Tag Archives: Air Travel

Air Despair

10 Replies

Air Despair

I get goosebumps every time I travel via jet,
but I haven’t  crashed and burned or perished as of yet.
Pedants say my chances of crashing are remote,
but nonetheless, if I could choose, I’d rather take a boat.

The revelry is greater and the distance to the ground
is cushioned way much better with water all around.
It’s easier to stretch one’s legs, there’s shuffleboard, a pool,
and every cabin has a bed with private sink and stool!

Although planes are faster, what’s the hurry? What’s the rush?
Consider airplane food, the tiny restrooms and the crush.
First class in planes has nothing on last class in luxury cruisers.
In short, I think planes were invented for impatient losers!!

Prompts today are revelry, jet, pedant and goosebumps.

Pre-Trip Snafu

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After a packing frenzy, I finally fell asleep at 3 this morning, then got up at 5 to get ready for my ride  to the airport in Guadalajara to catch a flight to Houston and then to Minneapolis for a family reunion. I started writing this at 8 a.m. in Guadalajara. It is now 2:28 in the afternoon and I am in Houston waiting for my next flight.  I’ve spent an hour and a half  in the Guadalajara Airport waiting room, one hour waiting in the plane for a mechanical error to be fixed, two hours in the air, another hour and a half walking through passport control, customs, baggage claim, baggage recheck (I hope) and another few miles walking from the end of one concourse to the end of the other.

I hope my two hours of sleep last night  accounts for the fact that I absolutely cannot remember rechecking my 50 lb. checked bag after picking it up from the carousel here in Houston. I do remember lifting it off the carousel. I just can’t remember wheeling it though customs and rechecking it to Minneapolis! And I am not going to backtrack another 5 miles, so I may wind up in Minnesota with only my carry-on. The good news will be if this confusion is due to lack of sleep and not the onset of dementia.  This poem, however, relates the story of the beginning of my journey this morning as I sat in the waiting room at the departure gate for my flight from Guadalajara.

 

Pre-Trip Snafu

I have a special movie I’ve been saving to see.
It’s loaded on my laptop here, balanced on my knee
but I cannot watch it due to an oversight,
even though I have two hours left before my flight.

So I’m sitting in the airport feeling sort of lost.
I need to buy some earphones, no matter what the cost.
I knew I’d forget something even though I checked and checked,
but this egregious oversight I neglected to detect.

I penned a careful overview of what I knew I’d packed,
unpacked my bags and looked again to double-check each fact.
My boisterous friends requested that before I go
we celebrate my birthday, but I had to say no.

I was too busy packing , unpacking and repacking––
checking off the items to see what I was lacking.
Phone, computer, curling iron, hair dryer and comb.
I couldn’t think of anything that I was leaving home.

Of course it was inevitable something would go wrong,
and the realization was sure to come along
after I passed all the shops and five miles down the aisle,
weary of lines and walking. Ready to rest awhile.

No magazines to pass the time. My phone is out of juice.
No earphones to enjoy my flick. I guess I’ve cooked my goose.
Too late to remedy my lack, too far into my botch,
but real life’s all around me. I guess that I’ll just watch!

 

Prompt words are off, overview, boisterous, egregious and lost.

Chicago O’Hare at 3 a.m.

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Chicago O’Hare at 3 a.m.

Patti and I took separate flights from Athens to Chicago but since we both had to overnight, we shared a room at the Hilton O’Hare Hotel at the airport. We’d set the alarm for 2:30 as my plane started boarding at 4:40 and I needed to dress, finish packing and make my way to terminal 3 at Chicago O’Hare Airport. The alarm went off and I managed to get up and into the bathroom without awakening Patti. I dressed, put on makeup and only then checked my computer… only to discover it was just 1:15. I had dreamed having the alarm go off!  No wonder she hadn’t heard it.  I took my blouse off and climbed back into bed half-clothed and slept for another hour.

At the airport, I couldn’t find an open security line and found most airline employees to be rather surly at the inconvenient hour of 3 a.m. I got three different instructions about where to go but finally found my place at the end of an extremely long line located in the opposite direction of where I’d been instructed to go formerly.  Half an hour later, I’d made my way to the walk-through, only to be stopped by a TSA agent saying I registered as having metal wrapped entirely around my body in the hip area!  Very strange. Did I want to go to a private area? No. Pat away. She patted and patted.. until finally the mystery was solved. I had on a blouse with a seed bead fringe around the bottom. Evidently the beads were lead crystal—thus registered as a bomb of sorts wrapped around my middle regions. Every time I think I have this security thing worked out, a new surprise!  Now 4:10 a.m. 34 minutes until boarding..then Dallas Ft. Worth bound.  Hate that airport!! Almost home.

