Migration in a handbasket

Lucy Locket

Lost her pocket
Kitty Fisher found it
Nothing in it
Nothing in it
But the binding round it

It's a bad sign when two people ask me the same day about the meaning of "to hell in a handbasket." It could be further evidence of the impending apocalypse, but then again it might just be clutchless artisan-roasted beans jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Years ago a coworker convinced me a "handbasket" was the woven repository of thieves' hands chopped off as punishment on a precinct-by-precinct judgment day. Such a visual image! Sort of like the bucket of slippery bluegills, sunfish, and bullheads after a nice day fishing the dredged lakes near Lincoln, but with heavier Biblical overtones.

Best as I can find, the expression "to hell in a handbasket" is just over a century old, and it's closely akin to "going to heaven in a wheelbarrow". A "handbasket" is just a basket with a handle. The term is similar to "handbag," and of the same vintage. Going to either hell or heaven in a handbasket just meant getting there rapidly, portably, and easily.

My apocryphal ancestor, "The Unknown Liska", allegedly walked from the Ukraine to Bohemia with a wheelbarrow. He probably didn't think the trip was rapid or easy. Some versions of this family tale have him pushing his portable mother in the wheelbarrow, and she is clutching her pocketbook. I can see her now, with her nylons sliding down in rolls around her ankles (and her hair done up on pink rollers!).

Nobody calls their purse a handbag now. My grandma used to call her purse a "pocketbook". She had some really groovy crocheted and beaded drawstring bags. These days the term "pocketbook" usually refers to your [always limited] financial resources as in "prices to fit your pocketbook".

A-tisket a-tasket

A green and yellow basket

I wrote a letter to my love

And on the way I dropped it

I dropped it, I dropped it

Yes, on the way I dropped it

A little girlie picked it up

And took it to the market

--obviously that little girl was the aforementioned Kitty Fisher. An apoplectic apocalyptic moment came when my second-graders told me about their on-line chat room. YIKES!



During preschool group time I read the kids a Joanne Ryder book and talked about wild birds flying south for the winter. No, the kids insisted, they fly Southwest. Wanna get away?

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

ETD

An excuse to rise so very early, I love driving to the airport for the first flight out. It's nice to be going, myself, but better to be taking someone. Someone special I love enough to jump out from the warm covers without hitting the snooze though it is pitch black. Start the coffee, quick shower. Listen for the awakening and groans of the traveler who reveled to the last moment with old friends, the clunking of the suitcase down the stairs.

Wait for the light at the corner. Vacant intersection. No one driving through McDonalds yet. No one at Sonic for the breakfast burrito combo with tater tots. Two cars in the Albertsons parking lot.

Will there be time? There will for a bagel after baggage check-in and security and cream cheese. Did you print out the boarding pass? Pack the phone charger? I only worry because I love you.

Dusty pink neon halos in the darkness. The tollway welcomes with widespread on-ramps. Flash through the toll plaza two left lanes toll tag only. The moon amazes.

Skating. So effortless just like a favorite dream. Floating through the darkness, hanging weightless on the interchange bridges, overlooking the whole world. Travel time to I35 at 5:55 is estimated at 5 minutes on the big computerized sign.

Chilly. Spare. So hard to say I love you please be careful. Sip scalding coffee from the travel mug and comment on the radio news. Planes approach through a grainy charcoal/lilac/faded denim sky. More taillights now.

Past the big shopping mall. Warehouse's open doors looking clear through. Office windows reflect rows of beautiful sunrise eyes.

Flat. Land spreading out a vast linen tablecloth. Remote parking lots for plates. Control tower goblets. Jets parked like silver chafing dishes. Anticipation the first bite after the amen, the first pitch after the national anthem.

Going. To. Away. Or back. Arriving at Departures lower level. Wheely luggage and escalators. But first a big hug for your old mommy. Quick. Unloading only no parking or standing.

Pride Love Relief Grief cloud my view of the signage for the exit looping around the terminals as the tarmac gets rosy, silver, Delft blue, and wool dress slacks black. A thin band of gold around the rim.

Heading home I can breathe now. Red-tailed hawks perch on highway lights over I635. Peering down regal. Self-contained.

© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Look For the Silver Lining

My hat is off to Jerome Kern, who wrote this song for the musical "Sally" in 1929:

Look for the silver lining
When e'er a cloud appears in the blue.
Remember somewhere the sun is shining,
And so the right thing to do,
Is make it shine for you.

A heart, full of joy and gladness,
Will always banish sadness and strife.
So always look for the silver lining,
And try to find the sunny side of life.

My current stitchery project includes a piece of shiny gray lining fabric, so I can't help but hear Andy Williams or Judy Garland singing Kern's song about the silver lining.

Perhaps the first time I made the big journey to Omaha as a child, we dined in the fancy Silver Lining restaurant at the Omaha Municipal Airport. In that era of sophisticated airline travel one was more likely to dine on scallops or steak than McMuffins while watching planes take off and land.

Jumping ahead twenty years, my optimistic sister-in-law had a fabulous gift for mangling idioms. To her, "every hat had a silver lining." Guess my glass was half-empty on those frigid Nebraska nights, as I paraphrased, "every hat gives me static hair cling."

Every cloud has a silver lining
A poetic sentiment that even the gloomiest outlook contains some hopeful or consoling aspect. Cf. [1634 Milton Comus I. 93] Was I deceiv'd, or did a sable cloud Turn forth her silver lining on the night?

‘Every cloud’, says the proverb, ‘has a silver lining.’[1869 P. T. Barnum Struggles & Triumphs 406]


© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Falling Into the Purses of Terrorists

Parents, it's 10:00 p.m. Do you know where your children are?
This often-parodied television PSA (Public Service Announcement) aired in the Seventies.

