how quickly time passes....

Photo found here: http://welandsmithy.com/Pictures/Caltrop.jpg

yes indeedly do. seriously. wow. just two posts ago i was saying "two months from now..." and now, it's only a week until i leave. not without drama, of course...i need to tell this story.

right around my birthday, we got an email from the tour director saying we should receive final instructions and such in the next few days. i am the first person to admit that i am not always vigilant where snail mail is concerned, so i didn't see it until the following week. however, i was completely shocked when i opened the envelope and discovered that i was being billed for another $413! for me, this was catastrophic. i had prepaid for absolutely everything because last year, we KNEW d's job was ending and we knew we were likely to not have a lot of money when it was time to take this trip.

i contacted the tour group leader and he said he would look in to things for me and get back to me. he did get back to me and related that he thought he had a solution. there was another guy who was also going on the trip, who was in the same boat as me. he was short on money, and was also assessed an extra fee. turns out this fee is the "single room supplement". he was the odd guy out, i had had a roommate, as all travelling is based on double occupancy, but my room mate had dropped out of the trip at the last moment. meaning i had to pay this extra money. the solution was to have me room with the guy. i said to the tour director "dude, i've been to burning man. believe it or not, i have slept near/closely with people before that i did not know well. i will sleep in a closet if i have to, i just want to GO." i thought that fixed things....a day later i get another call back saying that the most the tour company can do for us both is to give us a $150 credit and we still had to pay the balance, which was over another $250. NO WAY! *I* never asked for the single room supplement. it seemed exceedingly unfair to me that this should happen with two weeks to go. because of that, there was no way of getting any money back, even had i cancelled because it was less than thirty days. add to that that i am staying later than everyone else because i am headed into the highlands, and that makes me doubly screwed. i was distraught. i cried for two days. seriously. i cried on people i've never cried on before and would swear i never would. highly emotional.

the end of this little drama is that the tour leader is a truly upstanding and most excellent human. i know that he gets a stipend for taking us on these tours, and according to the tour website, he also gets to travel for free. one of the last things he had said to me on the phone was "don't do anything before you talk to me, okay? promise me that. if you think you need to cancel, please call me before you do anything serious." he and his wife are paying the extra fee, so me and the other guy don't have to. he didn't have to do that. but he did.

sometimes, i feel so lucky, i don't know if it's karma points, being a nice person, something mystical, or just generally believing that in general, things work out, but i am one lucky person. at the same time that all this other stuff was happening, i went to bellydance rehearsal and was commiserating with my friends. one of those friends quietly excused herself and returned and gave me a check. i do some web consulting on the side, and she told me it was a down payment on building her a website. so now i have more money than i thought i would too. lucky, lucky lucky.

there is another totally awesome thing that i need to post about, but for now, this is it. i wanted to have this story recorded so that when i start to blog about ireland and scotland, i can remember being in this place where i almost didn't get to go.

even being more poor than i'd like to be, this life is good, and don't believe for a second that i don't know how lucky lucky lucky i am to have the things i do, and am able to do the things i am able to do. because i know it. seriously.

peace.