Heat Makes Me (and Others) Wackos

We two were on a flight a few weeks ago, bound for parts east.  The UK, to be precise.  Now, both of us are well-traveled, have flown a fair amount, and know our way around airports and airplanes.  In fact, decades ago, in my newlywed and early motherhood years, I was an international flight attendant, based at JFK in New York. 

I rarely make negative observations about flights.  They are what they are.  Take 'em or leave 'em.  I prefer to enjoy the miracle of flight. 

This particular trip, however, started out on the negative side of my comfort zone, before they had even closed the aircraft doors.  Boy: it was hot.  Really hot.  No movement of air, even at push back.  Even as we sat in place on the tarmac, seventh in line for take-off, for way too many minutes.  All of the passengers in our section could be seen pulling the safety card found in the seat backs in front of them and fanning themselves maniacally with them.  I mentioned to the flight attendant sitting across from us in his jump seat that the safety cards had never seen so much activity in their existence.  He laughed as he wiped the sweat off his face.  (This was after I rang my call button while sitting on the tarmac, and when he appeared at my seat, I asked him, maybe with a scowl, I don't know, "What is the cockpit saying about this heat?!"  I had sweat trickling all over the place.  This flight attendant said that the cabin would begin cooling off as soon as we started the take-off roll... blah, blah, blah, and I cut him off and said, "No.  This is not normal.  The air should be moving by now. "  And he sort of nodded and walked away from me. )

Finally we were airborn and slowly the cabin cooled.  S.L.O.W.L.Y

But then, before we were at our cruising altitude of 38,000', a man from the section in front of us bolted into one of the lavs near our seats.  He SLAMMED the door shut.  Ew, I thought.  But then, 30 seconds or so later, he SLAMMED the door opened and stomped out.  He came over to the jump seat in front of our seats.  He kept twisting, first facing us, and then turning around so we could not see his face.  He tried to wedge his tall, thin body between the jump seat and the emergency exit slide.

This was a little unsettling.

My mind went to  "He should not be trying to sit in the jump seat." to "Omigoodness, why is he wedging himself by the emergency exit door/slide?!"  I weighed whether or not to call the flight attendant (probably the same one who answered my call button heat rant before takeoff...). 

Just as suddenly as he had bolted into the lav, and as suddenly bolted out of the lav, this man bolted for parts aft in the aircraft.  When he was gone, I turned to that Spouse o' Mine and asked if he thought that passenger was having problems.  He replied that yes, there was something wrong, indeed.  The two of us discussed what action we would have taken if needs be.  Seriously?  What actions?  We're retired senior citizens.  Too old to be taking down a young(er) crazed tall guy regardless of what we have read in the news about passengers having problems inflight.

About an hour later, another passenger came and stood in front of our seats (Bulkhead seats: Yes!  Yes!  Please assume that we welcome your standing directly in front of our kneecaps while you do your TransAtlantic yoga, stand in line for the lavs, search out your partner after a lover's quarrel...)

As it turns out, the latter was exactly what had transpired.  A spat, a squabble, an argument, a break-up?  We'll never know.  But the new guy standing in front of our kneecaps was looking for the first guy.

We saw them, some five hours later as we went through UK Customs.  Neither looked at all happy.  And I am sorry for that.  But I wish that they could have contained whatever it was to their own two seats, and not have caused concern to some of their fellow passengers.

Follow a negative (OK: two negatives...) with a positive (or two):
I had a delectable inflight Asian Vegetarian Special Dinner. 
Man, oh man, getting through UK Customs and to the Heathrow Express (train) was so ding-dong easy. 

More-to-come.  

Great Balls of Fire!

 Some many, many years ago, I had chance, and then chances, to sit and spectate soccer matches which were played by very young youngsters in our extended family.  The attention span did not take, for whatever reason.

Fast-forward a couple of decades, and I had been invited to watch soccer once again, with new players, roughly the same age as the ones in my past spectating chapter.  Hmm...I have been too ignorant about the sport to really enjoy the sport, still.

