Dearest Sister Lauren,

hopefully you got my down-trodden voicemail emploring you to abort the plan to "rendezvous aux JFK demain." aren't you glad i didn't leave it in french?

the funny thing isn't that i left my home continent already burned once and knee deep in speculation over VARIG's bankruptcy and hopped on a plane to brazil knowing full well of the sketchy nature of said airline (remember the craziness of Steve and I leaving in june?)- but that this is actually THE THIRD TIME i've tried flying direct from sao paulo to nyc, and its also the third time my flight has been changed around last minute.

the first time, they kindly replaced my fight with another leaving 10 minutes earlier, and compensated me for the trouble by placing me in business class. i watched john cusack dvds for the entire red eye...

the second time, they informed me of a new policy, wherein an arrival at the check-in counter 10 minutes late, as mine was, would result in my being bumped from the flight. i was informed of my right to buy back my own ticket (full price) and fly standby. otherwise, i had to catch an expensive bus back to my friends' house, since the metro had stopped running for the evening. oh right, and i had to miss my own college graduation party. remember that?

so i'm trying to find the humor this time around- i know its there somewhere- in being three for three in my fruitless attempts to flee this megacity. its simply not ready to let me go.

basically what happend is that VARIG has been weird and cancelling a whole heap o' flights (especially int'l ones). so i anticipated this and re-booked my flight 5 days earlier, since i could not afford to be shifted onto a later flight in the event of cancellation. so they put me on a united flight. then united airlines decided (suddently and without notice) to stop honoring varig passengers. SO, although the united flight wasn't actually cancelled, I couldn't fly with them unless i went and bought a ticket full price. Eight hundrend quid or some such foolishness. They send me to clear it up with VARIG. Varig's flight of the day was cancelled (surprise!), and they insist on taking my number so they can call me tomorrow in the event that they happen to schedule a flight. they dont know IF there is a flight. And if so WHEN it would be leaving. Nor when they will know such triffles of information for sure, in case i'd like to call THEM tomorrow.

so join me please in saying "grrrrrrrr!"

and with fingers crissed, and rabbits de-footed (please don't sic PETA on me. tell them about how this month is my 10 year anniversary of being vegetarian), let us hope i'll either land an air canada stand by tomorrow (they are the only airline still honoring varig customers, but they've only committed to honoring them up through tomorrow. beyond that who knows), or that VARIG-proper, charters a flight to wisk me briskly from the tropic of capricorn to beyond the tropic of cancer.

and to that end, my kindred, I do greaty appreciate you willingness to collect me from the port on Jamaica Bay.

abrações deste distança,
Stevie

ps- this is a pretty illuminating summation of my latest goings on! mind if i post it on myspace?