9.26.2003

Been a while ... let's see ...

Went back to see Michael last weekend. I ended up leaving Wednesday instead of Friday — Hurricane Isabel was going to be literally right on top of Dulles Airport at the time my flight was going to leave on Friday, so I switched dates. The airlines were allowing people to change their flights at no cost, so it worked out well, and I got to spend extra time with Michael. :) Got a couple more tattoos — I'll post pictures when they've healed.

Came back Sunday to a house with no electricity, and it wasn't restored until Wednesday. Ugh. I didn't discover until Tuesday evening (when all of my neighbors had power restored and I didn't) that the "service mast" (the conduit through with the wires run from the top of the roof to the meter) had fallen off the house. Ack. So I called the power company, and spoke to someone who was apparently clueless — he said they'd have someone out to fix it. A couple hours later I called back, and spoke to someone who knew the drill — turns out that I was responsible for getting the service mast reattached to the house, and that they are only responsible for the wires from the street pole to the roof. Dammit. So she tells me that they'll have to send out a crew to unhook my wire, then I'll have to have an electrician come out and reattach the service mast, then the Warren County inspector has to verify the work, and THEN they can reattach me. Needless to say I was very upset ... and kudos to Michael for putting up with my bitching and whining. ;)

The power company called me at 3 a.m. because the crew was lost trying to find my house. ("Does one of your neighbors have a big German Shepherd? Because we went up to that house and looked in their windows and their dog went nuts." LOL) I gave them more directions, and they showed up at 3:15 a.m. to unhook my power. Lo and behold, it's already unhooked ... someone from the power company had already unhooked my power at some point before I came home, and they never told me, or anyone else, including the power company. Grrrrrr. The power company guy also suggested that I ask the power company to waive the inspection to get my power back on faster. Sounded good to me.

I called a couple of 24-hour-emergency electrician companies and left messages, asking them to call me as soon as they could to schedule some work. I got a call at 6:45 Wednesday morning, and I had electricians at my house by 7:45 or so. :) They had to go back into town to get a part for the service mast, but it was all done a little after 10 a.m. So I called the power company and explained the WHOLE thing again (I had to do this every friggin' time I called, LOL), and asked about waiving the inspection. The woman said that in the case of simple stuff, like service masts being detached, they would waive the inspection. Yay! The power guys showed up a little before 3 p.m. on Wednesday to hook my line back up. What a relief!

pixie.dust sprinkled at 11:30:00 AM • 0 witty remark(s)

9.04.2003

Back from a wonderful vacation — probably the best vacation I've ever had. I flew to El Paso to see Michael, and we drove up to Colorado Springs. I really enjoyed visiting Colorado Springs ... that place reminds me of so many of my favorite places, all rolled into one; simply beautiful. And having Michael share so many of his favorite places with me made it even better. :)

Getting to El Paso was a bit of a nightmare ... I was stuck sitting on my initial flight from Dulles to Chicago for three hours, at the gate, due in part to a "mechanical concern," then to bad weather that kept us from taking off. We finally did take off, but I missed my connection from Chicago to El Paso by at least two hours, and that was the last flight out to El Paso that night. After several of the other travelers nearly lynched the gate personnel, we were all given special "distressed traveler" rates at local hotels. I walked away from the near-lynching (they were getting really rude, those other passengers, and I didn't feel like being part of that) and went upstairs to the ticket counter, so I ended up getting a better hotel AND I got my luggage transferred to my new flight. Heh. Being nice pays off. There's no reason to try to make people feel bad about their jobs. Sheesh. Anyway, I took my shuttle to the Hyatt Regency O'Hare (VERY nice), ordered room service for dinner, called Michael (for about the fiftieth time, LOL), ate, then went to sleep.

The next morning, I was back at the airport at 5:30 a.m. to board my flight at 6 a.m. I was supposed to go from Chicago to Dallas, then on to El Paso, arriving there at 10 a.m. or so. I got on the plane, called Michael, told him it all looked fine ... and suddenly the plane had mechanical difficulties. Good grief. Flight was cancelled. The minute the pilot said, "Well, folks, it looks like a major problem, and it doesn't look good ..." I grabbed my backpack, got off the plane, marched up to the counter, and booked myself onto the direct Chicago-El Paso flight leaving at 11 something, which put me in El Paso (FINALLY) a little after 1 p.m. on Saturday, which was Michael's 34th birthday. I was SO frustrated that it took me so long to get there ... but at least I got there! Yay!!

The drive to Colorado Springs was fun, too; lots of beautiful scenery through New Mexico and Colorado. I love road trips anyway, and road-tripping with Michael was a blast. We never cease to crack each other up. :) I took tons of pictures. We did so much in Colorado Springs — went hiking at Mt. Cutler Falls and Helen Hunt Falls (both gorgeous), walked all over downtown, went to Old Colorado City and Manitou Springs, went to Garden of the Gods (stunning) ... it was just wonderful. We got up early each day in an attempt to see as much of the Springs as we could, but as usual, we ran out of time. But that's okay — I'm sure we'll go back there someday. :) I was surprised that the altitude didn't really bother me, even when hiking up fairly steep hills — guess I'm in better physical condition than I thought!

Oh, and I got a new tattoo addition to my back ... Michael added the bottom set of dragons the day after I arrived:

I have more hard-copy pictures of the trip (and we finally got someone to take a couple pictures of us together! Yay!!), but these are just the digital ones. (Yes, I know some of you have been dying to get a look at Michael, too. So here ya go. ;))

Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs

Michael at Garden of the Gods

Me at Garden of the Gods

A stream near the Mt. Cutler Falls hiking trail

Michael in front of the stream

Me in front of the stream

A view of Colorado Springs from Mt. Cutler Falls

Michael hiking up Mt. Cutler Falls

A sculpture garden at a private residence (so cool!)

The sculpture garden, again.

I flew back on the 31st (without incident!), and my parents picked me up at Dulles, then stayed with me a couple of days before heading out for Florida to babysit my niece while Traci is off having fun. :) While they were here, I gave them the "grand tour" of Front Royal and Winchester; everything in Old Town Winchester was closed due to the holiday, but surprisingly, many of the little antique shops in Front Royal were open. We also went to the Virginia State Arboretum — I knew my mom would love that, since she's a master gardener and is really gifted at landscaping. The butterflies were everywhere — beautiful!

Good grief, long update!

pixie.dust sprinkled at 2:52:00 PM • 0 witty remark(s)