Airport Taxi Driver

I survived my stint as early morning airport taxi driver, and now my parents are back from Alaska and on their way to their house. A nap may be required before I can get anything done today, as there was next to no sleep last night. There was the lovely neighbor who sits on her balcony, which overlooks my bedroom window, and talks loudly on the phone until midnight, which is usually only mildly irritating, unless I want to sleep before midnight.. And then I'd set up a text message alert with the airline in case they changed something about my parents' flight. I had the cell phone on my nightstand to use as an alarm clock, so it woke me up when I got a message around 2:30 telling me the new arrival time would be 5:50. Then while I was reading that message, I got a new one saying the arrival time would be 6:50. I was just about to re-set my alarm when I had a paranoia attack and went upstairs to check the flight status on the web site. They were giving an arrival time of 5:50, so I left the alarm the same and went back to sleep. I checked again when I got up, and they were still saying 5:50, so I made a cup of tea while I got dressed and took my time getting ready to go. Right around 5:50, I thought I'd check one more time before I left for the airport, and they gave an actual arrival time of 5:41. Yikes! So I ran to the car and hurried to the airport, but it worked out because they'd only just come outside after getting their bags, and that meant I didn't have to circle the airport waiting for them. I still have no idea where that 6:50 message came from, but I checked it again when I was fully awake, and I didn't imagine or dream it. Needless to say, I didn't sleep too well because I was so worried that I'd either be late or be an hour early.

We went out to breakfast, and then hung around at my place until rush hour was over. I may need to up the birthday present level again, since it was raining when I had to go out that early in the morning, and I hate driving in the rain, plus I missed some quality lying in bed and listening to the rain time. But my mom did get me a necklace their tour guide made using antique beads, some from can-can dresses (I guess from during the gold rush) and one big stone that was found after it had been buried for more than 200 years from when some of the natives used the ballast stones from ships as currency. Very cool. Alaska is on my list of places I want to visit, and I even tried to get a job there when I was doing TV news.

But before I can travel, I have to sell some books, so after the nap I will be doing book revisions. I think the first section of the book is fine, so I can get a proposal done pretty quickly. I just have big ideas for revising the middle and end. And I need to come up with a title. Titles are usually either really easy or really hard for me. Sometimes, I have the title first, and I know from the start what it will be. Other times, I struggle and flounder with it. My working title for Enchanted, Inc., which I pretty much just stuck on the book because I couldn't think of anything else, was Magic, Spells, and Illusions, Inc. Once Upon Stilettos was supposed to have been called Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered, and I even turned it in with that title, which I'd had from the start, but then we found out another book with that title was coming out from another publisher around the same time, so we had to scramble to change it. I turned in Damsel Under Stress as "Book 3" with no clue about a title, then that title came to me after I'd done revisions on the book. However, Don't Hex With Texas had that title from the very beginning, from the time I got the idea. This book just demands a clever, witty, fun title, and I can't think of anything.

Of course, at the moment, I can't think, period, with my sleep-deprived state. Nap time!