For Just the Third Time

I have to admit, I'm surprised this doesn't happen to me more often: I just missed my 12:15 flight to Boston. Technically, I could still have made it, as I got to the airport a full twenty minutes before departure, but my bag wouldn't have. And because I'll be spending the next eight days back and forth between Boston and the national Decathlon in Chicago, I definitely needed my suit and, more importantly, my alpaca sweater.

The delay does have a few silver linings:

(1) The gate agent is a science fiction fan. We debated the relative merits of George Martin, Terry Goodkind and Robert Jordan. This was hard for me, as I haven't read Terry Goodkind, but she did agree that Martin was the best of them.

(2) I hiked over to the international terminal for a bowl of seaweed noodle soup in the food court there. It was nice to eat something meant for chopsticks again, and for a change I wasn't stopped by either the airport's token Falun Gong practitioner or the Salvation Army.

(3) I've settled down and been working quietly on DemiDec for the last couple hours, over first a cup of coffee and then two of tea--one green, one lemon-flavored.

Technically, the first time I ever missed a flight, I was a minor--only about ten--and my parents took us to the airport a couple days late (they forgot to doublecheck the flight schedule.) So I'm not sure that counts. This therefore makes just two.