Everything's coming up roses

I'm in Dallas at a conference. I'm wearing clean underwear. I had to take a trolley to the mall in order to have clean underwear. Here's why:

Monday afternoon I gleefully finished work early and headed home to finish packing and be on my way to my conference in Texas. At the airport everyone was abuzz talking about getting in the air before the thunderstorms came. Once on the runway, we were told that due to thunderstorms in D.C. and that we would not take off for an hour. But we did take off after about 5 minutes because they ok'd a different route. D.C. looked pretty ominous, and getting to the tarmac was a little frightening. There were lightening strikes everywhere, loud booms, and lots of rain (generally my favorite state of weather). We weren't allowed onto the ramp because of the weather and thus sat on the runway for an hour. When we finally got cleared to go inside it was a madhouse. No flights were leaving for at least another hour. In fact, planes that had been circling had to be diverted to Baltimore to get fuel because it was so bad.

Everytime I looked at the screen my flight got later and later, until at 10:30pm they actually put us on the plane and said we would leave by 11. Unfortunately, every pilot that had been allowed to land at the airport had "timed-out" and thus there was no pilot to fly us (what's a little speed I say!). So we were taken off the plane and reticketed for the next morning.

I slept with my head on a restaurant table for two hours between 2 and 4 am. (Because it was so late when they took us off the plane and my flight was so early I had no choice but to not call ML and DL for a couch to sleep on)

I did manage to leave D.C. and get to Dallas by 8am and on to my hotel. My bag, however, did not. Being more concerned about the credits I need to renew my certification I went to my conference. That afternoon I made the fatal mistake of calling to check on my bag and heard the dispiriting words: "We have not seen your bag since you checked it". Needless to say, being a generally emotional person AND being exhausted, I started to cry. Actually it was sobbing. Nearly hysterically. My lovely wife talked me down from the ledge and encouraged me to try and sleep and/or go to the mall and buy some necessities.

Then an extraordinary thing happened (no, my bag did not magically appear): there was a knock at the door and in walked a hotel staffer with a dozen pink roses addressed to me. My very thoughtful wife sent me flowers and it actually made everything better (well, it didn't make my underwear clean, but I felt better!) I had to cry a little more (because it was so sweet) and then I felt more relaxed and more able to deal with the situation in an adult-like matter.

And I'm pretty sure that the roses are also responsible for the fact that my bag has in fact been found and they are delivering it within the hour. I'll believe it when I see it, but until then I'll just hang out with my roses.

Thanks baby! ILY!