unfortunately, some idiot numbskull broke my suitcase - the one i've had since i was six years old. us air owes me, big time. and they ought to more carefully screen their employees. if i had my way i'd figure out who busted a perfectly good latch on a sturdy old suitcase (from the days when they actually made things that last) that can never be replaced, and severely reprimand them. forever. for the rest of their lives, and even beyond that.
i'm going to sleep now. here's what i wrote about on the plane ....
I gotta admit, I love to fly. I hate what it does to the earth, and that thousands of innocent people are being killed and tortured so multi bazillionaires can build pipelines through their homelands and ship the gooey gunk around. but I love the pure thrill of it.
This trip has brought back memories from the days when I used to do it on a fairly regular basis. I love the hustle and bustle of airports, the atmosphere filled with antipation and anxiety as people prepare to journey across the globe or meet returning loved ones. I love the rush of power and speed as the plane begins to take off down the runway, the sense of awe and wonderment as the big metal bird lifts off into the sky, the perspective of reality from way up in the air …. the turbulence is a bit freaky, flying through clouds, but at the end of it, when the big bird is safely landed again on terra firma, it makes a person glad to be alive. And in an entirely new and different place!
Flying out of Vancouver I could see all the way to Vancouver Island. I could see the miniaturized BC Ferry leaving Active Pass on its way to Swartz Bay. Eventually I could see Sidney, and Ten Mile Point, and the coastline around Oak Bay. Then the volcanoes, I think it was Mt. Hood and St. Helen’s. I could see the vast clearcuts of what were once the majestic rainforests of Washington/Oregon . As we neared Phoenix I saw brown …. lots of brown. A bit of snow on mountains here and there, now and then a trickle of water.
Phoenix itself was quite green. The man next to me said they’d had the wettest winter in a long time. There were floods, even. He was quite a pleasant man, and it’s this that I find most disturbing. How can such a friendly fellow, concerned about the appropriate use of water in a state with way too many green lawns and swimming pools and golf courses, how can he possibly work for a mining company? And fly all over the place – Denver, Vancouver, Uruguay? I guess we all have our redeeming qualities, we’re none of us perfect. Arizona, for example, is smart enough never to switch to daylight savings time and back like all the other silly states and provinces twice a year. But still …. how does such a nice fellow end up in such a nasty industry?
I’ve got a window seat again, leaving Phoenix, and I see it’s precisely how my mining friend described it – a sprawling suburb. I wonder why they didn’t just do a complete checkerboard in true rectangular fashion? Why they chose, sometimes, to put curvy roads in their squares of housing developments? It’s at least a bit more interesting that way, at least from way up here. Otherwise it’d just be a grid of rows and columns.
And the seat next to me is empty. Un-heard of, on a Friday night flight, I’m sure. The young fella on the aisle seat and I have decided we must have done something good to earn the little bit of extra space.
They’re selling food-like items, as we fly into the darkness. The two air stewards on this flight are male. Like the flight from Vancouver, there’s one young and one older. And when I say older, I mean very near retirement. I guess they must love it …. or they gotta keep working as long as they can to get the health benefits. I notice they’re able to wear street clothes – no uniforms like in the old days. Maybe it’s casual Friday. If there is an emergency I’ll look to the older guy for advice, and the younger one for help getting the doors open.
I’m looking forward, now, to getting to Chicago and figuring out the 24 hour train system that will get me to the swank hotel in about 45 minutes. Sleep will be good, too, but mostly I’m looking forward to seeing Jay and I hope I can stay awake at his party. I learned, during the last two summers’ expedition on the Cuba Caravan, how to get by on very little sleep. Did you know it’s possible to sleep with your eyes open (so as to appear to be paying attention?) Seriously – there were times, in Cuba, when the heat at the exhaustion almost got the better of me. But I was so determined to be polite and also to try and learn as much as I could about what Cuba is, that I was literally asleep with my eyes open.
By the time you don’t read this (I write for my own personal enjoyment) I’ll be settled and my eyes will have closed, and I will have slept, at least a little bit. Hopefully.