Parents, it's 3:00 p.m. Do you know where your children are?
This PSA was shown more recently to raise awareness about latchkey kids unsupervised after school.

Parents, it's junior year abroad. Do you know where your passports are?
The brochures for parents of college students studying abroad stress having a passport ready just in case of the unthinkable. I wave my passport in front of my son heading off to Italy. Trying to sound like Clint Eastwood's rattlesnake-handling, tobacco-spitting grandma, I snarl, "I've got a passport. Don't make me use it!"

My sum total experience of foreign travel consists of three hours in Matamoros, Mexico, wanting to get my young sons back across the border ASAP. The grown globe-roaming-gnome sons know that I'm ill-equipped for international rescues, so they had better mind their international Ps & Qs.

Still, I was fretting about the Woolly Mammoth heading off on his Big Adventure last time I flew to Nebraska to help my dad. Should I take my passport just in case? I juggled pros and cons while I packed my little red rolling suitcase and my purse.

Home from the trip I realized that my RescueMama passport did not return with me. Where could it be? Under the bed in Nebraska? In Dad's car? In the long-term parking shuttle bus? On the floor at DFW or the Eppley airport terminal? In a landfill somewhere? OR...dun-dun-dun...........in the hands of a terrorist identity thief!

"Don't panic," I told myself.

"You did something logical with the passport," I chanted silently.

"You did NOT shred and recycle the passport accidentally, and besides, what kind of terrorist would sort the cans from the paper and #2 plastic?"

"IT IS WAY TOO SOON TO PANIC," I scolded myself daily.

"Don't call Homeland Security yet! That passport cost seventy-five dollars, and IT WILL TURN UP!"

"If you worry about the passport, the terrorists will have won!," I channeled Dubya.

It's been a long month of internal monologues and fretting. Yeehaw! I woke up this morning and remembered where I put my passport. Now I can stop fretting about it having fallen into the hands of terrorists! It was inside that big, ugly tropical purse that I considered taking last time I flew to Lincoln before deciding it was just too darn big, jungly, and ugly even for me. The fashion police would wand me before I even got to the TSA queue. They would not be lenient even though the purse has plenty of room for the New York Times crossword puzzle and a large extended family of cockatoos.







© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Slow Travel: Episode One

It is 5:10 a.m. at Dallas Love Field. Those passengers who have forgotten to check in on-line, like me, are lining up at the Southwest Airline counter. Passengers who are unable or ineligible to do on-line check-in are with us, including minor children who will fly unaccompanied, persons in wheelchairs, kids on crutches, persons without computers (gasp!)... We make a nice orderly line of yawners skootching baggage across the grimy tile floor, but there's no one working at the counter. There's a low vibration of anxiety flowing in the line. We have arrived the required hour-plus before our flight for security measures and baggage-handling, but the airline seems not to have taken the same approach.

It is 5:15 a.m. An employee begins barking at us to divide into two lines. One line is for persons deemed able to use a touch screen computer self check-in. The other is for those poor unfortunates considered by the airline to be outrageously demanding individuals who actually need to deal with a human to check-in. It's a wonder Southwest allows them to fly at all!! We split into two orderly lines with nervous yawns.

It is 5:20. A few employees straggle to the counter rolling their eyes at us. The barker looks at the white-haired blind man with his white cane and his hand placed on the shoulder of his daughter in front of him for guidance. The barker chooses this moment to divert our line into the corded maze known as the "queue corral". Instead of walking twenty feet to the counter, the blind man and his daughter must thread the maze down and back, down and back, down and back, down and back. They do so without a word of protest. I am embarrassed to admit I did not protest, even though I would have argued if the blind man were exchanged with my walker-using father.

The barking woman orders us to the touch screens. Then employees behind the counter snarl at us for needing the tag on our baggage that only they can provide.

Just as males became confused about whether holding the door for a female was an insult to her abilities and equality a generation ago, we are now confused about our impulses to assist the disabled. Common sense and common courtesy have been lost to equal access curb-cuts and anxiety about political correctness and disability-based discrimination. I don't know if the barking woman employee was insensitive, unobservant, advised by an attorney, or just plain mean. One would hope that airline employees and security workers who are supposed to be on heightened alert for suspicious terrorists could also be sufficiently alert to spot a blind man with a white cane.

If I were standing in line I'd have time to read the National Council on Disability's POSITION PAPER ON ACCESS TO AIRLINE SELF-SERVICE KIOSK SYSTEMS. Also useful is the U.K.'s Tiresias Organization, an information resource for people working in the field of visual disabilities, and its guidelines on accessible tourism queue management. Should you want to continue the fun by playing airport at home, here's where you can order your own Tensabarrier retractable queue control system.

© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Slow Travel: Episode Three

As my flight from Omaha to Dallas was making its scheduled brief stop in St. Louis, the pilot informed us that we would be picking up some stranded travelers in Tulsa. What? Just a little hop from St. Louis to Tulsa, so we might be delayed arriving in Dallas by an hour. Southwest had run out of planes due to mechanical problems somewhere along the line earlier in the day. So we were the rescue flight. Not really convenient, but more time to read my book, All Quiet On the Western Front. The classic war novel is a selection of the Dallas Morning News Points Summer Book Club.

The St. Louis passengers were informed as they boarded, and told to rearrange their ground travel plans for the delayed arrival in Dallas. They walked down the aisle grousing loudly into their cellphones. Many of the passengers acted darn ugly to the flight attendants, assuming that the extra flight crew that had boarded "just needed a ride home."

