Greetings from New England
I am writing this from my sister's place in Boston. We're chillin' here for a couple of days before going to CT for the sister-in-law's wedding. As is everything else in my life, the journey here was not without considerable adventure.
It began the morning before we left. Tery had to bring Pepita, our orange-winged Amazon (and a creature I'm starting to suspect she loves more than me) to board at the hospital. Tery had spent the previous night assembling her box of toys (including a CD she had me burn for the bird, I'm not kidding) as well as daily portions of her food that include just about every fruit, nut and vegetable known to man. She went out the door this morning and I prepared for one last workout, my final push to lose 20 pounds before the trip... except I noticed the toy box still sitting in the kitchen. In slow motion I ran to the balcony, in time to see the rear end of her car pulling away. "Nooooooooooo..." I thought but of course didn't say, as it's not as funny when you're alone. Barely stopping to think, I threw on some clothes and ran to my car. My first plan was to catch up with her on the highway, flag her down, pass it on, be on my way. She drives like a grandmother even when she isn't transporting live animals. I envisioned darting daringly in and out of lanes to find her, when in reality I immediately got bogged down in stop-and-go traffic with so many damn SUVs around me I wouldn't have known if she were only three cars ahead of me. It occurred to me that right about now a cellphone would really, really come in handy. I worried that she would notice the box missing and double back. I eventually decided she must have taken an alternate route to avoid the mess I was now in. The truth was actually neither; she had stopped for gas and was BEHIND me the entire time. By the time I gave up looking for her I realized I might as well just go all the way to the hospital myself. I beat her there, and boy was she surprised to see me. But I was the hero of the day!
After getting that sorted out, we got to the airport in plenty of time. The woman at the security point took our boarding passes and stamped them briskly, then immediately got a little bit of an attitude because "we" gave her the wrong ones, the passes for our connecting flight. Sorry, lady, we've only had the things for about 5 minutes, not enough time to memorize which was which just yet. Related to this or not, we got selected for the super-special strip search at the security checkpoint. (No one's going to accuse DIA of racial profiling, nosiree!) Okay, so it wasn't a STRIP search, but we did get the full pat down and rifling through of the carry-ons. Which made me a tad nervous, with my CD case being chock full of MST and Buffy DVD bootlegs (well, the Buffys are Asian discs whose true origin is shrouded in mystery). But thank goodness this particular crime is apparently out of DIA security's jurisdiction. We passed the search and cheerfully thanked them for their thoroughness, but only because we were two hours early for our flight so could afford to be delayed.
We reached the concourse with plenty of time to spare, and able to relax for the first time and savor the feeling of being on vacation. Tery and I haven't taken a real vacation together in 9 years, thanks to living on a farm involving intricate rules of animal care that we previously couldn't really trust to anyone else. We basked in the glow of each other's company for exactly the time it took to find the gate, then Tery took off for the bar lounge and I hung out to read my new David Sedaris book. Yep, taking vacation together is nothing short of glorious!
I enjoyed the solitude of my location, that is until other people started showing up and clustering around me, every last one of them armed with a cellphone that had to be used the second their ass touched the chair to provide their loved one(s) with a breaking update of their progress thus far. Where has the silence gone? Are there really people sitting around somewhere waiting to hear, "Hi, it's me. Yeah, I'm in the airport now. Nope, just waiting for them to start boarding. Okay, talk to you later." Like in 7 minutes after I've gone to take a piss or something equally interesting happens to me. These people should get LJ's or something.
