And boy are my arms tired

Cross-country travel just whacks me. The flight from SCA to ORD wasn’t the worst turbulence I’ve ever been through, but it was in the Top 10. Not scary, just constant battering, flight attendants repeatedly being ordered to their seats, people having to get up anyway because it was shaking the piss out of them. We actually found some decent food at O’Hare (we’d settled for sandwiches from Chili’s Express on the way out, thinking it was the only food in the terminal — it was just the only food on THAT END of the terminal — NEVER AGAIN.) No belly fat hanging over the armrest on the way back, which was a blessing. Instead I had two National Guard nurses, one of whom was very clearly trying to get well into the pants of the other, who took to praying every time we sauntered into a rough patch. Not on their own, mind you, but from a little prayer book one kept handy for just such emergencies. It may have comforted them, but it didn’t help me, especially when they kept saying that they flew military all the time and never got scared. Thanks for the help, gals! (It wasn’t the dropping from the sky kind of turbulence, just the tossing us about like a ball of crumpled paper kind.) On the last leg I got to sit with a colleague and another normal sized person, and the landing was as sketchy as any Albany landing (there’s a crosswind, and we frequently land mostly sideways), but it was on time and we landed, and that’s all that counted. And, as a result of all this effort, there are significant quantities of the best olive oil in the world on the way to my door, so, yes, the whole trip was worth it.