When we landed in Tulsa the pilot announced that we should remain seated so passengers could deplane, and others could quickly board. As the dozen people stood up to get off, after what had probably been a rotten day sitting in the St. Louis terminal unable to get home to Tulsa, some of the Dallas-bound passengers started shouting things like, "So you're the ones who caused this mess!" One young mother looked like she had been slapped in the face. She quickly took her daughter up the aisle and out of the hostile environment. Other passengers made loud, obnoxious comments to the stranded passengers who boarded in Tulsa like it was their choice and their fault.

Airlines treat passengers poorly. No question there. Passengers needn't treat each other or the flight crew with such mean venum. What is this? Lord of the Flies??

© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Little Red Rolling Suitcase

Running away from home has kept my wheely luggage very busy this year. It's looking like it had an unpleasant encounter with the Big Bad Wolf at baggage claim on the way to Grandma's house.

A red wheely suitcase is easier to find than a black one at most airports, but not in the Cornhusker state. Half the luggage popping up and riding around the carousel at Omaha's Eppley Airport is red. One of these trips I'm going to pack it so it doesn't flip over on its back like the world's largest Orkin victim.

My very first suitcases all my own were red, too. I got them when I was about twelve for slumber parties, Camp Granada, and going to Grandma's. The teeny one nested inside the small one. Red naugahyde with black zippers. Locks that opened with dimestore diary-sized keys. A Petula Clark or Royal Guardsman LP could barely fit in the small one. Only 45 rpms in the teeny one--Penny Lane, Last Train to Clarksville, Ruby Tuesday, To Sir With Love...

I was still using those red suitcases (or sockcases) even after I was married. They weren't decorated with any registered trademarks of the Monkees or Donny Osmond, thank heaven. I even kept the small one packed with baby clothes, phone numbers, Desitin, and diapers in the car trunk one winter when I thought I might want to run away from my spouse. He wasn't actually physically abusive, but he did drop his used dental floss on the hideous pseudo-cowhide carpet every night. When you are nursing a colicky infant and sniffing Desitin twenty hours a day your tolerance for icky dental floss is mighty low!



'Lil Red Riding Hood' lyrics by UNKNOWN:

*howls*
Who's that I see walkin' in these woods?
Why it's Little Red Ridin' Hood
Hey there Little Red Riding Hood
You sure are lookin' good
You're everything a big bad wolf could want
Listen to me, Little Red Ridin' Hood
I don't think little big girls should
Go walkin' in these spooky old woods alone

A burrito and a Barq's

Woke up this morning at five a.m. Sure, that's early, but it's much better than 3:38 a.m. I felt lucky to be so refreshed.

Been having wild dreams with and/or without giant rodents/ex-husband/airport rental car returns/Escher staircases/artificial resuscitation lately. For several nights, actually mornings, I've been waking at exactly 3:38. Get back to sleep and it's time to get up.



Started the pot of coffee at 5:15, and went to check my email. Great Hairy Pink Hostess Snowballs and other @!*~% cuss words! Internet Explorer couldn't find the server. Five twenty was a ridiculous time to be sitting under my computer desk unplugging and plugging cords on the back of the Hewlett Packard and using Professor Howard Hill's revolutionary Think System to restart the cable internet.

First time I've ever called my cable internet tech service number before six a.m., but I can report that "Josh" was very polite and helpful. Maybe he was in a time zone two mugs of coffee ahead of CDT, lucky dog. I'm pretty sure he wasn't in India.

"Josh," I said, "My internet is down. I'm afraid my entire neighborhood has been wiped out by aliens or a cataclysmic event while I was sleeping, but it's too dark to realize it yet."

"No, that's only in Chicago," Josh said.

"Huh??? Chicago was wiped out by aliens while I was sleeping??" Josh patiently explained about the flooding in Chicago disrupting cable internet service. I was embarrassed to flunk this current events quiz. I hoped I wouldn't be sent back to eighth grade.

My internet connection restored itself before Josh had a chance to intervene with his magical tech desk talents. He asked how else he might help me, but solving my life and telling me what I should be if I grow up are beyond his powers. We shared a good laugh and I felt lucky for my previous inconvenience. It was novel and fun to talk to another live human so early in the a.m. Hot dog, I feel lucky!

Headed out to the dumpster about 7:15 with the trash. Happened to glance at the Buick and the observation slowly percolated into my brain -- that front tire is really, REALLY low. How lucky! Most mornings I'm halfway to work in my mental fog before I even notice the gas gauge.

Glad to drive the two miles over to Discount Tire looking into a neon red rising sun in a pale lilac sky, just thrilled there's enough air so I'm not driving on the rim. I'm only slightly over the edge, but not on the rim. No time for breakfast or making the bed, no sack lunch prepared, no cash in my wallet! I've got an 8:45 class to teach. Jose removes a screw from the tire, and gets me back on the road only slightly late.

It's six blocks to my nearest branch bank, but a mile and a half as the crow flies to navigate old downtown Plano's one-way streets. The ATM is out of order. My luck is holding steady. Perhaps the ATM thinks it is in Chicago with Josh or with giant rodents on escalators. I have to write a check in the drive-through to get some lunch money. The teller is another friendly morning person. Maybe she is Josh's perky twin sister.

When I get to class, just a few minutes late but entirely breakfastless, my little students ask if we will make "flat tire art". Not today, but maybe soon! Maybe Discount Tire would have some tire tread pieces for print-making!