The first leg of our flight was fairly uneventful. For once we actually didn't have a toddler or infant either behind or in front of us. It was very nice. My only complaint would have to be the lack of amenities the passengers suffer from all the airline cutbacks. More specifically, if I haven't eaten since breakfast because I was too busy running a box of stupid bird toys halfway across town, Delta's little packet of 7 animal crackers really, really is no kind of substitute for a meal, even though the meals they used to serve were hardly anything to write home about either. By the time we landed in Atlanta to make our connection I was positively unbearable. No one knows me for very long without learning that my immediate reaction to a drop in blood sugar is blind, unfathomable rage (although some might argue that that's my reaction to everything. I concede that this might be true). The only two cures for this condition are either a.) feed me something, anything, but do it quick, or b.) let the starvation continue until I'm too weak to outwardly express my fury. Unfortunately we hit Atlanta too early for "b" to be an option, so Tery had to run to keep up as I stormed through the terminal. It didn't help that we arrived at Concourse E but had to depart from Concourse B...does any kind of logic at all go into connecting flights? I thought not. What also didn't help was the oppressive humidity that immediately seeped into our very being the minute we stepped off the plane. Ugh.
We only had an hour, actually less since they close the door 15 minutes before departure sometimes. No offense to people who live in Georgia, but things move a little slower there. Other passengers. ATM machines. Food service personnel. I thought my blood, highly pressurized and undiluted with any trace of glucose, would pop my head right off my shoulders. We got to Concourse B, which miraculously featured a food court right at the top of the escalator. We hightailed it to the first familiar kiosk, Popeye's. Not wanting to spend $30 on fast food, we decided to split a combo meal. We went to pay and salvation was near, but the two girls working the register inexplicably got into a debate about whether we were buying one meal or two. I had paid and was only waiting for my change, a $10 bill that the girl waved back and forth in front of her face languidly while determining if I should get it or not. I saw all this through a blood-red haze and I'm certain she has no idea how close she came to having all her fingers bitten off. Fortunately for her she made the right decision. I'm sure I resembled some kind of wild animal devouring that delicious, greasy chicken breast, but I was beyond caring.
We got on the plane and found we were seated in the exit row...another flying first for me. We half joked, half took it seriously as Tery studied the instruction card. I was reminded of and couldn't resist quoting Fight Club. "Calm as Hindu cows," I said of the pictures of placid passengers supposdly engaging in emergency evacuation procedures. A flight attendant came up to all of us in the exit row to make sure we understood our added responsibility and were okay with performing our duty should it be necessary. Our side of the aisle was solid, but on the opposite side sat a large, mannish woman who made me look like freakin' Christina Aguilera by comparison. She wasn't shy to admit that she preferred to sit elsewhere, however, she also refused to be separated from her daughter (14 or so). It was a full flight, but the attendant eventually returned with the offer of two other seats, but not right next to each other. The wo/man refused so the attendant insisted s/he begin looking over the instructions. S/he opened the leaflet, took one look at the illustrations without words and exclaimed disgustedly, "Oh, what's THIS crap??" thinking the attendant had disappeared. Unfortunately she hadn't, and clearly had taken her last dose of shit from a passenger long before this wo/man showed up. She came back a minute later and said point blank, "I would feel much better if you didn't sit in this row, ma'am. This isn't 'crap,' it's actually extremely important." The wo/man tried to explain herself but the attendant was done with his/her ass. S/he was summarily moved, I don't know where his/her daughter ended up (though had I been her, I would have been happier sitting as far from him/her as could be managed after that little scene). Tery and I buried our noses in our own leaflets, determined to be seen taking it as seriously as possible.
The peculiar thing about the exit row was that it was lacking tray tables on the backs of the seats in front of us. I said I would gladly trade the extra 2 inches of leg room for that tray. We thought it was because in the event of a crash they didn't want the key exit row team distracted with returning them to their upright positions, however halfway through the flight we noticed there WERE tables, the old retractable kind that are buried in the armrest when not in use. These puppies required about 5 minutes of intense concentration to operate and re-stow, and that was without screaming soon-to-be crash victims surrounding us or flames shooting into our faces or flying debris. How on earth is THIS a better idea than the simple back-of-the-seat model?
