When You Get On A Plane

I’m getting on a plane Saturday and heading to Florida for a week
of relaxation with a good friend. Most people would be happy.
Excited even. I just keep thinking: “I’M GETTING ON A PLANE.”

Not that I’m afraid of flying. That’s not quite accurate. If I could actually fly, like Superman, I think I might like it a lot.

But it is completely accurate to say I don’t like planes, and here’s why:

When you get on a plane, they lock you inside and you cannot get off until they say so. You CANNOT. You are at their mercy in plane prison.

When you get on a plane, you notice right away the air inside is wrong. It’s artificial, germ-infested air and I’m pretty sure it’s limited. They try to make you think there’s air aplenty by placing a tiny little blower above your head, but it’s a mere device - a placebo to make you think you might actually have enough air to breathe the entire flight.

When you get on a plane, it’s hot and stuffy, due to wrong air.

When you get on a plane, you sit shoulder to shoulder in tiny little seats next to complete strangers. Complete air-sucking strangers. It’s not bad enough that the seats are too narrow for a wide bottom and there’s not enough leg room for even the shortest legs. No, planes take discomfort to an excrutiating level by strapping you into a seat like that right next to a person YOU DON’T KNOW. (Notice to other flyers: I’m claustrophic and I still request a window seat so I can hug the wall and not have to touch YOU.)

When you get on a plane, you can't drive through McDonalds or stop to read that curious little historic marker by the Shoney's parking lot. Planes actually lift off from the road they are driving on and take you up in the air. Way up. Unnaturally up. Into a totally ashphalt-free and Starbucks-free zone.

I try not to think about it. I hug the wall in my window seat, close the little plastic shade and pretend I’m on a bus.

Christmas with Emily

There's nothing like having an 8 year old around to make the holiday a whole lot merrier - from the time she walked in the door in her new zebra print pajama pants until I heard her snoring in the back seat as I drove her home.

She helped me make pancakes for our annual Christmas breakfast. I needed three eggs cracked into a measuring cup and two out of three actually made it. Joey's trusty dog Rooney helped clean up the raw egg mess. Later in the day, as Joey was pulling hard yellow schmutz off Rooney's head, we wondered what he had gotten into. Then we realized his head must have rubbed against the yolk oozing down the cupboard door as he was gamely licking the floor.

I got Emily a lot of small gifts instead of one large one. Joey always passes out our gifts on Christmas. As he was handing Emily yet another one, he said (referring to me) "I remember when I was her favorite."

Eight of us played a simple card game called Kings. It's a fun, easy game and Emily has mastered the strategy and the art of it. She giggles with delight when she sticks another player with an unwelcome card, she graciously pitches in her quarter when she loses. She wanted so much to win, only to come in second.

Everyone else left mid afternoon, and that gave Emily and I a couple hours alone together. We played the new Pictionary game where you draw on the little plastic man - not all that much fun with two people. Then we made Rice Krispie Treats. Asking an eight year old to pour Rice Krispies into a measuring cup yields approximately the same result as asking her to crack eggs...and the Rooney-vac was gone. Suffice it to say I found a couple kernels of Rice Krispies in my bedroom the following morning.

Thanks to Emily's sophisticated palate, however, I did end up with a valuable recipe tip: Less cereal, more marshmallows.

Bat Shit Crazy X3

1. I just have to say it - every one of my relatives over 40 years old is bat shit crazy. We fall into two categories: those who are on medication and those who ought to be.

2. My boss sits in a cubicle right across the aisle from me. This morning I heard him gasp and say "that can't be happening!" I glanced over to see him peering intently at his computer screen. I asked him what was wrong. My mind was running the gamut from his elderly mother being ill to our ecomm site crashing. But no. He was looking at the Ralph Lauren Rugby site and he thought the sweatshirt that he wanted to buy his DOG was sold out. Think about that. Ralph Lauren for his dog. Bat. Shit. Crazy.

3. A friend of ours who lives in a very nice condo complex has a gay couple for neighbors. They all woke up this morning to DIE FAG MOVE OR DIE spray painted across the outside wall of their homes. What the hell is wrong with people? That's so far beyond bat shit crazy it's scary.

Go Greyhound

I'm trying to plan a trip to Florida in February and I hate to fly. I'm going so far south that driving it in one day isn't feasible. Driving it in two days sucks too much time out of my week of vacation. In desperation, I decided to check out my options at Greyhound. 

They are bad.

However, I found this interesting info about checked baggage. I think it’s safe to say that Greyhound caters to a different audience than the airlines. The red highlights are mine.

