a strom has come to chicago
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
Mari and Kenny didn't make it to Tokyo, today. They only made it as far as Chicago.
We got up at five and were standing in front of a supremely unhelpful fellow at the United Airlines ticket counter before seven. It turned out that one of our bags was over the limit, so we had to juggle things around. Then it turned out that we didn't have some sort of special $14 visa that Mari would need despite merely passing through O'Hare airport for two hours.
Getting that visa meant going to an Internet kiosk made by Bell. I won't go into the details of how we actually solved the problem, but I will state that whoever designed those Bell kiosks (with a disabled keyboard, really??) deserves a special punishment. Why, Bell, you useless turds, did you think to design your own computer. Why.
To cut a long and frustrating hour short, we were back to the desk by about 08:10 and then I bid my family goodbye. By 08:50 Mari called to tell me that they'd finally made it through US customs and immigration (it bothers me that they've set up camp on Canadian soil) and were on their way.
At 10:00 I got a text message from Mari: there had been a delay. At 11:00, another delay.
And at 19:20, as I was walking home after a string of bad luck with four streetcars (in ten kilometers!) I got a call from Mari. Due to a terrible storm early in the day, everything passing through O'Hare had been delayed—or in her case, canceled. She and Kenny were spending the night in that city, barely 90 minutes into 13 hour trip.
One really bright note: Kenny was on his best behaviour. No fussing at the airport (though he did get bored), he was all smiles when we parted and merely ran back to hug and kiss me twice. He was so well behaved in Chicago that several people commented to Mari how patient he was being. This despite the fact that he had only one toy and a trio of the DVD's I'd made the night before. When Mari told him thank you for his good behaviour, he told her, "It's okay. Are you okay?"
But I really wish I could be there to help.