- Wedding date: moved. Forward one week due to scheduling difficulties with the Bicentennial Mall. So now we're looking at May 22, which I'm told is going to guarantee us a long and happy marriage. So there.
- Seattle: gorgeous. We couldn't have had better weather or a more beautiful rental house. With a Viking range and subzero fridge, believe it. We bought stunning produce at Pike Place, cooked up a storm, played lots of cards, took over the jukebox at a bar in the tiny town of Manchester, and had an amazing meal of tapas at Black Bottle in Belltown. I got to catch the Jim Henson exhibit AND the Hatch exhibit at EMP; both were fantastic and the Hatch show made me miss my old friend Huey. Oh, and we spent a lot of time on ferry boats. I never thought I'd be on a boat.
- Alaska: awesome. I'm not really sure if I could live there, what with all their issues with day and night and the proper scheduling of each, but the scenery couldn't have been more beautiful. We saw a small black bear and were woken up by a 5.4 strength earthquake. The Great Wedding Adventure came off without a hitch and it was an absolute honor to be involved and to finally get to meet Agnes's big crazy family, especially Peter, who I feel like I've known for years.
- I will say this: air travel = sucks. I swear. It's never going to be any better. We had the most absurd amount of drama getting on a direct flight from Seattle into Anchorage (and avoid a scheduled 5-hour layover in Juneau). We also took a red-eye home from Anchorage to Chicago and, despite being heavily medicated, it was just terrible. Neither of us slept at all (thanks to some well-timed squalling infants); by the time we got home at 1 pm we collapsed in a four hour nap. I have written red-eye flights off of my list of possible travel solutions for the future. At least when flying coach.
- Bowling: rocks. We've been participating in the Emma bowling league, and a few weeks ago I bowled a career-high 156. How about that?! It almost feels like exercise. But in a fun way.
- ELO night: insert enthusiastic hyperbole here. How I Became the Bomb and Kindercastle joined up with a seven piece string section to perform Electric Light Orchestra's double album opus Out of the Blue, one night only at the Mercy Lounge. And these are both extremely talented bands in their own right, but if they decided to take this (daunting and time consuming) act on the road, they'd be INTERNATIONAL SUPERSTARS, I tell you. I kept looking around at the crowd and everyone was smiling the *whole* time. Tell me the last time you saw a rock show in Nashville where you could say the same...
- Fourth of July: vaguely apocalyptic. Casey and I sucked up an uncharacteristic bout of nerves and ventured back into Ashland City for a visit with our oldest friends that turned out to be simply delightful. Then we rode back into town ready to hit the baseball game and were subverted by absolutely ridiculous weather. Monsoonish rainstorms, thunder and lightning, the whole bit. I seriously can't remember ever being rained out of Fourth of July. We didn't see any fireworks, despite having planned to see both the downtown extravaganza and the Sounds blastoff. Weird and boo. The whole situation resulted in us reminiscing about happier Fourths of July in years past, particularly those spent out at the Paine Family Farm, and then I got really sad about missing Jenny and Patrick.
- Bridgey: escape artist. After the Epic Independence Day Fail, we arrived home to discover Bridgette, running around a neighbor's yard, soaked and completely freaked out. We assumed that the fireworks + storm had somehow worked her into such a frenzy that she jumped the fence without realizing what was happening. We dried her off, put her and the others to bed, and were most disappointed when she spent all of Sunday showing off her new fence-climbing skill. That's right. Bridgette, the GOOD one, the shy, well-behaved, slightly backwards brown dog has learned to scale chain-link like a monkey. We've temporarily curbed the efforts by wrapping a tarp over the top of the gate, therefore giving her nothing to claw onto, but our eventual (and hopeful) solution involves rabbit wire and hard labor this weekend. Good GRIEF.
- Hot Rod: ridiculous. Austin wakes up every morning and watches part of the Andy Samberg movie Hot Rod, about a quixotic pseudo-stuntman and his loony cast of surrounding characters. He just watches a bit and then stops it and picks it back up again the next morning, laughing like a little kid the whole time. I think it's his new Wet Hot American Summer, and I'm not sure that's a good thing.
- MJ: just sad. I've had this whole defense of Michael Jackson's character and skewering of the media lined up in my head for a week now, but mostly it's been said and it's kind of past the point of relevancy. But Jenny made me smile when she said that her first instinct when she heard the news of his death was to call our cousin Josh and see how he was coping.
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Monday, July 6, 2009
why do I always do this?
Gah! I wait so long between posts and then there is too much to say. Let's do the bullet point version of an update:
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
blog of shame
It's the same reason I get so far behind on my friendly correspondence. The longer you go without saying anything, the more there is to say! John C. Reilly at the Mercy Lounge! Book club Christmas party! Scary travel to snow-covered Kansas! Christmas! Four days in a cabin with my family! New Year's Eve! Louis XIV at the Wildhorse!
