I got my fan club package. The picture was SIGNED. The t-shirt fits and I love the letter. It is almost as if he wrote the first paragraph in didi's voice, then switched to his voice to write the rest while gently chiding us about our insatiable need to know everything about him. To me, his love and appreciation for his fans came through loud and clear.

On Sunday, my oldest daughter and I are taking a "dry run" out to the airport so I know exactly where to go and what to do. This way on the morning my sister and I fly to Toronto, the only panic I will have is to get there on time and the actual flight itself. I use to fly a couple of times a year to visit my husband when he was working in the States, but I haven't flown in a few (many) years now and haven't flown since 9/11 so I haven't experienced the heightened security, etc. at our airports. This is why I decided to do the dry run. I don't want any surprises because I will need every bit of my stamina just to fly.

I guess you can tell I am not exactly the most relaxed flyer. In fact, the only reason the plane gets in the air or lands is because I do am doing it mentally and physically. It ain't (™CHA) easy to lift a plane by the armrests of the plane seat. It also isn't easy to land a plane by making myself lighter to make sure it doesn't thump down, blow a tire and careen into the plane in the next runway. All of these things have to be done.

When I was flying often enough that I couldn't tolerate the panic all the time, I would take a couple of Gravol about 20 minutes before the plane took off. By the time we were down the runway for liftoff, I was asleep. Best way to get in the air. Then I only had to land the plane. The best flight ever was the First Class trip to England with my oldest daughter. It took over 18 hours because we had to fly Delta as that was the airline my husband had accumulated all the airmiles with and Delta didn't fly direct from Calgary to London. We took the scenic route - Calgary to Salt Lake City to Altanta to London. Altanta was the worst airport to get around in because we had to take the underground train to the International terminal. That isn't easy when no one would help us so we had to just hope like hell we could keep finding the signs to direct us. Thank heavens my daughter is unflappable and can read faster than we could walk so she was always able to keep us moving in the right direction. We got to the right gate but they wouldn't open the First Class lounge for us to wait in as we were the only ones there for First Class. Just before take-off, a couple of other people were seated in First Class as well. I love those big recliners in that section. We don't have any airmiles so Coach is the way to Toronto. Do they even call it Coach anymore?

Is it August yet?