A couple of months ago, I mentioned to That Spouse o' Mine that we should embrace the FIFA World Cup competition.  For me, a learning experience.  For him, something to occupy his mind before Le Tour de France.  "We can even subscribe to TV and watch it," I said.  (We don't have TV, per se.)   

And so, we did.  Who knew that s̶o̶c̶c̶e̶r futbol was so interesting and entertaining??  
I did not.  The rules seemed (to me) to mirror Alice in Wonderland's croquet game in terms of rules.  Some of them still are incomprehensible.  Case in point:

Offsides:  I have no clue what the parameters are for this rule.

A handball rule: No clue, no clue at all...

Ball kicking: Four types.  I am clueless.  I hope to attain kicking awareness...  

Goalkeepers:  I think the two goalkeepers in the Sunday World Cup Finals were the Champs!  Absolutely the athletic champs.  There are rules, I guess?  But I just embraced those two guys and their incredible ability to discern and react!  Yahoo!

Well.  If you were hoping for an in-depth analysis of World Cup Futbol on this post, you are perhaps sorely disappointed.  However!  If you, like I, were into the 2026 World Cup Futbol/Soccer month, then you came away this final week with an  appreciation of athleticism mixed with acrobatics.  I'm so glad we watched.  


    

Intros. Conclusions.

 My English teachers and professors would have a field day with this, my first paragraph.  Because I have no introduction - no hook or grab.  

I have my own thoughts and prayers, quite literally, of which I am writing today.  Of course this has to do with the sad episodes which keep on occurring under the giant, bloody umbrella of gun control - actually, the lack thereof, here in the United States.

So this week, on Wednesday, Sep 10, a political activist was gunned down in Utah during a speech he was giving at a college.  Boom.  Dead.  Leaving behind a young widow and two young children. 

According to Gun Violence Archive , there were 45 gun deaths in the USA from Sep 11 to Sep 14.  

And we have only heard about one death?  What about the other 45 poor souls, and their grieving families?  

What comes to mind for me, anytime I read or hear about gun deaths, are the poor little, innocent children, being gunned down in our public and private school systems.  I guess that's my trigger for grief when it comes to gun control.  Babies.  The deaths keep happening, and the guns keep appearing, and keep shooting, and people keep espousing "that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God-given rights". 

My English teachers and professors would have a field day with this, my last paragraph.  Because I have no conclusion.  

But wait; I do...

Time Travels

 I am a grandmother now. 

I have no idea how this happened, in terms of time travel.  In my mind's eye, I am still a late thirty-something - much like my two daughters, who have gifted us with these wee ones.

But wee ones they are, and we, that Spouse o' Mine and I, behold them as the miracles they are.  We see kith and kin in them.  I wonder about fractal dimensions and this and that and this and that with their fun and well-being and what-in-the-world- in their normal goings-on.

So much to take in.  Parenting as I know it has really been shifted to the third seat back in the Volvo Station Wagon.  No more "Hush!"  No more "Because I said so!"  I have to laugh, but when the whining gets a'goin', I bite my 65-year old tongue (most of the time), and just grimace and bear it.  Gentle parenting is an anomaly in my elder world. 

Today I was in the car with two of the three grandkids.  One was whiney.  I thought about singing, as I so often do any time in my day.  I sing classical melodies, or silly kids' songs, or old hillbilly songs, hymns, or whatever comes to mind.  Such a plethora of options in my elder repertoire. 

As I sat in the passenger seat, weighing my songbird options, I had a memory come to mind - one of my sister.  She and I would sing anytime, at the drop of the hat.  Two part harmony.  My earliest memory was at a Bachman family Christmas, when she and I sang a Jingle Bells duet.  She chastised me for "jazzing it up." I smile at that.  After she and I became mothers, we would routinely sing to our five kids.  It's what one did.

So today, I was thinking of my sweet sister Barb, and our fun years of mothering our young kiddos together. 

Wowza.  That was twenty years ago, us two.  She passed this week, twenty years ago...

She and I always laughed that we would live near each other, not unlike our great aunties Rachel & Edna.  And Lois and Alpha. 

But here I am, this week, embracing my third generation, and thinking of her generation, at a distance, and imagining.  Just imagining...       

