[celstu1]

I went to visit family in NM for 16 days when I got home on sunday about 20 mins before I had to go to my stepfather's mother's funeral I discovered my toilet overflowed when I was away. I turned off the water to the house before I left and I had a neighbor checking the house while I was gone, so this happened sometime between saturday and sunday. They think there is a slow leak in the main water valve and it accumulated in the main floor toilet tank and overflowed. My basement was ruined. I had a company out on Monday to rip out the ceilings and the pad under the rug, the rug can be saved and the walls can be saved, woohooo... but the ceiling and insulation had to be taken out and I need a new rug pad. Its going to take 3 - 5 days to dry out completely and then I can hire someone to start rebuilding. Crazy!

But... before I got home.....

We were scheduled to leave albuquerque at 3pm on saturday, but the wake for my stepfather's mother was from 5-7pm saturday and we are 2 hours behind in abq. So we went to the airport at 630am with my mom and stepfather to try to get on stand by for their 8am flight out. We talked to the woman she got both my bf and I on standby and I paid for the dog carrier. ($125) We get on that flight and land in Chicago. No problem, we got confirmed on our next leg of the flight we were going to make the flight.... well the 2 women at the gate flipped out about the dogs and would not let us on the flight, no matter how many times I told them i had to go to my grandmother's wake. They said I didn't pay for it and of course the stupid paper ticket they stapled to the dog carrier in ABQ fell off somewhere so I had NO proof. Then they said, even if I had proof it's against FAA regulations to have 2 dogs in 1 carrier. (OK, other airlines do it) so we watched our plane move away from the gate with my mom and stepfather on it, but we were not allowed on. I told her I should not have to miss my grandmothers wake because United screwed up in ABQ but they didn't care. (talk about NO compassion) They were rude rude rude and we had to go out and back to the front desk, pay for another carrier, pay for the dogs AGAIN (another $250, on top of what I already paid that my CC had the charge but the airline had no record, funny how they get their money 3x but have no proof of me paying... hhhmmm) So we finally get onto another flight to Manchester, after 5 hours in Chicago. We land in Manch and my BFs luggage never made it onto the standby flights, so he had to go back to the airport at midnight to get his luggage. Since his luggage technically was coming in on the right flight they would not deliver it to his house. It was a disaster of a day. Very annoying, I totally missed the wake completely. The worst part is, I could have sneaked the dogs on and no one would have been none the wiser. Ridiculous.

When we finally got our tickets and the dogs situated and paid for in Chicago we went into Chilis and had a couple beers and laughed about it. Nothing alleviates stress like laughing. There was nothing we could do, so we drank and laughed! HAPPY VACATION!!!! I have no more time for the rest of the year and lemme tell ya, the trip was not all it was cracked up to be. I would have come home in the second week and gone back to work if that was not the week my BF was coming and not the week of balloon fiesta.