flying

I flew Delta from LAX to Minneapolis to Hartford . Red eye special . Good arrival time for my friend to pick me up , except that I got confused on the day . The day I flew in he had a gig and had to pick me up a little later . I waited in an airport bar and had a couple of expensive airport beers ,  local Connecticut stuff .

Now I’m home again . Same flight in reverse , except that this time it wasn’t a red eye .

Three hours in Minneapolis . Coming in from L.A. , I saw snow covering the parking structures outside . On the return trip , two weeks later ,  no snow . The airport is stretched out along endless concourses . Concourses . When do you walk concourses  outside of airports ? Am I missing something ? There are moving sidewalks and a tram .  Endless concourses . Food courts . Shops .  WiFi access .

I had a few mini-bottles of Scotch in my carry-on bag . They’re allowed . My friend Willie told me that last year . He gave me a couple of them to test his statement . No problem .  I showed them to the snoops , thinking that they might confiscate them . No . Willie was right .

To order the same shot of Scotch during the flight would have cost me seven dollars , I think . Drinking one of the bottles during the flight I felt as if I were now out of the red , outsmarting Delta , pushing the envelope . The little bottles cost only 99 cents in Connecticut .  If I had had a few more mini-bottles I’d be sitting pretty , ahead of the game , actually beginning to show a profit . Well , almost   .

I once went from Berlin to London on Ryan Airlines . Ryan , if I remember correctly ,was the airline that seriously considered charging a fee to use the restroom . Nice .I would have gone broke .  I got to the Berlin Airport , Freuninggulingen ……., no Shaeuftshaffen ……. no Sheinifeld ? , Shoenefeld ? , at six in the morning . I had come from Poland by taxi that morning . Got there overly early , as is my way .

I was second in line . We were the only two customers to have arrived so early for the flight .  I had one bag to check . There were two conveyor belts moving luggage along : to London  and to  Ankara . I didn’t see the clerk put my lonely bag on the Ankara belt . I should have been watching , I guess . When I got to London I had no clothes . 10 days in England and no  clothes other than what I was wearing . I won’t tell you the whole sad story . My bag met me in London on the 10th day , having , I assume , enjoyed its own vacation in Turkey . We flew back to Berlin together , but we didn’t talk to each other the entire flight .

Another Berlin to London flight on British Airways was exciting after the pilot announced  over the scratchy PA system that he thought the landing gear was stuck . We were going to have to go in on our shiney sleek aluminum belly . The pilot’s voice was almost inaudible and he had a heavy English accent . One of the many . Dorset , maybe . Rs everywhere . Like old movie pirates :  Aarrh , matey ! Wharr yer headin’ ? Shiver me timbers !  Emarrgency vehicles aarrh be preparrhin’ fer arrh landin’  . Aarh.

The plane was full of Germans . I , a native English speaker , was barely getting what the pilot was saying . I didn’t think that many of the Germans got much of it . But , on the other hand , maybe they had learned English from the English . Good possibility that they understood a lot more than I did , now that I think of it .

When we approached Gatwick , or was it Heathrow ? , the emergency vehicles were lined up along the runway . There were plenty of them : fire trucks , ambulances , police , hearses . Well , maybe not hearses .   I had confidence in the pilot and the plane . I don’t think anyone else in the plane could say the same , judging by their panicked expressions . Those pilots , highly trained ,  could slide it in on its fusilage belly .

Buckle your seat belt ; it’s gonna be a bumpy ride . 

But the landing gear came down and we all rolled to a stop .  Anticlimatic . I’m not complaining .  Billy Bob Thornton said ,” I’m not afraid of flying . I’m afraid of crashing . ”   That about sums it up .

About these English accents :

Ada and I flew from LAX to London once and I had arranged , in advance ,a rental car from the airport . I never sleep on flights and by the time we reached the car rental desk in London I was exhausted . I couldn’t , for the life of me , understand what the English girl at the counter was telling me . It was a Friday . I thought that she was telling me that my car wouldn’t be available until Monday . She wasn’t , of course . She was trying to tell me that my car would be a Mondeo .  I was losing my temper .

” Not Monday !” I said . ” Now “

Ada had to translate . Mediate . Ada grew up in Poland .

” Tell him…” the English girl would say .

” Tell her ….” I would say .

Oh.  The car is called Mondeo. Nothing about Monday . It’s waiting for us . Oh . O.K. Why didn’t she say so ?

I don’t mind flying much . Once in awhile . It’s quick once you leave the ground .  Gets you places you might not otherwise go . Somewhat uncomfortable . Never enough leg room . And they always remind you how a seat belt works ; they show you ; give a demonstration . That comes in handy because sometimes , if you haven’t used one in a few hours , you might have forgotten .

