9 Days!

The days pass with tornadic speed- -- did I just invent a new adjective? Packing and general preparation are proceeding quite orderly -- from packing school materials for all of us to finalizing travel arrangements. We did have a slight "mishap" at AAA yesterday. Abbey and I went in to change her, Emma's, and my return flight to 9 May, since we didn't know when we booked the flight that we'd be staying for the spring semester. Fortunately, airfares have decreased; unfortunately, the airlines won't recognize the lower rate. Very unfriendly policy on the part of British Air, I must say. The "mishap" occurred when the computer system decided to change Tim's ticket as opposed to mine -- keep in mind that Tim is not changing his ticket. The British Air system put me in complete limbo; AAA's system had Tim returning on 9 May; Abbey's ticket was changed properly to 9 May; Emma was suddenly flying back by herself on 5 Jan. Three hours later, we come home with correct tickets and with a mental note to keep a sharp eye on the credit card to make sure that neither AAA nor British Air double-billed us.

Once again, we are without house/pet sitters, as the people who committed in June, sort of uncommitted and then recommitted with warm assurances in July, have now decided that they can't keep their promise. Whatever happened to ethics, integrity, and responsibility? We find this news out 10 days before leaving. At this point our only option is to take the dogs to the farm; I just had not wanted to burden Jonathan (my brother) with them. We are asking neighbors who had earlier volunteered to take care of the cats. Less than ideal for our people-oriented pets, but not much we can do at this late date. The best laid plans . . .

Our last Book Nook was last Friday; I will be uploading pictures from it to practice the slide show feature of the blog, whose name I corrected to Bell'Italia, as the "a" in bella gets dropped since Italia begins with a vowel. Hey, I'm learning something!