4 posts tagged “travel”
Was all set to leave the house to meet wife at the airport this evening; made a final check on-line to make certain the plane was in the air, it was.
Then about 15 minutes later, the phone rings and the caller ID indicates its from a pay phone ?????? Pick up and it's the wife calling me to tell me she missed her connecting flight to Dulles. Okay, why? Turns out she was detained at Customs as she had (gasp!!) a packet of Japanese cucumber seeds and was told she either had to go to court (in the Midwest) or pay a fine, which was $700. She paid the fine with the credit card. She thinks she was tripped up and the airport was one she/we don't normally pass through on our way back here.
Oh the horrors that would await the U.S. from a packet of Japanese cucumber seeds! Wonder where the line is between actually protecting U.S. citizens and a shakedown.
Was verbally gnashing the teeth, as particularly now $700 out the window is something we cannot afford, when son says, "Dad, it's not going to get any better by continuing to bitch like that" Humbling being told that by a teenager.
Still, Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Wife will leave for Japan in about 10 days or so and stay for 2 weeks. Its a family thing, the whatever anniversary of her father's passing and marked by a memorial service at which all the family gathers. I'm not going because a.) I'm supposed to be looking for a job, b.) I don't think I'm ready to leave son alone for that long yet and c.) really not up to a trip to Japan, the idea really does not get me excited. Sure, it'd be nice to see friends, eat some decent Japanese food (Tonkotsu rahmen & gyoza, unagijyuu,) but not much of an adventure: been everywhere except Shikoku and Okinawa, kind of 'been there done that'
The wife's view of ANA is growing dimmer and dimmer. She's using earned miles and ANA first hemmed and hawed about seat availability and then wanted to tack on a ridiculous surcharge for fuel. She's flying NorthWest instead, who gave her little hassle and will fly her to where she needs to end up, Nagoya, and no surcharge.
So while she is gone, it'll just be son & me, and guy's rules in the house. We'll be drinking straight out of the milk and juice jugs, leave the toilet seats up, belch whenever we want to, watch trashy TV programming til our brains ooze our our ears and do whatever other male stereotypes that can be thought of. :-)
I think we all have a place to go to and people we go to escape or recharge ourselves both mentally and physically. For some it is their hometowns. For me it is the Lower Eastern Shore of Maryland, more commonly known as Delmarva.
My father grew up there (had my great grandfather not been a bigot, my father might have grown up around Lancaster, Pa.) and the bulk of my father's side of the family still lives there (the true mark of an Eastern Shoreman is that their interest in the outside world stops at the western edge of the Chesapeake Bay, so it is the rare native who strikes out into the world). Given its closeness in comparison to where my mother’s side of the family lived/s, many family trips were to visit his relatives and I also spent most of my teen summers there as well. But even then I was ‘that boy from the city’.
It’s a different place, with different, clannish people. The Chesapeake Bay, Atlantic Ocean and agriculture figure large in this area and until the early 50's isolated as well as the only practical way to get there was a ferry across the Chesapeake Bay. The bridge that replaced the ferry is for some of the natives, probably one of the worst things to happen to their way of life as 'city folk’, i.e., anyone on the other side of the Bay, arrive in droves during the warmer months.
Two books, which I have read, are good introductions to the Lower Shore and its people. The first is Chesapeake, by James Michener, and the other Beautiful Swimmers, by William Warner is another.
Last weekend was a rare free weekend so off my wife and I went. My son stayed at home since he did not want to be 'bored'. So packed and headed for my cousin's house. She is the one holding me in the photo atop this blog. She was glad to see us not only as it had been a while since the last visit and also her husband, like many of the men on The Shore, are usually not at home during the weekend, being out on the water fishing, hunting or just hanging out with their buddies at 'the store'. In his case, he was sailing his cruiser out from the oceanside to a winter berth on the Bay and do some late season fishing along the way.
She had a 1.5 liter bottle of an unpleasantly sweet Chardonnay which she and I finished off between the 2 of us and a couple of shots of a coffee-favored liqueur. We did not get shit-faced drunk, but we certainly were happy and compared family notes and gossip. Learned she, contrary to what I had thought of her, had tried to be a cheerleader in high school but failed as she did not have the necessary attributes. She still seemed bitter even after all the yeas that have gone by.
But far more rewarding was waking up the following day (no hangover) stepping outside in the morning and listen to the Canadian Geese in flight, inhale deeply the air and smell the familiar smells of the woods and farmland taking me way back to when my life was much more simpler. And inside the body and mind, the beat slowed down.
This feeling lasted for most of the trip back to Northern Va. and I was content to let those also headed back the metropolis rush pell-mell by us.
Oh yes, the house was still standing when we got back and my son was so ‘bored’ he actually sat down to do all his weekend homework!!!!
My younger brother, Pound Salt is about a different in personality, outlook, from me as can be imagined. As one person once told me, 'hard to believe all came from the same womb', but that's a part of having siblings I suppose.
What he sends me is not all that funny, at least to me, but this morning, there was this which is a bit better than the usual he sends my way.
