International Arley Appreciation Day

The countdown to International Arley Appreciation Day has begun in earnest. Okay, not really, but I did make the world's laziest Facebook event invite for a birthday party on Sunday, which is kind of a weird day to have a party on, but it's when the greatest number of people could make it. So if you are in Champaign this Sunday, you should come to my lazy-ass attempt at organizing a party (it's at the same bar I have my birthday at every year so that I didn't have to clean my house to make it guest-worthy or buy a few bags of chips to feed people and I am not even bothering to make a cake).

If you want to know what to get me for my special day, here's a hint: a teleportation device. There is no good way to get to Champaign-Urbana from Vancouver (and, believe me, I have tried them all). Once, I had a roommate from Sweden, (which is the reason I can say "I want you here and now" in Swedish, which is another story altogether), and she and I both left Champaign around the same time to fly back for Christmas. She arrived in Sweden before I arrived in Vancouver.

My day of traveling went like this:

• Wake up at 6 a.m. so that my poor mom could drive me to Bellingham, which is just across the border.
• Arrive at the Bellingham airport to find that all the computer systems have experienced a massive system shut-down and my flight has been delayed for at least an hour, which is problematic since I would miss my connecting flight and be stuck, since I'd booked the two flights separately, thinking I was being oh-so-crafty (it saved me $600).
• Cancel my Bellingham flight and have my poor mom drive me to Seattle, then promptly fall asleep for an hour so that she didn't even have anyone to talk to because I am a bad daughter.
• Get fondled by airport security since my Freaky Cyborg Hip sets off the metal detectors. (Though, granted, I'm probably due for a little groping).
• Fly from Seattle to Phoenix, eat frozen yogurt while waiting for my next flight and eavesdropping on a group of nervous young army recruits, one of whom is telling the story of how a ghost followed him around on his last day as a construction worker.
• Fly from Phoenix to Chicago and find that the combination of barebones low-budget airplane + long legs + no hip flexion = does. not. compute. I couldn't even fit my legs in the space provided and the minute the plane was airborne I convinced the flight attendant to let me move to a bulkhead seat.
• Earned major side-eye from the blonde, fake-tanned, over-jewleried, my-jeans-cost-more-than-your-car woman beside me, who was clearly pissed off that she had paid to upgrade to the bulkhead seat and I had not. Contemplated telling said woman that, yes, she paid an extra $50 for the legroom, but I paid in having had my hip cut off, replaced, then (partially) reattached, so let's just call us even.
• Landed in Chicago and boarded the Lex bus. On the plus side, the driver let me sit up front. On the negative side, because of a scheduling error we ended up chilling outside a Holiday Inn somewhere deep in the Chicagoland suburbs for an hour.
• Arrived into Champaign at 1 a.m., where I was picked up by A. (thanks, A.!).
• Got to my house to find that the locks had been changed, which was a Welcome Home present I was really not expecting (aww, you shouldn't have).
• Spent the night on A's couch, waking up every so often to see my angry little feline positioned a few inches from my face, staring me down. (If it was a staring contest, she won).

Now, however, I am happily in Champaign. A. and I have already eaten our weight in meat products at The Black Dog and went to Le Peep, so my plan to not consume my weight in meat products so far not going so well.