47 + 90 + 38 + 75 + 30 + 40 = too long

Sunday, January 25, 2026

Barbara fell asleep early tonight, so it’s Keith with a brief report of the day.

We woke up early to send Benjamin off with an Uber to LAX airport to fly home. Things started almost on schedule (8:11am departure rather than 8:00) and arrival in Detroit almost a half-hour early. But things deteriorated after that and his hour-and-a-half layover before flying the rest of the way home slowly turned into almost seven hours at DTW. There were cancellations all over the country (due to weather) and we were surprised to see that his first flight was basically on time, and his connecting flight said it would be on time. Then, while he was in the air, I got a notification that the connection would be delayed 47 minutes. Then after a while 90 more minutes. More time, then 38 more minutes. Later another 75 minutes. And another 30. Then finally, another 40 minutes of delay. With all of the cancellations, I guess he was lucky to make it home today at all, so we’re thankful that he did make it home today and did so safely. He sent the message, “Safely seated safely inside my home safely.” upon his eventual arrival at home. Two points for anyone who can tell me where that line comes from. The quote (slightly modified for context from the original as it was here) is often used in our home.

Daniel and Amanda fared better. They drove their rental car back to San Diego and flew home from there without incident (and got to spend a little quality time in the lounge at that airport first). The view out of the windows of the Detroit and San Diego airports were, umm, not very similar.

We spent the day at our hotel doing very little. We slept in (intermittently, while checking on Benjin’s flight), then enjoyed lunch [again] at the Cheesecake Factory a couple blocks away. I had the same Louisiana Chicken Pasta that I had the other day (and it was just as good as it was then) and she had Spicy Ginger Beef Tenderloin, which she just loved, so maybe that will be an experiment to try cooking at home sometime. We watched S2E3 of The Pitt, a couple episodes from the last season of Cobra Kai, and went to bed early (well, at least she did–I’m still awake). Here she is lounging before The Pitt.