I feel lucky having so many little students fully engaged in our art project. My stomach growls. I feel lucky that I can go pick up "a burrito and a Barq's" for a very late breakfast. I'll never forget the first time I heard Mary Chapin Carpenter's song, "I Feel Lucky", on the radio of a rental car in Albuquerque driving to the Petroglyph Monument. No flat tire that day, just keys locked in a rental car by a giant rodent hanta virus then-spouse:


Well I woke up this morning,
stumbled out of my rack
I opened up the paper to the page in the back
It only took a minute for my finger to find
My daily dose of destiny, under my sign
My eyes just about popped out of my head
It said "the stars are stacked against you girl, get back in bed"

I feel lucky, I feel lucky, yeah
No Professor Doom gonna stand in my way
Mmmmm, I feel lucky today

Well I strolled down to the corner,
gave my numbers to the clerk
The pot's eleven million
so I called in sick to work
I bought a pack of Camels,
a burrito and a Barq's
Crossed against the light,
made a beeline for the park
The sky began to thunder,
wind began to moan
I heard a voice above me saying,
"girl, you better get back home"

But I feel lucky, oh oh oh, I feel lucky, yeah
No tropical depression gonna steal my sun away
Mmmmm, I feel lucky today

Now eleven million later,
I was sitting at the bar
I'd bought the house a double,
and the waitress a new car
Dwight Yoakam's in the corner,
trying to catch my eye
Lyle Lovett's right beside me
with his hand upon my thigh
The moral of this story,
it's simple but it's true
Hey the stars might lie,
but the numbers never do

I feel lucky, oh oh oh, I feel lucky, yeah
Hey Dwight, hey Lyle, boys, you don't have to fight
Hot dog, I'm feeling lucky tonight
I feel lucky, brrrrr, I feel lucky, yeah
Think I'll flip a coin, I'm a winner either way
Mmmmmm, I feel lucky today

The pilot has turned on the seatbelt sign

OR
What's the big hub, bub?

When I was in kindergarten, or maybe the first grade, my parents won a trip to New York City. This was an enormously big deal because it was the first, and maybe only, time they went on a trip without we three kids. I remember the fabrics my mom sewed to make outfits for her trip. If I dug my Rubbermaid tub of fabric scraps out of the closet I would still find a tiny piece of the shimmery weave of purple, gold, and rust she chose for her cocktail dress, and a piece of the coordinating purple velveteen for her stole. My Barbie had outfits made from scraps of Mom's other trip outfits.

Mrs. Schiedler was our babysitter while my parents were gone. I remember her as a slightly older version of Alice, the Brady Bunch housekeeper, played by Ann B. Davis. Of course, back then, Ann B. Davis was known as Schultzy from "The Bob Cummings Show". Mrs. Schiedler was a pancake artist. She could pour the batter to make a pancake of anything we might name. I never got anywhere close to her skill, though I made thousands of pancakes for my sons.

When my parents returned from NY, NY, Mr. Schiedler took us to meet the plane. We stood on the outdoor observation deck, and watched the DC-something taxi right up to Lincoln's municipal airport terminal. We watched someone roll the stairs out to the plane. I don't think it was one of the airplanes where the door opened out and down to form the stairs for disembarking. Mom and Dad came down the stairs, Mom slightly weak from being airsick, and Dad carrying the navy flight bag each passenger received in those days. The flight bag was a tiny duffel that contained a barf bag and a deck of playing cards, and maybe a book of matches. We played with the flight bags for many years, and kept them in the "dress up" box.



I didn't receive a tiny flight duffel with playing cards on my Frontier Airlines flights last weekend. Air travel offers very few amenities these days. It's a luxury that we can still choose whether to have ice cubes in the tiny glass of tomato juice while we read the in-flight magazine. I never drink tomato juice when I'm not airborne. It's a lucky thing, like baseball players not changing their socks. The first time I ever flew without being a nervous wreck, just a few years ago, I chose tomato juice. So now I always do. Frontier Airlines has the worst in-flight magazine I've ever seen, but the flight attendants are generous with the already opened cans of juice.

Air travel offers many opportunities to observe fellow earthlings at close range. On a night of dramatic lightning over Frontier's Denver hub, delays and gate changes afforded tons of material for someone's Great American Novel. We watched the departure times get later by fifteen minute intervals, while we rearranged ground transportation plans by cell phone. "We" began to regret eating that McDonald's meal in the A concourse food court. Flights stacked up, and seating in the terminal became nonexistent when departure gates were reassigned. I found a forgotten cell phone in a chair, and wondered if the airport would explode if I picked it up to take to the gate crew. Bring on that calming tomato juice!

Talk about your suspicious passengers! A man waiting for my flight was carrying three large boxes of Winchell's Donuts. Did Security scan those glazed twists?



I had a middle B seat assignment when we finally boarded. The woman with the window A seat was making herself at home despite the current limitations on carry-on items. She was settling in. Nesting. Interior decorating. She pulled a lovely hand-knit afghan out of her bag to wrap her knees. She dug under the seat to find the styrofoam box aka "doggy bag" from a health food salad lunch. She moved her billfold into the seatback pocket, then submerged under the seat ahead again to retrieve her paperback novel and her plastic clamshell box containing a piece of apple pie. After three bites of salad and one bite of pie, she closed the squeaking plastic boxes and returned them to the bag under the seat ahead of her, retrieving a bag of nacho-flavored Doritos. Three Doritos, and that sack was crinkled shut and placed in the seatback pocket. Time to dive for the pie again! She alternated between pie and Doritos for the forty-five minutes we taxied slowly and eventually sat "to allow the plane's brakes to cool".

Once we took off, a new sequence began. She hooked up the headphones for the free in-flight tv. Thank heaven she didn't have to swipe a credit card to pay for the tv, as that would have required another diving mission in seatback pocket and underseat bag. Instead, she retrieved the styrofoam salad box and paperback book. The flight attendant brought our drinks.

