Family

And so we come to the time of the week where I notice I've not written anything here. That is not to say that I have not been writing this week. In fact, I've written quite a bit in the last week, just not here.

I've written about sewing machines (1846 models cost $125 at a time when the average yearly income was $500, making them a co-op purchase). I've written about Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning and found they never lived in Portugal, but Portuguese was a pet name Robert gave to his wife. I've written about tanks and their first use in WWI, not all that spectacular to start, but they eventually "took off" with speeds today 20 times faster than the original version. I've written about the Hoover Dam that irked FDR so much he changed it back to Boulder Dam which never was correct as it was built across Black Canyon. I've written about Wheel of Fortune and found that Vanna claps her hands 28,000 times per season, all while dressed spectacularly. And I wrote about a patriot who had only one life to give for his country and was astounded to learn Nathan Hale was only 21 when he died in service to his Commander-in-Chief.

I've also written a little piece about surviving a not-tornado. (I fully intend to return to the writing of my family stories on my webpage.) I've survived tornados that caused less damage than the one that wasn't. I have the pictures to prove the devastating effects of high winds regardless of their classification.

I've also printed out my sister adventure story. I was shocked, and I do mean shocked, to learn how much blabbing I did. There are pictures included, but still. The printout was 50 pages long. Not about 50. Not nearly 50. Exactly 50. And I didn't even write up the whole thing. I could have extended the saga immensely by including the first week and a half when we packed, sorted, and held a garage sale with such scope we had to have departments and ancillary sites to hold items for sale.

Instead, I began the tale of travel when we actually began travelling. Although I did continue it until my own departure. I apologize to anyone actually living in Kansas, if there are any people living there, but I never need to drive through Kansas again. It was the most tedious and boring state, partly because of the length of time and mostly because there was absolutely nothing to do there except stare out the window. And worry about running out of gas.

Everyone expects Texas to be huge and take a lot of time to drive through. Texas also has a few things to do. We visited the largest cross in the Western Hemisphere. It was beautiful and there was a whole display of life sized bronze statues surrounding the cross telling the story of the Passion of Christ. There was a gift shop as well. It was the one place I would have spent money for professional grade pictures and they sold none. Astounding. They took donations and they sold other holy type stuff, but no simple books of postcard style pictures. I would have thought it was a no-brainer. Each of the stops with the bronzes as a separate picture as well as the huge cross in the middle. But, they didn't offer to take my money in the one place I would have given it to them.

Of course, I wrote this in bits and pieces and have not even proofread the whole thing. But, part of the fun of this type of writing is that it's informal. I'm sure there are typos, misspelled words, and sentences that are – at best – not quite right. I wrote in the early morning or late evening and didn't spend much time on balanced composition. All I wanted to do was get down the fun we were having. The stories we were making. The love we shared.

It might have worked.

No Muse

I know I should be writing something for my blog. There may soon be some snippy message from my son telling me that writers write and I need to add something to my space on the Internet.

The problem is simple. I don't have a burning topic I wish to put forth. I don't even have a slightly simmering or only smoking topic. I'm fresh out of topic.

My sister, in a move of complete tenderness and total lack of self preservation, told me that I can be just a little grumpy about life in general. She pointed out that I can get angry over silly things, inconsequential things, unimportant things.

She's right. But then, both of my sisters have this particular gift as well. We just all get upset by different things, making one person's silly and inconsequential, another person's bane of existence.

(Topic ahead.)

I have a cell phone. I rarely use my cell phone and even more rarely do so in a public place. I remember a time before cell phones when life continued even if you were out of reach of the rest of the planet while shopping or going to the bathroom. This is no longer true. The entire world can reach out and touch you at any time.

And people answer their phones no matter what. Any call placed has a 99.534% chance of being answered. The rest of the time, the person is passed out after too much partying.

What I can't figure out is why the person placing a call takes precedence over the people actually present with the recipient of the call. However, people will be out to dinner and answer their cell phone leaving the dinner partner privy to half a conversation while trying to look nonchalant and uninterested.

People shopping are amazing. Mothers love to talk to their friends while wasting time at Wal-Mart. I see this routinely as I spend both too much time and too much money inside the behemoth. These young women are talking to their friends and often as not, they are discussing Friend C and her boyfriend trouble with Friend B while Child A sits in the seat part of the cart screaming his fool head off. They may even tell their children to be quiet because Mommy is on the phone. I want to reach out and touch them. Hard. Several times.