The truth is, I laid low in December. Real low. I almost completely cut off communication with anyone I am not related to (or, you know, sleep next to at night) and just took some time off from Social. My niceness was wearing thin. So while everybody else was moaning about how Busy December is, how many Presents they had to buy, how many Parties they had to go to... I didn't do that this year. I stayed home, and cooked a lot of dinners au deux, and didn't buy a single gift. I was off the hook.
But the thing I really wanted to tell you about was Kansas. We got to the airport over 2 hours early for our flight to Kansas City on the 22nd. I wonder if I ever told you about the Time Austin and I Almost Broke Up because I made us late for a flight. It was really bad. So now, we err towards early. It works. Except this time, when our flight was delayed for four hours because of a half an inch of ice and then four subsequent inches of snow in Kansas City. Four hours of sitting on the floor, trying to focus on my guilty Scottish historical novel or forcing Austin to play Paper Rock Scissors. I'm not good at waiting, particularly where it involves traveling. I am a Nervous Traveler. I started calling Brian in KC, saying, What is the weather like there, what is happening? He comes back with horror stories of 40 car pileups on the very same interstate that we should have been traversing at that EXACT MOMENT if our flight hadn't been delayed. First person reports of brand new Audi wagons careening backwards into stationary fire engines. Scary stuff.
So then we had to get on a plane. Here is where Antsy Nervous Traveler turns into Basketcase Nervous Traveler. It is a short flight from Nashville to Kansas City, usually pretty painless. This time, our plane had to circle around the city for an interminable amount of time (in retelling, it has become hours, but Austin the Calm and Patient Realist usually corrects me and says it was about 30 minutes). There was no open landing strip for us to put the plane down on; they were all too icy. Note to all pilots and air personnel out there: DON'T TELL US WHEN IT'S TOO ICY AND WE'RE GOING TO LAND ANYWAY! Jeez. Finally a runway opens up, and we begin the most terrifying descent I've ever experienced. Plane tilted at crazy angles, where all we can see out the window is white, white ground. The wind causing us to jump and bump in the air. The engines kicking into reverse to slow our downward spiral. The passengers were silent, and the man seated to my right was doing origami in his lap. I kept getting distracted from my panic by watching his hands, the soothing motions of folding, pressing, turning squares of milky vellum that he kept extracting from his coat pocket.
On a perfectly normal, predictable flight, I still kind of freak out at the landing. I make Austin hold my hand and squeeze my eyes shut and don't open them again until the plane has come to a stop. On this particular landing, I had been squeezing his hand since the circling started, and I'm surprised he has any bones left. When the plane finally skidded to a halt on the ice-covered runway (nearly sideways), I leaned over, put my head between his back and the seat, and burst into tears.
Then we sat. No gates could open up because the trucks that push the airplanes backwards out of the gate couldn't drive on the ice. The wind was blowing the snow across the ground in waves. When I looked out the window and pretended everything that was white was actually water, it was easy to pretend we were stranded in the middle of the ocean.
Finally we pulled into a gate, crawled off the plane, headed towards baggage. Which was a mob scene, as we were among six or seven flights that had all been granted entrance to the airport at once. And the overhead announcement system was broken, so one poor schmo was leaping back and forth between the (two) baggage carousels, bellowing, "SALT LAKE CITY! BAGGAGE CLAIM ONE" I went and sat on the floor in a corner, and met a nice dog who had been locked up in her cage under the plane for 5 hours. Her owner let me pet her while I decompressed and Austin went baggage hunting.
Originally the plan had been (when our flight was supposed to land at at 6:30) that we would pick up our rental car and drive straight through to Hays, home of Austin's brother and maternal grandparents. This was scrapped by the time we left Nashville, and rather than even attempting to get out of Kansas City, we just called the first hotel listed on the big screen at the airport and luckily got a room. I would say it was 5 miles from the airport? Maybe less. It took us forty-five minutes to get there, forty-five painstaking minutes of creeping along on roads that were so snowbound that you couldn't tell where the asphalt stopped and the shoulder started. The Courtyard by Marriott finally appeared, shining like a beacon of king-sized beds and mediocre hot breakfasts.
We took our time getting out of KC the next morning, giving the road crews time to get everything clear. By the time we crossed over into Kansas proper, it was smooth sailing and sunny skies for the drive to Hays, and we made great time. I saw 27 hawks, which is my own superstitious way of passing the time in the midwest. They make me feel lucky.
I think that is going to be Part 1 of my Holiday Recap. Sorry for being so wordy, after being so absent. I have the office to myself this week, coworkers are all at a conference, so hopefully I'll have some more time for catching up over the next three days. Happy 2008, even if I'm the last person to tell you.
