the tale of three cities...

So I've been all excited for the past few weeks about a sudden opportunity to go to Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena for a Colloquium with participants who are responsible for planning worship services in various seminaries around the US. I'm honoured, excited, and full of anticipation for what is now tomorrow's conversation.

Now, back up a few steps with me.

I'm not the smartest kid on the block, but I'm not exactly stupid either. I like making connections, extrapolating information or themes into other situations, etc.

My whole family has a range of passport related stories to tell.

Just this last week I printed out the forms from the internet so that Gordon and I could apply now, when we're not in any rush to get them, etc. (had that very conversation this past week). This also means that when I printed out my itinerary and various other documents for this trip, I had to separate them from the passport application sheets on the printer.

But it was not until 2 hours before my flight this morning, standing in the Vancouver Int'l Airport with Gordon that I realized I would need a passport to fly to California today.

Not the brightest bulb.

(Meanwhile, you must imagine the mixture of disappointment, embarrassment, shock, etc that was my heart. Gordon was SO calm and supportive - it was amazing.)

So, in the end, I drove to Seattle (read: 1 hour spent trying to get through the border line-up), got to Sea-Tac (read: stood in a 1 hour line-up to speak to a United rep), went through security (read; amazingly quick and painless...LESS invasive than Canadian airports I've gone through recently), sat and watched the folks with tickets board the plane I really wanted to get on (read: sat and watched grumpy stand-by passengers bug the nice lady at the counter, knowing that there were many folks trying to get to LAX this afternoon, including a family of 6, and then the clouds parted and she CALLED MY NAME and I was the VERY LAST PERSON to get on that plane!)

Greetings from the Westin in Pasadena. Lovely. Very long day.

Time for sleep.

The moral of the story, is that you should put 2 and 2 together...it's most helpful for navigating between three cities.