Well, I opened chat with her and she declared that when was staying awake in order to sleep on the plane. Okay, I guess- if you find yourself in a sleep conducive setting (without crying babies, etc.).
To make a long story, shorter; she made the flight to Newark, but the plane was late to take off from Rome. International flights returning to the U.S. now require that you fill out customs declaration papers, retrieve your checked baggage, present them both to customs (which allows a search within, if they desire), then waiting in a check-in line for the next leg of your journey and checking in your bags again.
She just barely made it to the flight, because of the domino effect of the original delay of the Rome flight. She had to take a train to the gate and run.
The flight from Newark to LAX was uneventful. In LA, she had a layover of about two hours to catch an 8:00 flight to Santa Barbara. The flight showed delayed on my status gathering efforts. It finally was marked as taxiing down the runway, so we left for the airport.
Parking at the newly remodeled airport, that still is not totally completed, was a nightmare. We could see a few cars parked in the short-term parking, but even after two times through the airport loop, we couldn't see how to get into the lot. Finally, we swung into long-term parking and walked about two blocks to get to the terminal.
When we arrived, the place was deserted and the monitors had marked her flight's arrival another hour later. We finally found a ticket agent to ask for status in person. This was a large husky woman with a strong Russian accent. I would have picked her as a baggage handler, instead of ticket agent. Her story was that the plane returned back to the terminal for maintenance AND may not fly in at all. This would put Tori on a bus or a hotel for the evening. Unacceptable, but since she didn't have a cell phone (except an Italian dispose-a-phone, we couldn't contact her. Even if we drove down to get her, she wouldn't know it and we might pass her on the freeway riding a bus. Also, with TSA restrictions as they are, a passenger must always ride the plane that carries their luggage. If we picked her up, how would we retrieve her luggage? What a mess!
We came home and I continued tracking the flight. Thank goodness for FlightAware.com, because they showed the flight had already taken off, and they were tracking it to land here in about 15 minutes. The United site showed no status change at all!
We climbed into my truck and began to leave when we noticed that one of my headlights had just burned out. I re-parked and we took the car. When we got to the airport terminal, a plane was landing that had United markings. We went inside and proceeded to the place where passengers leave the secure area to wait for Tori. Many people came out, and then a flight crew. I asked whether there were more passengers behind them. They replied that their plane was from Denver not LA. The LA flight was just landing.
Finally, my little girl (who is 21 and flew the world by herself) returned (safely) after four and a half months in Italy, Austria and Hungary, and five hours of hanging around at LAX to get home. I looked at my watch and it was ten minutes to midnight. Flying isn't fun anymore!!!
As you can see by the seal at the top of this post, I support the POTUS in his decision to support like sex marriages. Whether or not it can be a religious ceremony or not depends on the church, but otherwise, a civil ceremony is nothing more than a contract between two independent parties.
Liar
"That wife of mine is a liar," said the angry husband to a sympathetic pal seated next to him in the bar. "How do you know?" the friend asked. "She didn't come home last night, and when I asked her where she'd been, she said she'd spent the night with her sister, Shirley." "So?" the friend replied. "So, she's a liar. I spent the night with her sister Shirley!"
Twin Brothers
Once there were twin brothers by the name of Jones. John Jones was married, and Joe Jones was single. The single brother Joe was the proud owner of a dilapidated row boat. It happened that John Jone's wife died the same day that Joe's rowboat filled with water and sank.
A few days later, a kindly old lady met Joe and mistaken him for John said; "Oh Mr. Jones, I am sorry to hear of your great loss, you must feel terrible".
Joe smiled and said, "Well I am not a bit sorry, she was rather old from the start. Her bottom was all chewed up and she smelled of dead fish. Even the first time I got into her, she made water faster than anything I ever saw. She had a bad crack and a pretty big hole in her front, and that hole got bigger every time I used her. It got so I could barely handle her, but if anyone else used her she leaked like anything. The thing that finished her was four guys from the other side of town. They came down looking for a good time and asked if I could lend her to them. I warned them she wasn't so hot, but they could take a crack at her if they liked. Well, the result was the crazy fools tried to get inside her all at once and it was too much for her. She cracked right up the middle".
Before he could finish the old lady fainted!
