Tubasaluki: Quoting music since 2003

Usually when I take a vacation, I post about it a week later. This allows me to forget all the fun and exciting things that happened, leaving me with unusual travel stories to tell you about. Remember when the back window of my truck topper hit me in the head because it was loaded down with ice? That was a good one.

This time, I decided to not wait a week mostly because I have nothing better to do.

We begin on Thursday, where our hero (me, since I do enjoy calling myself “our hero”) was fighting a flu or something. Stomach pains and the whole such. The usual optimistic feeling of going home was replaced with the thought of sitting through an airplane ride in this condition. Luckily, through some orange juice and rest, I was able to recover, albeit leaving a nice pile of dishes for me when I got back.

I departed Salem at 2:14 am for the airport, a ride which took about 90 minutes. Not much goes on at Lambert Airport that time of day. When I went to check in at Frontier, there was no line. This is great because, really, who wants to wait in lines at 4 am. I suppose the people flying American, who were not only in line, but in line without any ticket agents. I have been in that line before, and blowing past them towards security was sort of like those times I past Thompson Point when everyone and their significant others mulled around outside after a fire drill while on my way to work. “Haha,” I would say to myself “SHE certainly didn’t expect to be awake right now!”

While the people checking into America had no ticket agents, security had no…security agents. So, I got a bagel and waited. Then realized I had no sort of mint gum and was eating a cheese and onion bagel. Well, I probably wasn’t going to make many great first impressions today anyways, since I slept on both flights (STL to Denver, Denver to Seattle) without much trouble. I don’t even remember taking off either time. Fantastic.

Mom met me at the airport and we quickly got home as to watch basketball. In our household, the NCAA Tournament is sort of “a big deal”. We enjoy it, just a tad. We watched just about every game, rooting for the underdogs (unless Gonzaga was playing). Good times. There was even homemade pizza, which I helped make, mostly by kneading the dough.

Let’s see, family was there. Nice to see everyone again. Jason and Ryan do that thing most kids do when you don’t see them for a few months. “Grandpa Don teached me darn,” was the quote of the weekend coming from Jason. Apparently, the kiddos aren’t supposed to say “darn”. If darn is stretching the vocab a bit far, its probably best the boys don’t stay with me for quite some time.

We were there to celebrate Mom’s birthday. One of those milestone ones. This involved a party involving a bunch of rowers, whom I barely knew. I ducked out to watch more basketball. I did wow the crowd by making a vodka grasshopper, but that’s mostly because, the drink is bright green, and hard to miss.

There was also brunch at Sockeye’s. I took the lunch approach to this, and got the fish and chips. There was also a Lake Tye Coffee Nudge which had all sorts of coffee flavored alcoholness in it. Brunch was good, on all accounts.

It was just a quick trip home, so Monday saw me back on an airplane. I was going without a carry-on for this venture, thus I had no place to carry my book. So, I stopped at one of those airport book stores and looked for a magazine. I wanted something akin to Men’s Health, but not Men’s Health, since I have a subscription. Unfortunately, everything else in the Men’s Interest department was basically porn. I decided against a magazine. I settled on “The Appeal” by John Grisham, which I nearly finished on the two flights back.

While in Denver, I read a few chapters of the book and could not wait to get back on the plane and continue reading. However, Frontier had my seat assigned to someone else, so that was confusing. It eventually got sorted out after some standing in the back of the plane and the what not. I eventually found a seat. One of the flight attendants offered to give me free direct TV on the flight or wine, but I declined. To busy reading The Appeal. Plus, as long as I still got a seat on that plane, who cares? Though, the wine sounded like a better during the quite bumpy descent into St. Louis.

Long story short, a nice trip. I’m looking forward to June when I can go back. This ended quite abruptly, but then again, so did the feeling of being on vacation.

Your wise ass comments could cheer you up.
The emotional disturbance: relax, deep breathe, sit back
from the space in which you stand, here and in demand.

Alan