Point of Reference

I'm back safe and sound from San Francisco, having seen almost nothing of the city itself. We got in one good day of touristing before getting sick, and ended up spending the rest of the trip (once we were able to leave the hotel bathroom) in the suburb's visiting B's brother. Not a bad way to spend the time, I suppose, but I'm sorry I didn't get to see more of the city itself. I did get to watch a tremendous amount of Ultimate Fighting Championship, so I suppose I can add that to my cultural repetoire now. I'm actually rather curious who comprises the main audience for UFC--in what context is knowledge of UFC valuable cultural capital? Mind you, I'm not curious enough to do any actual research on it, but maybe one of my culture students will write a paper about it. (Last year, two people wrote about wrestling, so it's certainly possible.)

In other news, I passed my theory comp. Yay me! Frankly, I'm a bit surprised, as I thought my answer to the last question (of three) was terrible. But I'll take it. Even if it wasn't unanimous, I'll take it.

When we last left our intrepid author, she was happily snuggling down in sunny Florida while bemoaning the careless misplacement of her luggage by the airline that made her wait one extra day to get out of the cold.

I'm back in the cold now, and Toronto has gone waaay cold to welcome me back. (Or at least I'm told that it wasn't this cold before I got here.) I did finally get my luggage, in Gainesville, five days after we checked it in Toronto. Apparently they failed to realize we'd been rerouted and flew it to our original destination. I discovered later that one of the reasons for the delay (after they finally found our luggage) was that when American handed it off to Continental to deliver to Gainesville, they forgot to hand off our contact information. Thus, when the luggage arrived in Gainesville, they had no idea how to contact us other than the Toronto phone number on my luggage tag. Of course, since we'd never given that number to anyone at American, I didn't bother checking those messages.

At any rate, all's well that ends well. I'm glad we were visiting B's family rather than staying in a hotel, sinced it meant B could borrow clothing from his brother and we could both make frequent and free use of the washing machines. (Free laundry is still a luxury to me...)

The rest of the trip was great. We went Busch Gardens with B's brother and his brother's girlfriend, and rode the new rollercoaster with its ninety degree drop. We did Christmas with B's family, and his parents gave me a lovely scarf. (I was a little worried about all of the gifts I had ordered for B arriving in time--and rightfully so, since one of them wasn't there when we arrived. Fortunately, despite an email warning me that it had shipped late and wouldn't arrive until January 24th, the finaly gift--a computer remote control--arrived the day before we left.) We walked along the beach. We hung out, watching movies and playing board games. We B, his brother, and his brother's friends watched an incredible amount of college football (something that's nearly non-existent in Canada), and I learned enough of the rules to follow along when I bothered looking up from my computer.

Now I'm back to marking, but I'm much more relaxed than before I left. Which is good, since this term's going to be work-intensive. But the, aren't they all?

I was supposed to be basking in the Florida sunshine today, and instead I'm still trapped in the snow and ice of Toronto. (Well, okay, it's actually not that cold in Toronto right now--about -6 Celsius with windchill, and northern Florida gets close to 0 at night--but it's the principle of the thing. Plus the palm trees! And the lack of snow! And psyching myself up for a trip that didn't happen.

My sad but short tale is that B and I scheduled to fly out at 11:55am. At the time neared and the boarding call didn't come, we checked the screen and discovered we'd been bumped an hour. Okay, no problem. Well, a small problem, because the waiting room was waaay too small for the number of planes departing and we couldn't get a seat, but that's a minor problem. Then 12:55 hit, and we still hadn't boarded. Instead, we were informed that our plane had experienced a small smoke problem, and mechanics were taking a look at it. The next two hours were spent standing the waiting room, listening to repeated assurances that it wouldn't be long now, and unable leave for food or chairs for fear that they'd board the plane while we were gone.

At 3:00, they finally gave up on the repairs and cancelled the flight. B and I lined up to rebook, only to discover, when we got to the counter, that there were no available flights today to anywhere in northern Florida. None. And no compensation for our lost day, of course. (They did offer to fly us to Miami, landing at midnight, and leaving us with only an eight hour drive to B's parents' house!)

So now we're stuck in Toronto another night, and B gets one day less with his family, and we're going to try again tomorrow morning. And I'm really, really not happy with USAirways.

On the drive back from Quebec City yesterday, I started thinking of late summer and early fall and all of the wonderful food they bring, in particular tomatoes and winter squash. So tonight I made tomato salsa, which was delicious, and pumpkin muffins, which were okay but not great. I think I'll try a different recipe next time; I'm hoping for something a little moister with a stronger flavour. There's lots of pumpkin left over, so if I get sick of muffins, I may have to try making pumpkin curry with pumpkin instead of pumpkin pie filling and see if I can manage to spice it appropriately. Mmm, pumpkin.

Oh yeah, and I'm back from my trip, alive and intact and completely recovered from the cold that plagued both B and me for nearly the entire two weeks. Well, I think B actually was sick the entire time--yesterday was really the first day he seemed to be completely well--but I had a few days on either end when I was pretty much healthy.

I already posted about Philadelphia, but I'll give you a slightly expanded version.

( Philly. )