excess luggage

I took Reiner home after lunch on sunday because of course I still had to pack virtually everything. Thank goodness, Hans had come the evening before and told me not to worry, I could basically leave everything as it was, they would take care of it. THANKS!!!!
Anyway, Reiner walked around the place, talked to Tuesday, made himself useful by uninstalling phone, dsl etc and pacified my "I can't do this" wails :-S He took us to the airport, too (after we had a farewell dinner with Roelof and Hans and Ya-Ching). Right after getting there, Tuesday had go through animal quarantine. The lady was very nice, asked if it was her first flight, told her not to be nervous and wondered if I would bring her back again. And then we went to check-in. Including Tuesday (5.2kg including box), I had something like 48kg for check-in (and two more carry-on pieces with 11kg each). I went to pay for the 16kg they made me pay for, and while I was handing over my credit card, I could hear Tuesday meowing on the belt, so I dashed over to talk to her while they were securing her box with additional tape. And then, she was gone. And I was panicking. Reiner said good-bye and I started talking to Essi from Heidelberg who I had met in Eden the night after my farewell party and who happened to be on the same flight.
I was so tired after the ktv that after asking the flight attendant about adjusting the heat in the cargo for my baby, I fell asleep soon after dinner and only woke up 2.5 hours before landing. And started worrying again.
I got off the plane in Frankfurt and grabbed one of the ground staff ladies to ask on how to proceed (I think I was sort of shaking from having horror visions of a dried-out bundle of dehydrated or heart-failed Tuesday lying dead in her cage). So she got in touch with the guys in cargo, and when somebody said he'd heard something meowing, I almost broke down from relief. I called my sister-in-law, she picked me up, I had a sumptuous German breakfast in her place (rolls and sausage and cheese and jam and a whole pot of tea) and got back on the plane to Leipzig. Not without bugging ground staff again to make sure that Tuesday got on board. And not even an hour after taking off for Leipzig, I finally had my baby again. She was in need of a bath, her water bottle was drained and her meows had gotten quite a bit more quiet. But she was fine :-))) We took her home, let her out of the cage, and she immediately started exploring her new home. Including the bottom of the big old tiled oven. She came out so black, I immediately put her in the sink to wash her :-S