Air travel is a funny thing. Every element of air transportation is dependent upon the element that came before it. If there's bad weather in Chicago, then the plane that is supposed to leave Chicago is late departing. This means that the next flight that that plane makes from, say, San Francisco is late. And so on down the line.

For the past three days, San Francisco has had horrendous, terrible weather. By this I mean that it's been raining. The people of the Bay Area don't know how to deal with forty-degree temperatures, much less rain. When it's forty-five degrees outside, they put on winter coats and scarves. Jared and I walk around with our sleeves rolled up. When there's rain, everyone is late, because no one knows how to handle driving in rain. If it rained in Los Angeles, everyone would die.

As Gilda Radner's Saturday Night Live character Rosanne Rosannadanna used to say, "It's always something." Last year, you'll recall that my Christmas travel was delayed thanks to a snowstorm in Cleveland and a shortage of de-icing fluid at Cleveland-Hopkins International Airport (CLE). This year, I thankfully have to wait only an hour instead of twelve hours.

The "bad weather conditions" (i.e. rain) in San Francisco has made the incoming flight late, which means that I'll leave at 12:35 instead of 11:40. The only forseeable problem here is that I might not make my connection at Chicago-O'Hare (ORD). There's a line of people in front of me -- a very long line -- all of whom are trying to work their connections out with the SFO agent, even though there's very little a SFO gate agent can do for connections at ORD.

Moments after I wrote the last paragraph, my name got called. They rounded up the half-dozen people on the flight who had tight connections in Chicago and sent them to another gate. So it looks like I won't be late to anywhere; I'll be just on time.

On this flight to Chicago, I was reminded what midwestern girls look like. Midwestern girls have skin that's too tan (because they go to tanning salons) and bleached-blonde hair. This in and of itself isn't unusual, but it's the middle of winter. They desperately want to look like their idols, girls from Beverly Hills. (Note, of course, that not all midwestern girls look like this; it's just a hurtful stereotype.)

It's actually cold in Chicago. Not California cold, but real cold. The kind that requires a real coat. After waiting for an hour in Chicago, I got on a plane to Cleveland, where it is about ten degrees. I'm home!