Well my bags are packed, all five of them. I’ve three bags of things we need in Moscow and two little shoulder bags for duty free. This will be quite a change from the one bag I’ve been carrying for this entire trip. The trick is not to leave the airport in Moscow without them.
The tonic of a good night’s sleep and the knowledge that I’ll soon be in Cindy’s loving arms has but a spring in my step and I really enjoyed my morning walk here in the suburbs of Dulles. Speaking of sleep, what do you suppose the odds are that I would be awaken five days in a row by garbage trucks outside my window?? If you guessed 100% you are a winner. It is truly amazing but speaks well for the cleanliness of Dulles, Phoenix, and Sedona.
I met an older couple at the bar last night who had been bumped from their flight and were getting something to eat at 11pm. Seems their daughter had arranged to get them on a United flight to Rome but the flight was oversold. The kicker was that their daughter was the PILOT for that flight and still couldn’t get her parents on the plane. They took it all in stride and decided to spend a few days in DC and then head back to Dayton since all the flights for the next ten days are full, especially to Munich, Oktoberfest, and Rome, only one flight per day. Mercifully I’m already checked in and have my boarding pass for Moscow so I know I’m getting home soon.
I did find a place to purchase Marlboro cigarettes and each pack, each pack not carton, cost $8.50. Remarkable. This will be the biggest tip my Moscow driver has ever received.
I was talking to another public member of one of the NBCC boards about what he did. We were introduced and we both knew we had met each other but couldn’t figure how went or were so we started to talk about what we did, hoping for clues. He is a creative designer who has worked on lots of diverse and interesting projects and is now getting involved in mental innovation and creative leadership projects. I asked him if he helped designed any commercial products that I might have heard about and he listed a few and then said, “One of the products we designed for Proctor and Gamble really took off and has made them a lot of money. Have you every heard of Swiffer?” I’m sure my eyes glazed over and in one nano-second I was hugging him and saying, thank-you, thank-you. Everyone at the table was a bit shocked until I told them why I was so happy to meet someone who had been involved in making my daily life so much more enjoyable. (We finally figured out that we had met in San Diego five years ago when he had been participating in a creative leadership seminar being conducted by a friend of mine who had asked me to do a History of Wine and Wine tasting at the conclusion of the seminar.)
Skype is a wonderful tool for free international communication, but lately it appears that it is being taken over by those poor Nigerian princes who can’t seem to keep their finances in order. If my Skype is open while waiting for Cindy to come on line, I’ll get three or four messages with requests for chats all from people whose message starts with Dear Beloved. I suppose since it is free you can’t complain, but the filters on Skype certainly don’t seem to work well.
Ok, final check of luggage, comb my hair and I’m out the door for the Airport. Back to Mother Russia! Wm
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