January 6, 2004
-
She Flew
I used to be able to get up at 5:00 and not suffer. Now I suffer. Part of it is due to my diabetes. Diabetics typically feel best in the evening hours. Still, the flight left in the morning and getting up at 5:00 left us just time enough to get dressed, toss the bags in the car and drive to the airport. No coffee, no breakfast, and we both took our baths last night.
Delia doesn't wake easily. Without my prodding she wouldn't crawl out of bed at all before the sun is well up in the sky. She is able to get up on her own at 9:00 but not at 5:00. When the alarm went off, the first thing I had to do was to get Delia up and moving. Then I got dressed.
There were no serious misadventures on the way to the airport. Delia forgot her toothbrush and will have to buy a replacement in Atlanta or in Panama. I had trouble remembering how to adjust the mirrors in the van because it has been so long since I've driven it. But traffic wasn't too bad and we found a decent parking place.
The line to get through security was about 200 meters long. The bridge across the street is about the length of a football field and the line ran all the way up and back the full length of the bridge before going into the security snake, the area where it doubles back and forth. There were four lines for ticketing for our carrier and a baggage security area to go through before going to the security line.
Normally the First Class line is the fastest moving. Today, however, they had e-ticket kiosks where people with bar-coded e-tickets could check themselves in, scan their tickets and print their own boarding passes without waiting for an agent. International, First Class and those going to NASA needed an agent, as did those purchasing tickets.
Delia has been suffering pain in her back for years and it has been particularly bad lately. She almost broke down and went to the doctor yesterday ... until she figured out how the various doctors available to her would treat the problem, none of which would have been satisfactory. So she lived with the discomfort but did ask for a wheelchair when she checked in. Sometimes it isn't justified, but today it was. This has the added advantage, too, of bypassing the long security line, half as long by this time as it had been when we entered.
Soon after I arrived home, Delia called. She said that they had started paging me in the terminal. Mine is a common enough name that I was able to reassure her that it was somebody else with the same name, not me, that they were trying to contact. I may even know who it is that they were after. The little pirate has caused me no end of problems because he lives just a couple of miles from me and is always engaged in some kind of shady deals. I even met him once.
Delia wanted to talk. I, however, was now engaged in preparing breakfast for Cathy and myself. I had roasted a couple of different cuts of beef before Christmas and for New Years Eve and I had ground up some of the meat to make hash with. The hash could cook for a little while without burning too badly but I needed to turn the heat down (it came out dry). So I once more wished Delia a pleasant flight and we both ended the call.
Delia is still up in the air. She usually calls from Atlanta, when that is her stop-over, so I expect to receive a collect call later this afternoon. She'll be gone for three weeks. Cathy will join her for a few days in a couple of weeks, leaving me alone with the canine.
For those of you in Panama: be ready! Delia is on her way.
Recent Comments