Excerpts from the Peanut Gallery

Flight Insight

First stop: Dallaaassss Texaaassss! – Thank you William Shatner.
It´s midday and one flight of three down. I have little to offer other than the ramblings that sally forth from fatigue and a bloated stomach full of texas chicken-burger and a double side order when they messed up - ´no, really, that's ok, I just want one.’ Oh well, they tell me things are bigger in Texas, and as far as somethings go, it is not always good (´but I don't want a 68 oz cola... I really just want a small one… That can't possibly be your small´).

But I will tell you one thing that´s nice about the grand life of the lone star state: the bathroom stalls are fit for a truck. Do you know how awkward it is to get the carry-on and yourself, regardless of your size, into a normal Canadian sized stall?? Have we thought through how ridiculous this?? And another thing (why, oh why, do I always descend to pontificating on bathroom design? Doing it anyways!) another thing: American bathrooms ALWAYS have seat covers and toilet paper well-stocked. I just find that so civilized!

See here is the thing, and I've complained about this to a few people, but I really do not enjoy the solo travel gig. I mean it would be ok, if airport administration hadn't gone off the deep-end in the last decade. But I have to say, sometimes you just want someone who will watch your bag while you pee, because Lord knows that I am struck with guilt every time I hear that calm woman come over the intercom and inform me that my bags may be subject to destruction (she says that last word like she´s at a monster truck rally: DES-TRUCTION! TION! TION!) if left alone. Then she directs instructions to servicemen. Why do servicemen get special instructions? Don´t they know how to navigate airports too? More importantly – why are they here?? Should I be alarmed??

So I wander the halls of Dallas like a sad little waif buckling under the weight of her overstuffed carry-on (hey, you never know when the airline will lose your bags and you need provisions for those first few days). Then suddenly, they call my number and I´m running down the aisle to the cheers of Rod Roddy to get my seat on the plane to Miami. Now, once safely buckled in and with my airplane blanket carefully tucked around my legs (dare I eve ask how often those are washed?), we prepare for the next stage. Round two: Dallas to Miami.

Now here´s a thought for you: I would like to see just once, ONCE, someone on those airline safety instruction videos who is not bedecked in soothing pastels and carefully ironed slacks. I look around my plane and half of us are in pajayamas and the rest of us are wrinkled from the last three layovers. All of us have bags under our eyes and there is some not-so-carefully-disheveled hair littering the tops of the seats. Is that what I see on this "Important Safety Announcement?" No, they are carefully tinted versions of Martha Stewart to make sure we have an equal vision of women, men and your major minorities. And when their masks drop due to a change in cabin pressure or it is time to put on the life vest, I´d prefer they do it again, this time with feeling. Because , Lord knows that the ambiguously-washed airplane blankies don´t provide much warmth, but they can´t possibly be inflating those vests for extra warmth. I know that would probably be psychologically distressing to show the real emotions, but I´m just saying maybe if their slacks weren´t so neat I´d be able to take it…

And now for something a little different. I was thinking as we taxied out of the gate at Miami (a dangerous pastime I am sure). It is a funny perspective you get from an airplane porthole window. The backside of an airport never looks like the front where you drive in. I wonder if those who design airports take this into account. At any rate, airports are weird places floating out on a sea of cement – far from any city life. I´ve been through Texan airports several times and yet my frame of reference for life in that state still comes from watching Reba. It is hard to figure out if the city looks a certain way from the air. I do strangely, find myself counting swimming pools when we are coming in for a landing. Those nice aqua-coloured jellybeans make me unaccountably happy about a place. I just think that a city with lots of pools would be a nice place, as I do like swimming myself and that must be an indication that it is a relatively sunny life there.

Plane rides afford you a very different view and different views tend to make you question what had previously seemed irrelevant – or more, non-existent. Flying over what I assume to be was West Texas, and thinking of the oil legends of that place from reading the Prize, I was suddenly insatiably curious to know why there were crops cultivated in huge circles when the plots were quadrangular. They looked like big ol´pies from the sky, but clearly they were missing some land on the four corners, seems a rather inefficient waste of land to me. Waste of land, like time, is money according to my economics professor.

But then maybe there is more going on than one can see from so high. I thought as I flew over the gulf of Mexico, towards Florida, what a crazy bit of water this can be and yet…and yet I am looking out and the sun is setting out behind the starboard side of the plane, and the docile tufts of cloud beneath order themselves in neat little rows below, like simple strokes of a brush, mistaking the air for the sea and painting gentle waves that roll over and over one another and the blue below. It makes me want to resolve to study cloud formation – along with Texan agricultural practices (useful stuff, indeed), because, this cannot possibly be the birthplace of Katrina, Felix, Mitch and their horde of wretched siblings.

I am not entirely sure what I am doing on a plane to Bolivia at the moment. I´ve never had a desire to go there – but then Nicaragua was last draft pick on my list of places too, so maybe this is how I roll – maybe if I think about how much I´d hate to go to Spain or Hawaii I´ll get sent there next! And I am a bit of a basket-case when it comes to travelling (see above), but I do feel in this very moment very, very lucky to be watching the sunset over the gulf from the vantage point normally reserved for God and birds.

Well, enough of that nonsense. It is time for me to go catch a bus. Next up: after our descent from the air to La Paz, we have the adventures of Kiki at 13,000ft. Our La Paz notes will include lore of Zebra-men directing traffic and a date with the prof´s son. Hold your breath.

posted by Kiki @ 2:26 p.m.