Caroline is most excited because I have just returned home from what should have been a quick, easy business trip to Akron, OH. It was not. In fact, it was an odyssey through about 5 airports comprised of nearly 21 hours in airports, cars, or on planes. I left Winston-Salem for a total of 32 hours. My business in Akron lasted about 2-3 hours this morning, and I conducted it in the same clothes I wore all day yesterday. As Caroline would say, "grossaroo". I did manage to sleep for 6 hours, brush my teeth with a complimentary toothbrush and paste (thanks to the Akron Hilton Garden Inn) and bathe, so there's that.

The reason for my being grossaroo was the absence of my one checked bag - containing a good book, some rather nice business attire, and nearly all of my eczema medicine. It is, according to US Air, somewhere. I presume is it east of the Mississippi and south of the Great Lakes. We've been told it will arrive in Akron tomorrow, to be shipped back to Charlotte, and then Greensboro by 2pm. I think I'll be lucky if I see that bag by Monday. Or ever. I explained this to Caroline, in a way that was meant to vent my frustrations with US Airways in a toddlerish way, and she picked up her hands and told me, quite simply, that those were "the rules". In my current exhaustion, I found this extremely profound. Like she's a skinny, cute Buddha.