Wedding Blues

Everything is actually coming together fairly well for the wedding. We have both tuxes, we have both dresses, most everyone who is going to be here is here.

Our one serious glitch to date is my mother-- she isn't here yet. As of my writing this, she should be somewhere between Denver and Chicago/Toronto-- we're not sure.

She set out yesterday morning from Palms Springs airport. When she got to Denver, made her connection, and then sat on the runway for 2.5 hours because of a serious malfunction with the jet engine on one side. Now, she said the engine fell off-- I don't know if that was hyperbole in order to get across how badly the engine sounded/acted, but that's what she said.

When Air Canada took the people off the plane, they announced that they had a seat for everyone on the 3:55 pm flight. Some things happened and about 6 people wound up without seats. Mom got screwed by being close to the front of the line and ready to get her connection/new flight info and then someone came and took her out of that line and put her at the end of the next line-- and she and those people didn't get seats. What the hell happened between "we have seats for everyone" and the ticketing of said everyone?

They claimed that they had no flights on which they could put her to any airport in Toronto, Montreal, Philadelphia, Chicago, New York, or Boston. Anywhere! I have a hard time believing that this is true-- that this major airport with major airlines could not find her a seat going farther east. So, they sent her by taxi to a city 20 miles away to spend the night and then put her on an 11 am flight today. Again, the claim was that they had no other flights to Toronto prior to this one.

One woman was so distraught she was lying on the ground and weeping uncontrollably. Mom said the Air Canada personnel were just ignore her and walking around her when she was in their way.

Luckily, Mom had packed light and hadn't checked anything, so she had all her stuff. The other 5-6 people were not as fortunate.

So, now, she is scheduled to arrive at 8:30 pm tonight-- after the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner!

If and when she makes it, I would not want to be the Air Canada person with whom my mother has the conversation about how poorly they treated her (and the others). She is taking notes and will have a long, detailed list of her complaints (I'm really glossing over everything and just giving the highlights of the conversation).

We have not heard from her today; I hope everything is working out okay an she is somewhere in transit. We will likely cut the rehearsal dinner a little short so we (or at least someone) can drive out and get her from the airport and get her into her hotel.

Note: Everyone else got here with little to no trouble. I guess the traveling gods decided to pick Mom as their whipping post this time around. *sigh