THANK GOODNESS for the US postal service! :-)

So cmshaw and I needed a room for the Kayser, which is this coming weekend.  Last week I called the place where many of our compatriots are staying, and learned to my chagrin that the block of rooms reserved for the curling event had been fully booked and extended and fully booked again.  After looking around a number of places, long story short, I booked a room on my AAA discount, which is cheaper than full price but not as good as the curling rate, plus it was a smoking room, which, feh, but it was the last ordinary room they had that wasn't like a double suite with kitchen for over $200/night.

I realized, in doing this, that my AAA card had expired in August of 2006 -- which was weird, because I distinctly remember calling to renew that membership.  I logged on to the website and it showed that my membership is good until 2009.  So I called AAA and said Um, wtf? -- and it turned out that they had my apartment number wrong, so the new card had never reached me.  (The number they had is a number that doesn't exist in my building, so it wouldn't even have gone to a neighbor who could have been expected to give it to me.  'S what happens when numbers get transposed.)  So they sent me a new card, which they said would hopefully reach me in time to use it for this coming weekend, but if not, the number was still good, and the place could call them and verify that I was a current member, etc.

Then, it turns out our skip has an extra room reserved at the curling rate.  There's apparently a longish story attached to this, but we don't care -- we tell him we'll take it, don't cancel, yay!, we get the good rate after all.  So I'll cancel the reservation I made for the smoking room at the AAA rate.

I promptly forgot about this.

Fortunately, the new AAA card arrived in the mail today, so I have just (phew!) cancelled my reservation.  I thought it might be too late, but apparently not, because I have a cancellation number to go with my reservation number, and I'm not going to get hit with a $150 room I don't want.  Whew!


In other happy news, the rain has melted quite a lot of the ice in the parking lot, so I am safely parked outdoors instead of in the garage.  And the new curling pants are HUZZAH stretchy and also long enough and also comfy.  Yay!

OMGWTFPOLYGRAPH

So, yeah. A week and a half until my poly. Strange how knowing it was coming (in the abstract) didn't make me nervous at all, because I really have nothing to hide; but knowing it's coming (in the concrete, and when) has got me chewing my lip a little anxiously. Eeeee, polygraph! [fret] Fortunately, it's at 12:30 in the afternoon, so I don't have to bust my ass to get to who-knows-where before I'd normally even be at work.

In other news, my knee has been bothering me since Saturday, and unsurprisingly last night at curling was worse than Sunday or Monday. But then having had four ibuprofen before the seventh end and four more before I went to bed, I woke up this morning and it didn't hurt, and you know how when you've had hiccups for a long time and then they go away it feels strange to be able to breathe normally? This is, like, it feels wrong to me that my right knee is not in pain. But then it seized up a bit in the car on the way to work, so now it aches a little and all is well. ;-)

Nuttiest game I've played in a long time, last night. For a start, skip RB was there, which is like not normal -- she came in the door, and I blinked and looked at my watch and she said "Yeah, the Senate's not in session", and we all went "aha." Anyway: the women's challenge team of RB, RS, self, and KS won the toss, and faced the team of SMcM, VC, insptr_penguin, and SF. We took three in the first. They took three in the second. We took one in the third (an end in which at least fifteen, if not all sixteen, stones were in play -- and in the top of the house or out front -- by the finish, and which took forever). They took one in the fourth. We took three in the fifth. They took two in the sixth. We took two in the seventh. So we were three up coming home without the hammer, and we played a pretty stupid eighth end, with the result that S was drawing for four to win. And she came up short and wrecked on her own guard. I'm pretty sure I said "Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" before hollering at her sweepers to split the guard and the shooter on. AUGH. All eight of us were willing to call it a tie, but league rules say there has to be a decision, so we played a half-end, and we won. CRAZY.

And today we're off to the Kayser. Hurrah!

so i'll tell you what

The daily parking garage at BWI has cameras over every space reporting to a digital readout in the main lanes that tells you in real time whether there are empty spaces in that aisle or not.  I am in love with this feature, and would like it to be instituted at real airports (National, Dulles) as well as others I occasionally drive to (Cleveland).  I am not, however, in love with the distance from the daily lot to the terminal, nor with the frequency of the buses that bring you from spot A to spot B, nor with the fact that my flight which was meant to take off at 6:50 is now delayed until 8:13.  BAH.

The ticketing lobby, though, has a shiny shiny white floor that I swear someone must go through and sweep and wax like every half-hour, because that is some clean, un-scuffed linoleum, is what.

[ETA:  Things it's fun to hear at the security checkpoint:  "That's not a quart-sized bag?"  "No, sir, that's a gallon."

Am at the concourse bar now, drinking Killian's and playing with the computer and talking a very nice lady through cleaning up her desktop and making her computer run faster.  Hee.]