cindy's world

I meant the title as in “ahem,” altho I just started coughing, too.

We saw Rebecca on Wednesday and she advised me to hold off on the surgery until January. I was troubled and said something about it being so far away. She said, “There’s too much going on right now,” motioning around me with her hand, as if to circle me in her field of vision. “It won’t make a difference,” she reassured me. “You’ll be so much calmer after the surgery, and the extra time doesn’t make a difference. You understand what I’m saying? Does that make you feel better?” Trying to be discreet. Yes, I knew what she was saying. The kid will be the same kid, whether born a month sooner or months later. He’s still gonna be born in 2011. What’s the difference? And now I can drink at college roommie Diana’s wedding in January. “And the surgery will go well; they’ll go in and take care of it. It’s a small thing, no problems.” All this was prompted by, “I have an upcoming coming surgery that I’m nervous about.”

She’s right; there is a LOT going on, more than I thought there would be when I sat there near her. I think a lot got resolved last night in the wee hours, but not before the stress sent me dry-heaving over the toilet. As I sat on the floor of the bathroom, I thought, “She was right. If I were pregnant now, I’d probably be too affected and lose the baby.” Thank you for knowing what’s best, Universe.

And, given the fact that there’s a lot going on, and I’m still blogging, you lazy bloggers should feel inspired! Hint, hint!

Toward the end of the workday, Mr. W let me know that he was leaving to go home, but that he was going to drop off his drycleaning first. I said okay, and presumably he left after that conversation. I then spent the next half hour or so on the phone making my ob-gyn appointment with Kaiser. (Earliest available with any doctor in the county: December 10. Ugh.) I expected with the half-hour headstart, that even with his drycleaning (which was on Mr. W’s way home), Mr. W should get home before I did. So I called him as I drove up our street to ask him to open the garage door for me, since our garage can’t be opened remotely right now. He picked up after almost 4 rings, sounding serious. “Are you home?” I asked.
“No, I just got back,” he said.
“Got back to where?”
“I mean, I just finished dropping off my drycleaning and I’m just now getting back home. Are you home?”
“I’m just pulling up. What took you so long?”
“I had to drop off my drycleaning. I’m almost home, I’ll be back shortly.”
“But you left work almost 2 hours ago.”
“Well, I left late, and then I had to drop off my drycleaning. I’ll be back soon, so I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
Odd. And he sounded so serious, almost irate. And so CLEAR. No road noise whatsoever. Plus, he picked up after 4 rings, when his car has the bluetooth connection set to automatically pick up after the first ring. Something wasn’t right. Drycleaning doesn’t take that long, I’ve been to that place with him, he’s in and out in 5 minutes.
“You left late?” I prompted.
“Yes! I left late. And I just dropped off my drycleaning. I’ll talk to you when I get home, I’m almost home now. Okay?”
He sure was in a hurry to get me off the phone.
“Okay,” I said. I went in the front door and opened the garage door from inside the house by myself. After I parked my car in, I closed the garage door behind me. And I locked the front door, too. Hmmph.
Less than 15 minutes later, Mr. W called. I actually considered deliberately taking my time to pick up the phone. But I didn’t; I picked it up. “Yes?”
“I’m outside. Can you open the garage door for me?” he asked. I was silent. “Hello?” he said.
“I’m thinking about it,” I grumbled in my best cranky voice, even as I was already pushing the button. He laughed like he understood I was messing with him.

When he finally came in the house, I heard plastic rustling around, and he called out, “I got this for you.” Curious, I walked into the kitchen. He dumped an armload of stuff on the table. “Forty dollars’ worth of chocolate,” he said proudly. I gawked. And then I laughed. Check out this loot:

Ben & Jerry’s ice cream singles in Cherry Garcia, Strawberry Cheesecake, Mint Chocolate Cookie, Chocolate Fudge Brownie. Breyers dark chocolate ice cream. Claim Jumper’s infamous 6-layer Motherlode cake. I’m not a comfort food person, but I was TOUCHED. He brought home dinner. We each had a portion of the Motherlode cake (I couldn’t finish mine) with some ice cream for dinner, washing it down with tea. Mr. W did offer to pour alcohol over our dinner, too.

Apparently when I had called and he let slip that he’d “just gotten back,” he WAS back, in the neighborhood, across the street at the grocery store.
(If you’re thinking, “What’s with the chocolate?”, read the previous post.)

