If You Belonged Here

Flying by the Seat of Someone's Pants

I pride myself on being just prepared enough. When I'm traveling, I always have an eye toward balance. I pack only what I'm mostly sure I'll need. For something to actually make it into my suitcase, the chances of use have to be, let's say, at least 50/50. Otherwise, it stays home. I soothe any doubts I may have about the wisdom of that decision by telling myself that I can either buy or borrow another like it if it comes up.

It almost never comes up.

Now, this means I travel fairly light, often fitting all of my necessities into a carry-on bag. With room. Seriously. So I could avoid baggage claim. But I don't because, well, I don't like to schlep a lot of stuff through the airport and I hate having my bag ransacked in front of strangers. Especially on the return trip when all of my underwear is dirty.

Let's pause from the scheduled program for a minute to talk about the current state of airport security. It knows no bounds. It knows no reason. It is in no way reassuring. Bookgirl says she gets it.

I don't get it.

My feeling is that anyone who's seriously motivated and even moderately creative can pretty much smuggle whatever they have a mind to smuggle through security or create an ingenious evil plan once within the confines of the gate. I've watched some documentaries on prisons. The term kiestering comes to mind. Among other things.

Instead I've been shook down--this is before I started checking my bag--for an eyelash curler (designed so you can't hurt yourself or anyone else), a double-ended blemish extractor (ditto on the personal safety caveat), and a handful of smooshed souvenir pennies from Disneyworld. Now the kind security people let me keep these items, with the exception of a couple of souvenir pennies that they somehow managed to lose, but the process was sure inefficient and my underwear (clean or otherwise) was plenty available for public perusal.

This is especially likely to happen when traveling through T.F. Green, Providence's tiny airport, with only something like 27 terminals, and an intercom system which is totally unnecessary because there's pretty much nowhere in the airport a strategically pitched voice couldn't carry. Yeah. Little PVD is maybe the most secure airport in the country. Way more uptight than LAX, SFO, or JFK. I'm trying to figure it out.

Still trying.

Anyway, I check my bag. But I still have a backpack of stuff containing: my tiny purse (just big enough to fit a credit card holder, my iPhone, a couple of twenties, and some chapstick); my blanket (if it's a red-eye) and little horse-shoe pillow; maybe a book; definitely ear plugs and a sleep mask (again, there's probably a red-eye somewhere in the itinerary and even if there's not, they take up hardly any room). This leaves me feeling prepared but not weighed down. Especially now that I can load movies and recorded books onto my phone.

So, last flight, after I checked my bag and moseyed onto my red-eye flight, I was expecting to sleep. After all, I had all the necessary hardware. Sure I was in a middle seat and the flight was booked to the gills. The steward actually had to walk someone off the plane because it turned out there wasn't a seat for that person after all. And this, of course, completely reinforces my heartfelt belief that the people in charge of security are less about ensuring our safety and more about annoying travelers until they trade worry for indignation. I mean, these people can't even manage a head count.

Definitely not smarter than a fifth grader.

Anyway. I get on the plane and I'm in the middle but I have my horse-shoe pillow so I'm a go on not waking myself up with the surprisingly startling head-bob thing that happens when one tries to sleep sitting up. A baby across the aisle starts wailing but I've got my ear plugs. The guy sitting next to me turns on what is, on a dark plane, a glaring overhead reading light and I just slip on my sleep mask. I'm warm enough and likely to remain plague-free because I brought my own travel blanket.

Heh, heh. I have officially whipped air travel's unruly ass. All I've got left to do is watch the flight attendant dance through the safety instructions--pre-recording means they don't even have to talk anymore, just do the arm gestures and play with the mask.

All in all, I'm feeling pretty smug. But mostly I'm feeling ready to sleep. And I can see no reason (what with the sleep mask blocking my view) why that shouldn't happen. After all, the shrieking baby is pretty much background noise now that I've got my earplugs in and the engines are roaring.

But.

Or maybe: butt.

As in the cruel reek that can only mean that the human being sitting next to me is kiestering dead puppies or desperately needs to see a nutritionist. The smell is unholy. And I know the person leaking it can't possibly imagine they're sneaking these little stink bombs out because it's the kind of tooting that usually leaves the tooter feeling just as queasy as their unsuspecting neighbors.

Only I'm not unsuspecting.

