Last Sunday I celebrated my birthday with my family in California. This is the second row in a year that I’ve decided to indulge myself for my birthday, so I flew to San Francisco a week ago on my way to the Burbank airport, which is only 15 minutes away from my son’s home. Alas, when I arrived in San Francisco, I got a text message from United Air Lines saying that my connecting flight to Burbank (and all West Coast flights) were cancelled due to a computer outage with its partner Skywest.

Alas, I was one of the those gullible passengers who decided to gate-check my bag after hearing the agents beg and plead for people to give up their luggage to free up more space in the overhead bins.

When I talked to an agent over the phone, there were unfortunately no more United flights to Burbank that day. Neither were there any available flights with American Airlines, Delta, or Alaska Airlines, so I took the last remaining seat to Los Angeles on United. My bag, though, remained in San Francisco and was finally delivered to me more than 24 hours after my arrival. Of course, I had to go out and buy extra clothes, and my sister loaned me some pajamas and toiletries to get through the night.

I was worried about not taking my medications which I had unfortunately packed in my checked bag, and although I called the local CVS pharmacy to transfer my prescriptions, I had refilled them too recently. Thanks to all those who sent in the suggestion about calling CVS, though!

Last week in my Spanish class, we were asked what kinds of activities we do with our families. I said that when I get together with my sisters, we play music. My sister Margo has two grand pianos in her living room and in the past we’ve played music for two pianos. However, this trip, we read through some music for one piano four hands.

In December, my sister Doris will also be joining us when we gather in California, and Margo has already sent out scores of music for piano six hands!

We spent a day at the Los Angeles Zoo where they had trick-or-treat stations for the kids.

I arrived last night in El Paso, Texas, after spending a 2-1/2 hour layover in Denver and was happy to greet Ben and Jieun Kim Newland, with whom I will stay through the weekend.