Quick Trip to Canadia

(No, that is not a typo and yes, someone did ask me once if I was from Canadia. Sigh.)

My cousin, Krishan, married beautiful Lana this past weekend in Vancouver and so I popped over to the west coast of Canadia to participate in the festivities. Because I don’t see my extended family on a really frequent basis, I forget what a bunch of social butterflies we all are. The weekend basically consisted of us moving around Vancouver, en masse, from party to party. I felt a little like Jay Gatsby. (I also got to enjoy the ferry ride from Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay (and back) to go see the gang on Vancouver Island.)

Everything was going great until I tried to “pop” back to New York yesterday. Although I should know better, I booked my return flight connecting through Chicago. (Such a rookie mistake, I know.) Due to severe thunderstorms in the Chicago area, when we landed, we were just added to the dozens of already landed planes on the tarmac who were all waiting for gates. (Ground personnel is not allowed to work outside during electrical storms.) The tarmac full of planes looked like one of those awkward cocktail parties where everyone is just standing around, shifting from foot to foot, trying (but not very hard) to make small talk. Eventually the storm passed enough that we could get into a gate and deplane, but then most flights were late or cancelled. I finally got back to New York at about 3:30 this morning. I am dragging my proverbial you-know-what today.

But big virtual hug to Chrissy who saved the day with a sugar rush in the form of a delivery of cupcakes from Burgers & Cupcakes (hard to tell what they serve, isn’t it?) as a belated birthday treat and many, many virtual kisses (poor substitute for the real thing obviously) to Special K who sent the crispest, reddest group of 11 roses with a lone orange one for good measure. Happy sigh.