…I can drink and eat chocolate again.

It was a day of great people and bad circumstances. I took the morning off to go to two girlie doctor appointments. At the request of the fertility specialist we’d been working with, I scheduled a pap smear with my regular doctor for this morning, and then after that I’d scheduled another appointment with the fertility doctor’s office. Both are to make sure my reproductive parts are healthy and ready before we get into the heavy stuff. I had written down that my pap appointment was 8:40a, but on my drive there, I checked my voice mail just to make sure. I knew that over the weekend, while I was in San Francisco celebrating college roommie Diana’s bachelorette shindig, I had missed an automated call reminding me of that appointment. I stopped breathing when I heard the voice mail play back that my appointment for 8:20 was confirmed. I was 20 minutes late! The receptionist called up to the doctor right away and said that it wasn’t a problem, I was the first patient and they would still see me. Thank gawd. I hurried up and apologized profusely to the nurse who took my vitals, and then profusely to my doctor. Everyone was calmer about it than I was and said it wasn’t a big deal, they’ll catch up. I just hate thinking that I was one of “those” patients who threw off the entire day’s appointments. Luckily they only had one other morning appointment aside from myself. I had the quickest pap smear in history (2-3 minutes just like he promised) and they sent me on my way to my next appointment. It was a great thing they hurried for me, because I had instructions to “empty [my] bladder” at 9am, then to drink 16 oz of water at 9:30am to prepare for the trial transfer and sonohysterogram.

I would’ve been a tad early to the fertility clinic except that the freeway exit I was to get off on was closed due to construction. I went one exit past, then came back on the freeway the other way, hoping the same exit wouldn’t be closed to both northbound AND southbound traffic. The rest of the drive was uneventful and I was just barely on time, so it didn’t help the anxious state I was already in. Signing the consent form for the sonohysterogram, I read about potential side risks that made me even more nervous (bleeding, infection, dizziness, etc.). So in this other doctor’s office across town, I was once again on my back in stirrups, this time for a quick initial ultrasound (everything still looked normal; they counted 8 eggs on one ovary, 7 on the other, which is pretty good). Then the speculum is inserted for the trial transfer, and a very thin clear rubber/plastic hose is threaded through my cervix into the uterus so they can measure where they need to turn and direct the actual hose that they will use to implant the embryo when that time comes. This caused some cramping. I “ow ow ow”ed it a few times and the doctor stopped, letting the cramping subside. “Sorry, that was me,” she said, “I contacted the front of your uterus.” I knew they would have to do that to measure where they can put the instruments later on. You can’t go bumbling around in there when there’s a delicate embryo stuck to the end of that instrument later on. So once the thin hose was in place, the ultrasound instrument went in again for their measurements. And then, “Saline is going in now,” they told me, and I watched a dark cavity blossom on the screen. “Wow, that’s interesting,” I said. Then we all saw something fluttering in the black space as saline fluid inflated and lifted my uterine lining. I didn’t know what I was looking at, attached to the side of the uterus, and the doctor didn’t say anything yet, just took a bunch of screen shots. About a minute later the ultrasound wand came out, and the doctor and nurse said, “Okay, saline will start leaking out now, it’s okay,” and the tube was pulled out. I didn’t feel much leakage, I don’t think they put in much liquid. I was, more than anything, relieved at how quick the procedure was. “I told you it’d be nothing,” the doctor joked. After that, the bad news came. The doctor pointed at a screen shot of two oblongish, droplet-shaped things sticking out the side of my uterine wall. “Those are polyps,” she said. “You’re going to need to get those surgically removed before we can do anything further.” So it turns out that, although the polyps are not dangerous, just 1-2mm skin flaps, there’s a chance the embryo could adhere to a polyp instead of to the actual uterine wall, and that would prevent blood supply from forming to the embryo, or it simply wouldn’t stick and I’d lose the embryo. I was advised to call my regular doctor and schedule the surgery as soon as possible. After that, I’d get a month of recovery, and we’d start this fertility thing again.