Sometimes you should bring along an English-American dictionary , or , at least a phrase book . Several English speakers from various corners of the earth learned English English from the English . Beware .  And consider bringing  some little bottles of booze . If nothing else , it gives you a sense that you’re getting away with something .  Even if you’re not a drinker bring some  —– trade one  for a few more tiny bags of peanuts or pretzels . If you ride Ryan Air , bribe the stewardess to use the head without paying the fee . Endless possibilities . Endless.

sitting around

I am sitting out at the table on the back patio just looking at the garden . Everything seems to have been eager to bloom lately . The world seems to be falling to pieces, but the garden is doing well .

Sure , it’s a little overgrown and chaotic ; but , hey , that’s life !

There is a large bay laurel tree near the back fence . For some reason the neighbor who lives on the other side of the fence desperately wants to cut it . To ten feet , he says . Is that okay ? , he asks .

We’re on good terms . I okayed cutting the laurel . We’ve been discussing it for about a year now . I meant to do the cutting so that he wouldn’t have to , but then I broke a couple of ribs and for awhile I couldn’t do that kind of work and for another while I didn’t want to . I’m back to considering renting a saw and trimming the thing myself . On the other hand , maybe the neighbor wants to do it himself. Might give him a project to get a sense of accomplishment from . I wouldn’t want to deprive the guy of that .

Last week he brought the bay laurel up again in our over-the-fence conversation . He seemed still determined to get at the project of cutting the tree to ten feet . I don’t know why he’s so determined about my tree. It doesn’t grow onto his side of the fence . It doesn’t block any view he might otherwise have . He might see my garage better when it’s cut , and that’s about it .

Poor devil has only grass on his side . He mows it and trims the edges ; but what else does one do with grass ! So , I guess maybe he wants a project . Go for it , I say !

He’s a very nice guy ; but I suspect that maybe he’s wound a little too tight . Needs the tree to be neat . Needs the world to be neat . As it is , it’s a bit wild and it has indeed grown slapdashedly into a huge beast of unwieldy sloppiness .

The bay leaves are good in soup , though . I tried to get my neighbor to pick some to use in cooking . There are enough for an army , but I’m pretty sure he’s never taken me up on the offer . Boiled , the leaves also make a surprisingly tasty tea . Supposed to be good for you , too !

I can hear him back there , now , neatening up his trash barrels . He’d go crazy with my higgledy-piggledy garden , I suppose . He’d make it his task to neaten it all up .

Ada likes our garden , too . The roses are all hers . It’s a bit crowded and disorderly ; but , hey , that’s life !

Our backyard at one time was all grass , too ; just like the neighbor’s . Little by little Ada and I have transformed it into something else . The haphazard quality of the yard used to drive Ada crazy , too . Every once in awhile she’d desperately assign me the task of neatening it all up and making it more orderly .

I have to admit that I’m not a very orderly personality . Inside my brain you would most likely find a disorderly mess of jumbled half-thoughts and confused havoc . It’s a wonder that I have made it through life so far without some major catastrophe .

Wait a minute ! I hear the neighbor firing up some sort of electric saw over there . Maybe he’s finally getting down to making his laurel trimming dreams come true ! Good for him , I say ! If I wasn’t so relaxed today I’d offer to help , but I’m not in the mood today . I’ll just relax a bit longer and watch . Actually , as my friend William likes to say , I love work . I could watch it all day long .

No , no , I hear his lawn mower getting started . He’s going after the grass again . The tree trimming gets postponed again , it seems .

One of these days , Alice ! One of these days ! Ralph Kramden said that . Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well . Mark Twain said that .

airlines

The older I get the more of a hassle it seems to travel . Not because I’m an old geezer , but because the airlines have become so difficult . Yeah , the security is a hassle , but that’s not the issue .

I think that I used to fit in the airline seat . I’ve been the same size for a long time . The leg space has shrunk bit by bit until it is , as we all know by now , minimal . By minimal I mean that when the guy in the seat in front of me puts his seat back the little bit that it will go , his seat hits my knees ; and every so often I get one of those guys in the seat in front of me who likes to rock the seat , trying to push it back just a bit more . Those are the moments when I wish that I were a violent person . I have visions of various forms of retribution . And I have to say that usually the pusher person 1. is male , and 2. is a relatively shrimpy guy, a small dude perhaps with that old small man complex . That’s my observation .

