Compared to *What*?

My trip to our Nation's Capitol was very very good. I had a lovely visit with my sister and her family (who introduced me to Marcel the Shell, and whose answer to pretty much anything is "Compared to What"?) and had the wonderful opportunity to meet my sister and brother-in-law's grandbabies!!!

I had some good interviews with Military Chaplains who were very helpful in terms of pointing me in the right direction for my sabbatical research. I'm only just getting started and already I'm seeing that I will need to focus my three months of study to a very narrow part of the broader subject of the relationship between the Church and the Military. There is a LOT of material out there. It's all interesting and I would love to investigate it, but I only have three months next year to work on it, so I'll have to pare it all down to something more manageable.

My trip home was interesting, to say the least.

My cell phone was off (or out of battery power), and the airline (WestJet) was trying to reach me to bump me up to an earlier flight because of a "situation" in Toronto, where I had to make a connection to get home.

They couldn't reach me on the cell, so they phoned hubby at home, and he called B-I-L who then called my niece, who was with me in the afternoon. When I arrived, a WestJet agent was looking for me and put me in front of the line immediately so I could catch the early flight.

For the "inconvenience", I have a 50% off voucher for my next flight with WestJet. How awesome is that????

To make it even more fun, the pilot came out of the cabin prior to lift-off to introduce himself and the staff, and noted that one of the flight attendants was a contestant on last year's "Canadian Idol" - cool. Then he told some lame jokes and we took off. The best part was when the pilot said "We're having some runway issues at The Center of the Universe" With snickering apologies to my dear Toronto friends, I had to laugh at that one..... come on......who doesn't know that Toronto has a bit of a collective ego????

I heart WestJet. Seriously, when the competition (Air Canada - ick) has an unofficial motto that says, "We're not happy until you're unhappy" - to see such great customer service is so delightful.

It's good to be home. Now I have pull all of my info together over the next few days and get my grant application ready for submission well in advance of the due date. Yes, I was always that annoying person who handed in term papers two weeks early. Whatever....it helps me sleep at night.

I took ONE headache-avoiding med the first day of my trip - mostly because I was up from 4:30 am until midnight. Sleep interruption isn't good for headachy types.

I loved seeing my Ottawa relatives again - it was wonderful!



Truffle is seriously unhappy with me. It will take a few days until I'm forgiven for going away and returning with the scent of someone else's cat all over me. She'll get over it. It could be worse....

Truffle: "Oh ya, compared to What?"

:)

ETA: I also had a chance to visit with some friends from Queen's on Monday!!! Thanks T & M - great to see you and to meet da boyz.

Also, not that this should come as any surprise, but my sister and I have the same shower curtain. In the past we have had the same bed linens and dishes. And we live a few thousand kilometers away from each other. Thus, bed linens and such are genetically hard-wired into us at birth. You heard it here first folks. ;)