Things Have a Way of Working Out -- Part II

So -- thanks to a bunch of margaritas and free internet -- five hours flew by at the airport and I even found myself rushing to the gate at 9pm for my 9:30pm flight.

The flight had many empty seats in the back, and I began to wonder if American just really, really wanted to free up some standby room on the 4:25pm flight.

My suspicion was confirmed when I arrived late at the luggage carousel at JFK (I figured since my bag had been the first on it would be the first off) and did not see my giant rolling duffel among the circling remains.

"Carol Anne Henning!" burst the speakers overhead, "Please report to the luggage security desk!"

I looked around and found the podium with a young woman standing next to my lonely bag. I walked over.

"There you are!" said the attendant, "I've been calling you for a long time. Here..." She pulled my bag up. "It's been waiting here for you for five hours!"

My jaw dropped.

"Yeah. They put it on the earlier flight, I guess."

She pulled the bag towards me. It flopped over. "Ah, it looks like they broke the wheel.... "

"What..??!" I spluttered. "You mean I waited five hours in an airport because they said they couldn't check my bag, and they checked it anyway??"

"Yeah," she signed, "Sometimes they do that."

"Well, this is not cool! I mean, I have to drag this all the way home with a broken wheel like this?" I turned the bag over. The duffel had three wheels sitting in the metal frame at the bottom. The part of the frame between the center and left-hand wheel had been crushed, leaving the wheel to flop at an angle.

"Come over here," she started walking towards the far corner of Baggage Claim, "You can file a complaint in the office over here. Sometimes they have a bag they can give you to replace it."

I did not like the sound of putting my belongings in some random bag, but I also didn't want to drag a gimpy wheeled boulder.

The clerk at the desk took my claim and gave me a number, then said, "They don't reimburse for luggage. You might get something, a replacement or repair maybe. But they never cover wheels or handles or anything sticking out..."

"But it's not the wheel," I protested, "It's the frame of the bag where the wheel sits!"

She looked at the bag blankly.

"They don't cover wheels."

I grabbed the paperwork in huff and stormed out. Waiting for the Air Train, I shuffled some of the heavier items so they sat directly above the right-hand wheel, shifting the weight mostly over the working carriage. Not ideal, but at least it rolled now.

When I got home, got some sleep and repaired my own broken frame of mind, I realized that even if American Airlines did not cover the bag -- American Express might!

I had bought this bag specially for the trip to Japan in mid-November.

For weeks I had been tearing my hair out looking for a bag that would fit the 35.5" uprights for the PURE Reflections mirror frames (which are actually collapsible standing clothing racks), without requiring an oversize charge -- as, say, a golf bag would.

Target came to the rescue with their 36" Rockland Rolling Duffel -- a mere $45 ($40.50 with my AAA discount!).

As we are planning to mount this show in other cities, we definitely needed this bag in good condition. So I checked my AmEx records -- sure enough, I had bought it within their 90-day Buyer Protection window (with only a few days to spare!).

I filed a claim pronto, pronto and AmEx reimbursed me with no questions asked.

The replacement is due to arrive next week!

Sometimes Things Just Have a Way of Working Out....

It started with the hair crap.

And the magazines.

In LA for the week, I went to visit my Aunt Margaret in Palm Springs.

About 25 years ago, Margaret married a rancher/developer named Al who has created five or six lavish pieces of property in Texas and California to subsidize a sweet retirement in Palm Springs.

A girl from the Bronx, Aunt Margaret takes nothing for granted: she clips coupons and asks for senior discounts; and she is also extremely generous. She has hand-crafted countless semi-precious jewelry sets for her sisters and me, and warmly hosted me this week.

As I was packing to leave, she brought out a huge bag of expensive hair products. "Can you use any of this?"

"Um..." I fished through the bag, pulling a few tubes... "Well, if you really want to part with these..."

"Oh, yes, yes!" she said, "I mean, you have the long hair. What am I going to do with it?"

I grinned, stuffing them in my suitcase.

"You are overweight. Can you pull anything out?" Now it's 3:35pm, and I'm scrambling to check into LAX for my 4:25pm flight and the guy at curbside checkin has put my enormous rolling duffel on the scale.

I had gotten lost on my way to the Payless rental return, which cost me nearly 20 minutes, and I was already running a bit late (as usual). So I rip open the zipper to scrounge for removeables.

I can't take out any of the heaviest stuff -- the hair crap -- because it is liquid and can't go in the carry-ons. I pull out a tuft of magazines about Clearlake Oaks which my aunt Rose-Marie had given me to help lure my parents into visiting her. Then I pull out some heavy souvenirs, including a slab of dark chocolate I'd bought from an LA gourmet shop.

"That looks good," says the guy, and starts the checkin.

"You missed the deadline," he clucks his tongue at 4:42pm. "Let me see what I can do for you." He walks me inside to the main counter where every attendant is busy. The clock is ticking.

"There's not even a supervisor around," he shrugs and walks back to his post.

Finally a female attendant calls me to the counter. I explain the situation. "Is there anything you can do??" I plead.

"You missed the cut-off," shakes her head. "I can put you on a later flight. 9:30pm."

Everything sinks. I have rehearsal and meetings on Sunday. I'll be dead on my feet. I start to melt down, "Oh no.... Oh god... how much will it be?"

"Oh it's no extra," she chirps printing my boarding pass.

I sigh weepily and trudge to security.

And my carry-on gets stopped for "extra screening." Why? The irregularly-shaped slab of dark chocolate!!

Oddly, this makes me feel a bit better; no matter what, I probably would have missed the flight.