The truth is, I laid low in December. Real low. I almost completely cut off communication with anyone I am not related to (or, you know, sleep next to at night) and just took some time off from Social. My niceness was wearing thin. So while everybody else was moaning about how Busy December is, how many Presents they had to buy, how many Parties they had to go to... I didn't do that this year. I stayed home, and cooked a lot of dinners au deux, and didn't buy a single gift. I was off the hook.
But the thing I really wanted to tell you about was Kansas. We got to the airport over 2 hours early for our flight to Kansas City on the 22nd. I wonder if I ever told you about the Time Austin and I Almost Broke Up because I made us late for a flight. It was really bad. So now, we err towards early. It works. Except this time, when our flight was delayed for four hours because of a half an inch of ice and then four subsequent inches of snow in Kansas City. Four hours of sitting on the floor, trying to focus on my guilty Scottish historical novel or forcing Austin to play Paper Rock Scissors. I'm not good at waiting, particularly where it involves traveling. I am a Nervous Traveler. I started calling Brian in KC, saying, What is the weather like there, what is happening? He comes back with horror stories of 40 car pileups on the very same interstate that we should have been traversing at that EXACT MOMENT if our flight hadn't been delayed. First person reports of brand new Audi wagons careening backwards into stationary fire engines. Scary stuff.
So then we had to get on a plane. Here is where Antsy Nervous Traveler turns into Basketcase Nervous Traveler. It is a short flight from Nashville to Kansas City, usually pretty painless. This time, our plane had to circle around the city for an interminable amount of time (in retelling, it has become hours, but Austin the Calm and Patient Realist usually corrects me and says it was about 30 minutes). There was no open landing strip for us to put the plane down on; they were all too icy. Note to all pilots and air personnel out there: DON'T TELL US WHEN IT'S TOO ICY AND WE'RE GOING TO LAND ANYWAY! Jeez. Finally a runway opens up, and we begin the most terrifying descent I've ever experienced. Plane tilted at crazy angles, where all we can see out the window is white, white ground. The wind causing us to jump and bump in the air. The engines kicking into reverse to slow our downward spiral. The passengers were silent, and the man seated to my right was doing origami in his lap. I kept getting distracted from my panic by watching his hands, the soothing motions of folding, pressing, turning squares of milky vellum that he kept extracting from his coat pocket.
On a perfectly normal, predictable flight, I still kind of freak out at the landing. I make Austin hold my hand and squeeze my eyes shut and don't open them again until the plane has come to a stop. On this particular landing, I had been squeezing his hand since the circling started, and I'm surprised he has any bones left. When the plane finally skidded to a halt on the ice-covered runway (nearly sideways), I leaned over, put my head between his back and the seat, and burst into tears.
Then we sat. No gates could open up because the trucks that push the airplanes backwards out of the gate couldn't drive on the ice. The wind was blowing the snow across the ground in waves. When I looked out the window and pretended everything that was white was actually water, it was easy to pretend we were stranded in the middle of the ocean.
Finally we pulled into a gate, crawled off the plane, headed towards baggage. Which was a mob scene, as we were among six or seven flights that had all been granted entrance to the airport at once. And the overhead announcement system was broken, so one poor schmo was leaping back and forth between the (two) baggage carousels, bellowing, "SALT LAKE CITY! BAGGAGE CLAIM ONE" I went and sat on the floor in a corner, and met a nice dog who had been locked up in her cage under the plane for 5 hours. Her owner let me pet her while I decompressed and Austin went baggage hunting.
Originally the plan had been (when our flight was supposed to land at at 6:30) that we would pick up our rental car and drive straight through to Hays, home of Austin's brother and maternal grandparents. This was scrapped by the time we left Nashville, and rather than even attempting to get out of Kansas City, we just called the first hotel listed on the big screen at the airport and luckily got a room. I would say it was 5 miles from the airport? Maybe less. It took us forty-five minutes to get there, forty-five painstaking minutes of creeping along on roads that were so snowbound that you couldn't tell where the asphalt stopped and the shoulder started. The Courtyard by Marriott finally appeared, shining like a beacon of king-sized beds and mediocre hot breakfasts.
We took our time getting out of KC the next morning, giving the road crews time to get everything clear. By the time we crossed over into Kansas proper, it was smooth sailing and sunny skies for the drive to Hays, and we made great time. I saw 27 hawks, which is my own superstitious way of passing the time in the midwest. They make me feel lucky.
I think that is going to be Part 1 of my Holiday Recap. Sorry for being so wordy, after being so absent. I have the office to myself this week, coworkers are all at a conference, so hopefully I'll have some more time for catching up over the next three days. Happy 2008, even if I'm the last person to tell you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
