Thanksgiving Travel

Seriously, I may cry.

I'm attempting to book flights for My Husband and I to visit my family this Thanksgiving (his family gets Christmas this year).  Of course he doesn't get the Wednesday before Thanksgiving off, so I'm trying to book after 5pm since the closest airport is 2 hours away and return at some point on Sunday the 27th.  Can I do this for under $1000?  I think not.  I may not be able to do this at all.

It's just so unfair.  What gives the airlines the right to jack up their prices not only on holidays, but on the 10 days surrounding those holidays?!  It's bad enough I'm 1500 miles from my family, most of whom I haven't seen since Christmas, but in order to visit them for a measly 4 days I have to take out a freaking bank loan to pay for it.

If I drive, I have to do it on my own since My Husband doesn't have enough time off to make the two-day trek.  And of course every girl wants to be alone on a dark road in the middle of nowhere 5 months pregnant with her first child.

Sidenote: it's military policy that one cannot use one's vacation time in addition to authorized block leave.  So if My Husband were to request Wednesday off as one of his built up vacation days, he'd be required to take the rest of the holiday weekend from his time as well.  So we have the "choice" of using 0 vacation days or 5.

And even my "in" with Southwest is getting me nowhere...my free flight, courtesy of the amount of money I spend on my Southwest Visa Rewards Card, isn't valid for travel during the week of Thanksgiving.  I had to use it on our Christmas flights (which I booked and still cost us $600 with my airtime being free).

THIS IS SO FUCKING STUPID. 

I hate this.  I hate it.  Why does air travel have to cost me a month and a half's rent?  Because the airlines made some shitty deal with the oil companies when oil was $200 a barrel and now that it's way down they're still paying?  Don't even get me started on the oil companies. 

Of course I could forgo Southwest and pay the $100 round-trip bag fee on any other airline.  I could ship our luggage to my parent's house, but the Postal Service may fold before it got there.

So here's my $1500...for a flight with at least one stop in the middle, getting felt up by security, a plane that won't leave or arrive on time and is more than likely overbooked, with a pilot who's on Facebook while flying, no food or drinks for free and a two-hour trek home after we land. Sign me the fuck up.

I'm so very unhappy with this situation.  If I wasn't so stuck on spending THE ENTIRE CHRISTMAS holiday with my family next year instead of splitting it in half like last year and freaking having second Christmas at my mother-in-law's I'd call the whole thing off and just have Thanksgiving here.

But I haven't seen my family since I found out I was pregnant and I miss them something awful.

Love costs.  Frankly, with the amount love has cost me in the past and undoubtedly will cost me in the future, I can't believe I have anything more to give.

Another Day, Another Online Discovery

In my internet travels this weekend I came across an organization dedicated to "connecting the civilian and military worlds."  In the days of pop stars' plea deals and political posturing making headlines instead of our men and women overseas, it's nice to discover websites like this one.  They sponsor billboards and television ads to remind civilians there are two conflicts going on and soldiers and their families are still sacrificing.

Don't get me wrong, I like the Entertainment Section as much as the next person.  Probably more so since I'm so into the movie/television/theater scene.  But it's difficult to comprehend that in 2006, almost one third of American students polled couldn't find the STATE OF LOUISIANA on a map of the United States...half couldn't find Mississippi (I don't even want to think about the brain hemorrhaging caused by looking for Iraq or Afghanistan).  But I guarantee you 100% of those kids could name the four main characters in Sex & the City.

And I know the whole point of My Husband's service is so that little Iraqi girls and boys have the opportunity to learn about geography or which Jimmy Choo sandals go with which one night stand, but one would think the approximately 5,000 hours kids spend in schools each year would ensure something scholastic stuck in their little brains. 

Anyway, special thanks to Operation Never Forgotten for this photo and all the good work they're doing for military members and their loved ones.

Worst Disney Movie Ever

I have a friend who LOVES DisneyWorld.  She interned at the park every summer during college (she played the character "Stitch" her third year!) and has wanted to get married there since we were like, ten.

Now, you should know that I too love DisneyWorld.  My grandmother (my mom's mom) loved all things Disney and integrated it into all our visits with her.  For example, she had a bag where she'd store gifts before giving them away called "The Mary Poppins Bag."  The hidden panic room in their New York home (which they used for storage) was called "The Alice in Wonderland Room."

My grandmother and grandfather were (and still are) very wealthy.  My family isn't, but we benefitted a great deal from their generosity and took a number of trips to DisneyWorld, sometimes with my aunt and uncle and their boys, too.

DisneyWorld is my "Happy Place."  I'm not optimistic as a rule, and DisneyWorld is the ONLY place I remember all the good things and none of the bad things.  Of course my parents had vacation fights...my dad's never spent money without some regret...there was plenty of rivalry with my sisters for attention and any number of incidents in which I was punished for wandering off.  But all that stuff falls by the wayside when I think about being with my whole family in a place that's warm and sunny and magical.

My Husband has never been to DisneyWorld.  Now that the friend I mentioned at the beginning of this post is getting married (May 11th, yay Kate!) there, we planned a weeklong vacation to celebrate her marriage and so I could share all the DisneyWorld goodness with the love of my life.

We've been planning an all out vacation, our first that will be just us since we've been married.  Nine days, themed Disney resort, the works.  I've been bugging My Husband to get the OK from his commanding officer (CO) so I can use our Southwest miles to book plane tickets.

Enter the multi-tentacled monster that is the United States Army.  My Husband will be spending the entire month of May with his squadron in the field doing training exercises.  Oh wait, not the ENTIRE month...they have Memorial Day weekend off, just in time to go to My Husband's college roommate's wedding in which he's a groomsman.  Of course.

And this is after he's scheduled to spend the whole month of April in Fort Benning, GA at Scout School.

So no DisneyWorld wedding/vacation for the Delaneys.

Now, I've heard all the "army life" bullshit about missed vacations and holidays and this "is the life I've chosen" and all that.  I KNOW.  I know this is a hard life.  I did the deployment, I'm doing the training and the 14-hour workdays.  I know complaining is pointless and unproductive.

But I wanted to get married in September and we had to marry in July because of his deployment.  I wanted a honeymoon...same deal.  I just...I only wanted to go to DisneyWorld with My Husband and see my friend get married.  We've been planning this for more than a year and now...nothing.  I'm so tired of having my plans wrecked and having to pretend it's no big deal to keep the peace.

And so here I am; learning to live a life that someone else is in charge of.  And trying desperately to be grateful for it despite everything.