 

     

Toe-dipping

 In my blog post titled A New Chapter, I mentioned my eagerness to dip our toes in all things urban, once we moved to Cleveland.  This month has seen us pop in & out of the Cleveland city limits, juggling the end of our Kansas Chapter, all the while starting anew, up here on the Lake Erie shore of Ohio.

This afternoon, we are in Cleveland, and I mentioned to that Spouse o' Mine that, given it is Lent, lots of churches and parishes, along with local organizations and pubs in Cleveland, all serve Friday fish fries.  That Spouse o' Mine, hailing from Australia, has gotten our entire family to calling it "Fish & Chips".   

"Should we seek out Fish & Chips tonight?", I asked.  But I already knew his answer.  Affirmative!

We looked over the offerings near our new neighborhood, and settled on:
The Slovenian National Home, "serving Fish Fry Dinners every Friday through Lent."

I Googled Slovenia before we headed out.  We now live in an urban neighborhood that is not "Fifth Generation Kansan,", or "DAR member owing to family member in Revolutionary War".  It's a neighborhood rich in families who are from, either recently or from a few generations, the Balkans and Eastern European descent.  Think pierogis and polkas.

I donned a warm pair of fleece-lined hiking pants and a flannel shirt.  Warm hiking boots.  I told that Spouse o' Mine: "It's a FISH FRY!"  He got it.

And off we went, with Google Maps leading the way to downtown Cleveland.  The neighborhood was grey and... really empty.  We parked alongside a couple of other cars, but this didn't seem like a gathering of any sort.  We got out of the car, went to the front of the Slovenian National Home, and pulled on the doors.  Locked.  Then the other set of doors.  Locked.  And finally, the third set of doors.  Locked.

BUT WE COULD SMELL A FISH FRY!

Let's walk around the corner, I said.  And so we proceeded.

Nothing.  But a stronger scent of goodness.  And so we turned yet another corner of the building (and block), and tried some more doors.  Locked, and locked.  One more corner, and we were in an alley darkening with the sunset, with no door to be seen.  But a feminine voice behind us asked, "Are you looking for the fish fry?"

Slovenian Saints be praised!  She told us to go around the next corner, through an opening, past a green car, down a short path, and around THAT corner, and we would see a sign.  (I have to say here, that our olfactory sense was on strong alert anyway; I think we could have eventually made it.)

We found a door leading down quiet stairs to a sort of basement fellowship hall.  Eerily, it felt like we were entering an early 1900 speakeasy, for when we opened the door...

...it was FILLED with people.  Happy people!  Happy Slovenians!  Happy Clevelander-non-Slovenians!  Lots of Slovenian conversations going on.  And English.  And a Slovenian band playing polkas and singing folk songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmQVE1ghi5Y

Wowza.  If this is Lent in Slovenia, then I am all in!

We had to purchase membership cards!  We are card-carrying members of "Friends of Slovenian National Home".

And then we asked many of the people milling about, "Where is the line?"  "Where do we go?"  "How do we order?"  

There was no line, no one knew any better than us where to go, and no one knew how to order - but the food kept coming out of the kitchen and arrived at tables, every minute of every polka beat.  We were shoulder-to-shoulder with everyone in that hall.  I moved towards the bar and asked a lady, "How do we order?"  "You just tell me what you want," she answered.  As if I knew what the offerings were.  "Fried fish, baked fish, or fried shrimp," she laughed.  I ordered, and asked where to pick up the food, and when.  "Oh!  I will find you!" she laughed in her accented English. 

We spent the next fifteen minutes or so talking to the folks with whom we were rubbing shoulders - and this was probably the 17th Century sense of literally rubbing shoulders; we were so close to each other in this joy-filled, Friday night Lenten Fish Fry.  At some point I turned to the bar, and there she was: my order-taker, ready to hand me our Take-Home "fish & chips".

Our Friday Night Lenten Fish & Chips "take-home' included:
Fried Cod
Chips
Home Fries (awesome potatoes with lots of onions and garlic.)
Cole Slaw
Clam Chowder

There may have been more?  I was just totally into the Slovakian music and happy people.  Seriously a fun and happy time, one of our first Cleveland experiences in our New Chapter.