I began to worry that I would be showered with lettuce and juice if the pilot's warning about turbulence came true. A tray-table is not a big surface. This time the routine went:

1. Turn page of paperback
2. Move bookmark
3. Glance at tv
4. Adjust glasses
5. Open box of salad, the lid now blocks the tv
6. Take bite of salad
7. Take sip of juice
8. Close salad box
9. Glance at tv
10. Read page of paperback
11. Return to Step 1

She was going to make it come out even, just like Frances the badger and her buddy Albert in Bread and Jam for Frances.

It was time for me to pretend to sleep, although it is difficult with such a spectacle being performed at such close range. Also, there was the sound leaking out of all the headphones. On the other side, in the C seat, was a man we will call "full-bodied", and maybe even "aromatically challenged". The three-year-old ahead of me was in a power struggle with her mother about which channel was appropriate viewing. Behind me a baby whale was spouting ineffectively and continuously between a couple conversing in Chinese. No one will ever compare spoken Chinese to a lullaby!

The baby whale was obviously in considerable distress. Poooph, poooph, poooph, poooph...open salad box...poooph...close salad box...poooph. What in the sky was making that dreadful noise? I wanted to stand up, turn around, and give the Whale my best Teacher Look. If I did, I would knock myself out on the overhead storage bin, though, if I could even get past Wide Body and Ms. Salad Box.

We began our final descent into Dallas, which always sounds somewhat Dante. The plane vibrated and rattled as it rocketed down the runway. "Ooh! That tickles," the three-year-old giggled.

It was very good to be home!

Little Rabbit Foo-Foo Hands It Down From the Overhead Carry-On Bin

Southwest Airlines is experimenting with assigned seating on a few flights this month in hopes of speeding up turn-around time for its planes. Southwest has used a "cattle call" open-boarding system since right after the dinosaurs died out, so this is big news in Big D. The "cattle call" means that each passenger's boarding pass is marked A, B, or C. The A group boards first and sits wherever it likes, then the B group, and then the C group. Thanks to the cosmic humor of a random universe, the A group consists of everyone who prefers to sit in an aisle seat. The B and C groups better get used to climbing over. This isn't all that awful, except that CollageMama wants some cool air blasting on her very quickly after all that open-boarding exertion!

Kyle Lee's July tenth story in the Dallas Morning News goes on to explain:

Carriers are testing a host of ways to get customers on board – letting passengers with window seats on first and then moving toward the aisles, or having travelers make their way to assigned seats in no particular order. For passengers, the changes can mean shaving a few minutes off the boarding process and avoiding the annoying inconvenience of clogged aisles. And for airlines, those few minutes can translate into millions of dollars in increased productivity by improving on-time performance and reducing the time that a plane sits on the ground. "The quicker you can do a turn, the more turns you can do during the course of a day," said John Romantic, who oversees airport policies and procedures for US Airways. "Every single minute counts."

Yes, indeedy, every single minute counts. Every single minute spent crouching under the overhead bin after your plane lands before you can escape from your window or middle seat increases your chance to 100% of being clonked on the head with an overstuffed wheely suitcase being pulled down from the overhead bin by Someone Entirely Too Important To Check His/Her Bags. This is the point in modern air travel that makes me consider the barf bag. Perhaps I was clonked once or twice to often, but I had a revelation.

I've been called to offer a divine boarding system handed down by a higher power. This isn't really a "God Is My Co-Pilot" bumber sticker moment, or even a "God Is My Underpaid Flight Attendant" lapel pin moment, but I have received the stone tablets, and the Extra-Strength Tylenol.

The higher power in this case is Little Rabbit Foo-Foo, who has been stuck in the overhead carry-on luggage bin. The Little Rabbit Foo-Foo* boarding system retains the three cattle chutes at Southwest gates:

Group A boards first to seats at the front of the plane. Group A is all passengers who have checked their baggage.

Group B boards next to seats behind those taken by Group A. Group B consists of all passengers intending to stow luggage in the overhead bins.

Group C boards last to seats behind those taken by Group B. Group C consists of all passengers who intended to stow luggage in the overhead bins but ignored the FAA size requirements for carry-on luggage. If flight attendants have to check luggage at the last moment, those passengers must sit at the back of the plane, put down their tray-tables, and write fifty times with dull #2 pencils on lined newsprint paper, "I'm a bad, bad baggage bunny, and I'll check my luggage from now on." Then they must put their heads down on the aforesaid tray-tables and take a little nap instead of having graham crackers and warm grape juice for snacktime.

When the plane arrives at the gate, Group A deplanes as soon as the pilot turns off the seat-belt sign. Members of Group B then clonk each other on the head with their wheely suitcases, and exit in survival-of-the-thickest-skull order. Group C members stay after school to erase the blackboards and clean the plane for the next flight.

You remember Little Rabbit Foo-Foo from Scouts and Camp Fire Girls. That bad bunny finally cleaned up his act, finished his MBA, wrote his thesis on comparative** airline boarding models, and became a gazillionaire:

*Little Rabbit Foo Foo

Little rabbit Foo Foo, hopping through the forest,
Scooping up the field mice, and bopping them on the head,
And down came the good fairy, and she said,
"Little rabbit Foo Foo, I don't want to see you
Scooping up the field mice, and bopping them on the head."
"I'll give you three chances, And then I'll turn you into a goon." But the very next day... (repeat the verse)

"I'll give you two more chances, And then I'll turn you into a goon." But the very next day... (repeat the verse)

"I'll give you one more chance, And then I'll turn you into a goon." But the very next day... (repeat the verse)

"I gave you three chances, So now I'll turn you into a goon." - Zap! The moral of the story is: "Hare today; goon tomorrow."

