the problem with airports

I was reconsidering my blog sub-title yesterday, thinking that I hadn’t posted about an un-lucky event in quite a while.  This will end that streak, for sure.  Not that I want to keep experiencing the quirks and failures of life, per se, but they are often amusing to write and read about. Example: spilling something on yourself is much more interesting (and funny, if not fun) than eating a meal faultlessly.  Slapstick humor wins every time.  And works in all languages.  But I digress.

I may have mentioned previously that I don’t have a car.  I do have a scooter (broken, and it’s been sitting on campus for about 6 months now…), and I’m a member of a car-sharing program.  My day-to-day transport consists of a mix of my own two feet and Atlanta’s MARTA public transit system.  So it’s been strange and wonderful to have Lincoln and his car visiting for the last while.  I was able to offer friends rides to the airport as opposed to begging for one.  Refreshing!

I took one friend to the airport on Monday without mishap, and was asked if I could drive a second friend (let’s call her Canadia for the purposes of this story) to the airport this morning.  I was duly warned by friend #1 that Canadia had problems with airports.  Or not with airports exactly, but with arriving at them in a punctual manner.  So knowing this, friend #1 advised me to get to Canadia’s apartment early, and make sure that packing and getting ready were going smoothly.  Canadia and I agreed that I’d pick her up at 10:15am (for a 12:05pm flight), and so accordingly I arrived at her apartment and 9:40am this morning.  Called her cell phone.  She didn’t pick up.  I tried again 5 minutes later.  Still no answer (I started wondering if something was wrong).  I left a message.  Waited 10 minutes, thinking that maybe she was in the shower and/or not expecting me quite that early.  Still no Canadia.  I sent a text.  10am rolled around.  I started texting and calling Canadia’s friends to try and find out her unit number, thinking that perhaps her phone had died, the alarm clock didn’t go off, and she was still in bed?!  (And thus banging on her door would be helpful and not nervous/crazy).  I was imagining going to all of the doors in her building at this point, and asking if they knew where she lived…and meanwhile I kept calling every 3 or 4 minutes. 

The first few texts back from her friends weren’t helpful.  Cue full-blown panic.  I got out of my car and alternately paced and called Canadia’s cell.  10:15am passed.  10:20.  10:23…my heart stopped.  The phone RANG!  It was Canadia, and she sounded groggy.  Ah ha!  I thought to myself, She’s woken up and we can still make the flight.  Here’s a lesson, kids: don’t EVER count your chickens before they hatch, even for half a second.  Canadia’s end of the conversation was as follows: “Cecelia, I’m SO sorry!  Where are you?  S*%&.  I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.  I’m leaving now.  I’m so sorry!  I’m going to cry, Cecelia! (end call)”  What the eff, I thought to myself, is happening?  10:44am, a cab pulled up outside Canadia’s apartment and disgorged the passenger in question.  She was apologetic, frantic, and somewhat incoherent (ya think?).  I took things in hand.  She had boxes that needed to be transferred to a friend's for safekeeping, bags to finish packing, and a sub-let to finalize.  I’ll have you know that I had her packed up, changed and into my car by 11:01am.  We raced to the airport, more apologies and explanations were given along the way (I’m not going to tell THAT story…but suffice it to say that there might have been consumption of a fermented liquid depressant involved, with a dash of dropped phone for good measure?), and I promised that I’d stay in the area in case she didn’t make her flight and needed a ride back in to Atlanta.

Well, not to spoil the ending or anything, but she didn’t make her originally scheduled flight.  She may or may not have gotten on as a stand-by passenger on the flight a couple of hours later.  And I’m still waiting for confirmation that Canadia arrived at her final destination.  But my part in the story is over.  I’m not gonna lie, while it was happening it was equal parts annoying and silly.  But everyone messes up, right?  I certainly have.  Nice to know other people are human.  And the annoying bit just fizzles into humor as soon as the apologies are offered and accepted, so it’s really just a good story for posterity.  Or blackmail.  Hee!

adventures in flight

It has been rather a long time since I last posted.  In the meantime, I’ve been to my brother Peter’s college graduation (from my own alma mater), and afterward road-tripped back down to Georgia with the next youngest sibling, Lincoln.  He is visiting me here in Atlanta for a week and a half before he goes off to his summer internship in South Carolina.  A state which is not that far from Atlanta, really.  At least, it doesn’t look like it on a map.  It’s a quarter inch to a half inch away, depending on how big your map is.

