my stop over from Atlanta to St. Louis landed me in a little town of Golden, Illinois.

it’s a little town. it’s a quiet village. where every day is like the one before. a little town. full of li…

okay, not really. but it is a quiet, little village full of very pleasant people.

now you may be asking what inspired me to stop over in a quiet, little Illinoisian town during my transition out of supply and into sales. not that this question needs an answer, because the answer is obvious https://experience.tripster.ru/experience/Yerevan/sights/. there could be no other reason but this exact reason. what other reason could there really be? i mean it is only the greatest reason ever.

so, i show up in the sleepy little town of Golden to a warm welcome of homemade chili. and questions about chemistry. i miss the studiousness of school. the constant barrage of theorems, concepts, and definitions. the ample flexibility to spend your time as one saw fit. sometimes i wonder why i left… then i remember what i do on a daily basis.

anyways. besides the point. i had a lovely time reteaching myself chemistry in attempt to assist my darling cousin. she rocked it out on her own though. because sometime in the midst of assisting i passed out on the floor. i guess that will happen when one does not sleep the night before.

some how i was transferred to an air mattress. where apparently my dog was insistent on curling up with me. but she did not like the air mattress. and she apparently was hopping between my bed and the couch. and apparently my aunts and uncles were well amused by it. and apparently the light was fully shining on my face. and apparently my cousin came in causing a ruckus to get ready for bed. and apparently my other cousin came in to sleep on the floor in the middle of the night. and i say “apparently” because i do not remember a single second of any of this. i was simply unresponsive to the world.

after my twelve hour coma and awakening to a mostly empty house, i readied myself and went down to the windmill (yes, those still exist) with my cousins to decorate for my grandmother’s eightieth birthday party. yes, eightieth. but she looks like she is twenty-five. ish.

the party was a blast. there was food and cake and slide shows and pictures and quilts and live bands and elvis impersonators and people. so many people. i have a social family. and it all stems from my darling grandmother. she knows everybody. and everybody loves her.

it was a great weekend of every good thing that starts with f: fun, food, frivolities, festivities, fossils. and family. that one can be thrown in there too. i think they are pretty great.

however, it was a pain in the you-know-what to get there. i will never fly united airlines again.

between a long last night out and an early flight, i did not manage to rest my eyes. so after i arrived at the airport at 5:30 am, my flight was delayed. for an hour. guess how long my layover in Chicago was. you betchya, forty-five minutes. guess who missed her flight. you betchya, this girl.

so once i arrived in Chicago, i had to wait for another flight to Peoria, Illinois. and much to everyone’s surprise, it is not a frequent flight. so i finally arrived in Peoria six hours after i was intended to. six hours. that may not seem like a lot in the grand scheme of things. but i only had thirty-six hours. i lost one-sixth of my weekend sitting in an airport. seventeen percent of my weekend. just wasted.

oh, and they ripped my bag. i was not a happy camper.

in Peoria, my father and puppy were waiting to pick me up. i think united should pay for the emotional counseling my dog will need after the traumatic six hour waiting period she was subjected to. so once i finally arrived, they drove me to Springfield to switch out my bag. and then they drove me to Golden. it was a long day.

i will never fly united again.

and now i am in San Diego. but i will tell you about that later. so enjoy this pretty picture for now.

my grandmother’s eightieth birthday party is the answer to your earlier question. for those of you who still did not get it.