Back home again

I made it back from Oklahoma... barely. Yet another adventure at the airport. I arrived plenty early and checked in at the front counter. I noticed a new departing time, which was 30 minutes later than the original departure. The American Airlines attendant told me it was due to a mechanical problem, and was currently being worked on. No problem, since I had almost an hour and a half layover in Dallas anyway. I decided to sit in the lounge before going through security because I had an open water bottle and didn't want to waste it. So I sat down, sipped on my Dasani, and watched the big screen in front of me display all the flight times. As time went on, the screen continued to update and then I saw it... the flight was now delayed by 45 minutes... an hour, and finally an hour and a half. Great! Now I'll miss my connection flight. I have to work tomorrow, so that's not good. I decide to ditch the last remnants of the water bottle and crawl my way through security. I arrived at my gate to find a lot of passengers waiting angrily with no attendants manning the counter. So, I sat down and twirled my thumbs as the original departure time came and went.

Finally, two overly polite ladies arrived at the desk and announced the obvious... that our flight had been delayed. They went on to say the aircraft was not able to be fixed, so another plane was flying in from Dallas to pick us all up. At this point, one of the ladies listed about 30 connections, instructing us to come up to the counter if we were on one of these connecting flights. Of course, over half the people got in line for their new itineraries. Lucky for me, I would now be flying on Frontier airlines, and only had to walk four gates down, where my new flight was boarding rather soon. When I checked in at the Frontier gate to get my seat assignments, they gave me 3A for the first flight to Denver, and 1A from Denver to Seattle. Sweet! I was flying first class!

Not so fast. Apparently Frontier does not have first class. They believe in the philosophy that every plane should have one class... and that would be coach. For the next five hours, I stared at a tiny television screen in front of me, displaying the same adds over and over again. DirecTV in the sky, for only $8. "Just swipe your credit card and your life could be so much better. You could be watching so many wonderful things and not bored out of your skull." I have to confess, if it was Saturday, Sunday, or Monday night, I would have gladly shelled out the cash to watch some football. Sadly, it was Tuesday, and there is nothing on tv on Tuesday. So I sat in my midget chair, twirled my thumbs some more, and stared at the flashing screen.

Enough of the trip home. The week visiting my sister was great! I spent lots of time with her, Johny, Calvin and Maya. Anna was so exhausted, and Maya is not helping in that department, as she does not like to sleep. I firmly believe she is training early to be a doctor. Unfortunately, Anna and Calvin came down with some virus and were not feeling well. I think even Johny got it after I had left. I was so happy to be able to help out in a time of need. Cleaning up, cooking, shopping, playing with Calvin, holding Maya, chatting with Anna and Johny in the evenings. It was all so much fun and I really felt blessed being able to help out where I could. Johny even showed me some pictures of construction jobs he has worked on. They all looked beautiful and it is obvious he does excellent work. One day I'm going to steal him away from my sister to work on something for me. LOL!

I slept in Calvin's room during my stay. Obviously he is not used to anyone sleeping in his room. Each night as I would quietly make my way into bed, Calvin would start to rustle around in bed, see me moving around, and then stand up in his crib. He would cry out, "Hold? Hold?". So I would pick him up and hold him for a little bit, and then put him back in bed and tell him it was sleepy time. After telling Anna about this, I guess I'm just supposed to tell him to go back to bed. So, I used that strategy for the last few nights I was there.

I did take lots of pictures while I was there. I've picked a few of my favorites and will post them below.

Calvin loves his storybooks...

Too cute!

Taking a ride in his new Tonka truck

Listen to that engine roar!

Having a grand ol' time...

Calvin loved helping out in the kitchen...

A Day in my Crazy Brain

Biggest understatement of the year: Last night was weird. I have no idea what got into me. It may have been the mixture of macaroni & cheese with blackberry cobbler topped with vanilla bean ice cream floating around in my stomach. I’m really not sure if lots of cheese mixed with lots of sugar would create the chemical imbalance in my body necessary to evoke such an interesting evening. I was wired! I couldn’t sleep at all… well, that it is until my body collapsed into a state of comatose somewhere between 3:30 and 4 in the morning.

