50% capacity

So, right now my apartment is way fuller with my lovely sister and lovely Karen dead asleep. As a tribute to my permanent title of "Hostess with the Mostest," Karen is sleeping in a sweatshirt as her blanket is in the dryer. Oh, and her head is lying on a towel (clean!) over her pillow since the pillowcase (also clean!) is still a touch damp. Oh, Japanese dryers, you are so slow!

So, here are a few tips for picking people up at the airport. Being on time? It is a good thing. Tied in with that is customs here takes about 20 minutes so pretending it will take an hour? Not a good idea. In addition, a good meeting spot is also key.

Another very important piece of travel knowledge goodness? KNOW WHAT AIRLINE YOUR FRIEND IS ON!!! I had assumed that Karen was on American since everyone else is taking that airline. This was an ASSumption for sure since she was on Continental, meaning we were wandering around in two separate terminals. Thank goodness for Al Gore inventing the internet though. A profanity-laced email decrying the situation of not having found each other almost two hours later was sent from me, to Karen, with love. Don't get me wrong. None of the language was directed at anyone- I was just way stressed that I had missed such a vital piece of info when collecting people's travel plans. But it all worked out because in addition to my lovely language selection (Dear self, lose the inner sailor), I provided my phone number, Karen called, and we all lived happily ever after.

"But where's Ed?" you ask. In New York, with Laddie-kins, waiting for a 11:30 flight that is currently expected to leave around 2:30. It turns out that on Valentine's Day, he was in New York and his passport was in Washington, DC on an unexpected rendezvous. So, he changed his flight and drove back to DC in a minivan. Brady, meanwhile, was almost thrown off the plane (her bags actually were). A very mean, Grinch-like ticket agent yelled at her (YELLED at her! My sister! I could punch him in the nose!) that she was to fly out tomorrow, never mind what her itinerary and boarding pass said. After making a huge scene, the big jerkface was ganged up against by a posse of saintly stewardesses who took Brady's side, the side of all that is true and good! Although Brady was pretty upset, guess who got an upgrade to Business Class. Pretty clutch for a trip to Tokyo although Brady's dubious whether or not it was really worth it.

Laddie, BTW, was always scheduled to leave on the 15th.

Japan Visit Day #1 Quote of the Day: The thing about Japanese food- and sometimes Chinese- is that it's really good but as soon as I'm done, I want the taste out of my mouth immediately. -Karen