09-18-2025 Entry

Travel day. We woke up at 5:45 to find our flight was delayed for a mechanical repair, so we waited a bit before going to the airport. At security, I forgot to take my metal wallet out, so they searched me thoroughly before letting me through. Still, we got to the gate early and had to wait (I watched a couple of episodes of The IT Crowd on YouTube). Thankfully the baggage handlers' work slowdown (while we were waiting Ann pointed out a bunch of them apparently having a union meeting in the departure lounge) didn't appear to affect us, and the plane took off about 45 minutes late. Prevailing winds helped us along. Watched Black Bag on the plane, it was pretty good. Ate some breakfast and then tried to get some sleep on the plane. We were in the last section of the plane, and it was nearly empty. I had three seats to myself, with nobody in front of or behind me. I didn't have much success sleeping, dozed a little bit and that's all. Instead, I watched three more movies: The Amateur, Lady Bird, and Thunderbolts. The middle one was the best of the lot, the other two were formulaic. Lunch was mediocre as usual (Ann gave it a terrible rating, and I can't disagree), but the movies got me through the hours. Got through border control using the MPC process, but in this case it was probably a little slower than the normal lines, since there were so few people on the plane we came in on. We had to take a roundabout way to Terminal E due to construction, and I had a brief frantic moment before re-entering the Security checkpoint. Couldn't find my passport, turns out I had put it in my back pocket. Yikes! Through Security more easily but I did forget again to take off my belt. When will I learn? The flight was delayed, we stopped at a Mexican food place and had a burrito and burrito bowl, which weren't too bad. Flight further delayed, and even once we were on the plane it seemed that we waited on the runway and got passed over by a couple of other flights. I was on the very last seat on the plane, didn't pay for seat assignment and got assigned the shittiest one. It was only a 2-hour flight, so I looked out the window and just sucked it up. Flight was on time and not as bumpy as it might have been. Emily picked us up from the airport, she was right on time and we didn't have to wait at the Arrivals area when she showed up. A little traffic around the airport, but the trip home was smooth, and we were very glad to be home when we got there. The cat was pretty frantic the whole evening, wanting a lot of attention, and she didn't really settle down through the night. Went to bed shortly after getting something to eat and unpacking.