It has been a big turnaround from both yesterday and three weeks ago (note: I wrote the first draft of this on the flight on 12/30). Three weeks ago was the flight, which though short, was not really all that comfortable. With regular economy tickets, relegated to the back of the plane, the person beside me performing acrobatics to stretch and spilling out into my seat and the person in front not only leaning back from start to finish, but also banging the seat back at random intervals, it was not quite a smooth flight. At least it didn’t snow on my way to the airport. And then yesterday, I feel flu symptoms coming on, high temp, headache, fatigue–not such a good sign so soon before a trip.

But today, things went much better. I had a flight that let me sleep in (a first on the way back to Japan), and just as I got into a forebodingly long line at check-in to claim another back-in-the-back seat, an airline rep asks me if I would like to switch to an earlier flight–and when I say I would do it if I got an aisle seat, they get me one twenty rows forward from where I was. So I am whisked directly to an empty check-in counter, and within 20 minutes I am boarding (instead of the 2-hour wait you usually have to go through), and find that not only do I have a forward aisle seat (35C, as opposed to row 57), but it is the one at the emergency exit, so footroom is about six feet in front of me. Nobody leaning back into my seat. Lavatories accessible easily, a great flight attendant and seatmate to talk to (hi, Alan!), a complete reversal from the last flight. And I get into Narita at 3:30 or so instead of 5:30, which means I get home early rather than mid-evening. Very nice indeedy.

Once in a while, you catch a break.

Postscript: It has been a few days already since I landed–my break in flight times extended to having my luggage come out early, getting through customs, and not having to wait forever for a Narita Express. Got home by 7 or so–and promptly fell to the bug that’s been dogging me for some time. But the DSL got here, my IP Phone and Internet connection is A-OK, and everything else is going well. Just a sore throat and a bit of fatigue, probably the jet lag. So hopefully I’ll catch my stride in blogging as well as all else and will be up and running.

Up next: New Year’s at the local shrine with Hiromi. And–post #400! And past the 150th-consecutive-day mark.