| I got up at 8:00, had my final breakfast on the deck, and then SSSed before checking out of the Aerie House at 9:00. I wheeled my bag down to MacMillan Wharf, and was in line for the 10:00 ferry at 9:15.
Shortly after that, the woman working there walked up and down the line that had formed, holding a clip board, and saying, “I have a full boat today. Please check your tickets or boarding passes to make sure they show your confirmed trip for today.” Just off to the right of the pier, I heard a little commotion in the water. “Look at the ducks,” I said seeing some and thinking affectionately of Robert. |
On the boat, a Lesbian couple had the sweetest dog with them. It was a Portuguese Water Dog, and his name was Wiley. He sat in the aisle and I got down on the floor and snapped this picture of him.
After being kicked by someone who didn’t see him lying in the middle of the aisle, Wiley made his way under my table, and I rubbed his neck and head for as long as he held it up. I’m quite sure that if we were cats, both of us would have been purring. Sweet dog. Well-behaved. Clean.
I put my earbuds in and, ironically, in my song shuffle, what song should start playing? Please Come to Boston, the Dave Loggins version. Coming to Boston was exactly what I was doing.
After that, just to complete the travel continuum, I played James Taylor’s Carolina In My Mind.
I took a break from the iPod and spoke with Derrick, who was sitting across from me, traveling with a friend he had met online only a few weeks ago and decided to come to P-Town with for a few days.
He was a flight attendant with Delta, and was flying free, so on standby all day, and he was constantly checking their flight situation via his iPhone.
Another guy at our table was reading a very technical document. I was trying to figure out what it was by glancing at it, but could really only see the figures in the document. One page had a musical staff with notes written out on it, and on other pages there were figures that looked more like mathematical drawings—geometry. I made a note of the name of the thing, Spectrum, to Google later.
Arriving in Boston, unwanted stress ensued getting to the airport.
As I mentioned on Wednesday, I had planned to take the metro, but the ferry arrived in Boston at 11:45 instead of its scheduled 11:30 arrival. My flight was at 1:00.
Not knowing how many connections I’d have to make on the “T” and how often the trains run, and check-in for my flight being probably in 45 minutes, I decided to take the Water Taxi instead. “7 minutes to Logan airport. $10,” the man barked.
Thinking it was right there, I went with it. Well, we had to walk quite a ways to get to the boat. And of course, you know they’re going to wait to get it as full as possible to make maximum dollars. When we finally got there, there were two boats. It’s now getting close to noon, and boarding for my flight is a half-hour away.
A guy there ushered us into the first of the two boats there, and when that one filled up he started directing people into the second boat. Then, since he was actually the driver of the second boat, which I was not on, he left with them. So even though, I was the third person there and on the first boat, the driver of my boat was nowhere in sight, and he was an older, slow-moving man, and a yammerer.
Finally, at about five after, he arrived with the last of the passengers, and he’s just a-chit-chatting with them, taking their luggage getting them on the boat, totally oblivious to the fact that some of us not doing retirement jobs might be on a schedule. By then the veins in my neck were starting to pop out.
Ten after twelve: He finally started up the boat and pulled out. Then, about a minute into leaving, he cut off the motor and walked around the boat taking peoples’ money, yammering the whole time. Small talk. Big time wasted.
Well, way more than 7 minutes later, we arrived at the port at the airport. Of course, the port is not near any terminal, and there we had to wait for “Airport Transportation” to arrive to take us to the terminals! More vein poppage. There were four terminals, and it was imperative that the one for Terminal B (US Airways) arrived first, or I was very likely going to miss my flight.
After about ten precious, precious minutes, I had just made up my mind to walk around to the Hyatt that was right there, to hail a cab to take me to the terminal, when a bus finally pulled up.
The bus stopped at all four terminals. Fortunately Terminal B was the second stop.
In walking running up to the US Airway check-in kiosks, I passed this incredibly long security line, for which I, of course, was eventually headed. It’s coming up on 12:30 now. No way.
I used a kiosk to check in, and when I tried to give the woman my bag, she said, “Oh. You’re on the shuttle? That’s US Airways Express. This is US Airways. I can’t take your bag here for the Express flight. You have to Express flight check-in area and check your bag there.”
“Where’s that?” I asked.
“Down past the Dunkin’ Donuts,” she said.
I got down there, and went up to Brunhilda (totally made up, sarcastic name), where she said, “Oh. I can’t check this bag to make it on time. It’s within 30 minutes of departure.” 12:32.
Obviously, that’s all she was going to offer, and made me ask, “Well, what are my options then?”
“Well, I can try and check it, but I can’t guarantee you that it’ll get on.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “I’m going home, so I’ll just get it whenever it arrives,” I said as calmly as I could force myself to.
She seemed to have gotten all of the ego-inflating pleasure she required twisting the salted knife in my open wound, and finally said nicely, “I feel quite certain it will get on, but I just have to let you know that, since it’s so late, it might not.”
On the Boston to DC leg of my itinerary, I sat over the wing, where I saw the most uncommunicative communication—in calm times; I can just imagine how it would come across in an emergency situation. It looked like this:
Okay, it says, “Do not walk outside this area,” facing two ways. WHAT area? Is it the area on either side of the writing, or does it mean the area from where the writing ends out to the tip of the wing, in which case I think beyond would be a better choice than outside.
Bottom line: This is a totally useless “emergency sign.”
It’s always interesting after several days in P-Town (or any mostly gay town), coming back to the “real” world, and switching back to the male-female-couple paradigm. Sometimes it happens in the airport, sometimes it happens on the plane, and sometimes it doesn’t happen ’til I’m back home.
This time it was on the plane. I saw a guy. He looked hot. I wanted to see if he had a boyfriend (or husband) with him, just like I’d done a bunch of times over the last four days. I leaned over to see better, and it was a girlfriend (or wife). Gotta reframe back to the majority rules world. Vacation is officially over.
In the DC airport, I sat next to a plug to recharge my laptop, and a woman nearby was on the phone with a friend, “Yeah, I’m reading this book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time,” and you’ve got to read it.”
This is not the first time I’ve heard great stuff about this book. I’m going to try and check it out from the library. Maybe it’ll be my next book for the Mostly Social Book Club, when it’s my turn to pick a book.
We had an impeccable landing at RDU. Note to Brunhilda: My luggage did not make it. I hope you’re happy.
Robert was an absolute dear and picked me up at the airport.
Approaching home, I remembered the very ripe banana I’d left on my counter, which I was going to call my neighbor to ask her to throw out for me, but totally forgot about it, and I wondered if it would have turned liquidy and would be harboring fruit flies by now.
In the house, I found not one, but two, bananas I’d left. They were just very brown. But, not liquidy, nor fruit fliey. Yay.
I stopped by karaoke at Flex for a little while and then went over to Legends to meet Kevin (av8rdude), Kurt, and their friend Carl. Their friend Drew was also there. It was so good to see Kevin; it’s been four weeks, with his being in Europe for three weeks, and my being in P-Town for a week. His return flight back to RDU arrived later in the same day on which I departed for Boston.