~ from Finding Nemo
Actually, says LiveScience.com, Nemo isn’t meant to refer to “Finding Nemo.” Bryan Norcross, a TWC meteorologist who helped conceive the storm-naming last year, told the New York Times, “Nemo is Latin for “no one” or “no man.” It also refers to Captain Nemo, the Jules Verne character from “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.”
So here’s Winter Storm Nemo, and our cancelled Saturday a.m. flight has been rescheduled for early morning Monday. I guess even if our area and its runways were cleared up by tomorrow, planes everywhere are grounded and they’ve got to get today’s stranded travelers out first.
Our new schedule gets us to our airport in Hawaii almost exactly 2 days after we were scheduled to go. I was all anxious, pissed, and freaked out for a while; I spent hours on the phone on hold (and, eventually talking to) the airline, before finally, today, booking another flight. We’d discussed taking all manner of trains and other flights (if there were any, and there weren’t) and even renting a car and driving to our next leg of the flight, but they all turned out to be ridiculously expensive and full of hours of time and hassle. In fact our second leg of the flight was cancelled as well, so we would have done it all for naught.
Then we realized: It’s not like we have to be in Hawaii for a wedding, or a funeral, or a graduation. Nobody is there waiting for us, and nobody will be angry if we’re late.
And so, strangely enough, (but really not so much for my life) this has turned out to be not so bad at all.
- We can take our time packing; we can laze around in jammies, eat delicious food, watch episode after episode of All in the Family, and enjoy the snow falling, because neither M nor I are at work today.
- In 4.3-6.3 hours, Expedia will call me back and I’ll find out what to do about the car, hotel, and one of the scheduled activities. And I bought the travel insurance on top of the regular flight insurance, so we’ll get money back. (I call it “saving money the Nemo way”).
- We’re not stranded in an airport for hours upon hours, uncomfortable, tired, angry, then resigned to the inevitable Purgatory of Travel Cancellation Land. We’re cozy comfy in the house.
- I called Hawaii, got through immediately, and canceled the one activity I’d booked directly – a dolphin swim (since we won’t even be there for it). The weirdest part of it is right after I hung up the phone, we found a show on TV about how dolphins attack and are really vicious creatures. Um, really? Had to laugh. We may end up booking it again once we get there, but so far that saves us way more money than I’m willing to publicly admit.
- I will get to see Boo again before I leave. It’s really kind of perfect. I miss him already, and this will be a sweet bonus!
And so I sit out the pretty storm of sifting snow. I’ll go with my mom to see Boo on Sunday, and immerse myself in a vacation which has already commenced, whether it be on a beach of sand or snow.
My timing turned out to be impeccable!
Dory: This is the Ocean, silly, we’re not the only two in here!
The Never Normal 