So this means that this cycle isn’t going to be “the” cycle. I guess I could’ve drunk champagne and coffee and eaten the chocolate-covered strawberries with the girls this weekend. I can go take a shot of chocolate liqueur and chase it with a cigarette. The nurse said I can stop the prenatal vitamins, but to keep taking the birth control pills for now until the doctor calls and tells me otherwise. Meanwhile, they’ll call the Mr. W’s urologist, who had coordinated his schedule to be available for the sperm retrieval mid-December, and let him know it will all be rescheduled for later on. The pharmacy providing my shots and estrogen patches were also put on hold (I was supposed to start a series of shots called Lupron tomorrow, which I’d spent all week mentally preparing myself for). When the doctor (who is not my fertility doctor but another doctor in the same office) was explaining the polyps to me immediately after she discovered them, she said, “You seem to be very rational about all this.” And I am rational. I’m glad that they did this check first, or it would’ve been a lot of time, medication, and money wasted if something kept the embryo from attaching properly. I’m glad to know that there’s something minor wrong with me that could easily be fixed with a 1.5 hr surgery. Timing-wise, it means I have another month to recover economically from our vacation because all I paid for today was $903 for the ultrasounds and some other things, and not $10,000+ to start on the baby cycle. And I’m pretty sure insurance would pay for my surgery, since this is a non-elective medical issue that would interfere with fertility. The nurse handed me an antibiotic “just in case” since the procedure was invasive, told me to take it soon with food, and I was done there for now.

In the car after walking out of the fertility clinic, I called the regular appointment line for Kaiser and asked how to get a referral for this surgeon. The guy was very nice and sent a detailed message to my primary care doctor, whom I’d just seen earlier that morning for the pap. “He’ll let you know whether he’ll refer you to a general surgeon, or an ob-gyn surgeon.” I heard from my primary care doctor’s office within 15 minutes as I was driving to work. His assistant or nurse asked me to fax my doctor a copy of the Follicular Sonohysterogram Report, which had lots of photos of the ultrasound screen shots. The fertility doctor had printed the report and given it to me, saying my primary doctor may want to see it for the referral. So I faxed that over to my primary doctor’s office as soon as I got to work. His office got back to me within a few hours, relaying my doctor’s message that a referral is not needed in my situation; to just go ahead and call the ob-gyn specialist for an appointment. He also instructed the caller to tell me that the follicles on the ovaries may be normal. That was odd; I was never told anything may have been abnormal with the follicles (egg sacs) in my ovaries. So anyway, I will make that appointment with the ob-gyn shortly since I received this call in the middle of my blog post.

I told Mr. W about the findings at the fertility clinic. He seemed…crestfallen. That surprised me. I felt okay about it; I can see the advantages of finding out all this. But he thought we would be doing baby stuff within days, and now we have to wait at least a month after the surgery to allow my uterus to heal. But really, it’s not a big deal, right? What’s a month when there’s no actual deadline anyway? I’m gonna be over 35 when I give birth no matter what, and this way we ensure it’s not a wasted effort.

I briefed my supervisor on the sonohysterogram’s findings and warned him a future surgery is coming, but that it should be simple and out-patient. He said to go ahead and schedule it based on the surgeon’s availability, and not to worry about work; he’ll figure things out and get me the time off when I need it. He also told me my judge called out today. I was surprised; he never calls out. He comes in on his days off to do extra work. (I later found out he was in a car accident last nite. I should call and check up on him later.) Since I don’t have a judge, this means I can be floated out anywhere. I asked where I was to be this afternoon. My supervisor told me to go to my own courtroom and do whatever work I may still have. Basically he was giving me a freebie. That was very nice of him.

Mr. W and I went to lunch together. He asked me what I’d like to eat, and I suggested pho, knowing he craves that stuff. He was surprised, as I’d sworn off pho at our local area because of the high MSG content. I said I didn’t really care about it at this time, so he took me up on the suggestion. Walking into the pho restaurant, I thought about how I had been refraining from alcohol, fish, caffeine, raw foods, chocolate, etc. because my focus was on giving the baby the best chance at health. It wasn’t difficult, altho it was a bummer. I would’ve liked to celebrate the same way as the girls did this last weekend (everyone was respectful of my dietary restrictions and didn’t pressure me about anything). But because my goal was something so much bigger than myself, I wasn’t even tempted to drink tea or taste the free chocolate bon bon the restaurant made for each girl. I had refrained from MSG and unhealthy foods long before the baby thing, but I had done that for myself. My personal health (and yes, vanity to a degree) was very important to me. But after I started prepping my body for a pregnancy, THAT became the focus of the goal of health. Suddenly, that focus no longer exists for now. And instead of reverting back to my original focus that had been a part of my thought process for so much longer, I instead felt like I had no focus. No goal. I felt a little self-destructive. But what changed, physically? Nothing. I didn’t LOSE a baby. Human psychology is interesting. But I’ll refrain from drinking myself into oblivion tonight; I will still have use for this body, even if later than originally expected.