Anyway, with such goings on and traveling things, I haven’t been near a computer in a while, and am hopelessly backed up with fun little stories and adventures (many of which I have already forgotten or will forget and not post).  I likely wouldn’t have gotten around to blogging at all until Lincoln was gone if I hadn’t had the (bad) luck to get a cold.  So now, though I feel like putty recently scraped off a wall in a tenement somewhere, I have the time to write.  Er, blog.  In case you wondered, Lincoln is feeling well, and is out on the porch reading.  I am the invalid resting indoors on a perfectly lovely day.  Who knows what that fresh air might do to me!  I could get well!  Or something. 

The following is a bit of an entry that I started at the Atlanta airport when I was on my way to the graduation last Thursday.  It seems vaguely wasteful not to post a paragraph’s worth of useful material, so I’ll begin there.

The Wednesday night before I flew out, I went to see Star Trek (2009) for the second time.  I heartily enjoyed the film the first time around, when I saw it with friends on opening day, and I had to share the experience with Elizabeth, my fellow movie buddy here in Atlanta.  She was skeptical.  Said she wouldn’t go see it.  I offered to pay for her ticket.  She acquiesced (and drank cider in the theater!).  I think we both enjoyed it.  Last night I found myself at yet another showing of Star Trek with Lincoln, because he didn’t want to go alone.  He paid for tickets, and I really can’t complain, but please, oh please!, next time I go to a movie, can we see something new?  I was trying to remember last night if I’d ever seen another movie thrice in theaters, and the only thing I could come up with was Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.  And that was only because it was playing on the $1 screen at my college campus the last two times.

Having said all that, Star Trek gets 5 stars.  It’s fun, it’s big, it’s action, it’s personal conflict and growth, it’s flashy, new and exciting.  In other words, everything you want a summer movie to be.  Elizabeth and I did go and see Wolverine, the first true summer movie, and it was mediocre and left me feeling unsatisfied.  Trek does not leave you feeling anything but full of excitement and maybe a little wonder at the glory that is big time film-making.  May all the rest of the summer movie lineup be as enjoyable.

Odd note:  Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock in the original TV series, makes an appearance in the new film.  When I was listening to his dialogue, a little sensor went off in the back of my brain, and I kept thinking, ‘Where do I know this guy from?’  He was strangely familiar, but I’ve never watched the TV series or anything… so that was a really peculiar feeling.  Then I looked up his imdb.com profile, and voila!  Nimoy is the voice behind Civ IV, my one admitted computer gaming habit.  It was his voice that is always saying things like “As the potter is to the clay…” and “I got pig iron, I got pig iron!” to me in the middle of the night from my laptop speakers.  Weird.  With a capital ‘W.’  He has a nice, deep voice that sounds very like the grandfather in all of the stories that I’ve ever read.  Well, you know how when you’re reading (to yourself, silently) you give the characters voices to differentiate them?  No?  I’m the only one who does this?  Yeesh.  Maybe I should talk to someone about that…

Now where did I leave off on the real storyline?  Oh yes.  So the night before I left I went and saw a movie.  That was not the best choice.  Because the next morning I’d made plans to breakfast with my mother’s cousins (they’re from Portland, but were visiting Atlanta for a week, and wanted to see me), and I wanted, hypothetically, to sleep at some point.  Between packing and a head that wouldn’t stop whirring (happens a lot, I’m thinking of getting it replaced.  Anyone have a spare brain floating around?), I slept a maximum of two hours.  And then went to a very agreeable breakfast at a place called The Flying Biscuit.  This restaurant has a couple of locations, and is something of an Atlanta institution.  We went to the one Candler Park.  I had an amazing raspberry French toast breakfast and listened and laughed at the foibles of the extended family, and was toted back to my apartment in time to head off to my flight.

I rode to the airport with Elizabeth (she keeps cropping up, doesn’t she?), because her flight left at approximately the same time as mine, and Why waste a good ride to the airport when there’s one to be had?, which isn’t my motto, but is probably someone’s out there.  There are enough people on the planet to practically ensure that.  The plane that arrived prior to mine hailed from Sarasota.  Watching the off-loading process was quite a kick.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many airport attendants (aka wheelchair helpers) preparing to greet a single flight.  The plane was absolutely chock-full of the elderly.  And when I use that term, I don’t mean anyone with grey hair.  I mean a physically impaired, possibly walking with a canister of oxygen at their side type of crowd.  Sarasota is a popular destination with the old, old set, apparently.

And then, lickety-split, I was on my own plane and off to Pittsburgh.  Star space, flying biscuits, and plane rides…that’s enough winging for a while!