We arrived in Boston okay, obviously. It's fabulous being at sea level again. I feel like I can run a marathon. Oh, and iMacs (or at least my sister's iMac) really, really suck. That's it for day one. TTFN
It began the morning before we left. Tery had to bring Pepita, our orange-winged Amazon (and a creature I'm starting to suspect she loves more than me) to board at the hospital. Tery had spent the previous night assembling her box of toys (including a CD she had me burn for the bird, I'm not kidding) as well as daily portions of her food that include just about every fruit, nut and vegetable known to man. She went out the door this morning and I prepared for one last workout, my final push to lose 20 pounds before the trip... except I noticed the toy box still sitting in the kitchen. In slow motion I ran to the balcony, in time to see the rear end of her car pulling away. "Nooooooooooo..." I thought but of course didn't say, as it's not as funny when you're alone. Barely stopping to think, I threw on some clothes and ran to my car. My first plan was to catch up with her on the highway, flag her down, pass it on, be on my way. She drives like a grandmother even when she isn't transporting live animals. I envisioned darting daringly in and out of lanes to find her, when in reality I immediately got bogged down in stop-and-go traffic with so many damn SUVs around me I wouldn't have known if she were only three cars ahead of me. It occurred to me that right about now a cellphone would really, really come in handy. I worried that she would notice the box missing and double back. I eventually decided she must have taken an alternate route to avoid the mess I was now in. The truth was actually neither; she had stopped for gas and was BEHIND me the entire time. By the time I gave up looking for her I realized I might as well just go all the way to the hospital myself. I beat her there, and boy was she surprised to see me. But I was the hero of the day!
After getting that sorted out, we got to the airport in plenty of time. The woman at the security point took our boarding passes and stamped them briskly, then immediately got a little bit of an attitude because "we" gave her the wrong ones, the passes for our connecting flight. Sorry, lady, we've only had the things for about 5 minutes, not enough time to memorize which was which just yet. Related to this or not, we got selected for the super-special strip search at the security checkpoint. (No one's going to accuse DIA of racial profiling, nosiree!) Okay, so it wasn't a STRIP search, but we did get the full pat down and rifling through of the carry-ons. Which made me a tad nervous, with my CD case being chock full of MST and Buffy DVD bootlegs (well, the Buffys are Asian discs whose true origin is shrouded in mystery). But thank goodness this particular crime is apparently out of DIA security's jurisdiction. We passed the search and cheerfully thanked them for their thoroughness, but only because we were two hours early for our flight so could afford to be delayed.
We reached the concourse with plenty of time to spare, and able to relax for the first time and savor the feeling of being on vacation. Tery and I haven't taken a real vacation together in 9 years, thanks to living on a farm involving intricate rules of animal care that we previously couldn't really trust to anyone else. We basked in the glow of each other's company for exactly the time it took to find the gate, then Tery took off for the bar lounge and I hung out to read my new David Sedaris book. Yep, taking vacation together is nothing short of glorious!
I enjoyed the solitude of my location, that is until other people started showing up and clustering around me, every last one of them armed with a cellphone that had to be used the second their ass touched the chair to provide their loved one(s) with a breaking update of their progress thus far. Where has the silence gone? Are there really people sitting around somewhere waiting to hear, "Hi, it's me. Yeah, I'm in the airport now. Nope, just waiting for them to start boarding. Okay, talk to you later." Like in 7 minutes after I've gone to take a piss or something equally interesting happens to me. These people should get LJ's or something.
