The Longest Day

I decided to surprise my cousin Bonnie for her birthday by hoping a flight to Los Angeles and showing up unannounced at the closing night of the showcase that she produces. Sounds easy, right?

Yeah - not so much.

It started out fairly easy - I emailed one of her friends, the fabulous Deb McCarthy, to be my co-conspirator, and she was thrilled with the prospect. She added me as an unnamed guest when she sent in her RSVP, and she advised me of the logistics of where I was going and best, least expensive way to get there. Then, I worked the July 4th holiday and some extra hours at the start of the week, so that I was in a good place to be off for the trip. Things are really busy at work lately, and I also knew that I didn't want my visit to be a disruption to Bonnie as she works her butt off on these showcases and would probably be pretty wiped out by the end. So, the plan was for a very short trip - total time in LA to be about 14 hours.

Things started promisingly enough Thursday morning. I woke up at 5:00 am ET and my neighbor Katie dropped me at the airport on her way to work at 6:30. The flight I was standing by for was scheduled to leave at 8:30 am and it had a lot of open seats. Got through security quickly and was at the gate within minutes. Started to get a bagel at the Wall Street Deli, but they only had cinnamon raisin left, so I figured I'd just wait and eat what they had on the plane. I cleared standby with no problems, and boarded with an aisle seat near the front. And hey! Celebrity siting (rapper from ATL that was spoofed hilariously by Dave Chappell) and I'm not even in LA yet.

As I fastened my seat belt and got out my magazine, the pilot comes over the loud speaker and says that we have a problem with a fuel pump and they need to bring over a new plane. So - everybody off the plane. Oh, and the new plane? It has 30 fewer seats, so all standby passengers? Thank you for playing, please try again.

For the next couple of hours, I (and several others) went from gate to gate, hoping to clear. The airport was incredibly crowded and the weather was getting pretty bad. But I was making the best of it and enjoying my new standby friends, including a retired Delta couple that was returning from a 72 day cruise around the world (their 2nd!), a young LA school teacher returning from a 3 week vacation in Chile, and a dumb chick that thought it would would be a smart idea to save the $100 difference between a discounted confirmed ticket and non-confirmed buddy pass instead when she was flying to LA to be a bridesmaid in a friend's wedding.

Finally, after 4 failed attempts, and another mechanical problem, we were down to my last shot - the 4:00 pm flight. It would arrive in LA at 6:00 and I would have 2 hours to make it to the show. My luck returned and I and my new found standby friends all cleared and started to board. Then a storm hit and they had to suspend boarding for a bit. Once we completed boarding, it looked like we would still leave just a few minutes late, but then they decided to hold the flight for some connecting passengers that arrived late due to the storm. After staring out the window at the returning rain and trying to mentally will the pilot to get started, we finally departed at 5:00 pm.
About that time, I realized that I hadn't eaten a thing all day and none of the meal choices were working for me due to allergies. But I had some Biscoff (yum) so that helped. Things also got better as I won the first round of in-flight Trivia. Yay me!

Arrived in LA at 6:45 pm PT and quickly determined that the only way I would make it in time was a cab ride through LA traffic. Following several 'where are you now?" phone calls to Deb, and the most Expensive! Cab! Ride! Ever! I arrived with 10 whole minutes to spare.

And my baby cousin? Well, when the response you receive from your intended surpise vicitm is 1. Mouth drops open, 2. The word "Holy" combined with a curse word is uttered, and 3. Tears, you figure it was a success.

Bonnie looked great, the showcase was wonderful, and her friends, as usual, embraced me and made me feel so completely welcomed (like Eitan below). I'm so incredibly proud of Bonnie and all she has accomplished, and it is so great to see all of her hard work on display first hand. The even more satisfying part though, was at the after party, when I heard person after person talk about how much they love Bonnie and how much she has helped them.

Unfortunately, by 11:00 pm PT, the party was over for me, and I had to get back to the airport for my return flight. Which was delayed (of course) and allowed all the late arrivals to make the flight, thereby robbing me of a seat. By that time, the early morning flight would be departing within 4 hours anyway, so I ended up spending the night in the airport. There were only about 10 of us, and most found quite corners and fell asleep in the floor or on benches, but I can't sleep sitting up, so I was getting a little giddy. I made a friend with a sweetheart of a guy named Dean, who like me couldn't sleep. He was on his way to Mexico to visit his girlfriend who was there helping to build a medical facility. We stayed entertained with his i-phone for a while, and wandered the terminal until dawn broke and the others woke up.

We all made the 6:00 am PT flight, and I after watching 5 episodes of a Project Runway marathon on the in-flight satellite TV, I was home by 3:00 pm ET - 34 sleepless hours after I had begun.

Yeah - totally worth it all. :-)