Balance Sheet

On the plus side:

1. an amazing present from Joan, including the most beautiful yarn, chocolate, and what looks to me like an antique, handpainted, candle holder - the old kind with the little opening for you to put your thumb through as you carry it up the stairs
2. there's a pastoral scene of a house and a tree on the delicate piece, which reminds me of my dissertation
3. my luggage, which did not make it onto the plane as I raced through the Houston airport to go standby on an earlier flight, just arrived at my front door
4. The ticket agent at the service center in Houston, who found me an earlier flight in less than 30 seconds, booked my standby status, and kept me on the later flight in case I didn't make it. The agent at the gate who called my name first on the standby list.
5. I didn't lose the notebooks full of pages and pages of notes from my yoga training
6. the pipes did not freeze while I was away and the house was empty
7. a great training session, sightseeing in Louisiana a bit, mainly doing a lot of eating and talking and listening and note-taking, with some yoga and knitting thrown in every once in a while

On the negative side:

1. the high today in Chicago was 2 degrees. That's above zero.
2. the digital camera is in Thailand, so I can't post a picture of my wonderful new yarn
3. I worried that my notebooks were forever lost. And that's because I didn't listen to myself when I decided to carry them on in my knapsack. At the last minute, I wavered and chose to lighten the load, and threw them into the duffel that I checked through.
4. The ticket agent in New Orleans, the agent at a gate in the New Orleans airport, the representative who met the flight in Houston. They all insisted that there were no flights possible other than the one that would have led me to sit in the Houston airport for 2 hours. More importantly, I'd miss most of the SuperBowl.
5. Seeing all the luggage going around and around. I decided I'd wait for the mammoth pink suitcase to come around one more time, and then I'd know for sure that my luggage was out there in the ether somewhere.

My work here is done. The plus side wins. Yeah! At least someone in Chicago had a win today . . .