gnat gets mixed signals

after spending the preceding few days dealing with this:

yesterday i did one final pack/repack/repack-again/realize-there-was-more-stuff-in-the-laundry-and-repack-some-more and headed with mom to SFO. the first leg of the trip (san francisco to las vegas) was super turbulent but otherwise fine. no sooner had i lined up at my gate for leg two (las vegas to chicago midway) than an announcement came over the speaker that we were being grounded due to weather conditions. weather in chicago. thunderstorms and a tornado watch. wtf? tornado watch? you must be joking.

by this point i'm beginning to think that hey, maybe chicago doesn't want me. maybe it's trying to keep me on the west coast where i belong. the delay was only an hour, though, and the flight into chicago was, well, long. i was sandwiched between a larger gentleman whose left arm found its way into my seat every time he dozed off and a twitchy lady who reeked of cigarettes and obviously was hurting for one pretty badly, she chewed an entire pack of gum one stick at a time over the 3 hour flight.

i deplaned and immediately found myself surrounded by banners proclaiming "we're glad you're here!" from mayor daley. the MAYOR is glad i'm here.

the mayor may have gotten his wires crossed though. after waiting for an hour in a cab line that ran the length of the terminal, i wind up with a driver who starts talking shit about me to his buddy on the phone as soon as i tell him where i'm going. in arabic. in egyptian arabic. so not only is this guy a tool, he's also an idiot. he made it through about 8 minutes before he had to hang up because his battaraya khelset (his battery died). i paused for a moment then asked "so you are egyptian? me too." he shot me a pretty awful "oh crap" look then turned the radio up and left it up for the rest of the trip. he was really nice about helping me get my bags out of the car. then i met up with ANOTHER egyptian (a nicer one, though) who i had kept up waiting for me with all of the "adventuring" i had been doing.

so here i am. daniel left for work, i'm supposed to be gathering my things and heading on to the new apartment but all i really want to do is take a nap. here's the view from the window in his room:

kinda neat, huh?