Surely our life isn't so crowded that we have to spend every available shopping minute on the phone. Wait until you get home and instead of tuning into another senseless, useless, waste of time reality TV show, call your friends. You can even do this after you have put the baby to bed. This is what we used to do before cell phones.

Or else, and here is a real challenge, you could simply stop talking about your 'other' friends behind their backs and conversation would, if not completely dry up, decrease by 87.639%.

So, yes. I do, in fact, get angry for the dumbest reason. Watching the kids aged three and younger who are trapped in a shopping cart while their mothers are oblivious to them and the rest of the world is one of those things. Pay attention to your kids. They are the ones who will be selecting your nursing home.

Airlines Don't Care

I just got back from a whirlwind trip. I flew up to Cleveland (which has always been a two plane trip since no one goes anywhere from the Charleston airport except to a hub of some sort). That was a month ago. My short flight to the hub is so quick they don't even serve a drink. They never have. The longer flight had a drink and some wonderful pretzels. I think there may have been 17 small pretzels in the bag.

My return flight is what I'm going to talk about now. I just came back. When I purchased my ticket, luggage was still expected to go with travelers. Now, not so much. If you want to take luggage with you on your trip, you have to pay for your luggage to fly, too. You are permitted one carry-on and one personal item. Anything more and you have to pay. Of course, with everyone trying to cram their stuff in one carry-on and one personal item, the storage bins get full really fast. This is not the airline's problem, but the flyer's.

I was given a Papal blessing or Presidential pardon or something. Because my ticket was purchased before they started charging for luggage, I got to bring my clothes with me on my four week vacation. Everyone was happy I had clothes.

Side note: when I got to the airport in June, I had already printed my boarding passes from home, but this wasn't enough airline work for me to do. I also had to check in my own luggage.

When I got the Phoenix Airport, I knew I had to check in my own luggage, but the first thing the machine wanted was a credit card. I wasn't going to give them one, so a person (real, live, and on the clock) had to help me.

My ticket said I was to have an "in flight café" included in my flight plan. Not so fast there, buster. Things change. Instead, I got on my 3.5 hour flight at noon and expected to have some sort of food offered. Something more than the 17 small pretzels. Instead, I was offered a chance to purchase a chicken sandwich and Caesar salad boxed up and wrapped in plastic for some indeterminate time for the price of $7. My other choice was a "snack box" containing God alone knows what but all nicely boxed and wrapped in plastic for the low price of $5. I rarely eat pretzels and so passed on the snack box. The chicken sandwich was too scary for me to try.

Luckily I had packed three granola bars and some salt water taffy I had purchased. On the 3.5 (really 3 hours and 44 minutes) flight, I was offered a drink. I am a coffee drinker and so chose that. I was given a 6-ounce cup that was about ¾ full along with some creamer. That was it. Nothing else. At all. Four ounces of coffee. Nearly four hours of flying.

They only sold quart bottles of water at the airport and I had to carry my laptop and my carry-on and really did not have enough hands to carry the bottle of water. I had assumed I would be fed and watered on the plane. If you are flying in the US and want to not die of dehydration – bring your own water. But not TO the airport as you are not permitted to bring water into the place because of security.

Next, there was an in flight movie. Airlines used to give the disposable headphones to the passengers for free. They cost perhaps fifty cents each, but are probably cheaper because I'm sure they buy in bulk. Last year they were selling for $2. This year, they went for $5.

The last straw came at my intermediate destination. I was lucky enough to have my plane land only two gates away from my departure for my next plane. I ducked into a bathroom and some enterprising women were granted the right to empty the paper towel dispensers, tear the sheets off into single use amounts, and put a tip jar in place of me waving my hands in front of the automatic paper dispenser.

I understand the price of gasoline is causing the cost of flights to increase. But really, the airlines are making it so distasteful to fly, they are going to put themselves out of business.
It is great to be home.

Travel Issues

Traveling is full of perils.

We drove 2,000 miles without incident. However, some place along the way, I lost my ability to send email from my normal program, thereby losing my address book in the process.

Then we got to the destination and found that our Internet connection left the country. We are trying to figure out a way to remedy this whole situation.

As promised, I've been writing about our adventures. My tales of travel are located on my webpage.

I would happily send out an email telling people I have included this on my page, but as I said, I have no address book to mail from.