The Horrors of Airline Travel

I can still remember when flying somewhere was fun and exotic. Boy, those days are long gone. My latest trip to Kentucky is a classic example.

First of all, there is the situation with the carry-on bags. What with the airlines charging for checked bags, it is just kind of disgusting to watch. Dave says that when the airlines treat people like cattle, they in turn act like cattle. Everybody rushes on the plane and tries to jam their overstuffed bags into the bins or under the seats. I watched this go on as I left Denver to fly to Chicago and then on to my destination of Evansville, where my parents would pick me up and bring me on to Owensboro.

I made it to Chicago with time to spare and felt pretty good as I got off the plane and started toward my connecting gate. Things fell out of place when I paused to look at one of the directories of departing flights. My flight to Evansville was listed as CANCELLED. I couldn't believe it.

I made my way to the gate that I would have departed from and stood in line to talk to the agent there. He said the flight was cancelled due to mechanical problems. Further, there were two more flights later in the day to Evansville; both were already overbooked. The best he could do for me, short of sending me to a different airport, was to book me on a flight the next day. He offered me vouchers to stay in a hotel and for food. I was incredulous.

I had him go ahead and book me for that flight while I tried to figure out my next move. The good news was that I had more options than a lot of people. My sister, Leslie, lives in Chicago. I called her and we talked about my situation. Of course, I could stay at her house if I was stuck in Chicago for a night.

I flagged down my parents (figuratively) to keep them from going to the Evansville airport and then spoke with my Kentucky sister, Karen, about my status. I called David and asked his advice, and also how far he thought the Louisville, Kentucky airport was from my sister's house in Calhoun. I called Karen back and asked if she wanted to come and get me in Louisville if I flew on the next flight. "Of course!" she said.

So, I rebooked my flight to Louisville, and let Karen know when I would be in late afternoon. I worked with the American Airlines agent to try to get my bag rerouted to Louisville. The agent worked hard at it, but I could tell that she was pretty doubtful that my bag would go to Louisville. I suspected it was going to end up in Evansville.

Then, when all that was taken care of, Leslie came and picked me up and we went and had lunch with Kevin. What a treat! We went to a little sandwich shop close to Kevin's work that he likes. It was really fun.

After Leslie dropped me back off at O'Hare, I went straight to my flight, and didn't really have any time to waste. I landed in Louisville much sooner than I expected because I had forgotten about the time change. I found Karen right away and she and her husband, Steve, and I waited for my bag that didn't ever come. When I went into the baggage office, they called and found it was in Evansville (what a surprise!) and arranged to have it delivered to Karen's house.

Karen and Steve and I went and had dinner and started to make our way to Calhoun. When I called about my bag and there was no movement to get it delivered, we decided to detour to Evansville to get it. When I went in, the agent handed it to me and didn't ask me to sign for it or check my I.D. Finally I made it home to Calhoun. What a relief.

The next day, and for three more days afterwards, I got automated messages from American Airlines saying that they were very sorry but they had not yet located my bag--which of course, I had possession of. Thank goodness.

The picture above is of my sister Leslie, and her husband, Kevin, in the sandwich shop in Chicago.

Royal Bonica Roses

These are my Royal Bonica shrub roses that I planted along a fence that I can see from our sunroom. This year, they are very happy about the wet winter and spring just past and are blooming like crazy.

A few years ago, when we went to a concert at the Chautauqua Auditorium in Boulder, we walking along the plants and garden areas around the auditorium and I was enchanted with the pink flowering rose bushes planted in one of the areas. Here is a picture of those rose bushes that I took this past week when we went to another show at Chautauqua (those shows are a staple of our summers).



I loved those roses. I had a vision then, of planting similar ones along my fence and I headed out to the Garden Country to look at pink shrub roses. I decided upon the Royal Bonica type, and all but one of the nine that are along my fence are those (I can't remember what the odd bush is). I planted them and hoped they might do well.
Looking at them this year, about five years later, I feel they have more than exceeded my expectations. The second picture is from Chautauqua. The first and third are from my backyard.

