I'll stay at my brother and sis-in-law's home on Wednesday and Thursday night. They live in a western suburb and then will take the train into the city to meet up with my sisters on Friday. We're staying at the downtown Hilton on Friday and registration, etc. is there there. Saturday morning--very bright and very early (4:30 for me and 4 for Jane)--opening ceremonies will commence at Soldier Field. How cool that will be. They were at Grant Park last year, so it must have grown enough to need Soldier Field. The ceremonies won't start until about 7 but because Jane is on the medical team and I'm incident response we need to be there very early, just in case. My hours will be 4:30-10 and 6-whenever (last year it was after midnight) on Saturday and 6-10 AM on Sunday, plus some time during the closing ceremonies in the afternoon. I'm on what's called an AM/PM shift, basically split shift. My cohort will work from 10-6 during the day. I had a choice, why in the hell did I pick AM/PM?
I’m rambling, guess I don’t want to do the apartment clean-up. Sounds like me.
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What a strange range of emotions. But it was super to have Ruth pick me up--a great distraction to talk to someone you know instead of dwelling on what you're experiencing.
I decided to ship one of my suitcases. Simon suggested it yesterday--a good idea. I had so much stuff with me.
My missionary theme continues--Mormons on the way here and Buddhists on the way home. I take that as a good omen. A female Buddhist monk stood at the next agent and we smiled at each other when we both spoke about vegetarian meals.
Heavily armed police smiled and posed for pictures. Incongruous. Big automatic weapons in a country famous for its unarmed Bobbys.
Security is very thorough when you're flying to the states and begins prior to going to the counter to check in. Random searches through all luggage. An elderly woman in front of me lost the luck of the draw.
I bought some great gifts for a few people in the duty-free shop. Can't wait to see their surprised faces at Christmastime.
The flight was ho-hum. Movies were Big Fish and an older one--the Wedding Singer. In between they showed CBS Eye on American. Kept me occupied and awake, since I hadn't slept much last night. My goal as usual was to stay awake on the plane and then immediately begin living in the Central Time Zone.
Only things about the flight that weren't routine were two people--the pacer and the jumper. The pacer was a man who either had a developmental disability or was mentally ill. He kept walking/pacing up and down the aisle--back and forth, back and forth. Then he'd stand by the galley and look outside. At first I thought he was just a nervous flyer, but it was more than that. I noticed a flight attendant filling out the man's landing card for him. After he paced some more, a flight attendant spoke to him and must have told him to sit because he did. And only paced twice after that.
Which was very good because I couldn't concentrate on him because of the jumper--the woman next to me. She drove me MAD! It started slowly. She began moving her legs up and down a little and rotating her ankles. I thought, she's obviously exercising to avoid blood clots. It built slowly over the hours until her St. Vitus dance shook my seatas well as hers. She was slight and surprised me with how much my chair moved.
My problem was this--bad timing. The first two hours the twitching was annoying, but not maddening. In fact, I thought she might have had a neurological disorder and I tried my best to be social-worky sensitive. By the time her jumping became crazy-making, I dared not say anything. I was so upset that I knew my words would involve cursing, and I'd probably slug her. It was nearly the longest 8 hours of my life (one certain night in an Army hospital was the longest). When we landed she jumped over me, saying Pardon me, and rushed over everyone else. Hard to do in a plane completely full of people who'd been sitting for eight hours. Then it became clear to me--NICOTINE! That's why her behavior got worse. Now I wish I'd slugged her. Damn my sensitivity. LOL.
I cleared Customs quickly and I love the "Welcome home" you receive when the agents are nice.
Frank, my brother Jim's father-in-law, picked me up at the airport and we laughed as we drove "on the wrong side of the road." I think I'll use that line a lot during my first week back in the states.
Because Frank visited his wife Katie in the hospital, and my brother had an engagement he couldn't get out of, my sister-in-law Karen, her friend Krista, and I ate dinner together. I was bleary-eyed because of not sleeping, so I know my company wasn't the best.
I did check my email a few times (an addiction as powerful as my seatmate's nicotine), and called my niece Sarah to tell her not to see the new Harry Potter until I got to Quincy early next week.
Went to bed at 9 and my cell phone woke me up at 9:12. Turned it off and went right back to sleep.
posted by Jerilyn Dufresne, author @ 21:30
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