After leaving almost an hour late, my flight landed at Logan only 20 minutes late, and I got to Jessie's within an hour.
I had planned to take the bus to the airport and had a good reason for that--my return flight would be late enough to warrant a cab--but when RDC came home from D.C. Thursday night, that reason skittered out of my head. I reserved a cab so I could spend four whole hours of the entire week with my husband. Then the cab driver, in addition to being late, was the stupidest ever: it was suspect at the start that he didn't know the best way to DIA from my house, but then that he didn't know the way from my house to Colorado Boulevard, not once but twice wanting to turn west away from it, made me fret. I wanted to sleep in the cab, as I would have in the bus, but I was watching to ensure he actually did exit at the correct spot and then, once on Peña Boulevard, could find the airport at the end of it. And then I wanted to get away from him as soon as possible, so instead of using a card I hurled the last of my cash at him and fled.
JetBlue's site posted the flight as late, but all the displays at the airport listed it as on time, making me nearly late. And--is this new?--a security guard asked to see my boarding pass as I walked through the portal. I didn't notice that this unexpected request had surprised me enough to forget my suitcase until I was exiting the train at Concourse A. So I took the train back, went through security again (boarding pass in hand), made TSA give my bag back (and the two TSAers I spoke to replied slowly and walked slower, as if unfamiliar with the time pressures of air travel, the fuckers), and yomped down the stairs to the train to the concourse to my gate, where my flight was in fact still late.
Now I had plenty of time to go to a cash machine, but I didn't, contenting myself with grumping at the lateness of the hour and the tedious conversation of my flightmates (yes, we all know that flights are late and that passengers are treated like cattle; please talk about something else now) that penetrated The Great Influenza. By the time I landed in Logan, three hours and 20 minutes of flight and slightly less sleep than that, I had entirely forgotten about the need for cash until I was standing in the (off-airport) rental car agency realizing I had no way whatsoever to pay the toll to get through the Ted Williams tunnel.
The only thing that went well in this trip's travel was the clerk, who gave me five bucks out of his own pocket. I wrote him a check, which I hopes he trusts enough to cash. Also, another clerk decided I was waiting too long for a car and upgraded me to the next available, which had power windows, woo.
Then I got to Jessie's. I was looking on the left side of the second-to-last street for her own, but immediately realized when I overshot. I never get her house number right and she had reminded me of the correct one and that her house color had changed, but wrong house numbers and her attempts at camouflage could not keep me away.
Jessie and I hadn't seen each other for almost three years, so that was fun. I wondered about the laughing and waking up her roommate, who as my Buffy-enabler I have reason to be nice to, but apparently he sleeps well. We gossiped about you and McTeague and insane family and I borrowed more cash from her because I am shameless.
And then I left with spandy directions which did me no good whatsoever since signs are just not comme il faut. It took me most of an hour to get to the Mass Pike, but once on it I threw caution to the winds (as much as I had left in me after Cambridge tried to suck me into its vortex) and got to my sister's house in not much more than an hour.
I am in book heaven, or was until I finished this. To have this--Charles Palliser's first book--and Winter's Tale both in less than a month means that, once again, I fear that I will never be able to read again lest I read something lesser.
It is Bleak House (and other major Dickens) and Mysteries of Udolpho (not that I've read that, Jane Austen fan or not) and Instance of the Fingerpost (for several contrary points of view) and in every way the best book ever. As Winter's Tale is a paean to New York City, so this is to Dickensian London. Palliser obviously loves Dickens, but he didn't write another David Copperfield in 1990. No, it's 1990s in outlook and style and uncertainty and unreliability and Dickens in its setting and convolutions and relativity.
I was so pleased to find this conversation about it. (It's rife with spoilers.) It gave me much to think about and of course made me want to reread it.