After the first half-dozen rounds of foul wind, I've got no choice but to suspect. And the thing is, it's a red-eye. I'm up past my bedtime and every time I start to doze off a fresh wave of rotten puppies rolls in. If I am nearly sleeping, the thing that awakens me is, well, let's call it sleep apnea. I stop breathing but, as you can imagine, this is not a long term solution. Or even a particularly viable short-term one.

At first I am embarrassed for the person who is doing this. Then I am annoyed. Then I am outright angry. I mean, seriously, go to the bathroom already. Poop out the puppies. People who are so clearly unwell should not be traveling on public transportation. Why doesn't security screen for this? It's silent but deadly.

So, anyway, next time, in addition to my sleep mask and earplugs, I'm carrying Vicks Vapo-Rub, you know, like the gross-anatomy students do. I'm pretty sure airport security will find a way to jack me up over it but, seriously--

Seriously.

Monday the 13th

A few weeks ago I got stumbleupon'ed. If  you don't know what that is, google is there for you but I don't feel like futzing around with links so you're on your own. The point is, someone reviewed my Lonely Non-Girl post, which as you all know is the only post in the archives that I leave open to comments because, as far as I'm concerned, that's where the heart of this blog is.

Anyway, I got this review. I wouldn't have noticed except my traffic spiked like quadruple or more of a usual day, and even with that it took me a week to catch on. Long gone are the days where I check my traffic daily. Anyway, the review was a thumbs up. Not much more to say about it than that.

A week or so later, I saw another noticeable spike in traffic. Nearly identical to the first. So I checked it out and, sure enough, there was another stumbleupon review of the same post, only this time it was a thumbs down. I think the review, to paraphrase was something along the lines of "well, aren't you special." Before I allowed myself to process the fact that clearly the author of that particularly original gem was being sarcastic, I found myself nodding in agreement.

After all, I clearly think so. I wrote a whole post about it, didn't I? Wait. I write a whole blog about it.

Anyway, since one of my favorite fall-back hobbies (you know, the kind of hobby one only engages in when there is nothing, I mean nothing, better to do) is to consider my "F" (feeling) side, I decided to evaluate my response to that second review.

I'm going to put in  a brief synopsis so that you can evaluate along with me. I mean, if you're here, clearly you, too, are indulging in one of your fall-back hobbies. You're probably at work, right, so it's not like you have anything you'd rather be doing. Let's go:

I see the traffic spike and I wonder if it's the same post. I find that it is the same post. I realize the person reviewing the post didn't like it. I double check the traffic numbers and realize that the positive review and the negative review pretty much yielded the same traffic. I think, "wow, who'd a guessed it?" I briefly contemplate emailing the second reviewer to make her aware of how odd that is, because  maybe she wouldn't want to review sites she doesn't actually want people to go to because it seems people are going to go there regardless of her take. I decide she'll just think I'm even more of an idiot and she probably doesn't care so why waste both our time.

I don't feel insulted. I don't take it personally. I don't have any negative feelings toward the reviewer. I wonder if I reread the post, would I maybe agree with her? I decide I don't care enough to bother.  Mostly, I just like that the traffic spiked.

Now, my gut says that's not a particularly INFJ response.

Whatever.

Any Given Wedding

So I've got dinner halfway to ready and Secret Lulu parked in front of the Dora Halloween episode. If I'm lucky she'll learn about Trick or Treating and costumes well enough that I'll be able to get her into one for the big day. Last year, she fell asleep. At 5:30 at night. Practically nosed dived into her mashed potatoes.

The costumes I couldn't decide between--pirate and fairy princess--are still hanging in the closet. With the tags on.

Whatever.

Anyway, Secret Lulu is downstairs doing some exploratory research on what could be a lot of fun or a headache--too soon to tell--and I'm up here trying to get a post up about something, anything, because it's been awhile. I'm starting to question my commitment.

Of course summer is always hard. People don't want to blog when they can, well, have a life. Let's face it, blogging is mostly a winter sport. On a night like tonight when it's, oh say, seventy-five degrees and the sun's still shining like it means it, well, I'm usually more likely to go out for a walk. I don't know what you're doing, but from what I can tell, most of you aren't dinking around with your own posts, and certainly, you aren't posting many comments here.

There's no judgment there. I mean, like I have room to talk, it's not like I'm giving you much to comment on. Take now, for instance. I'm not sure you're going to be able to do much with this post. Doesn't matter. I just need to get something up for October.

Oh. And post about my trip home to Rhode Island.

