11/23/2006 : take two

yesterday i was feeling too poetic and hopeful to write a documentary of my thanksgiving adventures. today my home network lies in shambles and the stuff i'm getting paid to do doesn't work and i still, after a week, don't know why. i'm in the perfect frame of mind for non-poetics.

so where better to begin than the beginning?

come on now, i'm waiting!

right, then, we'll start at the beginning.

my flight from sfo to phx was delayed. it -- oh hell, that's boring. i made it to flg right about on-time with a bit of holiday stress but a minimum of holiday lateness. also, i got to run over a mile through the god damed airport. that was swell. 203 had my sangwich waiting and it was consumed by the time we arrived at her place.

then i got the usual small-town-airport-night-of-no-sleep and we were up in time to be at the airport before 7am.

we checked in for standby: our flight wasn't until late afternoon on account of 203 had not expected her wednesday classes to be canceled, but they were, on account of thanksgiving, which was to be the very next day, hilariously awkward sentences notwithstanding.

the nice lady at the counter told dreary-eyed me and my blushing bride-to-be that not only were there no seats on the plane, the flight was overbooked. still, in good holiday cheer, 203 and i maintained hope. or rather, she maintained hope while i made the best of things by purchasing and consuming a small-town-airport croissant ham breakfast sandwich. yum. we hadn't had coffee yet, there hadn't been time to brew it.

while we waited to hear of our fate some small-town-newspaper reporters sauntered up and interviewed us for their annual small-town-newspaper-wonder-holiday-travel article. they were tickled pink that i'd be meeting 203's parents for the first time. they put our picture in the paper, dear reader, and it's online, dear reader, but i won' t link it, dear reader, because it's got my name in it, dear reader, and that would violate my policy of never posting my name on this blog, you wanker.

anyhow, as the people lined up to be groped and have their shampoo thrown out, we waited anxiously to see if we'd make it. 203 did a count of the gropees but we weren't sure just how many seats were on the plane. we thought they were short.

we moved to a different couch with a better view of the ticketing counter, where our fate would be decided. to our great despair, a trio of sorority-or-middle-school girls (hard to tell. kids these days!) bounded into the 'port and hit up the counter. being maroons, they apparently thought they could buy a ticket for the flight 5 minutes after checkin had ended on the first flight out of flg on the day before thanksgiving. seasoned travelers. they took their disappointment very well.

then came two older women and a kid or something. they already had tickets but had apparently missed out on the latest developments in the past 5 years of airline history, where you now have to show up and get your boarding pass before everyone has already made it through security. as the uglyish fat one carried on and cried, 203 and i guiltily suppressed our hopefulness that we'd get on the flight. we were torn between shameful glee that we'd get to arrive in MO before sundown and empathetic remorse that we'd be doing at the sad expense of this poor, fat, ugly, whiny, stupid, lazy woman who didn't get up as early as we did. actually, to be honest, perhaps we weren't all that torn, after all.

as the poor, fat, etc. woman doused the airport lobby with her poor, fat, etc. tears, the nice lady behind the counter motioned discretely for us to approach the bench. 203 and i could hardly contain our smiling excitement, even without our morning coffee, as we bounded up to the counter. we had made it onto the flight, the lady told us, not needed to specify at the expense of whom. not only that, she was waiving the $50 fee for switching flights, and had arranged our connection and we were all set to get to MO way ahead of time. i told her she was my favorite person for the week. her week expired just yesterday.

SIDE NOTE : during the last week i found myself on a total of 8 airplanes with 4 connections. every single one of those connections save 1 was TIGHT. guess which one featured a departure gate RIGHT FUCKING NEXT to the arrival gate? that's right, the one with the 3 hour layover. guess which one featured a departure gate a solid mile away from the arrival gate? that's right, the one with the -5 minute layover. thank god for running shoes. oh right, i wasn't wearing those because someone told me it'd be cold -- too cold for my well-ventilated running shoes.

we got to MO and landed in the nation's murder capital. once we found our way out of the capital, we encountered signs for white castle. i'd never been so i forced my vegetarian sweetheart to pull over and get me a couple. man they're gross. so gross that i repeated this exercise on the return voyage, bringing my lifetime consumption of white castle sliders up to 4, and probably removing as many years from the tail-end of my life.

the girl BTC at the first WC asked about my bracelet. "is that a bracelet?" she asked. "it is," I replied, hoping that none of her copious eyeshadow had made it into my greasy undersized pressed meat product. she said something witty-ish, and i said something equally witty-ish, but now all i can remember is that she had lots of eyeshadow and that the "burger" was gross.

now. where was i?

oh yes. on the road again.

we made it to the parents house and i was introduced with hugs to everyone except 203's bro-in-law, from whom i received a hearty handshake. i wasn't there for 5 minutes before i was included in the story of how the bro-in-law was accused of farting in order to cover up his roll-stealing-induced odd behavior. it was to be a weekend of fart jokes, culminating when 203's mother went, to my great horror, into the bathroom right after i had despoiled it. even with the fan still on, i knew it was to be an embarrassing moment, and i froze in terror as time slowed down and she inched closer to the closed door. hadn't she seen that i'd just been in there? didn't she see the closed door? what was she thinking! I tried to warn her but could not. 203 saw my frozen expression and knew what the score was. she broke my panic by asking me if i'd put the fan on, to which i blurted, "yes!" but it was no use -- 203's mom opened the door, made a face, and shouted to me in her own special way, "YOU KNOW, THERE'S SPRAY IN HERE!"

i hadn't been able to find it. lord knows i'd looked.

it was then that i realized how true had been 203's assessment of our families' interchangeableness.

now, back to the linear narration. where the hell was i?

oh, right, fart jokes and introduction.

the relatives:
203's mom, dad, sister #1, sister #2, sister #2's husband. later i would meet sister #2's son #2 and sister #2's husband's brother #unknown. all but the brother were present for thanksgiving dinner, the son was not there when i arrived.

203 and i arrived just in time for a meal. i have no idea what time it was, my internal chronometer still hasn't coped with all the time jumps. we all sat around the table and joked and had a grand old time.

THINGS I LEARNED DURING MY VISIT:
- cave crickets are fuckin huge
- leaves are fuckin slippery
- how to play canasta
- the difference between knitting and crocheting
- football players crochet to de-stress
- the difference between allergies and asthma
- splenda has an icky aftertaste when used in pies but sometimes the pie is still good
- MO really isn't all that cold
- i really should pass sometimes.
- various slivers of military jargon, history, and so forth
- how to hang laundry
- i don't like cold peas
- i do like molasses cookies
- some people use drums to medidtate
- i use squats to meditate
- bucks scrape bark off trees to mark their territory
- the tsa's new slogan is 3-1-1, which means "3 ounces, 1 ... um... one... uh..." (reaches for cheat sheet)
- something else really important that i can't remember, gorram it!!

my thanksgiving weekend was so full of stuff that i find, once again, my blogging time draws to a close without providing me enough time to say all i want to say.

perhaps there will be a part 3 of the 11/23/06 chronicles. in case there's not, here's a summary:

- i had fun
- i think the fam liked me
- if i can keep her dad and my dad from talking politics, i look forward to them meeting next year
- i traveled well for a change - no major problems aside from the usual you-know-what, which, if you read this posting carefully, was clearly not a problem for the entire visit
- less than three weeks to go

LESS THAN THREE WEEKS TO GO