The Best Flight I Never Took

What a week and half this has been! When I wrote last I was preparing to head out to Louisville, KY to present at the National Association of Case Management Conference. My flights to Louisville were essentially uneventful, although I did fly Portland-Washington-Louisville on NorthWest, instead of my scheduled flight which was to take me through Detroit. I was only about an hour past my scheduled arrival time, and overall it was a good flight. The hotel in Louisville was awesome. The conference was at the Seelbach Hilton right in the downtown area, within walking distance of the Louisville Slugger factory and museum, and the Muhammad Ali Center, both worth the walk. The Hotel was built in 1905, and is very historic and pretty. The city of Louisville was clean and everyone I met was welcoming, friendly, and gracious. I always get rejuvenated professionally when I attend this conference, and learn about all the different ways that people are doing the targeted case management services in different parts of the country. One program that I was talking to some casemanagers about was a team delivered case management where three case managers work together to cover 75 kids. Two case managers have responsibilities for 30 and the other works with 15 and provides clinical oversight to the other two. Not exactly sure how it works, but the people I was talking to really liked working in this team model. Overall, it was a great trip....until it was time to come home.

Back on Continental, I was scheduled to come through Newark. The flight out left on time, and was only slightly delayed, circling around Newark. I was supposed to head out of Newark at 9:30, and that flight was delayed to 11:30. At 11:15 the flight was cancelled, with the next flight offered for 9:30 the following night, on Thursday. That was totally unacceptable to me, knowing that it is only a 5-6 hour drive home from Newark. I was willing to rent a car, but a nice man from Yarmouth offered to rent the car if I was willing to help with the driving. Joining us on this adventure was Danielle, a recent Colby graduate, heading back to Waterville for a Friday interview for a Fulbright Scholarship. We had an uneventful and friendly trip back to Maine, ending with breakfast at Sean's home in Yarmouth with his wife who was very surprised, and his three kids who were thrilled to see him, and confused about who we were, and why we were at the house for breakfast!

I got back to my house in Brunswick at about 7:30 from a ride from Danielle's friend, Tom, who came down from Waterville to take her back there. Since I was pretty awake still from a night of serious coffee drinking, I showered and went into work for about 2 hours and then came home to sleep. Later that same day in the afternoon, I heard that I was not selected to keep my job, and my last day at work will be 10/19. At that point I did have a meltdown, fueled by a nice bottle of w(h)ine. I wish that I had news from the Peace Corps to temper my anxiety about being unemployed, but whatever happens is meant to be. I will do the seasonal work at LLBean until the holidays have past, and then make some decisions about where to go and what to do next. Tomorrow I am going to call PC to check on the status of that application, as it is feeling a little more critical to have that information. In any event, I will keep posting, so you all can keep track of my little adventures.