In the beginning...

When I arrived at the airport on the evening of the 9^th of August, one of my checked bags was too heavy.  My family and I started scrimmaging through the tightly-rolled clothing in order to take out the heaviest items we could find such that we would make the weight limit and not have to pay an extra $75 I’d have to pay for the extra 7 lbs.  Throughout all that commotion, I left my laptop behind at the check-in counter and went off with my mom and sister to have tea.  A couple of minutes later they announced over the speakers that a laptop had been left at the counter and I snapped out of my seat and ran down to get it.  All the employees, perhaps fatigued by their late night work, were chuckling at my negligence.  The lady who had it asked me what colour it was because it’s inside a black sleeve.

“Red,” I answered – it’s inside a red case.  And then they were all giggling again.  I didn’t but I wanted to scold, “What? You’ve never seen a red Apple before?”

I was a little embarrassed.
Then, when I passed through the security check, everyone thought my ceramic mug was full of tea because it’s heavy.  They wanted to confiscate it.  They were all somewhat dumbfounded when they realized it wasn’t plastic, it was ceramic, and indeed there was only a teabag left in it.  It’s a little eerie how the events up until now were almost foreshadowing, if you will, of the events yet to happen….

My flight from the Victoria airport to Toronto was supposed to leave at 11:40pm, but instead it left forty-five minutes late. The captain said it had something to do with a “snowball effect” of earlier flights having run late thus causing the plane to be late for check-ups, etc.  Anyhow, I was very confident in being able to sleep on the plane – in fact, running motors tend to make me sleepier, but I was appalled to find that – for whatever reason – I couldn’t sleep on the plane this time.  What’s more, this time I was actually the only passenger in the row of seats, so I could stretch out entirely and I still couldn’t find my REM.  That sucked. AND because we were flying East in the middle of the night, we were chasing a sunrise, a sunrise that came all to early in my opinion.   We finally arrived in TO, late, and I tried to stuff everything I could into my backpack – my carry on, grumpy with fatigue.  I counted my items: 1 for the backpack, 2 for the book I was carrying in my hand, 3 for the blanket I had drooped over my forearm.  All ready to go. I didn’t have much time to get to the next terminal to board my flight from Toronto to London.  So I asked someone what gate to go to (apparently that’s something they don’t think to print onto your boarding pass…)  I found the gate easily enough… it took about 4 minutes of fast walking to get there, and it was 4:35 when I sat down to wait for them to call us to board. But then BAM! I realized I’d forgotten my laptop on the plane! I had tucked it underneath the seat in front of me and my backpack in the overhead compartment, so ahh! Too many things to keep track of – disaster! I ran back and got there what could not have been more than 5 or 6 min. after the last person had left the plane, but then this unpleasant woman from Air Canada told me they’d made a local area announcement and then sent it to baggage’s lost and found… it was difficult to understand what she meant and she was very bad at directing me where to go, but I managed to run run run to baggage and just before I hit the doors there was a man who worked at the airport (security maybe?) by the doors, so I told him about my predicament and he fired up his little walkie talkie and whomever he spoke to said there was no laptop there, so he went running back to where I’d just been and left me waiting and watching my watch’s arms tick tick … departure was supposed to be at 8:10am… it was about 7:50, then 7:55, then he was finally coming back towards me at 8:00-ish saying it was at the baggage claim, so we went BACK to where I’d found him originally and my nerves were a wreck! He told me I’d have to clear security and then realized I was maybe going to miss my flight, so he rushed in through the doors, talking on his walkie-talkie to someone who had the laptop, and finally he came back - quite quickly – with my laptop and said, “Go!”  So I started running with a laptop, a book, a blanket in my arms, and a backpack with a yoga mat attached to it on my back.  Well I hadn’t taken ten steps when I hear something smash! I look down to see my cell phone had jumped out of my backpack and was now lying in three pieces. I ran back to get it and as I knealt down my ceramic mug flung out of my backpack and shattered on the floor in shards of beautiful chocolate brown exterior and a white, matted interior… it made me think a bit of a broken coconut but it hurt my heart, too… And people were looking and I just said, “I’m sorry… I have to go!” Stupid backpack had opened it’s way up with all my running about and my poor beautiful ceramic mug! I didn’t even get to say goodbye.  When I got to the departure gates, the ladies taking the tickets knew who I was and told me to calm down, I had time.  I guess planes never really ‘depart’ when they say they will… Well, I was walked out onto the plane – a small “Air Canada Jazz” plane that was maybe not even half full – and then all of a sudden in an unexpected pang of emotion, everything hit me: my leaving my hometown for the longest time yet, my fatigue, my anxious nerves and disappointment in (a) the Air Canada woman who used a sassy voice with me when I told her I’d left something on the plane, (b) the lack in communication across airport personnel, and (c) in my own silliness for having forgotten my laptop twice in less than 12 hours.  I think what I was most agonized over, though, was the shattering of my mug! My beautiful, perfect mug that I loved and which my sister had given me… And so the waterworks started and I was inconsolable for about 10 min. while two flight attendants awkwardly had to ask me if I would accept the responsibility of opening the emergency exit door (because I was sitting beside it) in case of an emergency.  They walked me through what I would have to do, even though I already knew because strangely enough I’d been sitting by the emergency exit door on a completely differently designed Air Canada airplane on the flight I’d just completed to Toronto.  As an aside: anyone out there can say what they want about my 5-year-old cell phone with a missing chunk off one corner and scratches and dents a-plenty, but when I pieced the thing back together and *click* it came back to life, hadn’t even turned off! Amazing! J
The flight to London was brief and I started feeling more able to breathe as I watched the clouds look like very much tangible, soft, like pristine tufts of the softest material one could ever imagine.  When we landed in London it was a grey, foggy day… not like those of Victoria, though. No, this one was grey but HOT and humid and dense.  I caught this “Executive” company’s taxi to my apartment, but when the men started trying to help me unpack my stuff from the little airport dolly to the trunk of the vehicle, one of them sent my telephone flying again (because I had taken it out of the backpack because I needed to call my landlord on the way to the apartment).  The poor phone shattered in three pieces again, and the men felt pretty bad. I just popped it back in place, though, and it was fine again… except now it’s giving me attitude, but I think that’s because of the heat.  Anyhow, my landlord seems to be a very considerate and kind person.  He helped me with my two huge suitcases all the way up to my apartment and we filled out a few papers together and the other formalities.

That’s about the bulk of my day(s) actually.  Yesterday and today seem to have melted into one extremely long day.  Today I got pillows, did a little unpacking, did a little grocery shopping, got a cell phone, ordered internet and cable packages, and so on.  Oh! Naturally the first thing I did when my landlord left me was hang up my shower curtains and have a luxurious shower.  Finally cool water to counter the sauna-like scorch of the weather in general and my apartment in particular.  East-facing is bright and fourth floor means no heavy footsteps above, but apparently those two great beneficial goods also combine to an almost Amazon-like atmosphere in Southern Ontario’s Augusts. I think I’m going to go take another shower now, because it’s too hot and water is included in my rent J
Oh! Lest I forget to tell you about my dinner!  I don’t have bowls, but I have one pot and one saucepan.  So I made a cucumber-tomato-olive salad in my pot and ate it straight from the pot.  I cooked chicken in my saucepan and then plopped it onto my pot (from which I’d already eaten all the salad by this time) and ate that from the pot too.
Tonight, I’m planning on sleeping on my yoga mat with some very comfy, firm, and fluffy pillows I just bought (I looked funny bringing them home because when squished together and also against my body, the covered me almost entirely from my collar bone down to my knees). We’ll see how it goes.