Garlic Harvest

I harvested my garlic yesterday and am pretty pleased with the yield and the size of the plants. I plant the bulbs in the fall and then follow the recommendation that I have heard to harvest them after the solstice.

For this years plants, I bought my bulbs from Johnny's Selected Seeds and am very pleased with the results. The previous year, I bought from a different source and the bulbs were tiny and spindly. My bulbs are drying out now, so that I can use them through the fall.

Dave Lecturing

Dave gave a lecture on bluegrass before a show at Denver University the first week of May. Here's a couple of shots of him in action. He came across well as a professor of bluegrass!

The Clarity Project

I started in on a project about six months ago that I nicknamed 'the clarity project.' Another name might be cleaning up a mess that has accumulated over probably eight years.

I started going through rooms and digging out stuff that was squirreled away in our house--in closets and drawers and boxes. I attacked one room of the house at a time and tried to address any items that could be thrown out, given to charity, or shredded. In this manner I went through the rooms of the house. I still haven't gone through the basement (that's Phase 2).

I saved until last the room that Dave and I have our file cabinets in, (a little spare bedroom with just a desk and dressers and file cabinets). That room holds all of our papers. The reason that I saved it until last is because it was the biggest mess of all. I had given up on filing things and just had papers stacked in big piles on top of both cabinets and on the floor! It was a disaster. I could never have found any bill that I needed if there was an urgent need. It took me a month to go through the cabinet and those papers. I overheated our shredder I used it so much during that time. I even found the vet records from the two cats that I took to Germany with me in 1985.

Once I got rid of all the unneeded papers (probably 90% of the total), then I organized the drawers and even set up a system for current and previous year items like utilities, that I would shred at the end of a certain timeframe. Once I had the file cabinet in order, I went and signed up for paperless billing for the majority of our household bills. Then, I hurried and set up electronic folders in my computer so that everything would be organized.



What a great relief. And my system works. Dave needed a tax form. I went and got the folder from my file cabinet that it SHOULD have been in and voila! It was there. I was pretty proud of myself. I called this the Clarity Project, because my good friend, Catherine, is working on a business plan for a company where she would contract to clean out and organize things for people--kind of like I did.

This has been a very satisfying project for me. I have thought about how I let all this get out of control, and I was easily able to identify when and why. Eight years ago, I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and before it was diagnosed, I went for months with feeling that I didn't have enough energy to move. That's when I really developed some bad habits of putting things off and not finishing projects. I did that because I was always expecting to run out of energy, and at that time, typically I did.

One big aspect of my Clarity project involved magazines. Dave and I used to subscribe to a lot of magazines. We don't anymore, but over ten years or so, I got the magazines, wanted to read them but didn't feel I had time or energy, and so put them in my basement storage room for later. Later never came. As part of the clarity project, I have done some work in that basement room, which I will finish in the fall and winter. I threw out a lot of magazines. I organized and started going through the ones that I wanted to look at before getting rid of. I organized two or three binders with information from the magazines that I wanted to save: Gardening, Home Improvements, etc. I guess there were probably over six hundred magazines in that room when I started in on them. I'm down to 72, which are stacked on the library table, and I go through and dispose of 5 or 6 a week.



Clarity feels great.

Steel Pennies Poster

My parents sent us money for Christmas, and one of the things that Dave suggested we do with it was have a poster framed; the poster was for the Grand Lake Bluegrass Festival and our band, Steel Pennies, was listed on the poster. So that's what we did.

Then, once we had the framed poster back, Dave wanted to take a picture to send to my parents. So, he took the picture of me and then it languished in the camera for two and a half months. It's the story of my life--I never have time.

But last week, I had time. I printed out the picture--a big one on regular paper and a smaller one on photo paper, and I mailed it off to my mom and dad. Then I promptly forgot about it until yesterday when I called home and my mother exclaimed--"We got the picture!" They were puzzled as to what I was sending them and then were delighted when they opened it up. It was pretty fun.

My Sister and I

Here are my sister, Leslie, and I. My mom gave me this picture a few years ago when I was home. I don't know if Leslie knows I have it. I sent it to her in an email today with the subject line: Those Were the Days!

When I showed this picture to Dave, he asked, "Who are those two little knuckleheads?"