I flew across the country on United , recently . United charges for carryon luggage . Well , you should understand that I buy the cheapest ticket available . If I had paid more then I would have been able to carry-on a bag without charge . So , of course , they’ve got your extra money one way or another . And , of course these days , when you request a particular seat they charge extra . I like to get an isle seat so I won’t have to disturb the other passengers to get out to use the restroom , or just to take a little stretch walk every so often . Have to pay extra for that , of course .

Oh , did I mention that I don’t travel first class , or even business class . That goes without having to be said , I guess . Those people up there get a bit more room , I think .

I recently came home on American Airlines from the east coast . Ada booked a non-stop flight for me . After we booked , information on the AA website informed me that the flight would stop in Chicago . I called the AA customer service phone number . The woman told me at first that it was a nonstop . Then she noticed that , yes , it would stop in Chicago on the way to LAX . I asked her how a non-stop flight can make a stop . She seemed as confused as I was . She said didn’t understand it either .

My friend in the room when I made the call was insisting loudly that I demand to talk to a supervisor . He grew up in New York City . ” You’re too nice ! ” he said when I hung up . I imagined wasting more time on the phone , so I gave up . I’ll complain in writing later , I told him .

An American Airlines ticket agent in the east told me that , no , it wasn’t a non-stop flight , it was a direct flight . Yeah , directly to Chicago . I looked up the definition of direct flight later only to discover that airlines have redefined the term for us .

Anyway , I was required to change planes in Chicago and the next flight was over an hour late . By the way , direct to the airlines means only that the flight number remains the same for the entire flight . I guess the flight can make as many stops as the airline wants , wherever it wants , and be delayed for various amounts of time , but it is still considered a direct flight .

The thing is that the American Airlines website was still listing the flight as non-stop .

I wrote a direct , concise complaint e-mail to American Airlines . I had a prompt reply within 24 hours . Oh , they want my business ! They gave me a trip credit good to use until next May . A free trip ? Gift certificates to my favorite stores ?

No . I have a $25 credit on my next AA flight , good for a year . But I won’t be using the $25 credit . I’m going to write back to expand upon my original complaint . A New Yorker would have chewed someone out on the phone several times by now , I suppose . Result would have been just about the same , I think .

I survived my flight . That’s about the best I’ll say for it . Oh , and the two small cookies that they offered in flight were tasty .

more and more picts

more random photos

some random photos

in the mountains

We have this little A-frame in the mountains . It’s a small place , but the roof is steep and high . Some of the roof shingles near the peak came loose a couple of months ago and I’ve been thinking ever since how to get it fixed . Maybe in my younger days I could have scrambled up that roof and nailed them up ; but now I’m a little beyond that . So I thought about what to do . Something had to be done before the entire roof slumped and slid down . Gravity , you know ! And wind , and rain , and snow ……….

I asked Dave , my neighbor . He didn’t know any roofers or anyone in the area who might do that kind of work . He told me to call Randy . Randy does lots of maintenance jobs in the area . Maybe Randy would do the repair ; at least he’d know someone who did that kind of work .

So I called Randy . No , he doesn’t do roofing and he doesn’t know anyone who does . No one on the mountain does it , he told me . I explained to him that the problem was the height . It’s an easy repair , but to get up to it is the problem . Randy said he could find for me a couple of roofers down the hill . He’d text me their names .

Ada and I came up to the cabin today . Nice weather . Dave’s friend Don was about to visit . Don’s got a cabin up here , too . He and Dave ride mountain bikes through the forest on Sundays . Dave has an air-conditioning company and does sheet metal work . I thought I’d ask Don if he had any suggestions for me to solve my roof problem .

” I’ve got a ladder long enough ,” he said . ” We need roofing nails , and a little caulking would help ,” he said .

” What we need is a guy young enough to go up there , ” I said .

” They wouldn’t do it ,” he said , ” They don’t want to work . I’ll go up there .” Don is seventy .

So he did . I , luckily , had the right nails and a hammer . I even had , as it turned out , a long enough ladder . Dave had the caulking . Don climbed up the ladder and did a masterful repair job . He mentioned that it wasn’t perfect . Three or four of the nail heads showed . He couldn’t hide them under the shingle flaps . I don’t care . To me it was perfect . Saved me a lot of anguish .

Best of all , no one got hurt . No hammer fell on anyone’s head . The ladder didn’t slip . Don didn’t fall from the ladder .

We , Don and Dave and I , shared a couple of beers later and had a pleasant conversation about life , and bears , and rattlesnakes , and Arizona , and airplanes . Ada joined us until the sun began to fade . Don said that he had to leave , that he hadn’t seen his cabin in two or three months . He had just stopped by to say hello to Dave .

