TAKEAWAY: Some days one must improvise, something which is more difficult on Monday!
When the plan grounds you!
So I could not write the Monday blog. Unusual for me to skip what has become part of my daily rituals, like eating breaksfast and doing my run.
But, oh, it was one of those Monday Mondays, as I call days when you get ready to start the week with a plan, but the world has a different plan for you. I had spent the weekend in Luxembourg and had a very early morning flight to Amsterdam with KLM. If things went according to plan, I would have arrived in Amsterdam at 8 am, checked into the Intercontinental Amstel, do a run, relax and then change into a suit and take the train for my meeting in Rotterdam.
“Sorry to inform you that your KLM flight to Amsterdam has been cancelled, ladies and gentlemen,” said the flight manager at the gate.
As usually happens, the crowd disperses quickly, business men and women put their laptops and iPads away in their briefcases as everyone makes a dramatic dash to the ticketing counter to get rebooked, reguided, redirected…..or, in my case resigned to my fate of that day: travel by car to your destination.
As I had a 1 pm meeting in Amsterdam, I looked at my watch and it was barely 7:30 am, so I thought I could do it. As it happened, I got into the taxi, and then realized that I would have to change clothes in the backseat as we cruised around the beautiful countryside that takes one from Luxembourg across into Belgium.
With the driver playing Cuban music (“I hope you don’t mind if I play Cuban music, sir, I just had a wonderful vacation there and loved the music and the people,” he said.)
Not at all, said I, not offering any more information such as the fact that I could have sung all those songs for him word for word while I played Superman and changed into a fresh white shirt, striped suit and babyblue tie, all with the speed and dexterity that the man of steel used to do the same thing inside a cramped telephone booth, as I recall from those movies of my childhood.
All was well, I appeared at my meeting looking as if I had just been dropped by helicopter at the top of the AD building in Rotterdam, and ready for a good briefing session.
Oh, yes, then a car after that session to Amsterdam, and, alas, an evening run and early to bed, as I am now in Vienna. Thank God the KLM flight operated on time, and so
I now can catch up with the blog.