2002 Q2 Vacation: 38°46.3195’N, 117°27.39441’W

Day 7: 22 May 2002

00:00 UTC – 03:00 UTC (Flight Home)

During the takeoff, the girl in 19B sat very stiff, looking straight ahead, clutching her purse tightly on her lap. She never said a word. Looked really nervous. Or just thinking about something else. Definitely in some other place. Soon after takeoff she fell asleep. But whenever she woke up, she would resume the look straight ahead position, and the purse never left the flat in her lap, being gripped tightly position. And never said a word. It was very odd. Occasionally she would turn her head and look past me to the window.

I started to feel bad about having made her leave the window seat. It looked like she really didn’t like flying, and had wanted the window because it made her more comfortable or something. Not that she said anything of the sort. It was just my mind making things up. But I felt bad. Not enough to offer to change seats of course. But I felt bad. Oh well!

So, girl from 19B on America West Flight 683 from Phoenix to Newark on 21 May 2002, if you ever read this, sorry, I would have given you the seat if you asked!

The only other exciting thing about the flight was watching an old episode of Mork and Mindy. I hadn’t seen that show in ages. Oh, and we flew over some city I made a note to try to identify later. I never did.

03:00 UTC – 04:00 UTC (Drive Home)

On the drive home, I just wanted to get home in a hurry. I was tired. I was ready to be home. And I hoped that Kathy D, who I’d had feeding my birds, had remembered to leave the keys where I’d asked her to leave them. I was also glad that the whole thing with the lock to the door had happened before I left, and not to her while I was gone. That would have probably been bad. I got home, and sure enough, the keys were there. And I managed to get the bag up the stairs and in.

04:00 UTC – 08:00 UTC (Home again)

Once home, of course I immediately got the laptop on the internet, got the TV turned on, and started answering email and watching TV. I wasn’t quite ready to go to sleep immediately. I was still a bit too hyped for that. I also opened up the suitcase and started unpacking some essentials. They were all of course hopelessly covered in dirt and mud now. Oops. Power cords for things, my XM radio, and clothes, whatever. Mud. Dirt. Everywhere. And as I unpacked, huge clumps of it got on the floor. Yummy!

08:00 UTC – 14:00 UTC (Sleep)

Eventually though, I decided I’d better get to sleep. I had to work in the morning. And morning was coming up fast.

14:00 UTC – 23:00 UTC (Work)

I was of course late to work. I have trouble with the whole morning thing anyway, but after the whole flight the previous night and everything, this was worse. But nobody seemed to much notice or care that I was late. I just got a lot of “welcome back” and the like. It was right before the Memorial Day weekend. A lot of people were on vacation. It was very quiet. Not too much was going on. Which was OK. It would take awhile for me to get back into the groove for work. I went to lunch with Matt W, someone from work. I of course ended up telling the whole story, although perhaps not in quite as much detail as this account, and without the pictures.

After lunch I spent my time getting caught up on voicemails and emails and all that sort of thing, and having a couple of “getting caught up” type meetings with a couple people. But as soon as it seemed prudent, I headed home.

23:00 UTC – 00:00 UTC (Laundry)

At home, it was time to do one thing I had put off earlier in the day. It was time to deal with the jacket. I had left that big mass of mud that was my jacket in the suitcase. It was time. I reached in, I grabbed it, I pulled it out. It was wet, it was slimy, it was dirty. It dripped mud all over the floor as I pulled it out. What did I do with it? Well, mud is just wet dirt right? I walked it over to the washing machine, dumped the whole big ball of mud in the washing machine, poured in a bunch of laundry detergent, and turned the machine on.

OK, let me give you all a tip. Do NOT just put a huge mass of mud into a washing machine and turn it on. As I am writing this, several days after the fact, the washing machine is still full of thick heavy brown water. It will not drain. It refuses to go into spin cycle and finish the wash cycle, although the first half of the wash cycle goes fine. I am guessing the dirt and silt from the mud has possibly clogged up all the outflows from the basin. I don’t actually know that of course. I just know it won’t finish the cycle and won’t drain. I did pull the jacket back out after a day or two. I just reached into the muddy water and grabbed it. I could actually see a jacket now, rather than just a ball of mud, but it was still covered with mud and slime. I put it in the bathtub and turned the shower on for five minutes or so until I could basically see most of the jacket again. Then I threw it into a laundry basket with the rest of my clothes, waiting for when the washing machine works again.

It has not started working again on its own for the last several days, so I guess I’m going to have to call someone to fix it. That will be fun explaining why the washing machine is full of mud. Yea! I’ve already explained to the cleaning lady that I have come in every other week that I’ll be paying her double this time because of all the mud all over the apartment.

Anyway…. With me putting the jacket mud ball into the washing machine and starting it, I came to the end of my last day of the vacation to be chronicled here. I hope you all enjoyed reading about it. Any comments or questions are of course welcome.

Now its time to figure out where I’m going on the next random trip!