You caught me.  This is not the excellent photo of sleepy wayfarers in the Chicago AA waiting room. My computer refuses to accept my SD Card, so it will have to do.

Acapulco Bound

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Click on first photo to enlarge all and see full captions.

Checking the tags.
Hurry up and wait.
And wait. And wait.
Finally airbound.
]
and squiggles,
]
and lines.
Finally, we reach our goal.

Open Letter to the Airline Mucky-Mucks: (For dVerse Poets)

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Open Letter to the Airline Mucky-Mucks

To Whom It May Concern:

My carry-on’s too heavy to lift above my seat,
so I had to put it under, now there’s no room for my feet.
I request some water (though I’ve been twice rebuffed,)
to take an antihistamine, for my eyes are puffed
from the perfume of my seatmate, which also made me cough.
So I’m already hurting long before lift off.
I’ve squeeze marks from the narrow seats, I’m shivering from the draft,
and when this ride is over, I must board another craft!

Two hours later, two states up, I face another battle
trying to find a decent airport meal here in Seattle.
On my muffuletta sandwich (priced $15.93),
I look in vain for olives, which there don’t seem to be.
My Tim’s potato chips are stale, the sodas are all flat.
The Wifi that they advertise does not know where I’m at.
Air travel’s an adventure but not the one I sought.
I forget this lesson once again, refusing to be taught.

One hour left ‘til I lift off to wing my way on east,
I buy a drink and steel myself to board your winged beast.
I hope this time my seatmate fits in her own seat
so I don’t have to deal again with the impossible feat
of leaning out into the aisle, avoiding every ass
of passengers and stewards that brush me as they pass.
I bitch, I whine, I grouse, I cry, complain and moan and sigh.
‘Til by now I’m sure you wonder why I even fly.

I must admit I’ve asked myself the same as I’ve been talking.
The only reason I have found is that it sure beats walking.

 

For dVerse Poets prompt: Write a poem in the form of a letter.

Hard Transit

22 Replies

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Hard Transit

My grandfather and his two teenaged daughters
drove a wagon to Dakota to claim a homestead.
I never asked how many weeks they traveled, or the hardships that they faced.
The young don’t know what answers they will wish for until it’s too late;
so only imagination serves to describe the heat,
day after day with no water except for what they carried,
coyotes, gray wolves and the glaring sun of the treeless prairie.
My aunts were just young girls dealing with the difficulties young girls face
in the sparsest of conditions. No mother. No outhouses.
The jarring ride—grasshoppers so thick the wagons skidded off the tracks,
and that loneliness of riding into
the emptiness of a strange world.

Now, I stand impatiently at the immigration window,
then the ticket line and the security line.
I empty pockets, discard water bottle,
remove computers from their cases, take off shoes,
raise my arms for the check,
struggle up the escalator with bag and purse,
find the right gate,
negotiate the walkway to the plane,
lift the heavy carry-on and lower myself into the too-small seat.
“Plane travel isn’t what it used to be,” my neighbor says,
and we console each other about how hard it is.
“Nine hours from Guadalajara to St. Louis—
a plane change and a three-hour layover in Atlanta,”
I grumble, and he sympathizes.

 

This is a rewrite of a poem I wrote so long ago that even I don’t remember it! The prompt today is sympathize. 

Glamor Travel

6 Replies

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Glamor Travel

My carry-on’s too heavy to lift above my seat;
so I had to put it under, now there’s no room for my feet.
I request some water (though I’ve been twice rebuffed,)
to take an antihistamine, for my eyes are puffed
from the perfume of my seatmate, which also made me cough.
So I’m already hurting long before lift off.
I’ve squeeze marks from the narrow seats, I’m shivering from the draft,
and when this ride is over, I must board another craft!

Two hours later, two states up, I face another battle
trying to find a decent airport meal here in Seattle.
On my muffuletta sandwich (priced $15.93),
I look in vain for olives, which there don’t seem to be.
My Tim’s potato chips are stale, the sodas are all flat.
The Wifi that they advertise does not know where I’m at.
Air travel’s an adventure but not the one I sought.
I forget this lesson once again, refusing to be taught.

One hour left ‘til I lift off to wing my way on east,
I buy a drink and steel myself to board the winged beast.
I hope this time my seatmate fits in her own seat
so I don’t have to deal again with the impossible feat
of leaning out into the aisle, avoiding every ass
of passengers and stewards that brush me as they pass.
I bitch, I whine, I grouse, I cry, complain and moan and sigh.
‘Til by now I’m sure you wonder why I even fly.

