Courtenay Brown

I flew back to San Diego from Colorado Springs yesterday. It felt like I was gone for ages, probably because the 12 days were absolutely packed with activity and fun… To recap: extra-long travel day, day at Mom’s, day at SAIS/Reagan National Airport (speaking of which, today’s Public Service Announcement: airlines can totally steal fares from another airline when you call to change an itinerary that you booked on Orbitz, even when you tell them you only want to change the flights you have on their airline, and then you can show up to the airport for the next leg of your itinerary which is on a different airline and find that Delta voided your ticket. If this happens to you be nice to everyone and call all the 800 numbers and ask to speak to Delta’s customer service manager and explain to him that he has to fix it please, which he does, then fill out the Orbitz customer service survey and tell them they were entirely useless, then proceed with the rest of your trip you originally booked, although the whole affair may take so long that you miss lunch), day at Duke, then 7 days in Colorado!

I think I’ve come to a decision on grad school, but I’m going to let it sit for another couple of days just to be sure. I have until April 15, that is tons of time. Today I talked to my mom about it, always a questionable idea when one of the two of us is tired (in today’s case, it was me). My mom is by nature verrrry interested in other people’s goings on, but in this case she is particularly interested because if I go to SAIS, I will live at home, so today she called to be helpful. Actually rather than tell you about that conversation (which involved both of us talking over each other until the interrupter (ahem, Sal) would stop talking and let the originally-talking person finish), I will tell you about my mom and her friend Flee last week.

“Oh Sally, he’s like the dog from that book you loaned me!” ”I loaned you a book?” ”Well I think it was you? I don’t remember!” ”Me neither. What was it called?” “I don’t know.”

Ugh obviously you guys are talking about “Marley and Me” and yes, ma, you loaned it to Flee.

Then later: “… and today my feed order was delivered.” “You got yours today? I thought we got it next week?” “Well I think it was today. Maybe it wasn’t?” “Was I supposed to order on Monday?” “I don’t know.” “I’m so confused!” “Me too!”

I don’t know how the two of them get anything done together! They’re like that Who’s On First routine, but the funny/scary part is they aren’t exactly joking. Ah, the things I have to look forward to later in life .

Finally, just because I was curious, I made a list of the cities I have set foot in over the past 5 weeks:

Honolulu, Los Angeles (2 times), Denver (3x), Boulder, San Francisco (2x), Dallas, St. Louis, Seattle, Ashland, Oakland, San Diego (3x), Salt Lake City, Baltimore, Washington D.C. (2x), Durham, Chicago, Colorado Springs, and Las Vegas. That’s 18. No wonder I have lost track of what time zone I’m in, and whether I really have recently been in the exact same airport bathroom stall.