Perhaps it was the stunning victory I pulled off after dinner on Tiger Woods golf. After forcing a playoff on the final hole of a tournament that has more than doubled the amount of gray hairs on my head, I was victorious after a birdie put on the first playoff hole. I danced around, pumped my fist, fell to my knees and yelled at the top of my lungs. Well, on the inside I was yelling at the top of my lungs. I couldn’t be loud, for there were people trying to sleep. All right, it was time to calm down because I had to get some sleep. Brush the teeth. Wash the face. It’s only 11:30 pm! Two nights ago I went to bed at 6:30 am. Yesterday, in my attempt to slowly work my way into a more “normal” routine, I went to bed at 3 am. But 11:30? Yes, this was too early. I tossed and turned, my heart beating a million miles a minute. I poked my feet out of the covers to cool off a bit. No luck. I chucked the blanket off… and then later the sheet flew off the bed. I even sang Christmas carols. Anything to try and fall asleep. Just a hint for those of you who find yourself tossing and turning in bed… singing Christmas carols will not help you fall asleep. But alas, during one deep moment of true inspiration, I came up with a brilliant word. You see, I was contemplating the reason for my fanatical non-sleeping behavior. It may have been the golfing, I thought. So I blamed it on the “golf endorphins”, which must be pumping through my body and keeping me from much needed sleep. Suddenly, my German accent came alive, and I stated the same excuse, but really fast. Wow! A new word! Golfendorfins. Come on, you can do it too! Use your best German accent and say it really fast. It’s the most amazing word ever. I love it! So, as you can see, it was “that kind of weird” last night.

I woke up in time for my flight. A grueling three hours after falling asleep… dragging myself into the shower. Driving to the airport. Ah, yes, the airport. It’s my favorite place in the whole wide world. I love waiting in line to check in, even after I supposedly already “checked in” online. I love paying for a baggage fee, after already paying for my plane ticket. I love walking to gate security, so I can wait in another line. I love watching the TSA worker look at my driver’s license and boarding pass and then put a beautiful little red stamp on it. I really love getting into the next line. Grabbing 15 bins so I can strip away every last bit of my dignity and throw it all onto a conveyer belt. I love taking my shoes and belt off, just so I can walk through the metal detector and make it go off. I love the looks the security guards give each other. I love how one of them will tell me to walk through it again, as if this time, magically, it won’t beep when I walk through it. I really, really love having the same guard wave his super duper trusty wand all around my body and find nothing at all. I love putting all my clothes back on, packing my carry on again, trying to find all the missing items that somehow beamed up to space while going through the conveyer belt scanner. I love walking over a mile because no matter what gate my flight is departing out of; it always seems to be the one farthest from the security entrance I went through. I love getting to my gate, looking at my watch, and realizing I still have an hour until the plane starts boarding. I really, really, really love boarding time. I love when they call my section of the plane to board, how there are hundreds of people waiting in line to board. I love realizing fifteen minutes later, none of those people were actually boarding at that time, but rather just standing around the boarding area waiting for their section to be called. I love the stale smell of airplane as you walk down the boarding ramp.

It was here, inside the boarding ramp, that I first saw it. That last section, when you can look out and see a part of the plane up close. The paint job, chipping away, looking as if it had been repainted multiple times. A really big, deep scratch about six inches wide just above the door. I could see rivets everywhere, most of them protruding from the body. For some reason I thought they were supposed to be flush with the rest of the plane. I really don’t like American Airlines. They have become the ghetto airlines alliance. GAA for short. It seems all they fly are 40 year old MD-80 planes. I made the mistake of going to the restroom during my first flight. I thought it was loud where I was sitting towards the front. Oh no! In the back, the noise is deafening! I’m surprised the environmentalists haven’t been involved in noise brutality lawsuits. Oh, I forgot, their not all that interested in human suffering. But I’m sure if we put some crickets in the back of those planes, they would be shut down in less than a day.

For the next few hours, I played this really awkward game with the guy sitting next to me. It’s called “Nudgy”. The rules are you can never lay your arm over the entire middle armrest. You are only allowed to occupy a maximum of 50%. The goal is to occupy the largest portion of the armrest (up to 50%) but without touching the other person’s arm. If you do happen to touch, absolutely under no circumstances do you ever make eye contact. Just grown ever so slightly, make an awkward movement in your seat and pretend like it never happened. Now slowly make your way back onto the armrest and the game goes on. I failed miserably in this game. I probably had well over 20 awkward touches during my four-hour flight. But I never made eye contact, and that was victory enough for me.

The next flight was even better. After everyone was on board, buckled in and ready to go, the pilot spoke on the intercom. Apparently one of the computers had failed and we would wait for maintenance before heading on our way. Hmmm… I’m not sure about you, but I’m not a big fan of computers crashing on my plane, especially when they are responsible for avionic controls. And why, pray tell, would a pilot ever inform his passengers of this scenario? The only plausible reason I can muster is that computers crashing on planes must be a “routine” experience for this pilot, so it’s no big deal. Welcome to American Airlines! We hope you enjoy our flight experience today… and we would like to offer you a chance to purchase life insurance before we make our departure.

Well, I bought that life insurance and lots of it. Now, let’s see… what shall I do for the last 30 minutes of my life? Duh! Play my favorite game in the whole wide world! Nudgy anyone?