Actions:

Little rabbit Foo Foo...: use two fingers as rabbit ears, hop your hand across in front of you
Scooping up the field mice: scoop up an invisible mouse, bop it on the head
Good fairy: wave arm as if holding a magic wand
I don't want to see you: wag index finger back and forth as "no"

**As they study ways to be more efficient, some airlines are rethinking how they load passengers on airplanes, while others stick to traditional back-to-front boarding. An overview:

Alaska Airlines: Abandoned its random boarding system in May to return to the rear-to-front method. Main cabin passengers board in two groups.

American: Continues to use traditional zone boarding. Premium-class passengers and most elite fliers board first, then the plane is loaded back to front.

Continental: Loads traditionally from back to front but has a priority lane for elite fliers.

Delta: Shifted to reverse-pyramid model in February. Passengers load from back to front, but those holding window and middle seats get on before those sitting on the aisle.

Northwest: Switched to open boarding in June. Passengers have seat assignments but board in the order they line up. Those in first class and business class and other elite fliers get a priority line.

Southwest: Begins testing assigned seats today on selected flights from San Diego. For years, one of the discounter's hallmarks has been open seating.

United: Starting last October, passengers load from the outside in, starting with those next to windows and ending with passengers seated along the aisle.

US Airways: Reverse pyramid was implemented by America West in 2003. The carrier merged with US Airways last year, and now the process is being rolled out for all routes.

Hula Rabbits Meet You At the Airport

Maybe I was a bit hasty in my selection of a big summer purse on sale. My sister wants to know if terrorists carry LOUD purses. Of course they don't. They want to blend in! My son wants to know what on earth that thing is. This is not a fashion thumbs-up.



In the waiting room at the OB/gyn I complimented another lady-in-waiting on her big purse, saying I'd been looking for a big purse for my upcoming air travel. She took a quick appraisal of my new bag, and nervously began telling me the entire story of her life and of her daughter's European travels. Clearly, she was hoping the attendants from Chumley's Rest would arrive and take me back to the sanitarium if she could keep me distracted long enough.

Watch me pull a pooka out of my purse!


The good thing about the purse is it is large enough to hold an imaginary six foot tall rabbit, or a pooka. It is bringing me good luck, in that it's been raining here in drought-afflicted Plano off and on ever since I bought it. I'm hoping Jimmy Stewart will sit next to me on the plane:

Harvey is a pooka, which is described in the movie as, "From old Celtic mythology, a fairy spirit in animal form, always very large. The pooka appears here and there, now and then, to this one and that one. A benign but mischievous creature very fond of rumpots, crackpots, and...."

My sister sent my sons a Reading Rainbow book, Gila Monsters Meet You At the Airport, when they were small. When we look for each other at the airport this week, she needs to think "Hula Rabbits"!

The Right Purse Amendment

When I called Southwest Airlines to arrange travel from Dallas to Nebraska, the operator's first question was, "Do you know about the Wright Amendment?" Dang skippy, I know about the Wright Amendment. I've been hearing about it since I moved to Texas in 1990.

The Wright Amendment was created by congressional compromise when DFW Airport was built to allow a young whippersnap airline called Southwest to continue flying from the smaller, old Love Field in the city of Dallas. The Wright compromise permitted Southwest flights from Love to adjacent states only. It has been modified over the years to include Missouri destinations, but it will always be an issue in North Texas because Texans, even more than most populations, despise being limited in any manner.

Southwest is a successful airline now, partly because it uses lots of smaller city airfields. The enormous American Airlines is based at DFW. I'm pretty open to many solutions to continuing Wright issues, including closing Love completely and redeveloping the area with a new urbanism mix of uses. I'd like to see good light rail transportation to DFW in place, though, before Love is phased out.

At the moment, my air transportation concerns are more personal and pressing. I need a purse for my flights. A travel purse must meet size and security specifications. It MUST stay closed, so my groovy little green purse flunks out. It must be big enough to hold a camera, a water bottle, cellphone, snacks, a paperback book, a newspaper, and my prescriptions, in addition to the stuff I haul around in normal life. It must be age-appropriate, and hold its shape. That means no sequins, crochet, fringe, big-eyed puppy dogs, fraying edges, or Lawrence Welkish embroidered pastel flowers. It should sort of coordinate with both my green and my black sandals. And then there's the need for it to be at least 40% off. I don't want the TSA folks to wand me because my purse is just too aesthetically-challenged or full-price to be believed. Terrorists always carry ugly purses. They rarely wear green sandals or worry about paying their Kohl's charge card bill when they return from vacation.



And so, I have this purse that just demands an airplane ride. When it arrives at Eppley Airfield it will be expecting leis and alohas. Few things whisper swaying hips and gentle breezes like a Missouri River oxbow.

Driving Miss Dante

There's purgatory. There's limbo. And then there's DFW airport. Talk about your circles of Hell! "Unintelligent design" is the cover story of the March Discover magazine, but it isn't about confusing the ramps for arrivals and departures.

Feeling confused and trapped, and perhaps sucked down into the vortex? Don't feel alone. Freaking because three lanes are merging into one in just twenty feet? Wondering if clear directional guidance in the parking garages is reserved for baptized true believers? What does it mean if your flight is changed to a different gate and baggage claim turnstile?

I'm betting the afterlife is a lot like baggage claim. Your stuff pops up from the chute, then drops down to the carousel to circle and circle unclaimed for all eternity.



I can still see my high school English teacher drawing Inferno diagrams on the chalkboard. That was well before scientists encountered the enormous mimivirus that looks suspiciously like the design for the airport terminal. I'm hoping there will be a Cliff's Notes for DFW soon!

Would you, could you on a plane?

