Emily's visit

Since David started first grade at Sagamore in 1993, our lives have revolved around the DeKalb County School System's vacation / class schedule; spring break has always been the first week of April, usually coinciding with Janet's (April 2nd) and David's (April 9th) birthdays. After Jeremy and I left Houston (1999), that meant the kids have spent about half of each spring break with me, wherever I was (Houston, Ann Arbor) or some place in between (Pensacola, for example.)

That began to change when we move to Buffalo; our move here coincided with David's freshman year at University of Georgia and, not surprisingly, he has a different spring break schedule. So last year it was just Emily visiting -- and it was again this year, her last year of high school. I think this was probably the last spring break visit, wow!

It was a good one, I'm happy to report.

Emily arrived without incident late Saturday afternoon. That evening we picked up our friend Jim and went to dinner at The Anchor Bar, the place they invented barbecue chicken wings, our first ever visit. Lots of atmosphere, very crowded, and I'm sure the wings are great (if you like wings!) My lasagne was so-so and I gather Naoyuki's seafood pasta was the same. After that we headed to Sweet Tooth, a dessert restaurant at the corner of Elmwood and Allen, for really nice yummies! I had a multi-layer chocolate cake that was, as advertised, "decadence" itself. I'm surprised we didn't have to be wheeled out of the place.

Sunday morning I went to the gym for a make-up work out session with my personal trainer but he didn't show, first time I'd been stood up since we started a month ago. I was a bit bummed -- I've gotten to the point where I really crave my gym time -- but I didn't let it spoil my day. (More about the personal trainer experience in another posting.)

We'd thought about going to Niagara-on-the-Lake Sunday afternoon but the weather was pretty blah (rained all day) so instead we went to see Blades of Glory, the new Will Farrell movie. Quite entertaining in that totally idiotic, Talladega Nights sort of way. No doubt some people are offended by the built-in homophobia but I took it as poking fun at homophobia, not playing it up. Besides, sequins and satin and feathers and glitter, oh my!

That evening we went to Studio Arena, the only live theatre in Buffalo we ever seem to visit, to see The Mystery of Irma Vep, which was quite a hoot! Two guys playing at least six characters, half of them women, with manic costume changes. I was very pleased. Afterwards we stopped by Butterwood and had dessert again, this time their grilled Danish (yum yum yum!) for me. Butterwood's menu isn't nearly as out there as it was when we first visited (November 2004) but it's still quite good. I think it took them a while to find the right balance between novelty and what the Buffalo palate finds acceptable. Fortunately, there's still enough novelty to make it worthwhile.

I knew from the beginning that I would be working on Monday (at the time I made Emily's flight plans there was no one I could trade with) so I suggested early on that she hang out with Anita, our across-the-street bestest stay-at-home-mom neighbor, and Brennan, Anita's four-year-old, and it turned out that was good planning. Anita conveniently broke her thumb (!!) the day before so Emily wound up taking her to the orthopedist to get it fixed, followed by lunch at Panera Bread. Apparently much girl talk ensued, which is always a good thing! As it turned out I managed to leave work 2 hours early, getting home about 3 p.m. (just 45 minutes after Emily returned from her day with Anita.) We went grocery shopping and bought a birthday card for David.

Tuesday morning I had my work out session at Bally's again and offered to take Emily along but she decided to sleep in instead. That afternoon we went to the outlet mall in Niagara Falls but there really wasn't anything in our price range. I'm still kind of agog that I have a 17 year old daughter who is perfectly happy to walk out of a mall without having bought something!

Emily was scheduled to fly home Wednesday morning but never made it, owing largely (I think) to the ongoing disintegration of the American airline industry. The line for security at the Buffalo airport was three times longer than I'd ever seen it before (and, golly gee, it was 10 a.m. on Wednesday, for heaven's sake!) Emily waited in line for 20 minutes before she could check in and then waited for another 10 minutes before she could get anyone behind the counter at US Airways to notice that she had a bag that needed tagging -- even then the woman (how many vicodins had she taken?) didn't ask for ID and wouldn't have given Emily her baggage claim sticker if Emily hadn't prompted her to do so. By the time she caught up to me in the security line there were at least a hundred people behind us.

She made it to the plane with plenty of time to spare but the plane never took off the ground, despite the fact that it make it to the runway and started down it -- before slowing to a stop! "Uh, we have a little engine problem, we're going back to the gate..." Emily and fellow passengers deplaned -- and three hours later US Airways finally got around to cancelling the flight, just as I was beginning my work out session (no cell phone) with Josh. By the time I picked Emily up she'd been in the Buffalo airport for more than six hours!

So yesterday I drove her to the Rochester airport to catch an (hour late) flight from there to Charlotte, where she had 9 minutes to (successfully!) get to make her Atlanta connection (not that her suitcase did.) I'm assuming it showed up, finally, considering the number of US Airways flights between Charlotte and Atlanta each day.

Still, I'm not all that thrilled with the prospect of flying out to California (on US Airways, of course) on April 17. Maybe I should to get a vicodin prescription? Oy!