My Recent Airline Experience:

1.  I leave work on time to get to the station where I will park my car and take the bus to the airport. When I arrive, there are zero long-term spaces available. After some finagling, I pay for three days and leave my car in the "pick-up parking only" lot, which means I have a front-row spot at the station.

2.  The bus is caught in stopped traffic because some idiots smashed into each other on the Zakim Bridge, making inbound afternoon traffic worse than outbound commuter traffic.

3.  There is no one in line at pre-check, and the few of us sail right through. A random guy and I get pulled aside at Logan by TSA to be checked for bomb residue on our hands. Yes, I look like a post-menopausal terrorist, apparently. This is the fifth or sixth time in a row that I have been "randomly" tagged. The last two times, TSA demanded my cell phone (also for bomb purposes).

4.  My gate is changed. I sit a gate away so I have room and availability to charge my cell phone. My only company is a lovely lady sharing my flight and a random bird that keeps wandering around between our feet.

5.  Our flight is delayed by people who do not understand how to deplane. They keep dribbling out with huge spaces between random blobs of humans. People - Grab your stuff and get off the plane. Worth the wait -- the sunset is amazing through the cloud bank.

6.  The rental car line is ridiculously long, even at an almost ungodly hour of the night.

7.  I miss Whole Foods by five minutes and end up getting the first fast food that I have had in a decade or more. It's a Wendy's chicken sandwich, passably edible.

8.  I sleep better than I do at home except for a random 3:30 a.m. leg cramp that feels like I might need to have my lower leg amputated. Takes a solid fifteen minutes to walk and settle down again. Old age is not for sissies.

9.  Everything is great, the weather and the company and the hotel, until I return to the airport. Seriously. I don't even hit traffic, and the line to the rental return is well-organized. I get to pre-check, which in Charlotte means me and 300 of my closest friends. It's okay because the regular line is probably 500 deep. I almost don't get past TSA because they're looking at my license. Now, this I could understand when I cut off all of my hair last summer, but now I look exactly like my license picture, long gray hair and all, minus maybe a dozen pounds. Again, TSA gives me crap.

10.  Two minutes after I sit at my gate, a notification comes through that my flight will be delayed 90 minutes. That's 90 minutes I could've spent NOT sitting at the airport. At least I get to watch the end of the Giants-Cowboys football game.

11.  The flight is delayed on the tarmac as there are too many planes in front of us. 

12.  The woman sitting next to me smells so badly that the girl on my other side curls into a ball for the entire two-hour flight, and I am forced to pull my jacket around my nose. Seriously. Take some Gas-X or something. We are all stuck with her rear-end the entire flight.

13.  The flight is delayed in landing because Logan closed one of its runways and there are still too many planes in front of us. I sit near the front, so I manage to get off the plane within ten minutes.

14.  The express bus back to my car is late, and, when it does arrive, we make the rounds to the other terminals. I am at B, so A is already on the bus. Then C, which has a lot of people, then D with the same situation, then E, the international terminal, with a bunch of people. I have never seen the bus so full, People are standing. Where did all of these people come from? 

15.  At the bus station, my bag is one of the last out because, hey, too many people on the bus after me. At least my car is all paid for and in a front spot. I manage to make it home and am showered and unpacked quickly.

I love, love love traveling. But, this TSA schtick is starting to get old. The next time I fly, which will be in a few weeks, if I get TSA-picked-on again, I will be filing a DHS-TRIP form. Other than that, the delays and gate changes and even the bird are all entertaining. (That lady's butt, not so much.)

AND SO IT STARTS

Back to school, yet again. 
Only one or two more "first days" 

(hopefully, one)

 to survive -- 

the multiple online trainings, 

the speeches, 

and the overpaid and undertalented presenters. 

Most of us spend the time on our devices. 

I play a few rounds of Rummy 

and complete a Sudoku or two. 
We're not trying to be disrespectful. 

We're trying to stay awake. 