After retrieving all spare keys from non-residents, and professional maids bleached, deep-cleaned and vacuumed all surfaces reachable, the house is starting to feel a little less violated and I’m feeling more like myself. Except for the fact that I either don’t sleep, or sleep immediately upon my return home from work and skip dinner. Mr. W remarked this morning that he likes my early bedtimes as it ensures early mornings wherein I watch the news with him. I’m still not quite loving the news.

Yesterday evening Dodo came downstairs for water, then beelined to the stepdaughter (even though we were all there), meowing at her. She started petting him and he stuck to her side. This is new. Even more new: as he ascended the stairs, she walked up to the landing from downstairs and cooed his name. He went right to her on the other side of the stairway railing and she petted him as he flopped back and forth on the landing floor trustingly, enjoying her affection. You can really tell she’d put in her time with him while we were gone. The two have well-bonded, because Dodo is not normally a love-everybody cat. Not that he dislikes people, but he’s just usually cautious.

The early mornings have another advantage. I’ve been put on a pill regimen, and some of these require to be taken in conjunction with food, so I have to eat breakfast. I had no idea that prenatal vitamins are horsepill-sized, or that they are prescription. The antibiotics (azythromycin 500mg; double the dose of a z-pack) I was put on as a precaution is probably a good thing, given that I’d been traveling in 3 different countries that rained consistently, was confined to a cruiseship and planes with international diseases onboard, and have not been sleeping well or been in the best spirits. It’s a wonder I didn’t catch some exotic ailment already. I’ve also been banned from any intake of caffeine (this includes chocolate! and tea!), alcohol (great for my gutline, since moderate drinking has become a regular thing in the past month or so and I’d been meaning to cut it out), and tobacco (good thing I’m back from Europe; just being there probably gave me the equivalent of a cig or two a day from second-hand smoke alone, despite all my efforts to avoid it). Mr. W has to avoid alcohol for the next month, too. I had my concerns about that, since his stress level hasn’t been low either and he would normally turn to whiskey or add a little something to his coffee for a picker-upper. I think he’s been straight, though. It’s only fair; if I have to do everything I can and be as clean as possible to make sure this ridiculously expensive procedure doesn’t go awry, he could at least do his part. It’s not like they told HIM to cut caffeine, which would be close to torture for him. I find it interesting that I wasn’t told to avoid raw meats or fish. Does this mean that the cliche sushi-ban is based on nothing more than old wives’ tales?

I wish I knew where to go to feel safe.
I want comforting to ease my shaking, not volume to increase my tears.
If raindrops are a form of cleansing, then I should go stand outside, in the dawn, in the now.
But if they are the natural world weeping with me, then I should… join her anyway.

I’m writing from the Hotel Caravaggio in Florence, where we just checked in. We got here by an uneventful 2 hr train ride aboard the Eurostar from Venice, which is where we disembarked this morning after a weeklong cruise along eastern Europe, ie southern Italy, some Greek islands, and Croatia. There, all caught up? And jealous? Well, don’t be. This trip so far has been basically me struggling along the crowded rainy streets of various parts of Europe hugging my umbrella and coat, watching the husband’s tall form dart effortlessly between people 10 paces ahead (he can see over peoples’ heads, you see), trying to follow his disappearing form while getting cut off by rude Europeans, turning a corner and finding myself completely among strangers, looking wildly down different streets and alleys cussing in my head, fighting the anxiety attack and butterflies as the minutes wore on, hoping he’d finally turn around soon to realize I was nowhere in sight. Okay, so that only happened 3 or 4 times, and he did eventually come irately looking for me only to find an even more irate me in return, but the rude Europeans and rain has been a constant theme. Venice flooded the weekend we were there before the cruise, and welcomed the cruiseship back with more of this pathetic fallacy. Earlier walking in the wet square which was busy with dripping umbrellas and Italians in galoshes and leather boots, I saw a homeless man in the rain holding a white plastic cup with both hands to his salt and pepper beard. He came to us where we stood under our single umbrella eating some cookies we’d just bought from a bakery, and murmured something in Italian with pleading eyes. I didn’t know if he wanted money for his cup, or if he wanted food as he eyed the cookie in my hand, and I only had the one half-eaten cookie and none of the cash, so I just stood there wondering what to do. Mr W didn’t respond either, and within seconds the man walked away. I watched him turn a different direction, hold his cup up and plead with his fingertips touching as if in prayer, and heard another voice. A priest said warmly to him, “Un caffe?” and held his hand up as if to say to wait a moment there. Then the priest turned and went quickly toward some storefronts.
“That was nice,” Mr W said.
I was haunted after that, and remain haunted. I wanted to stop right there and cry. The image of his wet form holding the cup wouldn’t leave me and I looked for him as we passed through again, hoping I could give him the half of my cookie which I’d immediately lost the ability to eat. I felt like such an ass. Mr W said he wouldn’t want a half eaten cookie, and we didn’t find him anyway.

