Day 41 "In the trenches" (shé-shé and ni-hao edition)

4:30am CST, hotel lobby, Dallas.

1:00pm EST, Charlotte.

It could always be a lot worse. Keeping perspective is also a recipe for keeping sanity. Stuck in Charlotte airport this morning, having been made late and thus missing connection from DFW. But, it could be worse:

I had my bags with me, having decided that Mick Moloney/John Doyle probably had the conference concert covered and wouldn't need my help, when I could have checked and lost a bag;

I got a hotel room, when a lot of people were sleeping on cots in the airport;

I got fed, even if it was a $14 Pizza Hut delivery special;

I got a cab to DFW and had *exactly* the right amount of money (like, less than 30 cents extra) to pay the cabbie, though I had to use the torn-in-half $5 I've been carrying in my wallet until I could repair it;

I got to Charlotte, though too late to make the Savannah connection, when I could *still* be stuck at DFW;

I got a followup connection to Savannah leaving at 2:20, when I could have been stonkered overnight again;

And discovered that Charlotte's a really pretty, airy, spacious airport with free wifi, instead of what it could be (like, I don't know, LOGAN for example).

And my paper and panel obligations could have been scheduled for Thursday or today, instead of Saturday, when they are--which means I can still do all the shit I'm supposed to do.

And I've got a laptop and I can still get stuff done--if I couldn't work I'd be losing my marbles.

And I got a lesson in how to say "thank you" in Mandarin from the Chinese fast-food concession folks, thus doubling my existing vocabulary (ni-hao-"hello") in anticipation of May tour to the Mainland.

And Peter Carberry (box) and his daughter Angelina (banjo) play like angel: great sanity there too. As Cooley said "it's music that brings people to their senses, I think." Certainly has done for me.

Shé-shé.
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Now playing: Peter Carberry, Angelina Carberry, John Blake - Jack Coughlan's