Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Home Again

It's a foggy night in New York town and my flight was delayed because of it. I do miss my ocean views, but I'm glad to be home. I had a delightful man sitting next too me. I was in first class where they put a blanket and a pillow on each seat, but this aircraft had no auxiliary power unit so there was no a/c and it was hot and humid in the airplane. When he arrived, he put his stuff away and I was sitting there holding my pillow and blanket and asked him if he'd put it in the overhead for me. He joked about not thinking I needed it and then said in a very flirty way, "My dear, if you feel a chilll coming on, just tell me and I'll retrieve your blanket." 

I had ants in my pants on the flight. My one knee hurt, and I had a stitch in my side which I believe is from eating lunch before I got on the airplane and I think it's an air bubble. It seems to happen when I eat too close to flying. Of course, it's not debilitating, but being hot, sweaty, tired, feet hurt, knee hurts, wanting to come home, stitch in side... it was hard to sit still. I had work I could do, but didn't and just closed my eyes. I guess I dozed off because I was awakened to that lovely announcement of "beginning our descent..."


Of course, my gate is always at the end of the hallway.

I am still into how different the world is at airports with no more banks of payphones and charging stations instead.

At Orlando,  you take a tram to the various gate areas which you can see it the distance
 

There was a mess going on at the gate next door as I sat there waiting.  Another delayed flight where they had to change the kind of airplane... so every seat assignment had to be changed... because of the different seating configurations of the airplane. They wouldn't tell the passengers which seat they had -- told them the computer "aribitrarily assigned seats" which would have worried the hell out of me if I were on that flight that I'd be stuck in a middle seat.

I felt a bit sorry for the gate agent as he was trying to only board people in "zone 1" and people weren't paying attention and trying to board... and he repeated the zone 1 only three times, but what was interesting in that he just repeated in flat out, no frustration, no scolding and I guess that's just as good as any other way.



Back in NY, waiting for my bag. I arrived in Delta's other terminal and I didn't know the way. I exited the jetway and about 20 steps in front of me was an escalator so I tried that, thinking baggage claim would be on the ground floor. At the bottom of the escalator, I wasn't sure I was on the right path and then my bladder tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Stop ignoring me" and one second later I'm standing there immobile, afraid to move forward. That subsided, and lucky, lucky me, literally a few steps further and there was a restroom. Wow. Kept going and ended up at the exact haggage claim area -- #5 so this was about as easy as it gets. Then to a cab, then home.



One fear I had is that the glue trap I left out would have a permanent occupant that might have died on Sunday and had three days to stink up the place. In fact, I had a dream this morning that the trap was empty and I was relieved to know that in my dream. So when I got to my front door, I started sniffing... unlocked the door, and sniffed the air... didn't smell anything and sure enough it was empty with no droppings around the garbage can (which, of course, was totally empty). I don't know if I would have had the energy to dispose of a dead, stinky mouse.

So I'm glad to be home!

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