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2June
2008

your every scene is in the round

maura @ 10:22 pm

Woah! Seems like just yesterday I was all, “I’m going to write something every day, yes I am,” and now it’s already next month and here we are.

I did write something yesterday AND last Friday, but since I was at airports both times (and decided against schlepping the heavy laptop) it was on paper.

I was at a faculty development workshop all last week, then spent the weekend in America’s Most Livable City (2007). I learned a lot at the former, which was really fun, but you’re not interested in my blathering on about how much I love my job.

So let’s talk about travel, shall we? We don’t fly very often — about once a year, really, to visit Jonathan’s family in the midwest. And we tend to go for about a week so there’s not much time-related pressure.

But earlier this year a plan was hatched. A girlfriend* of mine moved to AMLC2007 w/her partner + son, so another girlfriend + I decided to go for a visit sans our own partners + kids. A whole 2 nights of sleep minus little Gus feet + little cat feet — incroyable! (Why is it suddenly French? Je ne sais pas.)

* I’ve been hyper-aware of small quick scenes in movies lately, one of which was that scene in Juno (which we finally saw, thank you Netflix) where Juno + her friend are at the mall and they run into Jennifer Garner who says that she’s shopping w/her girlfriends and Juno’s friend says, “are you gay?” And it cracked me up + made me feel about 100 yrs old all at the same time.

And thus a weekend away was planned. I’m hoarding my vacation days for our 2 family trips this summer, so I decided to fly out around dinnertime on Friday and return at the same time on Sunday.

You know, we’ve heard all of the travel horror stories over the past few years, but it didn’t really sink in until this weekend. Can I just say, wtf? What has happened to air travel to get us to this state? My flight on Friday was over 2 hrs late, and last night, 1.5 hrs. Much of the former was spent in the plane on the tarmac at Newark (hot, and with a chatty seatmate, grrr), while thankfully the latter delay was mostly in the airport. It doesn’t sound so bad while I’m typing it now, but on Friday I could have driven to my destination in the 7 hrs it took me to fly there.

My friend did fine on the Friday leg of her trip, which was earlier in the day, but fared much worse than me yesterday. Her (nonstop) flight was cancelled, she rescheduled to a flight with 1 layover, and with the inevitable delays didn’t get home until nearly 2am. Like mine, her kids are up at 6am. Ouch.

Can’t say I’m looking forward to flying again anytime soon. Luckily we’re meeting family in New England rather than the midwest this summer. And the next time I head to AMLC2007, we’re taking the train, man.

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2 comments on “your every scene is in the round”

Em (3 June 2008 at 7:05 am)

Flying sux. But good for you for getting away sans family. I’m still working on that one.

maura (8 June 2008 at 5:13 pm)

I know, it was such a crazy treat! Though I did miss them all — human boys and kitten boys both.


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