I must admit I’ve asked myself the same as I’ve been talking.
The only reason I have found is that it sure beats walking.

The prompt word was passenger.

Bogged Down in Blog

13 Replies

DSC01205
Bogged Down in Blog

It’s hard to write while traveling–
your half-knit thoughts unravelling
as they call you in to talk
or have a meal or take a walk.

You sleep in other people’s houses,
wrinkles in your unpacked blouses,
possessions jumbled in your cases,
move at unfamiliar paces.

You live a life that’s not your own–
daily walking, driven, flown
while trying to remember faces,
confused by all these different places.

In the past I adored going–
miles passing, airwaves flowing.
I loved to move like a rolling log,
but that was when I didn’t blog!!!

Now I find I’m scurrying.
Wake up already hurrying.
I’m confused and frankly dumb,
forgetting where I’m coming from

as well as where I’m going to.
I’ve lost a sock and lost one shoe.
Still, I find time to write each day,
here in some room, hidden away.

This daily writing’s an addiction
that makes real life a dereliction!
I short my hosts to do my writing.
I’ve given up my life for citing!


The Prompt: State of Your Year–How is this year shaping up so far? Write a post about your biggest challenges and achievements thus far.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/

Open Letter to the Airline Mucky-Mucks

9 Replies

Glamour Travel

My carry-on’s too heavy to lift above my seat;
so I had to put it under, now there’s no room for my feet.
I request some water (though I’ve been twice rebuffed,)
to take an antihistamine, for my eyes are puffed
from the perfume of my seatmate, which also made me cough.
So I’m already hurting long before lift off.
I’ve squeeze marks from the narrow seats, I’m shivering from the draft,
and when this ride is over, I must board another craft!

Two hours later, two states up, I face another battle
trying to find a decent airport meal here in Seattle.
On my muffuletta sandwich (priced $15.93),
I look in vain for olives, which there don’t seem to be.
My Tim’s potato chips are stale, the sodas are all flat.
The Wifi that they advertise does not know where I’m at.
Air travel’s an adventure but not the one I sought.
I forget this lesson once again, refusing to be taught.

One hour left ‘til I lift off to wing my way on east,
I buy a drink and steel myself to board the winged beast.
I hope this time my seatmate fits in her own seat
so I don’t have to deal again with the impossible feat
of leaning out into the aisle, avoiding every ass
of passengers and stewards that brush me as they pass.
I bitch, I whine, I grouse, I cry, complain and moan and sigh.
‘Til by now I’m sure you wonder why I even fly.

I must admit I’ve asked myself the same as I’ve been talking.
The only reason I have found is that it sure beats walking.

(Written in the Seattle Airport, enroute to Billings, Montana–then on to Sheridan, Wyoming by car, chauffeured by Patti and accompanied by Patty.  Yes, I have a plethora of P’s in my life.)

The Prompt: Singular Sensation– if you could have a guarantee that one, specific person was reading your blog, who would you want that person to be? Why? What do you want to say to them?

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/singular-sensation-2/

Placement

5 Replies

Where Things Go

Etiquette decrees the place for knife and fork and spoon.
Cocktails belong with sunsets. A wedding goes with June.
Placement is determined by a sort of mass assent.
Snail mail goes in mailboxes. E-mail goes where it’s sent.

Freckles belong on noses and fingernails on fingers.
Perfume should stay in bottles, not in places where it lingers
to make allergic folks like me sneeze and carry on.
It’s a fact that things smell better after the perfume’s gone.

Sheiks belong in palaces, safari guides in tents.
Molls belong with gunmen whereas ladies go with gents.
Gloves are filled with fingers and socks with only holes,
since fingers simply do not go with garments that have soles.

Arms on sweaters, legs on pants. Astronauts in space.
Cats on cushions, birds in trees and eyebrows on your face.
Everything has someplace where it is meant to go.
Missionaries in Africa, tarts with men with dough.

Tiaras go on beauty queens, a dunce hat on a dunce,
or on those of us who want everywhere at once.
We use up fossil fuel flying here and there.
One moment we’re in taxis, the other in the air.

We aren’t really sure at all where we want to be:
mountain, beach or meadow, river, lake or sea.
There is a site on Google showing every single minute
where each plane is going carrying all the people in it.

This one wants to be where that one was just hours ago.
They have to take a Learjet. Other airplanes are too slow.
People flowing elsewhere like water in a stream,
giving up the here and now for places in a dream.

Sometimes I think I’m tired of moving here and there
and that my favorite place of all is right here in my chair.
I’ll give up future travels for places in my head.
My favorite place is in my mind.  I’ll travel there instead!

The Prompt: Places–Beach, mountain, forest, or somewhere else entirely?
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/places/