2/8/2005 08:24:58 PM|||Britt|||I can't book a flight out of a wet paper bag. For some strange reason, I cannot book the right days for trips I am taking. The last four times I have flown, I have wanted to change the days as the trip draws near.

It's not that I book flights too hastily. The problem is that I'm too damn concerned about others when I should be focusing on me when I book flights.

Prime examples: for my recent trip to Santa Monica I booked a flight that left late on a Saturday night and returned early (early-ass early) on the following Saturday morning. I remember thinking at the time that it would reduce the amount of time Kimmie would have to be on her own with Mackenzie.

I was packed and ready to go six hours before my flight was scheduled to take off, so I talked Kimmie into taking me to the airport early, with the hope of jumping on an earlier flight. Orbitz, of course, would not let me do that.

At the ticket counter, I punched myself in, choose some option like Jump on a Plane Now, and boom I was done. It seemed too easy.

And was I ever glad to have had the extra two hours to make my way from LAX to my hotel in Santa Monica. Southern California was having its monsoon season and I had to take a tour of the entire long-term parking lot before arriving at a bus terminal that looked like an abandoned A&W drive-in restaurant.

I arrived at the terminal just in time to see the bus I was hoping to catch pull away. I only had to stand in horizontal rain for a half hour to catch the next one, the Santa Monica Big Blue. The ride itself was pleasant, pleasant in the world of bus rides, which is just above the world of dentist waiting rooms.

And, of course, on the way back I had to get up at four in the morning. Fortunately, I had a friend drop me off at LAX rather than trying a return trip on the Big Blue bus I took from the airport. The Saturday I left was the nicest day of the whole week I was there. I could have easily spent a few hours relaxing at the beach before coming back to Portland's worst ice storm in years.

I am now looking at my flight information for SXSW. I seem to be arriving a day early (probably thinking it will give time to check out Austin) and leaving a day early (beat the crowd to the airport?). I'll be missing the big party at Sterling's house. Aaaaaagh!
|||110792447845399184|||Two bits, four bits, Orbitz?