Siiiiiiighhhhh so anyway, we started with rain and technical problems galore (including my bank card locking me out, my inability to connect on Skype to call them about it, the social networking site locking me out, inability to find free wifi or even a spot that offered wifi whom we could pay, then finally having wifi for the iPad but having the communication app crash) and I cried waiting for the cruiseship to board us because I thought Dodo was gonna die at home and daughter had no experience caring for a cat, not to mention a sick vomiting cat which refused to eat, but then things started looking up and I sent Ann a pleading email and she went above and beyond any bounds of friendship to save the day and save Dodo. More on that later. Meanwhile, my husband is eager to explore Firenze in the early evening rain…

Ciao for now.

Did you guys know you have to pre-order Euros at your bank before you can go in and get them? You can’t just go in an exchange money. I did NOT know that. We wanted to have some Euros on us for tipping and such for when we get to Europe, so I hit up my bank at lunch yesterday. Friends advised that if I have an account with the bank, the service fee would be waived. Well, THAT much was true, but the teller said that none of the branches would have Euros in them without my prepaying and preordering first. Mr. W tried calling his bank branch to ask if they have an inventory of foreign money. He was told that 5-7 days were required to order the Euros, but was pointed to one particular branch that would have them, so off we went. Unfortunately, when we got there, we were told that the lady who handles the Euros had gone to lunch and would be back in an hour. We couldn’t come back in an hour; we both had to get back to work, so the teller said they’re open till 6pm. We both went there after work, and were told by another teller that the money exchange shuts down at 4pm. Mr. W was peeved. We don’t have 3-5 business days from this point to order the Euros, so Mr. W took two hours off work in the afternoon and presumably he’s at that bank right now getting the Euros, after calling and explaining his wild Euro goose chases to the Euro lady and making sure she’d be there to wait for him. The two bank chains, mine and his, give nearly identical exchange rates of 1 Euro to $1.45 (which is slightly worse than the actual foreign exchange rate of 1 to $1.29), so they’re still making money off us even without the service charge. We hear the currency exchange at the airports give worse rates with high service charges, and didn’t want to chance it.

We were also advised by many Europe-savvy friends that the best exchange rates would be in the country of that currency’s origin, and ATM machines are the easiest access to that. Some people also suggested using credit cards wherever possible for the best exchange rate moment-by-moment, but with the caveat that some places only take cash, and most places only take Visa or Mastercard. I’m fine leaving my American Express at home, since the one time I used it for a foreign purchase (bought my dad a stingray carving in Tahiti), my $75 purchase became a $110 purchase after fees and foreign surcharges. There’s also talk of Europe switching their credit card system into microchipped cards instead of magnetic strip cards like we have, so there may be some locations that won’t be able to process our credit cards. Given that, I think I’ll just be bringing my ATM/debit/Visa card.

My travel agent called this morning. Even tho France is still having civil unrest, Air France says all international flights yesterday and today came and went as scheduled without delay. So things look good.