I trundle to little Mexican joint near my gate called "On the Boarder." "Do you have a place where I can plug in my laptop?" I ask, explaining my situation.

At first, the guy says no, but then he seats me at a tiny table near the wait station. "How long is your cord?" he asks. I pull it out and he plugs it into the a socket under their register! I order a bunch of margaritas, some food, and tip generously.

I turn on my wireless.

The only hotspot provider is T-Mobile -- my cellphone carrier! I try to sign up for their $10 monthly rate, figuring I'll use the account a few times when I'm back in NY, but each time I try to sign up, I get a dead page.

I call their tech support. There is a "problem creating new accounts at LAX" the rep tells me. Their solution? They GIVE me a free 24-hour account!!

So, here I sit, happily sauced and Facebooked, chowing down on a beef burrito.

In ten minutes I board.

Five hours have flown by as quickly as I hope to fly through the next five.

My First Day

Feeling mellow. Oh so mellow and looking forward to a quiet cozy sleep – for as long as it will last.

I’m in Raquy’s apartment now, which faces a hugemarket, where people are constantly screaming about their unequalled carrots, bananas, melons, you name it, as cars trundle by carelessly…but let me backtrack to…

9am -- Egypt time!

I got through three or four episodes of House before finally packing it in around midnight…. In the air for about five hours by then, and probably nearing Britain. Our seats were right next to the throbbing engine, so I had to crank the phones, which eventually gave me a headache even my boredom couldn’t dispute.

I unplugged, downed half-an-Ambien and was gone, baby, gone instantly.

What a sight I must have been, curled up in trench coat, three scarves wrapped around my head, two pillows and an exra blanket.

Ranya, my seatmate, must have thought I looked like a giant slug!!

Happily, I slept well and woke up less than an hour to landing. Here is the view from my wing. Notice the green little villa -- well, somebody's mansion -- complete with swimming pool!!

We landed smoothly and I headed towards immigration. A quick visa purchase later ($15), I searched for a cab.

There were tons of guys offering a ride to my destination in a district called Mounira, which is in Downtown Cairo -- it should be less than a half-hour ride from the airport, and costs less than 40 Egyptian pounds when cabbing it from nearby neighborhoods.

But, as you'd expect, the limo drivers were demanding over 85 EGP!! I turned them all down and flagged down a rinky-dink car, asking for a 40EGP ride. He asked for 60, and I agreed to 50.

And then we were immediately stopped by the police who asked me to sign a ledger (which I did illegibly). The driver gave the cop 20 EGP and promptly blamed me for the fine and said I would have to pay more! (Turned out he was driving without a license).

He also made me pay the 5EGP fee to exit the airport.

And he took the long, LONG way around, going way south and then crawling up a traffic-packed main drag. I called Rami, and asked for help. He asked to speak to the driver, so I handed over the phone saying "my boyfriend would like to talk to you."

Rami gave directions, but the driver continued to circle within just a few blocks of the address, increasing his fare every few minutes. He careened down tiny traffic- and pedestrian-packed streets, at one point whacking his passenger-side mirror so it hung by its rubber tubing.

I called Rami again, and a third time. Finally he told the driver to stop where we were and he came to meet us.

I told the driver that Rami would pay him when he arrived.

I handed Rami a 50-pound note and he valiantly persuaded the driver to let it be.

And so we were off...

Next entry: My First Night!!!


[Note: I will try to update this post with more photos, but in the meantime, please go to flickr.com and search the tag CairoCarol]

En Route to Egypt

So far, so good.

As I write this, I figure we are somewhere south of Nova Scotia. The guy in front of me has decided to lay back,making it difficult to see the screen, much less type. And they are showing The Nanny Diaries on the monitors, such as they are.

Dinner was actually very good.

I had the beef, which was some kind of seasoned patty, with rice and surprisingly fresh veggies, and the usual accompaniments: cheese with crackers, juice, water, a roll with butter and salad, as well as custard and tea for dessert.

Egypt Air isn’t long on amenities (at least not for us poor slobs in coach), but the food is prett good!

As usual, I left my apartment later than I’d planned, missed a train, then the next arriving Air Train was taken out of service. So I didn’t arrive until 4:45pm for my 6:30pm flight. They tell you to check in three hours ahead of time, but it turns out two hours was enough.

Fortunately, there was hardly a line to check in, so I got my boarding pass and headed off to security, wolfing down my lunch and a protein drink – because apparently they don’t let you take any beverages past the security checkpoint.

And they won’t let you wear any kind of footwear at all through the metal detector. I’d put my sneakers on the belt and put on a pair of rubber thong slippers. But the guard told me to put those on the belt, too!!

Then the guard started grabbing my stuff as I was unloading it into the bins and I told him to take it easy. Big mistake!

He decided to go through my whole knapsack – five pockets, mainly containing my personal toiletries. He emptied out over $200 worth of lotions, perfumes, etc. examing each one trying to figure out what some of this girl stuff was, all the time going, “I’m trying to help you, ma’am.”

Petty dictator.

Then, after he pawed his blue rubber gloves through my things, he brought over a ziplock bag and, with deadpan glee, told me I could take whatever could fit in the bag, figuring I’d probably have to leave something.

But he underestimated my feminine packing powers. It all fit and I swept my bag away from his prurient gaze.

So.

Here I am. Happily flying along. The many children have finally stopped crying and they’ve turned off the cabin lights.

My seat-mate, a lovely woman coincidentally named Ranya, has plugged into The Nanny Diaries. Eek.

I think I’ll watch an episode of House.