Week in Review (and Obligatory Hurricane Sandy Post)

101 miles
2 doubles
15-mile long run
5 days in Dallas
1 hurricane

At some point on Saturday, I found myself adding up the week's miles and being perplexed by how difficult (and tiring!) it seemed to hit triple digits as opposed to other weeks. Then I realized I'd only doubled twice--as opposed to four or even five doubles in a typical week--had started the week with a 15-miler on tired legs and then knocked out possibly my most challenging workout of the cycle on Wednesday morning before hopping a flight halfway across the country. Now it all makes sense!

I would like to say the weekend went swimmingly and I returned home from DFW tonight and am now writing this from the comfort of my own home with my kitty cat on my lap. Unfortunately, if you happen to have turned on the tv or the radio or picked up a newspaper or logged onto Facebook or checked your Twitter feed or interacted in any way with any other human being at any point in the past 48 hours, then you know there's a little storm a-brewin' on the East Coast. Despite the fact that this beeotch Sandy isn't scheduled to make landfall until some point tomorrow night, my flight home today was prematurely canceled. After waiting on hold to the tune of some lovely background music from Jet Blue for a mere 32 minutes, they were helpfully able to schedule me on the next available flight to Boston.

On Thursday morning.

So, after exploring a variety of plans, options and travel routes that involved not one or two but four trips up to the American Airlines ticket counter at DFW (and the potential for a night under the stars in some random Oklahoma state park with the Three Stooges in the Airstream trailer), I was able to tentatively book myself on a flight headed to Boston on Tuesday afternoon. (I say "tentatively" because for all I know Boston could be underwater by then and only approachable by cruise ship. But I've got my fingers crossed.) Fortunately I was with my parents at the time who, barely able to contain their glee at this turn of events, gamely attempted to almost convincingly feign sympathy for my situation whilst hurriedly ushering me back into their waiting vehicle and whisking me away to the boonies of East Texas for a few nights at home.

Things could be worse. Recently, they sprung for an upgrade from dial-up internet. They also have season one of Homeland available on demand (and, for that matter, every available season of every available television show recorded in the past five years, including but not limited to the complete Law & Order annals (and all of its subsidiaries)), and the free laundry detergent flows like wine (a nectar which, on the other hand, is one of the bare necessities that is glaringly absent here). The fact that the quality of cell phone reception is worse than that in an Afghanistan POW bunker (I'm already on episode four of Homeland) is merely an excuse for me to stretch my legs every few hours and bask in the autumn sunlight by traipsing down to the street at the end of the driveway and, much to the neighbors' amusement, thrusting my "smart"phone skyward. Plus, I plan on coercing my dad into joining me for my afternoon double in a few hours and then guilting my mom into going on a nice brisk walk in the neighborhood park after work. (She hates exercise, but loves my company. A dilemma!)

If I do get home tomorrow, that would be swell. If I don't, at least I'm safe and sound here with the Nedlos. And that feisty CIA agent Carrie Mathison.