The existence of penguins on Earth just makes me happy. Ever since Eastridge Elementary School and Mr. Popper's Penguins, I've had a bemused attachment to these amazing animals. I imagine them in scenarios--playing electric guitar or bebop sax, dancing in a poodle skirt, delivering pizza, or frosting wedding cakes.

This summer's hit movie, March of the Penguins, spread penguin fondness to a great many more folks. Watching the movie my Seuss-brain kept thinking,

I would never walk.
I would take a car.*

Today it's good to know that the penguins from New Orleans' Audubon Zoo are being evacuated. They are traveling by refrigerator truck to Baton Rouge. From there, the penguins will be "airlifted out" to zoos around the country.

I can't help it. I imagine a plane full of penguins buckled into their airplane seats and watching the flight attendant demonstrate the seatbelt, oxygen mask, and use of the seat cushion as a floatation device. As soon as the plane reaches cruising altitude, flight attendants push the beverage cart up the aisle. "Would you like some ice, or some fish?" My gosh! Penguins returning their tray tables to the upright and locked position! One fish, two fish? Red fish, blue fish?


*The moon was out
and we saw some sheep.
We saw some sheep
take a walk in their sleep.

By the light of the moon
by the light of a star,
they walked all night
from near to far.

I would never walk.
I would take a car.

Marco Polo

Got a Mikey Dog Travel Log update. He's reached the high top of the Italy boot, in the Cinque Terre region of Italy, east of Monaco, south of Genoa. On my map puzzle, Italy is orange. Britain is pink. France is green. Monterossa is a beautiful small town by the sea, he says. Tomorrow he'll hike a trail connecting five small towns along the sea. Monterossa is a "bit touristy", he says. I smile reading his email.


I should have known Mikey Dog would be a world traveler. In kindergarten he was fascinated by maps and aerial perspectives, making drawings of the streets from a hotel window in San Antonio, and of the terrain below his airplane window near Albuquerque. In first grade he wrote that if he won the lottery he would go back to Washington, D.C. to see more of the museums and play with Linky the cocker spaniel. A few years later, he was so fascinated with Marco Polo he convinced a children's theatre director to create a play about Marco Polo. Genghis Khan was another of his fascinations. Soon he will study international business in Italy. Maybe he will travel the Silk Road.

My True Calling

This CollageMama is so old that she learned to build things with Legos using her imagination. In the olden days of the 1960's, Legos were sold without movie tie-ins or restricting instructions. They were for building, just like Tinker Toys, Lincoln Logs, alphabet blocks, and Erector Sets. We used my brother's Legos to build many things, but our favorite activity was constructing camper vans and pick-up campers. These were the glory days of Sunday t.v. with Ed Sullivan, Topo Gigio, Davey and Goliath, My Favorite Martian, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and Lost in Space. We drank Fresca without fear of cyclamates. It was a different world. Dinah Shore sang about seeing the "USA in your Chevrolet", and Alexander Calder designed Braniff airplanes.

Dallas is losing its Delta Airlines hub and many jobs this month. Flight attendants and pilots are being transferred to other hubs like Salt Lake City and Atlanta. I heard part of "Car Talk" on NPR today while driving to Target. One caller asked Click and Clack about living in an old VW Westfalia Synchro camper van (Segment Six) in the long-term parking of the San Francisco airport. She was a pilot being transferred from her home in Alaska. I wonder if she was a Mattel Little Kiddle.

A Dallas friend of mine will have to be based in Salt Lake City to keep her job. This is extremely inconvenient, especially since she will also have to spend many nights in Omaha. She needs to know about the Car Talk camper van plan. I could build her a camper van if I had enough Legos. I have lots of experience!

Many of our Lego constructions were intended to be moon-rovers and the "chariot" from Lost In Space, so basically precursors to SUVs. Our other creations were pick-up campers that fit in the back of my brother's large metal Tonka trucks. These homes on wheels were for my sister's Little Kiddle dolls, mainly because we didn't have enough Legos to build homes for Barbies and Johnny West. Having also played the Beatle's stewardess game, I think I have many qualities needed to house displaced airline employees. Maybe I should get in touch with Jimmy Carter. Legos have been accumulating for fifty years or so now. Like National Geographics, no one wants to throw them away. Maybe Bill and Melinda Gates would fund a Lego Relief Airline Housing initiative.

Since Bush is messing with Social Security and Medicare, I expect to spend my retirement years sitting in a small, drab room eating Spam. That's why I'm holding onto my kids' Legos. I think I'll build some nifty red, yellow, and blue intergalactic space colonies for Barbie, Midge, and Ken.

Flight Attention

One thing I've discovered this year is that I really enjoy flying now that I am not responsible for anybody but myself. All the stress of maneuvering little boys through concourses, keeping track of "The Special Bunny", keeping them from disturbing other people was so draining, that the fun of a trip was rarely worth the ordeal. Now it doesn't much matter if the plane leaves on time, if the plans change, if silly people with oversize carry-on bags block the aisle. I don't much care if the TSA folks go through my purse three times looking for a non-existent pocket knife. The only thing that bugs me is that some airlines only serve Pepsi instead of Coke.

It's time for me to beam up. Fritzi and I say teary good-byes. Howie drives me to the airport in the cool sunshine. He lets me out to check in with Northwest and confirm that my flight is on time. He parks and comes into the terminal for more good-byes and hugs. Standing still while he walks out the door is one of the most difficult things I've ever done.

By the time I ride the escalator upstairs and take off my shoes for security, the weather has changed. Low snow clouds have blocked out all the sun. Drizzle is hitting the windows. Passengers for the 1:05 flight to Minneapolis are grimly determined. They have no plane. They are making friends with strangers. I think of "The Outcasts of Poker Flats". Their plane might arrive eventually. Some have created a card party, others a pity party.

