I’m heading into the proverbially windy urban zone.
I look forward to catching up with friends even at the cost of dealing with flights and airports.
UPDATE
It is still hard for me to get my head around all the dogs in airports and on flights. And some of them are big enough that they should be ticketed.
UPDATE
In the jammed lounge we had the enjoyment every few minutes of flashing strobe lights and a tinny announcement. Not sure if I can upload it from my phone… 22-12-26-atl-lounge-emergency.m4a
It worked, sort of. I found a new thing my app will do.
Gosh, how I enjoy traveling.
UPDATE
SO! With a measure of irritation I head all the way back across the airport for the flight and hear over the speakers in the concourse…
new-recording-169.m4a
UPDATE
The flight was delayed to begin with and boarding delayed by assistance for 8 people in wheelchairs and only one chair guy – one by one.
On the other hand I got upgraded.
UPDATE
As the seemingly endless boarding process … stasis? … continues, I’ve gotten a couple games of chess in with the plane’s system. It’s not bad.
Here’s a position. Black to move,
And Delta told me after I got on the plane about the problem at the airport several hours after I discovered it first hand. Thanks, Delta!
UPDATE.
Still here! The pilot says there are “load issues”. I suppose they are rearranging things in the hold. I’ll resist additional observations using “load”.
UPDATE:
And the saga continued.
They decided to unload the plane from the middle, or at least not the forward hatch. Hence, being in 1a it took a sometime to get off the plane. Remember: there were some 8 wheelchairs involved.
Getting into the terminal was an experience unlike any I have had in these USA. I might have been in, for all I could tell,…. I dunno.
The hunt for my bag began. The monitor said the my fight’s luggage would come in at carrousel 2. 2. I walked past 11 and 10 – which had Delta signs – and into an area that seemed like it was the outlet for customs and international flights. Many dogs were by now out of their carriers and two of them had begun litigating some dispute. I saw a sign for Domestic Carrousel 9 and headed that way thinking, obviously, that, give the way of numbers, 2 would be after 9.
When I reached the dead end an ingress from the flight arrivals area where a woman – quite definitely not born anywhere near these USA was seated with a palpable attitude of indifference I had no more clues as to the location of 2.
“May I ask where carrousel 2 is, please?
“Carrousel 2 is not be here.”
“Where is be it?
“There! There! Is be there!”, pointing back the way I came.
I made my way back through the dogs and swarms of travelers from the once rifted supercontinent of Gondwana to 10 and 11. Having spotted two guys in uniforms who looked like they handled the unclaimed luggage I asked,
“Where is carrousel 2.”
“There is no carrousel 2.”
“The monitor says that that’s where my flight’s bags are going to be.”
“Oh yeah, we know about that. But they’ll be here.”
“Here? Not 2.”
“Here.”
“Isn’t that a little confusing?”
I looked around and, although I had literally been to the end of things where 2 is not be, and come all the way back, there were very few people I recognized from the flight. I suspected that most of them were finding out that 2 is not be there, too, and wonder what is be to do next.
“Yeah, well, we told them about it. But the bag will come here.”
“The monitors here mention three cities but none of them where I came from.”
“Yeah, that’s another problem. But all the bags come here.”
I thanked them and moved to is be between the two lone options, 10 and 11.
My phone whimpered and I spied a text from Delta that my bag was arriving on carrousel 11.
As I turned and stepped toward 11, I heard a rumble behind me. Bags were coming down the chute to carrousel 10.
I collected my bag and made my way back through the uncased-dogs and denizens of the subcontinent. Never was I so happy to exit an airport terminal.
Tonight.
Chinese food and conversation with friends.
This is a question which comes up each year. It came up again today.
The liturgical year guided and nourished and shaped Catholics for centuries. It does so far less now, since it is much diminished after the “reforms” that hacked away at the calendar. However, once upon a time people not only followed the turning of the earth and the wheeling of the stars and the rising and setting of the sun and moon with serious attention for the sake of planting and harvesting – a life and death matter – but they also marked the passage of time with sacramentals and blessings and other customs.
St. Jerome says this about the Evangelist. Priests read this in the Breviarium Romanum during Matins.
Another connection through St. John’s Day and Jerome is that this is the feast of St. Fabiola, one of the ascetic gang of Roman matrons who were around Jerome while he was in the City and who busied themselves in works of mercy.
