August 16, 2013: Day Two in Connecticut

Slept well, alarm went off at six thirty Eastern which, to my internal clock, was five thirty.  Too early for me.  But I didn’t get bad sleep, just not as much as I would have liked but I feel pretty good.  Being about two weeks now completely caffeine free has really allowed me to sleep a lot less than before.  Less control of my hour to hour tiredness but much more control of my overall need for sleep.  Mostly a win.  Probably much better for my health, though, which is what is actually important.

I didn’t actually have as much time as I might have to get ready this morning as my morning meeting is at nine and to be safe I really need to be out of the hotel by eight to be ready to make it safely since traffic last night was horrible and I really do not have a good idea of how long it will take to get from one place to another in this area nor am I completely confident where I am heading today (as in the address.)  So a little complication there.

Got all ready and left the hotel just a little after eight.  Had a taxi waiting for me and it ended up only taking fifteen minutes to get to the location so I was very early.  Better early with time to relax than racing, though.  I have to have my luggage with me all day because I don’t have a chance to return to the hotel this afternoon.  My flight is at five out of La Guardia this evening which is pretty early, but thankfully that means that I can get home to my girls in time to see them both before they go to bed tonight.  My flight is scheduled to land at eight (it is a three hour flight from DFW to NYC and four hours in the reverse, which is pretty easy to remember) which means that I should be home at the house before nine.

My day of meetings went very well.  We actually ran over and I was racing to get to the airport after it was all over.  I was originally planned to not leave until two but ended up having an additional meeting at the end of the day and going until after two thirty.  Given that I needed to get from Norwalk, CT to La Guardia in Queens, NY to catch a flight that boards in exactly two hours – there was just a little bit of a panic.  They had a limo waiting for me (a whole week of being limo’d everywhere is pretty nice) and he drove like crazy to get me to the airport.  Traffic was light and it went really well.

Got to La Guardia and through security in no time.  Had enough time to grab a tuna wrap and a slice of real NYC pizza before getting on to the plane.  I had been given a catered lunch today but it was very small as much of it was meat.  I didn’t want to burden anyone with running around to find me other food, which they definitely offered to do.

The flight back to Dallas was completely full.  I was stuck sitting in the bulkhead, which I hate, because it is the tighter seats.  I like the leg room in front but the lack of side to side space makes it very uncomfortable.  I prefer normal seats much better.  The flight was uneventful.  We sat in silence nearly the whole way.  I listened to a few hours of The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond and took a few minutes of naps here and there too.

I got to DFW and had to wait probably half an hour for my luggage. Because the flight was full they were picky about the size of the luggage and my carry-on was too large to go on the plane.  So it had to be stowed and I lost a lot of time there.  After getting my luggage I had to get from terminal A29 where I arrived to E1 where the car was parked.  That took nearly an hour.  DFW airport is a construction mess and they don’t have their shuttles working well to handle it at this point.  It was so bad that people were really concerned that there was no way to get out of the construction zone that we had landed in.  Very poor planning and zero information for people wondering what to do.

Finally got to the car and drove home.  It was after nine when I got there, closer to ten.  My phone had died while on the flight and so I was unable to communicate with Dominica to let her know what was going on that entire time that I was on the ground since they don’t offer charging stations or anything for people waiting for luggage or for shuttles – both places where it would be highly beneficial, maybe even more beneficial than for people waiting on a flight since it is on arrival that your phone is most likely to be dead and where you probably need it most.

Both girls were up and waiting for me and so excited to see me.  It was hours of screaming and running around.  Eventually we all just piled onto the bed and the girls just jumped all over me for a very long time.  Once Luciana went to bed we watched a little Netflix and Liesl curled up on the couch with me snuggling very close.  In no time she fell asleep there and I eventually carried her in and put her to bed.

Tomorrow morning Dominica has to be up early so that she can drive down towards Houston to meet up with Francesca so that they can transfer our nieces, Madeline and Emily, who are coming up to spend the week with us in Dallas as they do every summer.  The round trip takes roughly five hours if all goes well.  Dominica will leave at eight and is hoping to be home around one.  I will be home watching Liesl and Luciana.

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