We're really leaving for Japan! Almost definitely!

We have plane tickets to Japan! Sort of!

Come on, Lori, either you have tickets or you don't. Which is it?

Ok, we don't have tickets. But we do have reservations. They just haven't been funded yet, so they aren't ticketed, so we can't change the government-funded tickets to Okinawa to take us to Korea instead so we can begin our leave en route, aka vacation in which the government has paid for the big part of the plane ticket and we may as well pay to change it to go somewhere cool since we're already in Asia and Raj has time off.

We did have reservations once before, yes. They were for this morning. But the letter that officially declared me cleared to come to Okinawa couldn't be sent here through some military message system because it was broken. So despite all parties knowing that I was cleared, no letter transmitted through the proper channel meant no flying to Japan. So the tickets for today were canceled. And we waited some more. Three nights in a row, they told Raj that the letter would be released "today, tomorrow at the latest". Last night, I knew they'd said it again when I heard Raj say, "Ok, but you told me that two days ago and I was supposed to fly out seven hours from now."

The letter finally came through around midnight. The guy in Raj's command emailed the transportation person about reserving us some flights. Fortunately, we happened to be in the transportation building this afternoon and stopped by to ask about it. Oh, that lady wasn't in. We could check tomorrow. Which was just about to drive me over the edge because in this process, TOMORROW NEVER COMES.

Or we could talk to her supervisor. Well, that wonderful man went ahead and made us real, actual reservations on the spot that we really ought to be able to use since I'm cleared and everything.

Assuming that somebody tickets our tickets. And then we can A) change those tickets to go to Korea, B) alert the friends in Korea that we really actually are coming to visit them, C) plan the trip to Burma that occurs mid-Korea visit, and D) buy snacks for the plane. Because seriously, we are flying from Washington Dulles straight to Tokyo and are being served lunch. That's all. I don't know about you, but over a period of 13 hours, I usually like to eat more than a light lunch. While we both intend to take an Ambien and sleep through as much of the flight as possible, we also both want me to not spend the awake portion of the flight being hangry.

Of course, I'll believe we're really leaving once we have actual tickets. Tomorrow at the latest.