UPDATED*This goes out to all my people. My party plane people.

WOW. After the most hectic morning in the world yesterday, involving last-minute packing, yelling at each other, operating instructions on each child delivered to both Dave's mother and mine .... we drove down to Sydney airport to jump on a plane to New York. I spent most of the day having a pretty full-on anxiety episodes which no amount of deep breathing or chocolate could remedy.

We were the last ones on the plane .... Dave was hungry/cranky and stopped to get a sushi roll. Didn't get his wife one, I was lugging laptops, a huge bag of family packs of Tim Tams for the Australian Hilton Hotel room Tim Tam party I'm having in our room - everyon's invited! (That ok, Kateypie?) So by the time we got on the flight I was hot, sweaty, panicked, shitty.

Dave grabbed a heavy bag off my ... my flowery one. The flight stewards (male) picked on him straight away, saying ohhhhh, a tough tattooed guy not caring about carrying such a feminine bag? Dave blushed, but said "Mate! I got pink undies on too!" They all laughed and when we were in our seats I said to Dave, mate, they are gunna LOVE YOU IN AMERICA.

And we drove over the clearway, engines whirling, about to take off. I was like, hon this isn't real it's like a dream!!!! And he told me to shut up I was talking too loud, and I said YOU shutup, shutupski.

And then we drove (what's the word for a plane driving on the ground? Careening?) .... back to the airport because the air con was broken. And it got hotter and hotter, right at the back of that 747.

And we waited there, stranded on the tarmac, for four hours.

Then they said over the speakers the flight was cancelled.

Then we waited another hour and a half because customs wouldn't let us off. It was an international incident! The customer service was unfortunately pretty bad, involving miles long queues, orders barked to us through loudspeakers, herded into buses in the pouring rain. More queues to the hotel. Dave and I were laughing, delirious idiots by this stage. I was a bit pissed off, but really - nobody had cancer. Our boys were safe. We were still on holidays!

Even when we got given a disabled room with the skankiest toilet in the world. With no heating. Next to the staff quarters. I developed tonsillitis from stress.

We are, right now, back at Sydney airport to try again. I have no panic attacks today, because I don't actually believe we will fly out. It IS too good to be true! All of the Tim Tams are so crushed now - Dave was holding the bag and it ripped open and spilt all over the fricking international departure floor. Everybody cheered ... I looked up, recognising all the weary travellers from yesterday. I said, "HEY! IT'S A PLANE REUNION! HI GUYS!!"

And EVERYBODY laughed, and I was like a funny hero bringing everybody all together in that moment. The guy with the fiddley-dee potatoes Irish accent. The actor from Oregon. The Asian couple who pushed past me so many times but I forgave them .... my people. My party plane people.

PS Follow me on twitter for real-life plane fiascos.

PPS Dave is ringing me but I just published this post and half of it didn't show so I'm trying to remember what I wrote ..... ummmmm, something about Tom Hanks in that film at the airport.

OH - And I am now holding a Broken Australian Tim Tam Game in our suite this weekend at BlogHer.

PPS THE TIM TAMS ARE BROKEN, NOT ME

PPPS ACTUALLY, I AM BROKEN TOO. Maybe that's why I blog?

XO