You know, when I first started this blog, I gave the url to everyone in my family, all of my friends, a few of their pet turtles--whoever I thought might read it religiously if they thought I was keeping it secret from them. I figured they'd read a handful of posts and fall off the map. Then I could hide out in the open. Kind of like that episode of Magnum, P.I. where Higgins gives Magnum these really important audio cassette tapes to keep safe and these thugs break into Magnum's, well, not apartment, but the little guest house he stays in, and they ransack the place and come up empty because the tapes are sitting right out on the coffee table in plain view, so they can't be important.

Yeah. Kind of like that.

I can tell you for mostly sure that no one in my family is reading. Even though I gave them the url. Or because I gave them the url. So here's to hiding out in plain sight.

I went to Rhode Island for one of my favorite cousin's wedding. I wanted to type weddings for some reason--I think it sounds better--but this cousin is only having the one wedding. So far.

See what I mean about out in plain sight? I can be inappropriate like that.

So this younger cousin, who I really adore and who seems sparklingly happy (but not in a girly way) is getting married to this great girl (woman really, but in a girly way) and they are letting me bring Bookgirl to the wedding, as my date (again, in a girly way) and Secret Lulu is staying home with Mr. Poppins. I am planning on having a fabulous time.

You know the drill, we're barely seated for the ceremony before we're dishing on the other guests--mostly people we don't know because we're equal opportunity like that--the ceremony starts, we tear up a little, giggle when the moms hold up the unity candle ceremony  because they can't get the separate candles lit and (I'll tell you now, once you start on the unity candle, no matter how badly it's going, deciding to just skip it is not an option), tear up some more, cheer on the kiss. Then we find the bar. Because, hey, this is a story about me and Bookgirl and there is a bar available, so that was bound to happen.

Everywhere I look is family and everyone is happy to see me. But I'm even more happy to see them.

We find our table, sit next to some strangers, sip our drinks, listen to some toasts, make inappropriate comments about how disturbingly hot many of my younger cousins are, and then, when the music starts, turn into the "dancing aunties." Now you might not know about the "dancing aunties" but if you have a big family you'll recognize them once I explain.

For a long time, I was the kid at the wedding. First I was a little girl in a dress that made me feel like a princess, then I was an embarassingly cool teenager (I say embarassingly because mostly, I was too cool to feel much but awkward and embarassed). But I remember, even as a kid, as soon as the music started, all of my aunts, the ones who were young enough to have the daughters in the princess dresses, would get up and dance and no matter where the DJ went with the music, they just didn't sit down.

Now I'm that auntie. You know the one belting along with Meatloaf's Paradise by the Dashboard Light with the hand gestures and the shoulder pumping. Because, seriously, the only reason I am not Pat Benatar is because I was born too late.

Tragic. But true.

So Bookgirl and I dance and dance and dance. There's no chicken dance, the bride probably prohibited it out of some overdeveloped sense of good taste, but if it had happened, I would have been shaking my tail feathers with the five-year-olds. And I would have been proud.

I don't get out much.

But the wedding wasn't the whole thing. We had after-wedding plans. Plans that involved hooking up with Diosa for dinner, wine, more wine, and then a walk (through the rain--that part wasn't planned) to visit Diosa's parents' bar.

Diosa's parents' totally own a bar. They just bought it. So it's not like we were ever banned from there, or allowed to drink underage there, or have any kind of humiliating memories to haunt us there. Thank Hank. What we do have is Diosa's dad saying the four most beautiful words a man can say to a trio of Woonsocket girls:

These girls drink free.

I can't really explain to you exactly how many ways these words resonate with my soul. But I'll try. First, is these girls, which is us, lifelong friends who are all together in the hometown, reunited and it feels so good kind of stuff. Then there's drink. I'm not going to explain that one because no matter how I think to type it up, I just sound like an alcoholic and I haven't gotten to step one yet (you know, where you admit you have a problem). Last is free. Like I said, we're from Woonsocket. It doesn't matter that we can afford to pay for our drinks.

We like our bargains. But we love our free. The only thing that could have possibly made it better is if we had a coupon, you know, for the popcorn or something. That was free, too, but (and Bookgirl knows what I'm talking about) coupons make it taste better.

We didn't get rowdy. We just talked. And sipped. And talked some more. Face to face. All at once. Taking turns. There was a game of air hockey with some guy who just couldn't stop hitting on us. Diosa played that, and as Bookgirl said, that guy who insisted on the game didn't so much win as he let Diosa lose.

I'm not judging. I've totally scored goals on myself. A lot of times. To a level that could be confused with talent.

I couldn't stay out too late. I had a plane to catch in the morning.

But I was there.