Acceptable Types of Baggage

In general, acceptable baggage includes suitcases, duffel bags, toolboxes, trunks and securely tied cardboard boxes. A plastic and/or a paper bag is not acceptable as checked baggage.

Really? What if the bag has handles? And what if I securely tie those handles together? That, my friend, turns my JC Penney shopping bag into luggage.


Prohibited Items for Checked Baggage 

Acids, ammunition, animals, combustible liquids, compressed gases, corpses, cremated remains, explosives, firearms of all types, fireworks, flammable liquids, furniture, hazardous materials (poisons, radioactive materials, etc.), materials with a disagreeable odor, matches, merchandise for resale, protruding articles, or any unsecured articles including those in plastic or paper bags are prohibited

All right, I get it, no plastic or paper bags no matter how nice they are. But wait a minute. I can’t check a corpse? What if it’s in a securely tied cardboard box?

Hmm, no cremated remains either. So much for Plan B.

Thanks, Day 24

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I've had a fun but exhausting day. I'm thankful for all of it, but here are a couple highlights:

Aunt Louise is in town from Cincinnati for the first time in 7 or 8 years. I mentioned in an earlier post what an interesting life she's had and how great her stories are. This morning I picked her up at my cousin's house in Gahanna and drove her to my brother's house in Pataskala. It was nice to have a chance to talk one-on-one. I mentioned the Ohio State/Michigan game was this weekend. She told me when she was young she'd never miss an Ohio State/Michigan game and that her friend was on the faculty at OSU and they consequently had great seats. One year - and granted, this was probably in the 1930's or 1940's - it was so cold and snowy the stadium emptied out before the game ended. The bleachers (her word) were TOTALLY EMPTY except for Louise and her friend, the only true diehard Buckeyes fans who wouldn't leave until the game was over and the Buckeyes won.

That must have been something, that's all I have to say : )

Later in the day at Chrissy and Bryan's, where I had dinner, about 8 of us were playing cards and there was a huge misunderstanding in a conversation between my ex husband and Bryan's mother. It's really too complicated to explain here but it was like watching a very slow, but inevitable, train wreck. My son Joe was at the table playing cards with us and he did his very best to derail it but to no avail. And now, for Joe and I, the cell phone pornography story will forever be a part of our Thanksgiving tradition.

Thanks, Day 23

I'm kind of thankful this all ends tomorrow, aren't you?

I said in the very first post I wasn't going to say I was thankful for my kids because that is a given. I am, though. I spent the day working and laughing with Chrissy. I talked to Joey on the drive home and had the best time. He is so smart and funny. So there you have it. Thankful for my kids. How original.

(but they're such good kids)

Thanks, Day 22

What I know about electronics you could store on a 2 gig thumb drive and still have 2 gigs of memory left. It's amazing I can use gig and thumb drive in a sentence.

I bought a digital camera from Craig's List a few months ago with the help of a friend. I bought a 4 gig memory card for it, took a few pictures, and then dropped it or bumped it or something and shattered the viewing screen. I don't know how it happened. It still takes pictures, you just can't see them on the camera, and that's kind of the point of digital cameras. (Oh, your eyes are closed, let me take it again).

I want to take Thanksgiving pictures so I borrowed a digital camera from a friend. A friend who found her camera, but couldn't find her memory cards. The memory card from my broken camera fits perfectly into her camera, but doesn't work. The screen won't even light up.

So what do I do? Do I search online and try to find an answer? Do I go to Cord or Best Buy for some expert advice? No, I do the sensible thing and head over to Discount Drug Mart.

A few of you may know that Discount Drug Mart is one of my favorite stores. It's close to my house and it sells EVERYTHING. Little peat pots to sprout last years tomato seeds? Discount Drug Mart. Wine? Furnace filter? Frozen pizza? Socks? Discount Drug Mart. It's a fabulous store.

When I got there I wasn't sure where to find memory cards so I asked a young woman who works there. She said "sure we have them" (I knew they would) and walked with me to a service counter. The cards were hanging on a wall behind the counter, obviously for security reasons.

I had the card with me that didn't work. I showed it to the nice young woman (I wish I had gotten her name) and explained my problem to her. I knew the camera needed an SD card; the card I had said SD on it, but also HC. I asked if she knew what that meant. She didn't, but she took her smart phone out of her pocket and googled it for me. It means "High Capacity" and HC cards are not compatible with all kinds of cameras. She sold me an SD card with half the capacity of the one I had. It was $14.99, hence the secure location behind the counter. I came home, put it in the camera and - voila! - it works.

This whole exchange took less than 10 minutes, and I'm so grateful - for pleasant and helpful store clerks and for Discount Drug Mart.