I could have been here today

Headlines of the past 36 hours

• I got a customer alert call from Orbitz at 5 a.m. yesterday about the cancellation of all flights through Denver.
  
• I spent most of the next four hours trying to get through to customer service at Orbitz and United. The 5-8 voice prompts all ended with a hang up call.
• I worked with the travel agent who books my business trips on alternates. I often whne that I have to go through an agent instead of just booking it myself. This time, I consider him my best new friend since he finds a ticket, albeit at three times the original cost, 10 hours longer and with 1000 more miles.
• At 7 p.m., I begin a series of flights that take me from Oakland to Portland to Houston to Oklahoma City.
• The slight conjestion I had in the afternoon is developing into a miserable cold as I am wedged into the seat on the long Portland-Houston flight next to a two-year-old boy named Alberto who reaches out for my fingers several times and kisses my shoulder midway into the flight.
• I arrive in Oklahoma at 10:30 a.m. where it is a glorious 28 degress (I'm not being ironic; I'm a winter person) and bright, crisp and clear. If it were like this year-round I would move back.
  
• I arrive at my aunt's memorial service 20 minutes before it starts.