Friday: NYE, Our Return Home

Returning home! Our flight was at 4:10, loading at 3:35 (it loaded and left a little late, but not by much), so we slept in. R. arranged a noon checkout for one of her rooms, but I did not bother. I only abandoned food that wouldn’t make it through security. I realized later that the fluff was unopened and I could have put it in a checked bag. *shrug* Unfortunately, I overpacked my big bag and when it was weighed it was 52.5 pounds. I was like, I’ll pay the overage. The woman said, It’s $150. I said, I don’t care. She looked at me. I said, what do you want me to do? She said, take two pounds out. I said, and put it where? She gestured at the other bags. I said, you want me to do a huge repack right here? I’ll pay the $150. She looked at me and took the bag. She said, Just this one time. Never do this again. I was like, really?!? Thank you! And then later I felt guilty because obviously they do not want my $150, they just want their employees to not be damaged by overly heavy bags. Next time, I don’t _ask_ R. and/or T. to take some of the stuff. I _tell_ them. I had extra bags I could have carried on but I didn’t want to carry the stuff on the plane. I got the popcorn bucket home in T..’s bag, by refolding everything in his bag including his dirty clothes — with the bucket and refold, it was less bulky than before I started. I handed R. a toiletries bag. But I could have offloaded a bunch more, like the new dress for A., etc.

Lunch was McDonald’s and A. also got Auntie Anne’s cinnamon sugar pretzel bites (which we also had at Universal — far less digestively challenging than Dippin Dots). They didn’t want us at the gate until the last 2 hours, so we hung out in pre-security, which was good because when we did get to the gate, the avgas smell was terrible.

I said goodbye to my sister’s family in their room at Universal. Their flight was on American, on the trip credit from canceling her part of the Hilton Head trip. This trip uses up all the covid cancellations, at least, all the ones I intend to make use of (American flight, Disney Cruise nonrefundable deposit). I said we are still on for April, and probably not doing anything during the summer with them, because we’re going to try to go to Europe (and/or Canada, and/or Seattle), and I’m not planning as far ahead as next Christmas yet. I asked if they had done any checkout on the TV or whatever, and they said no, just told the maid they were out of the other room. Apparently, auto-checkout happens at 11, so no worries.

My sister found out she won’t have to take a week off from work post cruise / theme parks; the twins got covid while she was on vacation, so they really want her back right away. Ha ha ha ha ha. They’re fine, so it’s okay to get some entertainment out of it.

P., our driver from Boston Carriage, is an unusually terrifying but also wildly competent driver, so I decided to ignore the tailgating and line crossing and hard stops at red lights and just enjoy the unusually speedy return home.

I had rescheduled Fancy Friday to 11 pm my time for New Year’s Eve. J&J got kicked off by internet / modem problems, which was sad, but it was nice to chat with the S’s, I. and R.

I started a load of laundry, pulled the sourdough starter out and when it thawed enough, fed it. I found the cheese sandwich in the fridge that was supposed to get on the plane with us, turned it into grilled cheese and fed it to A. with a half an apple and some carrots from the Garden Grocer order.