I’m just a little freaked now about Dodo. He was acting weird yesterday. He left some vomit blobs here and there throughout the house in the past week, which isn’t unusual for when there’s hairball issues, but last nite he was hiding under the bed and refused to come out. He’s not usually so antisocial. I dragged him out to show him the new spot for the litter box since we changed the location to make the box easier for the Stepdaughter to access and clean out while we’re gone. He seemed weak and listless. He also immediately barfed when I put him downstairs, twice. And he drank a lot of water but didn’t eat food last nite. This morning the food appeared untouched, when he normally did most of his eating in the wee hours of the night. Also, he seemed to strain a bit going up the stairs and had to stop and space out a long time. He also wasn’t very responsive to my petting him, and wasn’t as violently opposed to my touching the no-no areas of his back paws and tummy. I just kept thinking, “Oh my gawd, is he sick? Right before I have to leave for 2 weeks?” Maybe he’s just sad cuz he saw the suitcases out. 🙁

Okay, I’ll stop rambling now. It’s been a long stressful day.

Everyone’s got economy problems, and that includes France. Their president, President Nicolas Sarkozy, proposed a change in their pension plans to stave off a deeper crash in their growing deficit: increase the retirement age 2 years, from 60 to 62. Anytime the public sector proposes changes to employee benefits, unions are going to strike, and the French are striking by hitting the vein of transportation — oil refineries, some public transportation workers. With 70% of the nation’s fuel now stopped (both by supply production and transportation blockades), flights are being canceled, public transportation is running minimal lines, chaos is in the streets as motorists dry the existing gas supplies in fear of the shortage, and on top of that, they have street demonstrations, spurts of violence, burning, looting, air traffic controller strikes, and union cargo truck drivers are using their large vehicles to block traffic around major cities like Paris. Al Queda decided to jump in the mix by sending terrorist threats to Paris, too. (Wanna see current info and photos? Check www.france24.com.)

So what does that have to do with Cindy’s World?

We have an hour-long layover in Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport on our way to Venice. We catch our Greek Isles cruise from Venice. If we can’t get a flight out of France, we risk missing our cruise. I was very nervous last night reading up on French news, seeing that Paris’ Orly Airport canceled 50% of its flights today, and Charles de Gaulle canceled 30%. After wailing in my head for a bit, I emailed Rebecca asking if she has time to squeeze in a phone reading for me on this, and I emailed our travel agent to see if we could get a different flight and connection that would avoid France altogether. Mr. W, altho usually the one prone to overreactive panic on things like this, was weirdly unaffected. He told me to not tell him any more about the French news, and went upstairs to iron shirts that he plans to pack for the trip. It felt weird being the paranoid one for once. My travel agent, Lily, wrote back fairly quickly telling me she will call the airlines and the travel company that had arranged the airline, and get back to me in the morning.

I received an early-morning email from Rebecca first. She gave me a freebie, writing:

Hi Cindy,
I’m not picking up on any problems. Visualize an easy, smooth, comfortable transition when you switch planes, and an easy, “go with the flow” energy about all of the transportation involved for your trip.
If you hadn’t read about the “transportation problems in France” you would not be worried about it. For that reason, I seldom watch the news. It’s not that I don’t want to be informed; it’s that the exposure to negative energy influences our energy and I would rather not be “pulled in” by that.
You are going to have a wonderful time. Could there be challenges? Yes. Will there be? I don’t know. Be prepared, but go with the flow and you will have an amazing time!
If you are still feeling uneasy, let me know. But I know if you spend a few minutes each day visualizing everything in a smooth, effortless energy, that is how you will experience it.
Lots of love and blessings,
Rebecca

If Rebecca sees me having a fine time, then I trust that the end result is that I will be having a fine time. So I felt much better. She basically said that there wouldn’t be a problem unless I create one. So then I started wondering if I screwed up and the flights were gonna get changed, which would affect the time we leave and arrive, which would affect both the doctor’s appointment I have in the morning before I leave, and the hotel we’d check into upon our arrival in Venice. In my email box was also two emails from Delta Airlines and its affiliation, Air France. Turns out they’re confirmation emails of our flights as we’d arranged it, and then I saw this email from my travel agent:

cindy, I spoke to air france and solar tour this morning, they told me do not do anything, everything on schedule Right now, strike on 19 & 20, hopefully over by friday, they told me to call them thurday morning, if strike still going on, they will re-arrange the route, watch the news, air france phone number [#]

Okay, so Air France doesn’t think the strike will affect our international flights, but they’re open to allowing changes if it starts looking bad. Okay, I can live with that.

Yes, I realized there’s no point to this post, but thanks for listening. And, just for fun, say the title of this post three times fast.