“If they delay the flight anymore, can you stay?”
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| Not construction. |
My last morning in Denver started with eggs and hugs again, then we needed to return the Big Orange Sissy to its point of origin. I brought up its lack of power and got resounding agreement from everyone in the office as they mentioned “rubber bands breaking, “ and “the mice getting tired”. Luz Maria took me back and while the sisters mostly used the hot tub, Anabelle and I swam in the pool. Well, theoretically we swam. Mostly she clamped onto me and we just kinda stood there.
My daughter was getting way too smart. She had very nearly perfected a handstand that week. I asked her to see one more when it was time to go, and suddenly she couldn’t hold her form. Either she was too close to the side, or forgot to take a breath, or forgot to put her hands down. Finally, it hit us that she realized as long as she didn’t finish the handstand, we wouldn’t get out of the pool, and I wouldn’t have to go home. She’s a sly one.
Back at the house, we did the final suitcase weighing. Luggage physics was in full swing, yet again. The bag came out to fifty five pounds. In order to be under the fifty pound limit we removed six pounds of clothes. The bag then weighed forty seven pounds. We added a small folder with some back up paperwork and closed it up. (At the airport, of course, it weighed fifty and a half pounds.)
We had a bittersweet lunch at Applebee’s and they gave me a napkin of things I needed to mail back to them. It was mostly vitamins and memory sticks for the super deluxe magic Cannon camera. Anabelle insisted I send her “The Batman is Green Lantern comic and any other cool Elseworlds or What If’s.” That’s my girl.
They all took me to the airport and Anabelle had a sad goodbye nap leaning on me in the back seat. When we pulled into the shuttle parking area, a small rabbit appeared near the entry sign, as if all the unseen roadside wildlife sent a representative to thumb their collective animal noses at me. At the airport Rosa commented at how well they conceal all the construction going on inside the buildings. Luckily, I had seen a plaque inside when we landed and could tell her the canvas mountains covering much of the airport were, in fact, “art”. The girls stopped for an airport ice cream while I waved my shoes at them when I passed through security.
Then I got to spend well over an hour contemplating the longest time away from my family since I had a family thanks to yet another airport delay. I tried to gather as much information as possible from the limited notices I was receiving, and calls to Uncle Dave who graciously volunteered to retrieve me. What seems to have occurred was that they lost my plane in Idaho somewhere. How one loses an entire airplane in that state is beyond me. Look for the big shiny thing with wings among all the potatoes…that’s probably it.
With the delay extending, I figured the mini snack they serve on planes now wouldn’t hold me, and I went to get a Quiznos grilled chicken sandwich as boarding time approached. Due to my tattoo, the new Green Lantern movie, and the comics fan behind the counter, I ended up having to run back to my gate.
Thanks to the near constant cross country thunderstorms it was an excessively turbulent and bumpy flight. This was a great thing. Not that I particularly enjoy the feeling that I am due to drop screaming out of the sky at any minute, however. There was a baby in the back of the plane that did nothing but bawl and howl as if it was trying to pass a live chicken for the entire flight. The only exception to this was when the plane was in the instances of extreme turbulence. Whether the motion rocked the child to sleep or terrified the tyke into silence, I do not know (and was tired and depressed enough to admit that I also do not care.)
As the plane took off, stuff started to pour out of my laptop bag; I caught it all and zipped the case quickly enough to stop everything. Unfortunately, I let go of my water bottle which fell over and shot back I’m not sure how many rows, but clearly well beyond the family behind me. I had my Quiznos dinner dry and figured on searching the plane after everyone else left. When we hit the full air brakes upon landing, the bottle, in an impressive display of Newtonian physics, zoomed forward under my seat to the exact spot it had initially fallen over.
Nice to know that F still equals ma.
I met up with Uncle Dave (and thanked him again a great deal for another ungodly hour airport visit) at whatever ridiculous time it was after both the delay and time shift. Once home, I immediately hunted down and packed up everything I had to mail. Knowing how our post office worked, I figured if I didn’t send it the next day, it wouldn’t make it to Denver until our next trip there. The upshot of the chaos of the day is I discovered a way to eliminate the minor effects of the jet lag from the Mountain Time zone. After getting about an hour and a half of sleep that night, it didn’t really matter what time my body thought it was at work the next day.
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| The closest I got to roadside wildlife waving good bye. |
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