Well, it’s been a year and a few days since she died and today, Jan. 4, her birthday, started off well enough, with a goal and a new commitment to the writing thing. One of the things I have learned over the years is that blather counts. And on that subject I have much to say.
The holidays were a bit more eventful than I had hoped for. The 24th and 25th were pleasant and quiet. It wasn’t until the 26th that things went south or not, given the relationship between where we were and JKF airport, since the flight was canceled.
Snow Days! Yea!!! Except we have lives to get to and no way to get there. We spent Monday and Tuesday at Donna’s house, which was more fun and interesting than one would imagine. Monday involved digging out the driveway and digging a trench around the house to get to various basement doors that are otherwise buried in snow. For the Southern and Northern California brigade, this was a lot of fun, since we did it exactly one day and would likely never have to do it again in our lives. All in all, digging out a car so it can get to the street as far as I can tell is a good way to keep in shape over the winter. By the time I dug my way to the second garage door, to the room Donna never used. I was yelled at by my companions who just wanted to go inside and get warm, even though we didn’t know how to light the fire or turn up the thermostat, which is why we went outside to dig in the snow in the first place. Keeps you warm don’t you know. Anyway, no sooner can you say, the guests are arriving, Donna thanks me because the room that is never used happened to contain the chairs the guests needed to park their butts.
Tuesday involved people mostly complaining how sore they felt. I was basically okay, my legs were tired, having moved a couple of tons of snow the day before. Not much of an exaggeration.
We were able to get tickets for the our return flight on Wednesday, using the power of Skype. Donna’s phone is a hard-wired, no speaker hold to your ear affair, just perfect for holding onto hold for a few hours waiting for a service rep.
I turned on my computer, using Skype, dialed the 1 800 number for American Airlines and played their inspiring hold music in the living room next to the fire. Nice. However, what we couldn’t do was confirm we did indeed have seats on the flight and the airplane showed only one available.
So the decision was made to drive down on Tuesday, spend the night in a hotel close to the airport, get our boarding pass, go to sleep and get on the plane bright and early 7 am Wednesday morning. Lynda’s idea was to drive from Connecticut around 3 am, when the roads are nice and icy. Doctors is smart and sometimes vetoed.
So we drove into downtown Manhattan’s theater district, really, with two of Donna’s friends who were very cool and met up with Ashanti, a New Yorker, so they could get to the theater that night. Donna, was digging out from the disasters of snow elsewhere, smashed into a snow-bank, but came out of it more or less okay, and did indeed make it to the theater.
Then Lynda and me drove across town, which took an hour or so, impressive when you consider we are talking a mile and a half and headed out to the airport. The plan was for me to drop Lynda first at the airport, then drop the car and check into the hotel and wait in line with her if need be. She was on-line by 8. I was guessing a couple of hours to get our boarding passes and away we go in the morning. Every now and then you have to step back and think, 4,000+ flights canceled, maybe this is important, maybe this means something.
By the time I dropped the car, Lynda called to say the line wasn’t going anywhere. By the time I got there it continued to have not gone anywhere. So we stood and waited, and waited.
Eventually we started talking to the people behind us, two Brits and one Yank, all coming from Haiti. The American was heading to San Francisco. Eventually, we sat on the boarding baskets, the reservation agents were passing out. At 1:30 they officially closed the line, but the people still on it refused to leave and two of the agents continued to soldier on.
So we talked and it turned out that Haiti is something of a disaster, but a surprisingly peaceful one that is slowly rebuilding itself. The three relief workers were an interesting cross-section, a security force member, a nurse, and a systems builder. All in fine form. The refugee atmosphere of the airport didn’t seem to bother them.
By the time we got to the front of the line it was 3 am and we did indeed have tickets. By this time, there were several hundred people in the un-opened line behind us. Lynda stayed, I went back to the hotel to check out. By 4:30 am, the time we would have, rolled in, there were several thousand people in line and more pouring in all the time. The people sleeping on cots and the floor were starting to get up and stumbling on to the still dark morning.
We found a sky-cab who could not believe we actually had tickets despite holding them in his hand. He took out tickets credit cards and IDs, told us to wait where we were and wandered off. Eventually he came back shaking his head, not quite believing they were real.
We wandered through security and waited for our flight. Our San Francisco American Nurse, came in behind us with Standby status for our flight.
“The flight is full,” he said, “but looking at that line, someone’s not getting through and I’m taking their seat. I shouldn’t feel that way about it, but I do.”
He was tweaking a bit, then it occurred to me, three months on the front lines of a Haiti camp might be enough to get anyone talking to themselves.
The luggage did not make the flight and rolled in the next day.
Anyway, all in all a quiet trip and the end of a year of mourning.
Love Gavin,
Sweat Dreams.
