Approaching Burbank

So I sent mail to Greg, knowing that Darin would see Greg, to tell Darin that I wouldn't be home in the evening when he was scheduled to come back, and if he wanted to stay in the Bay Area and have dinner with friends, that would be cool. I talked to Greg later on in the day and he said that Darin said he was coming home at 5 anyhow.

Okay, fine. I headed off to USC at 5, because the weather (yes! El Niño finally makes an entrance!) and the traffic were so bad that I knew it would take a while to get there. Of course, did I forget my umbrella? I did. Sigh.

Once at USC, I kept calling Darin's car phone and then the house and didn't get him either place. Perhaps the flight was delayed, I thought. Or maybe he decided to stay for dinner after all.

When I got home at 9, he wasn't there. I called a few people up north and got a bunch of answering machines. I left a message on Greg's. Greg called back and said yes, Darin had stayed, but he had gone to San Jose airport for an 8 or 9 o'clock flight.

Okay. I called Southwest. The last flight was at 8:40. It was scheduled to arrive at 9:40.

10 o'clock, no Darin. It was raining pretty ferociously outside, so I could understand that maybe the flight was delayed. I settled down to watch Homicide, which had such an intense episode that I could barely stand to watch it. (In case you see it, it's the one with Vincent D'Onofrio and the subway train.)

At 10:20 I called again. The latest word was that the plane was on approach and it would be down in 10 minutes.

I kept estimating when Darin should be in his car, and I kept calling his car and getting the highly annoying, "The cellular customer is not within range."

11 o'clock, no Darin. I told myself that I would not freak out, I would not start cruising the news channels to see if anything had happened. I would just wait. Maybe there was another delay. Maybe there was a lot of traffic on the highway and Darin couldn't call because the cell network was down.

Midnight, no Darin. I knew I was not getting to sleep any time soon, so I pulled out my book on money laundering and started taking notes. (Hey, maybe the screenwriting thing isn't going to work out, you know?)

12:30, the phone rang.

"Hi honey. I'm in Las Vegas."

The turbulence had been so bad on the approach to Burbank that the pilot was forced to divert to Las Vegas. Not before the plane had dived and climbed like a roller coaster so fast that Darin started putting his affairs in order mentally: his wife loved him and he'd done good things in his life.

"I'm glad you weren't on this flight," he said to me. He wished he'd taken the 5pm flight after all.

He finally got back to Burbank at 2, with a smoother flight this time. Not all of the original Burbank passengers were willing to take another shot at it; several people stayed in Vegas rather than chance it again.

Whoo hoo.

If you're flying to LA during an El Niño storm, be forewarned.

I did something yesterday that I do about every 3 to 4 years: I bought makeup. The different thing this time is: it's face makeup. I usually never wear anything on my face, preferring my luminous natural beauty to shine through. (Koff, koff--also, I never learned how to put it on.)

However, there are only so many times that people can ask you, "Diane, you look so tired, is everything okay?" before you say, There's got to be some makeup product that will hide these dark circles under my eyes. The other motivator was a home video that we saw during Thanksgiving at Darin's parents' house, in which I saw myself and discovered that I didn't have eyes, I had giant dark circles where my eyes were supposed to be. It was pretty horrible, frankly.

I asked Carolann and Angie on Thursday what I should get, and they steered me towards Clinique's undereye concealer. (I'm not the only person with dark skin under my eyes, evidently.)

I went to Clinique yesterday and tried on their undereye concealer. Of course, to hide the edges of the concealer, I needed face powder/foundation. And the face powder makes you so pale--like I'm not pale enough--that you need blush.

Don't worry, I haven't gone from free spirit to Tammy Faye. I'm not wearing a lot of makeup--nothing on my eyelids or eyelashes, for instance, because I want no possibility of anything going into my eyes. But the concealer alone has taken about 5 years off my face.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

Yesterday, 2.6 miles. (Hey, do that 10 times--I've run a marathon!) I'm still having problems with my left leg, and I'm willing to bet at this point that it's tightness with the hamstring, which means I have to start stretching it way, way out.