Surprise Trip

At the beginning of April I headed to Tennessee to see one of my old high school friends.  It was her birthday on April 3rd and I had some PTO that was itching to be used.  But instead of telling Carlie about it, I contacted her husband (who luckily I’m friends with on good ol’ myspace) to see if we could pull off me coming to surprise her.  So Tony and I planned this all out via messaging on myspace which I have to say is not the most efficient means of communication.  But it got figured out, I bought the ticket, and he was going to drive to Nashville to pick me up from the airport.  So of course the day before I leave, Carlie throws a wrench in the plans.  She has decided to take their youth group (of which they are the leaders) to laser tag because it is the kids’ spring break.  She has planned for the group to meet at 4pm at the church and meanwhile Tony is supposed to be picking me up at about 3pm in Nashville which is a good 45 minutes to an hour from their town.  Tony tried to lie and say he was going to play basketball with some of his coworkers and she got all mad at him for having plans on a day they were doing a youth activity.  He couldn’t handle her wrath so he eventually just told her that he was getting something for her birthday and that was the only time he was going to be able to get it taken care of.  So of course she was fine about it all after that.  Anyway…Tony picks me up, we head to the church, and I hide in the truck until she comes outside.  Then I sneak over, crouching down behind her car and pop up right when I’m in her line of sight.  She definitely wasn’t expecting me – the look on her face made that clear.  And then she just gasped and asked the obligatory, “What are YOU doing HERE?”  But she didn’t cry.  I would have like to have seen tears.

Oh, and I joined in on one of the rounds of laser tag and had the highest score in our group of 19.  Maybe that’s my secret life skill?

The week that ensued was mostly just us hanging out.  Which was nice and relaxing and just what I needed.  Carlie and Tony have a baby girl who is just about the most darling child you’ve ever met.  I got to babysit her a little bit which was pretty fun, but also really tiring.  Its weird how the longer I’m single and childless the more overwhelmed when I have to take care of a kid.  At 17 I was sure I wanted to be married and have 4 kids and now at 27 I can almost imagine not having any just because of the amount of energy they suck out of you every moment of every day.  Anyway, here are some pics of their adorable munchkin.

On the day I was supposed to be heading home, I got to the airport in Nashville and they said that my flight was 29 minutes late which meant I’d miss my connection and there were absolutely no other flights to get me to Seattle that day.  Ridiculous.  29 minutes causes this much of a hiccup in the system?  And I wasn’t the only one.  At least 5 other people right in line behind me were dealing with the same thing – one girl was going to Australia and there was an older couple who had driven from Kentucky and were heading to Idaho for her mother’s 95th birthday – not really things that are easy to reschedule.  Luckily I was just able to call Carlie and they turned around, drove the 20 minutes back to the airport and then we went all the way back to their place.  I did get another cherry limeaide from Sonic out of the deal, so not all was lost.  Then poor Carlie had to drive me back to Nashville the next morning to catch a 9:30am flight.  BUT, I got to ride first class from Chicago to Seattle and that made up for it all.  Did you know they give you your beverages in real glasses?  And besides warm nuts in ramekins, a lunch of warm shrimp salad and tomato basil vegetable soup, plus all the liquids you could ever want in a 4 hour period, they brought you a warm chocolate chip cookie and a glass of milk!  I had to use the lavatory twice and felt so bad about disturbing the woman sitting next to me (I mean, we’re in first class – people pay to not be disturbed here!).  So after tentatively waking her, I was surprised when she was all bright smiles and saying, “No worries.  They pump you full of liquids up here!”  And maybe you didn’t want to know about my peeing needs, but the whole thing was just amusing (ok, maybe only to me) so I had to share.

Anyway it was a great trip.  I was so happy to be able to just surprise Carlie and I love that our friendship is strong enough that she can handle me just dropping in for 6 days unannounced.  It can be hard to live so far away from her.  Luckily we get to see each other in July up in Alaska for our 10 year reunion.  Which is still weird to realize it’s been that long since we were sitting in class together in high school.