The nights leading into the first few days 

of school 

always involve restless and sleepless nights. 

So, most of us do the best we can to 

make our surroundings more palatable. 

Posters go up, color gets splashed around, 

and plants go in the window.

Then, the students show up,

splashing color into the room,

taking up the empty space,

and bringing to life the void

that occupied the space since June.

Back again -

For now.

ROCK IT LIKE A HURRICANE

The hurricane skirted by our coast recently. It brought with it waves, excitement, daring, stupidity, and tragedy.

We live in the Merrimack Valley, which means that the mighty Merrimack River is our major waterway. It empties into the Atlantic Ocean in a channel that is known for its treacherous undertow. This means that people who jump off the jetty to swim often get pulled out or under, only to wash up as bloated corpses days or even weeks later. Seriously. They slip in the water without a care in the world and then get swallowed up into oblivion.

I've boated through the channel on a good day, which means everyone except the captain lies down on the bottom of the boat for balance and safety. Every time we hit a swell (they're continuous), the boat goes perpendicular, and we are "standing" and watching the boats behind us attempt the same maneuvers. It's an experience not for the faint of heart. We lived through it and no one got tossed overboard. 

Do boats go through there every day? Sure. Are there calm days? Sure. The problem is that the ocean up this way can look deceptively placid even when it's aiming to murder you.

Rip tides are a frequent event up here. Not frequent enough to keep us out of the ocean, but frequent enough that every summer a few people get caught in the rip currents and either have to get rescued (if they're lucky) or have to be recovered (if they're not). Sometimes the rip tides can be spotted from the beach -- an area suddenly looks flat, or waves crash on the shore all except in one place where they just . . . don't. 

In all the times that I've been to the beach, once (and only once) have I been involved in a rogue wave situation, and my friend and I were lucky because it only involved us chasing our chairs and our flip-flops into waist-deep water as it receded. Thinking back on it now, though, we probably should've called it a wash and let the stuff go with the major undertow that sucked the beach dry after the wave crested.

But, like the coastal water babies we are, we can't resist hurricane-induced surf.

We head out to the beach and notice that the waves just keep coming in and coming in, right on top of and with each other. It's fascinating to watch and even better to hear because the roar doesn't stop for a breath; it keeps sounding like an unhinged alarm clock. There are two surfers in wet suits (dumb to attempt surfing this but smart to be suited up) and one who just walks into the ocean wearing shorts and a t-shirt. We see them go into the water, but we don't see them come out for a very long time. Finally, about twelve minutes goes by and one of the wet-suited surfers reappears near the shoreline. My only worry is that if we can't see them, rescuers can't, either. 

After a while, we head toward the inner areas, places that are still windy and choppy, but are marshes or small bays or coves, more protected from the wide open stretches of beach. There are two windsurfers taking full advantage of the steady, strong breeze. They are smart -- they're staying along the edge of the water, along a parking lot, a residential street, and houses. In other words, they are both protected and visible. And they are flying. Literally. Maybe four to six stories in height.

It is pretty cool to watch and not nearly as nerve-wracking as watching the surfers disappear into the Atlantic Ocean.

Later, when the hurricane makes its closest pass, the news stations report on swimmers drowning (people in the violent surf who probably shouldn't have attempted the thrill) and at least one boater lost at sea after passing through that turbulent (on a good day) channel. None of these people had any business being in or on the water in such conditions, but we all misjudge (sudden rip tides and rogue waves and sharks and jellyfish). 

After all, it's not like the hurricane actually hit us, right? Wrong. 

The sea is its own master. It can turn on its wrath with the rapidity of Poseidon punishing Odysseus. The ocean doles out waves and excitement and daring that often make great photo ops, but it also indiscriminately punishes stupidity and delivers tragedy. It demands and deserves respect and will always exact revenge in the face of hubris. If you're lucky enough to be its witness, the camera is a better option than a wetsuit, swimsuit, or life jacket. Just as long as you rock it like a hurricane and don't roll it like bloated roadkill.