I'm sure some of you out there had a heck of a time trying to fly the not so friendly skies this weekend. We also experienced some issues. Tom & Kyle have been planning a father & son week getaway all summer. They were going to Playa del Carmen Mexico (where we visited for our honeymoon) to scuba, visit ruins & bond. Both were very much looking forward to it. Kyle was scheduled to fly to NY from VA on Thursday. We all know what happened on that day - "Terror Plot diverted". So, poor Kyle was stranded at the airport for 8 hours, 4 of them on the runway, only to have his flight canceled. The cancellation was actually do to the monsoon like weather that hit NYC that evening. They put him on the 1st flight out the next morning due to arrive at 8am. Unfortunately, their flight to Mexico was leaving at 7am that same morning. And so the real drama begins.....

Tom spent most of Thursday evening on the computer & phone with the nice airline people (not) trying to figure out a way to get out of NY. They'd happily put him on another flight for $100 plus the difference in the ticket price - 1200 big ones! Well that was not an option. And I took Thursday night off from work to be with my boys & spent most of the evening cooking. I made my very first carbonara sauce, which was very good, but Tom was too aggravated to care. Damn you airlines!!! Tom headed to La Guardia at 4am to see what he could work out. They agreed to put him & Kyle on standby for Saturday, since they only had 2 flights on Friday & both were booked. All seemed well. One day late is not too terrible. They happily started their vacation in NYC. Is this the end of it? Nope, not even close.

Saturday their day began at 3am at La Guardia. As I was dreaming away, my boys were in standby hell. Three flights came & went without a seat for them. It seemed as though every single flight to Charlotte (airline's main hub & where they had to pick up connecting flight) was booked for the entire day. Do you think kind airline peeps realized this when they happily agreed to put them on standby? We'll never know. Thank goodness we only live 15 minutes from the airport because Tom came home to do some investigated. And he found that they were lots & lots of seats available on NY to Boston, then Boston to Philly, and then Philly to Cancun. Not the ideal way to get there, but they were desperate! And so they were finally off.....arriving in Mexico at 10pm. Better late than never. I'm sure they still had to deal with hotel drama since they arrived a day & 1/2 after their scheduled check-in time, but I do not know all of the gory details of that, yet.

I know that we are very fortunate to be able to fly & travel at all. And of course very fortunate to be alive and in the grand scheme of things the past three days are meaningless. I'm just a wee bit frustrated with big business as of late. I live in Queens & have been experiencing power problems (with Con-Ed ) for weeks. We, luckily did not lose our power but our voltage was lowered. Our lights are dim & AC is barely working & living on the 5th floor during a heatwave without AC is pretty sucky. And when I call I get the run around. One employee tells me everything is working perfectly & they've not received any complaints from my town (not true since I know 10 neighbors who called). Another tells me that they lowered the voltage slightly, not enough for anyone to even notice. And then there was the one honest employee (who was probably fired after our conversation) who admitted that the voltage was lower drastically. And of course AC's, microwaves, computers & such are not working. There's just not enough juice. "Con Ed has made a mess in Queens." he said, "And it's going to take a very long time to fix it. They've not updated some systems in 60 years!!" "Oh & by the way, he added, they'll probably raise your bill."

Hmmm... there's something to be said for honesty. I'm not saying that after that conversation I was not angry because I was, but, at least I didn't feel crazy! And I did feel a sense of empowerment. I had some knowledge & now I could take action - rally some neighbors, call some local representatives, contact local news stations. What ever happened to accountability? Where o' where has it gone? And why are companies (and government, too) no longer held responsible for their actions/mistakes/greed? How do we get back to a place where they realize that they work for us & this country is ours, too?!?

Posted by Dawn Falcone @ 11:48 AM 9 comments

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