The 4:05 flight is still allegedly on time. Minutes tick by. I finish my wonderful library book by Stephanie Kallos. No announcements are made, but it becomes clear that flying in and out of Minneapolis isn't going to happen in a timely fashion. A worn-out farmgirl changes my ticket. She's been doing this for hours. I will fly a United link into O'Hare, my old nemesis. Then I will find an American flight to DFW. Fine. I can handle it. Time's not a factor. I've spent three and a half days in a different galaxy. My priorities have been rearranged. Sitting in an airport wrapped in a parka and reading a paperback seems like the only thing out there. Breathe in. Breathe out.

The descent into Chicago is pretty trippy. We fly over residential areas with outside Christmas lights and displays. I consider waving back to waving Santas on rooftops!

Let it go. Let it snow. Let it go.

Photographing buildings

It never occurred to me as I was walking around the University of New Mexico campus taking digital photos of the buildings that Tom Ridge might arrest me. Thank heaven I didn't end up in a cell on Guantanamo! I just wanted images to show my high school senior son to explain this lovely campus.

Few people would look at me and yell, "Terrorist spy!" That's a good thing, and it's mostly that I look every bit the nearly fifty mother of three grown kids that I am. My hair is chrome colored, my shoe choices are based on comfort, and my body is pear-shaped. As an art teacher I am more afraid of students losing control of bodily functions in my class than of airplane hijackers. But we can't just go by appearances anymore. We can't use common sense to decide what or who is a potential threat. And so, I am glad that none of the dog-walkers, bicyclists, or joggers on the UNM campus Sunday morning called the cops to notify them of my aberrant photographing.

I don't know the truth about the Pakastani man who photographed that Texas dam and buildings around the country. I did run into some photos I took at a dam near Yankton, S.D. on a vacation in the Sixties when I was looking for an old scrapbook to show my students. We will be talking about how artists use memories as inspirations. We had a lot of fun at that lake long ago, wading, and taking a tourist boatride, as I recall. I've taken photos of sensitive buildings in Washington, D.C., too, on more than one vacation. I've even taken photos in airports, mostly of little boys wearing Texas Rangers baseball caps.

A few posts back I wrote about buying some packing tape at Walmart to close the battery compartment on the digital camera. It was a good thing, too, because I used that tape to seal a box of books I mailed home to myself from Santa Fe. I used it to keep the poster mailing tube shut before I checked it at the Albuquerque airport. I was afraid I would forget my Georgia O'Keeffe and El Malpais posters in the overhead bin when I deplaned if I carried the tube on board. I did have enough sense to throw away the tape cutting edge once I sealed the tube, and before I entered the airport. I'm not a box-cutter maniac! I kept the packing tape, though. You never know when I might need to make a large papier mache animal.


This is outside the UNM Student Union looking toward the Sandia Mountains.

Here's the atrium of the UNM undergraduate art building.

The UNM campus is much more green than I had expected. I saw two weddings being held at the duck pond.

Let's think a bit. When cameras become illegal, only criminals will have cameras?

Two Favorites

From Pierre : A Cautionary Tale in Five Chapters and a Prologue, by Maurice Sendak:

CHAPTER 4
Arriving home
at six o'clock,
his parents had
a dreadful shock!

They found the lion
sick in bed
and cried,
"Pierre is surely dead!"

I arrived home at seven o'clock, but that would have been six in New Mexico. Mike met me at the airport in his black Dodge Intrepid. He had on his sunglasses, and looked very much like Tommy Lee Jones. As we left Love Field he picked up his cell phone and called Steven at home. "Start the spaghetti in fifteen minutes," he told him. I expected him to say "Over and out!" Had my sons synchronized their watches??? If we went through a tunnel, would the Intrepid kick it up to warp speed?

You might suspect me of recreational use of Dramamine (rhymes with "Drama Queen"), but that was not the case. This was the first flight I ever made without Dramamine, because I was feeling so darned relaxed. I did have some trouble with plugged up ears. When Mike commented that I hadn't ever flown very much, I mistakenly thought he was sad that I didn't phone home very much. Yeah, right!

When we got back to the condo Steven really did have the spaghetti ready. Spaghetti and a half cup of Ragu. Apparently there's nothing else edible left in the house. Steven, Mike, a friend-girl, and I sat down to supper. Mike spooned into the spaghetti and lifted up the entire glob. "Probably should have used more olive oil," he said. I promised that I would go to the grocery store right after this dinner. I sure hoped the boys would still be home to haul in all the groceries. Mission Control, we have re-entry!

Ultralight Flight

Amazingly, it is still the same day that I departed DFW. The Albuquerque Museum in Old Town has an exhibit of aerial photographs by Adriel Heisey. He takes his photos while flying a one-seat plane slightly larger than an ultra-light. The photos show prehistoric sites, archaeological sites, and modern human impact on the land. I'll try to put in a link, but you can check the web at www.cdarc.org. I particularly liked this quote from the exhibit:

Querencia is that love of place--ensouling. The land ensouls you...I think you're born with that in your genes when you're born on this type of landscape. When you're young you don't see it that way, but the older you get the more attached you become to the landscape. Juan Estevan Arellano, journalist and descendant of sixteenth century Spanish settlers of Embudo, New Mexico

The New Mexico landscape is ensouling for me. So is the South Dakota Badlands/Black Hills area. Nebraska and Oklahoma landscapes also form my taproot to Mother Earth. "Ensouling" is the perfect word. I feel New Mexico in my molten vertical core, and in my horizontal, branching airy limbs.