The first leg of our flight was fairly uneventful. For once we actually didn't have a toddler or infant either behind or in front of us. It was very nice. My only complaint would have to be the lack of amenities the passengers suffer from all the airline cutbacks. More specifically, if I haven't eaten since breakfast because I was too busy running a box of stupid bird toys halfway across town, Delta's little packet of 7 animal crackers really, really is no kind of substitute for a meal, even though the meals they used to serve were hardly anything to write home about either. By the time we landed in Atlanta to make our connection I was positively unbearable. No one knows me for very long without learning that my immediate reaction to a drop in blood sugar is blind, unfathomable rage (although some might argue that that's my reaction to everything. I concede that this might be true). The only two cures for this condition are either a.) feed me something, anything, but do it quick, or b.) let the starvation continue until I'm too weak to outwardly express my fury. Unfortunately we hit Atlanta too early for "b" to be an option, so Tery had to run to keep up as I stormed through the terminal. It didn't help that we arrived at Concourse E but had to depart from Concourse B...does any kind of logic at all go into connecting flights? I thought not. What also didn't help was the oppressive humidity that immediately seeped into our very being the minute we stepped off the plane. Ugh.
We only had an hour, actually less since they close the door 15 minutes before departure sometimes. No offense to people who live in Georgia, but things move a little slower there. Other passengers. ATM machines. Food service personnel. I thought my blood, highly pressurized and undiluted with any trace of glucose, would pop my head right off my shoulders. We got to Concourse B, which miraculously featured a food court right at the top of the escalator. We hightailed it to the first familiar kiosk, Popeye's. Not wanting to spend $30 on fast food, we decided to split a combo meal. We went to pay and salvation was near, but the two girls working the register inexplicably got into a debate about whether we were buying one meal or two. I had paid and was only waiting for my change, a $10 bill that the girl waved back and forth in front of her face languidly while determining if I should get it or not. I saw all this through a blood-red haze and I'm certain she has no idea how close she came to having all her fingers bitten off. Fortunately for her she made the right decision. I'm sure I resembled some kind of wild animal devouring that delicious, greasy chicken breast, but I was beyond caring.
We got on the plane and found we were seated in the exit row...another flying first for me. We half joked, half took it seriously as Tery studied the instruction card. I was reminded of and couldn't resist quoting Fight Club. "Calm as Hindu cows," I said of the pictures of placid passengers supposdly engaging in emergency evacuation procedures. A flight attendant came up to all of us in the exit row to make sure we understood our added responsibility and were okay with performing our duty should it be necessary. Our side of the aisle was solid, but on the opposite side sat a large, mannish woman who made me look like freakin' Christina Aguilera by comparison. She wasn't shy to admit that she preferred to sit elsewhere, however, she also refused to be separated from her daughter (14 or so). It was a full flight, but the attendant eventually returned with the offer of two other seats, but not right next to each other. The wo/man refused so the attendant insisted s/he begin looking over the instructions. S/he opened the leaflet, took one look at the illustrations without words and exclaimed disgustedly, "Oh, what's THIS crap??" thinking the attendant had disappeared. Unfortunately she hadn't, and clearly had taken her last dose of shit from a passenger long before this wo/man showed up. She came back a minute later and said point blank, "I would feel much better if you didn't sit in this row, ma'am. This isn't 'crap,' it's actually extremely important." The wo/man tried to explain herself but the attendant was done with his/her ass. S/he was summarily moved, I don't know where his/her daughter ended up (though had I been her, I would have been happier sitting as far from him/her as could be managed after that little scene). Tery and I buried our noses in our own leaflets, determined to be seen taking it as seriously as possible.
The peculiar thing about the exit row was that it was lacking tray tables on the backs of the seats in front of us. I said I would gladly trade the extra 2 inches of leg room for that tray. We thought it was because in the event of a crash they didn't want the key exit row team distracted with returning them to their upright positions, however halfway through the flight we noticed there WERE tables, the old retractable kind that are buried in the armrest when not in use. These puppies required about 5 minutes of intense concentration to operate and re-stow, and that was without screaming soon-to-be crash victims surrounding us or flames shooting into our faces or flying debris. How on earth is THIS a better idea than the simple back-of-the-seat model?
We arrived in Boston okay, obviously. It's fabulous being at sea level again. I feel like I can run a marathon. Oh, and iMacs (or at least my sister's iMac) really, really suck. That's it for day one. TTFN