There is an episode of Grace and Frankie where they are trying to buy a pack of cigarettes and getting totally ignored by the store clerk. It’s hilarious but also a little sad, and until my recent travel experience I thought it was clearly an exaggeration. So, last Friday night I was checking into my flight to come up to Pittsburgh. I was traveling on Southwest so why not check a bag right? I mean it’s free. So I checked into the little kiosk there, got my luggage tag, tagged my bag, and waited for the next agent. As I started to approach the open agent some “kid” whizzed by from out of nowhere on my right and went up to the counter. Her mom, a few steps behind her said “did she just cut in front of you?” to which I said “yes” and they continued to check their bags in front of me. Her mom must have told her as she looked back at me mortified, apparently confirming that she did not see me. After they finished someone else cut in front of me that was to my left. As yet a third person started to cut I said “come on” and the baggage guy finally took me next. Even he said “I didn’t see you” – I mean I was standing RIGHT THERE. RIGHT there. To make matters worse on the return flight the same thing happened. I checked my bag waited for the open agent and as they became open I started forward and then a family of three just ran in front of me up to the agent. WTF. Seriously, WTF. This family did not apologize like the last mom did. This time it was the daughter that looked back at me slightly embarrassed. Aholes.
My flight to Pittsburgh which was last Friday night (one week ago) was delayed which wasn’t bad as it enabled me to see all of a play that Marissa choreographed before I had to get to the airport. (She did such a good job) So it was okay. But I landed at 2 am – getting to my sisters at 3 am. Long day. It was 85 degrees when I left Florida (again last week we’re talking) and when I landed it was 29 degrees and the rampway off the plane was icy. I was freezing.
Returning to Florida last night was okay (and had finally warmed up) – got to the airport 4 hours early but I didn’t mind. It was nice to have a few minutes/hours to myself to just collect my thoughts and check emails. Other than the now familiar being ignored at the baggage counter I took my time getting to my gate – A3, clearly marked on my boarding pass, which I printed this time as my phone dies just because…seriously just because. (Jumping ahead in my story I had turned my phone off when I got on the plane to come back here with 65% battery. Turned it back on to send “I’ve landed” texts. Sent two texts and boom 1%.) But back to the travel blog…while I was walking across the hall (still in Pittsburgh) to find a quiet place to plug the phone in and make some calls I saw Mr. Maloney from Federated. I temped for Mr. Maloney for one week back in 1999 and he told me he would find me a job anywhere I wanted at Federated. I picked meeting planning part-time. He was a bit disappointed and suggested something else but I wanted part-time meeting planning. We’ve talked before about wrong choices haven’t we? (although that really was the perfect choice for me at the time) Anyway there was Mr. Maloney. I actually thought he was probably dead. He is not. So I stopped and reintroduced myself sincerely happy to see him alive. Of course he doesn’t remember me but was totally kind. He told me he still works there, something like 45 years now, travels between homes in Pittsburgh and Chesapeake. I told him I was in Florida now, always hoping to get back to the west coast, so he added that they have a house in Marco Island too. I decided that was enough out of him. House here, house there, whatever. And went across the hall to make my phone calls. Ole’ Mr. Maloney. I think his secretary did tell me once that he’s probably around the same age as I am. But I was weirdly happy to see him.
Boarding was at 7:00 pm and I noticed they started lining up. I went to the bathroom one last time where I heard boarding at A3 come immediately – I’m like again, WTF, so run out of there and well they are still lining up. What’s the hurry? I had forgotten to check in the day before so was way back at B52 – and they were just lining up the B’s. Ya know? Again, what’s the hurry? So I sat back down around the place I should be standing. So on they were going and she said ‘boarding now blah blah Phoenix” – I look at the guy beside me and said “did she just say Phoenix?” She sure did, although he was kinda cute and said I could still come to Phoenix with him but once more I was like …fuuuuuuccckkk… I’d been sitting there 2+ hours watching the wrong gate. I haven’t told my kids this one. I even scared myself. Luckily my gate was A7 (very close by) CLEARLY marked on the boarding pass. Where did I get A3? I look at that boarding pass over and over wondering how I got that mixed up. I was never able to figure it out but did manage to get in line for the right flight, boarded, got a nice aisle seat up front and landed in Orlando, not Phoenix. Thank god.
And that’s the end of my travel blog.
I’m back in Florida, back at work today, back at cooking/burning my dinner of eggplant moussaka. I was home in Pittsburgh this past week celebrating the end of an era, or as better known in our society as a funeral. There really wasn’t any celebrating at all. It was very sad. Giving all of us pause as our parents (not my mom yet) are dying at dizzying speed. I mean it is the right time for this to be going on but the longer they live the more memories are made the harder it is. Probably easier that my dad died when I was 26. I’ve lived more years without him than with. Ya know? But when a parent dies and we’re pushing 60, well that’s a lot of time to have had a person in your life. Even as our parents say they are ready to go and we might feel like it’s time well I don’t think we’re really ever ready. Jimmy’s (my son) Nunni (his grandma) died last week. That’s why I went up. He said he has two frozen containers of her pasta sauce in the freezer. She cooked pasta every Sunday. Actually I thought he would have had more that that in the freezer. I wonder if he will ever eat the last two. I don’t think I could do it. I’d rather keep them in there and just look at them forever. I have a really hard time with the passage of time these days. It’s happening too fast. I have some really good years ahead of me (I hope) but I think I’m doing that thing they always talk about that comes about later in life..confronting my own mortality. I always thought that would happen when I was like 80. Didn’t expect to be doing that now.
Oh well, time marches on. I don’t want to think or blog about it anymore because I can get really dark.
So tonight I’m going to eat my Moussaka thing (it’s a healthy Purple Carrot tofu thing)..watch some TV, think about the massage/facial that I have scheduled for tomorrow with the gift certificate I got from work. Did I mention that? I got a really really nice gift certificate for my work year anniversary. I mean really nice. We got Julia an umbrella from the book store last year for her anniversary. They made a really big deal of mine. I’m not sure why I’m so special but if I could be sure to get one of these every year well it just might help a little. It was such a surprise.
Jimmy’s 27th birthday is today. He’s really grown from this cute kid to a handsome and very nice young man. He’s had a lot of love in his life. Kinda really happy about that.
xoxoxo