October 31, 2012: Chicago

I woke up a few minutes before six on my own this morning.  Minutes later there was a knock on the door as my breakfast was delivered.  As I am up north I am taking advantage of the local bagels and lox that you cannot get, at least not of the same quality, down in Texas.  It is pretty cold up here today, just over forty degrees.  Quite a shock coming from Dallas.  Nothing unreasonably cold, but quite a bit colder than I am used to these days.  The weather, though, is pretty decent.  We had really been worried that Chicago was going to be drowning in rain from the hurricane that is still pounding much of the northeast.

I ate breakfast, it was delicious, and set up the laptop and got to work.  I put in several hours working from the hotel room.  It was really productive time, actually.  For more productive than normal.  Doing super early mornings is a great time to get caught up on things because no one is interrupting you either locally or with a constant stream of requests via instant messenger so you can focus and actually accomplish things.  So I did well and was very productive from my little HP Folio 13.

I dropped off my bags with the hotel.  Easier just to keep them there and grabbed a cab to take me out for the day.

It was a busy day and went pretty well.  I was happy with it.

I ended up getting back to the airport much earlier than I had planned, around three thirty rather than more like six thirty or seven.  So I changed my flight and zipped back to the DFW in time for dinner, which was nice.  Unfortunately Dominica and the girls are in Houston trick or treating so there wasn’t very much reason to be coming home early.

The flight back went pretty smoothly.  The people on the plane with me were pretty boring so mostly I just sat and read the in-flight magazine.  Normally I am able to strike up a conversation or something but not tonight.  Ugh.  It was not a long flight, though, so whatever.  It was smooth, at least.  I had flown United up to Chicago yesterday but am returning on American.

I got into DFW very early and got my luggage and was out to the car in no time.  I had a little panic when I got to the car because I could not find the car keys and had this fear that they had fallen out of my luggage while I was packing it in the hotel.  But after about ten minute I found them buried in an obscure pocket of the luggage that I had checked several times but they were pressed beneath something else that had kept me from finding them.  With Dominica out of town until tomorrow evening I wasn’t in total panic but I was rather concerned for a bit.  Digging through luggage in the airport parting garage kind of sucks.

Since I had absolutely no one to go home too I texted Dan and he met me at Redneck Heaven which was, conveniently, on the way home from the airport now that I know how to use Texas Route 121 to get around a bit better.  So we hung out and had drinks there for the evening.  They were surprised to see me since I had been expected to be out of town tonight.

I got back to the house at a pretty reasonable hour and I was off to bed all alone.  Strangely I don’t mind being alone in hotels (maybe because they are so small and because there are people sleeping and awake in the rooms right around me) but sleeping alone at home I find very unpleasant.  I always have.  That is probably why I’ve never really lived alone.  I much prefer at least having someone in another room.

Dominica said that the Halloween activities went well down in Houston tonight.  The girls were dressed up as NASCAR Race Car drivers and the older girls as pit crew.  Luciana spent almost the entire night in the stroller but Liesl enjoyed herself.  She loves the entire Halloween experience and no one scared her this year.

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