I thanked him for the work . It saved me a lot of worry . It saved me a lot of money . Don brushed it off , said that’s what friends are for . ” We all look out for one another ,” he said .

That’s what I like about our little getaway up here on the mountain. Lots of people around here seem to have that attitude . It’s refreshing .

revenant

I had an article from , I think , the New York Times sitting in my computer waiting for me to read it. Today , finally , I did .

It seems a skeleton of a young person was found with a padlock around an ankle . Ah , this is considered to be the bones of a revenant dating back to somewhere , I think , in Medieval times . In Europe.

A revenant is someone who returns , especially someone who returns from the dead . Maybe to bother the living . The revenant evidently wasn’t comfortable in it’s grave , was restless , antsy , so it gets out and takes out its discomfort on the living .

It seems this kind of thing went on regularly in parts of Europe during Medieval times , so the living had to come up with ways to deal with this . Men would go out to the graveyard and dig up the body and maybe turn the corpse over so in case it tried to escape into the world of the living again it would , instead of gnawing through the coffin would only be able to chew dirt . Better was to , maybe , put a brick into the mouth of the corpse so that it wouldn’t be able to………….well, same thing . Another method would be to nail the corpse down into its grave , or padlock an ankle to the coffin . Well , you get the idea .’

Apparently , this revenant stuff was a big problem in those days . A priest might go out to the boneyard with the men who would dig up the corpse just to see what had been going on . Sometimes , I’ve heard , fresh blood was seen on the mouth of the corpse lying in the grave , or fresh fingernail scrapes were seen on the coffin .

In subsequent years the revenant stories somehow developed into werewolf stories and then reports of vampires searching for human blood .

By chance , Ada and I were watching some Norwegian movie about mysterious murders found , fairly soon as it happened , to have been committed by a werewolf . Unfortunately , the police chief’s daughter was bitten by the werewolf and , as everyone knows who knows how these thing happen , she became a werewolf too .

And I’m continuing to read the book that Ada gave to me , The Geography of Bliss . The writer is in Iceland now , wondering if people there are happy . Were they happy in the Netherlands or Bhutan or Quatar ? He was in those places already . Who knows !

Anyway , he asks an Icelander about the old Icelandic tales of elves and other magical creatures . Does this guy believe in them ? The Icelander flashes him a sly smile and tells him that , no , he doesn’t believe in those things , but that a lot of people in Iceland do and knowledge of that fact makes life for this Icelander much more interesting .

What this all has to do with an exploration of happiness I don’t know ; but for now we’ll just get on with it .

The Iceland story reminds me of the old Irish woman living in the Irish countryside who was asked if she believed in leprechauns. ” Of course not ,” she said , ” but they’re out there just the same.”

I was explaining the revenant stuff that I’d just read about to Ada as we were, as it happens , driving through the Sonoran Desert in Arizona . She remembered a story told a long time ago by an old friend of mine who started a teaching career at the same time as I had way back when . Financial sense got the better of him after a few years , however , and he abandoned teaching for a career in the insurance game . After he retired from a long insurance industry career he got back into teaching and did that for several years. But that’s neither here nor there , so let’s get on with this meandering post .

My friend, Joe , and I taught at a small elementary school in Venice , CA . He taught 6th grade and I taught fifth when we started out . I , in later years , went on to teach middle school and Joe , after he retired from the insurance business , taught junior college . But that’s still neither here nor there . Sorry .

It seems Joe was called upon to suddenly substitute in a 2nd -grade classroom . Evidently the 2nd grade teacher had left abruptly that day and there were no lesson plans . Joe went from a 6th grade group to little 2nd graders . So he decided the best thing to do was to tell them a story .

He made up the story on the spot . It was about a big rabbit . The big rabbit did this and the big rabbit did that and the big rabbit had these adventures and the big rabbit had those adventures . Joe was winging it to fill some time until the recess bell .

One student asked if the big rabbit was dangerous . No , Joe said , unless you didn’t believe in it .

So the story spun out until finally the recess bell rang. Joe lined the kids up and they walked one by one through the classroom door out to play . One of the little girls stopped in the doorway , though , and began to cry and screech . She wouldn’t move. Joe couldn’t see any apparent reason for this frightening behavior and asked the little girl what was the problem .

So she told him . ” I don’t believe in the big rabbit and he’s going to get me ! ” she said .

Well , that for me sort of sums up what religion is to most people ; but that’s a topic for another time .

Meanwhile , I’m wondering what Icelandic elves have to do with happiness just as you might be wondering what revenants have to do with little girls being terrified of the big rabbit because they don’t believe in it and what the Sonoran Desert has to do with anything . Ah ! Life is a mystery.