Despite sleeping just two hours between 2am and 4am to make my 5:40am flight I couldn’t sleep during the flight although I got relatively comfortable in a tight E90 seat.
My brain shouldn’t be but it was in overdrive!!
It was a wild and crazy weekend starting with the Mad Dash to Pearson after work. The flight looks so promising and feasible at 7:20pm but insert a most tardy and unhurried Airport Express bus fighting Friday rush hour traffic downtown and I was totally on edge until I got to the airport.
There wasn’t a moment to spare and I went to security where the officer guarding the entrance to the roped area was actively avoiding doing work and sending people downstairs to a smaller security checkpoint via stairs not meant for travellers with luggage. That is, no downwards escalators but only stairs and a girl ahead of me with her carry-on luggage tumbled down the stairs! The upstairs guard said the downstairs checkpoint was smaller but empty–a lie–and I was the last person to enter the frustrating queue before they turned people coming downstairs around to go back upstairs.
My carefully preserved Prairie Girl cupcake for Lil Sis was knocked over while exiting the security scanner and peppermint frosting smeared off the chocolate cupcake and onto the box. :(
And the flight was delayed by over and hour. Add that to a most frustrating queue with NPY a few weeks ago when his baggage receipt printed but not the baggage tag and we waited so long in the full-service check-in line just about to boil over because of lackadaisical union labour ethics. I am about to join the chorus of people who swear off Air Canada. But the more corporate and international Air Can brand draws me more than casual and joking Westjet so AC hasn’t lost a customer in my quite yet.
A couple of months ago, on her way back to Halifax, Mum left her cell phone charger with the Toronto airport security people and it was good excuse for her to get a new phone. I think the Korean soaps give her ideas and she wanted a big bright screen and “text messaging” and not a $0 flip phone. And when she saw the “large print” and large on-screen keyboard of the Galaxy Note, she could not be turned.
Instead of working on Saturday night, I set up mum’s new phone and wrote instructions and played many Scramble with Friends games with Lil Sis who is regularly shut out because she has a Blackberry (but is now convinced to go Android/Samsung in 18 months since she’s also anti-Apple for inexplicable reasons). She thinks I’m biased but I don’t think I am to believe that mum would learn to use an iPhone just a bit easier than Android. But mum thinks the iPhone is too small!!
On Sunday when the biggest event of the day is managing the onslaught of Mother’s Day orders, mum and I made another trip to Bell Aliant. Having played with the Galaxy Note overnight, she realized the device is too large and her old, stiff fingers cannot grip the device securely, she feels it’s not private with such a large screen, and her brothers who are a tad more computer/Internet savvy than she is wield simple phones and will have a field day ridiculing her with her Galaxy Note. So we were back to find the next largest Samsung and it would be the Galaxy IIS HD and LTE phone. So I had to set up another phone!
All while fielding the calls from customers to order take out. And calling Bell ExpressVu support to order new remote controls for the PVRs. And calling Bell Mobility to unlock mum’s account to manage her bills online. And fielding some panicky calls from my grandmother in Toronto who was overreacting to something.
And then we worked worked worked from 4pm until 8pm. I love having the cleanest job just answering the phone and handling cash but it gets awkward just standing at the counter and people are waiting for orders not yet completed.
Tying up loose ends and having the “serious talk” with mum that needs to happen every trip otherwise it’s not typical of our rapport… brings me to 2am this morning.
There’s still a list of errands for Lil Sis to help out with since she’s staying a day longer and I’m stressed out about it because I want it done and for some of my parents’ large utilities bills to get adjusted.
I say it with the best of intentions and need to mean it this time. From now until the end of June my life can consist of not much more than work, study, and running. No room for error for seven weeks.
Except, I’ve got big plans for the rest of the year that requires planning this far out. Crazy, but I wouldn’t really have my life any other way.