Day One: A Damp Beginning

Even though my flight wasn’t supposed to leave until 9 pm, I woke up bright and early because, as I usually do, I try and get on the correct time zone as soon as I can so the jet lag doesn’t kill my first few days in a new location.

I got everything packed and double checked, then got Georgie and Annabel (who was visiting :) ) settled, before I headed to campus for a meeting and a couple of last minute items that came up at work. I grabbed some lunch on the way back and the ingredients for dad’s famous cocktail to leave for Ariel and Mikey to thank them for what I hope won’t be a harrowing two weeks with my tiny monster.

Tony Nixon’s Southern Cocktail

Half a glass of ice

1-2 shots of Grey Goose vodka

1/4 cup Cran-Grape Juice

Finish filling with Sprite

I cleaned up the house before catching one last meeting on zoom and then taking the dogs for a long walk around the cathedral.

At least…that was the original plan.

We made it around the block and were just starting through the Olmsted Woods when it began to rain. And then thunder. And then rain a lot. So the two tiny dogs and I ran as fast as their legs could manage and got inside a few minutes later. It was a good test of my new waterproof Hokas that I’ve been breaking in this week, and they were fairly dry. The dogs and myself…not so much. If looks could kill… I finished packing up all of the dogs things and dropped them off at Ariel’s apartment.

I had called a car for 5 pm (rush hour traffic to Dulles…what terrible timing…), so I finished cleaning the house and made sure I had everything sorted. Got to love Lyft, my driver was a few minutes early for the reservation, so we got on our way a little before five. Even with traffic we got to the airport with plenty of time for my travel anxiety, and with TSA PreCheck actually working, I was at my gate by 6:15. So I grabbed some Cava for dinner and then settled down to work on my new InkCircles cross stitch design that’s inspired by Ireland. Lots of green and hidden symbols and landmarks and I can’t wait to work on this in my downtime on the trip.

We started boarding the plane and I had bought a seat towards the front so I was literally the last person on the plane. However….

Meet my seatmates!

This is going to be a NICE flight.