biblical or even Christian.  Sorry about that.

But as I suggested, may have prophesied, we really did take a shellacking during the weekend, I’ll tell you about it if you care.

Tony and I went to bed last Friday night, all excited about taking Isaac, our oldest Grandchild, alone with just the two of us, to Sydney, for his ‘maturing into the teens’ weekend.

We laughed as we went to bed, mentioning that we were probably more excited than he was, and  we, like little school children, wouldn’t be able to get to sleep.

Fortunately, however, we slept blissfully for about two hours.

Then, right at the stroke of midnight, when ALL the flights, hotel, etc went unconditionally non-refundable, Tony raced to the bathroom with a surprise attack of what the Africans used to refer to as ‘The Missionary Two Step!’  It could only be food poisoning, as nothing else would lurk so benignly and then attack with such a vengeance!

I was optimistic, as Tony usually recovers well, but this ‘dancing’ had not let up by late into the wee hours, and as he was progressing to not being able to even lift his head off the pillow, I began to experience some weird anxiety myself.  

At 4AM I was on the phone with my son Nathan.  (Our flight was due to leave at 6.). 

“Which one of you want to share a king-sized bed with me this weekend?” I chirped into the phone.  After a clarifying moment or two, I heard the sleepy voice of Kylie, my lovely Daughter in law, gratefully accepting the offer (Whew, sure didn’t want to sleep with Nathan).

She said she didn’t feel game to try to pose as Dr Tony Woods and use his seat, so I booked her a separate ticket.  Our flight was supposedly full, so I got her on another airline, about the same time.  All was good.

We entered the airport all smiles, went thru security and all of us saw the same thing at about the same time.  Those dread words you don’t want to see, across from Isaac and my flight, “Flight Cancelled”.  

At this point I dashed back thru security (they don’t like that, now I know), and went to the service desk.  A perky young 20 something suggested that she could book us on another plane in 8 hours, but oh, it leaves from an airport 100 miles away, and you have to make your own way there.  That way they could get us to Sydney, exactly a day late for our two-day weekend.

I stood there trying to decide whether to submit to rage or tears, when she said with a modicum of compassion, “Or you could try another airline”.

I dashed back thru security again (they knew me this time, and I was going the right direction), told Kylie, who whipped out her laptop and had us on her plane within minutes!  So happy to have a tech whiz and a credit card handy.

We flew in opposite ends of the plane, lovely flight, Isaac and me nibbling and giggling all the way to Sydney.

Then we met up, sashayed thru the airport, feeling all cosmopolitan, bought our train passes and got thru the wicket and down to the platform, again to jointly see the curt message up on the board, “No Trains today”.  Seriously.

Back up to daylight to find there were no Ubers, as we had not acted fast enough. Thankfully, there was, of course, a Taxi!  It was 45 minutes thru bad traffic, but the guy was so enamoured with beautiful Kylie and her ability to keep up the small talk, that he refused a tip.  That kept it under $100.

If you haven’t given up reading from exhaustion, let me say we had the great weekend we’d hoped for; did everything we’d planned, had beautiful hot weather, ate a lot of good food and made our way back home on Monday afternoon.

Tony, back on his feet again, was smiling at the gate.

Oh, and Kylie, who thought I’d booked her a ticket (on the aforementioned alternate  airline) for about an hour later, discovered that the ticket was indeed for the same day she’d gone, so she had no ticket home.

She finally rolled in at 9PM.  

The next morning Mother and Son were back to their responsibilities at school, but `I’m thinking maybe mom was wishing for another day!

All these dramas reiterated that favorite verse from Proverbs 16:9, written WAAY before we had trains planes and automobiles.

 “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps.” Proverbs 16:9 (NIV).

We are thanking God that He directs our paths! Next week we’ll be posting from yet another place involving a plane, so stay tuned!!

Marsha