Well. When last we left Rocky and Bullwinkle, they were to meet on the plane in San Francisco. Bullwinkle was coming from Las Vegas where he had been on his annual reunion with his siblings, Rocky was coming from Orange County. Rocky was telling her patients at work about this plan and all the women agreed it sounded very romantic “The next time I see him will be on the plane headed to Hong Kong.”
Which is the only reason I was going on this trip to begin with. Al had already been invited by Jeff and Patti Plonsker to go to Hong Kong for the World Sevens Rugby Tournament (or part of it anyway –I’ll know more later) – they all had all but given up on me. Between school and moving and Mom moving and work I had not been willing to travel much, even bowing out of the group trip to Mexico in September. Al was moping a bit, asking me things like “do you think you’re ever going to want to travel again?” I admit I had been a so-so traveler on the Panama Cruise, largely because I was preoccupied with all of the above. I decided for the sake of the marriage to, what the hell, go to Hong Kong. This shocked everyone especially Al, and Patti was delighted to have me come and save her from Al and Jeff (two oldest friends, getting older along with the recycled jokes…).
I was a little freaked out by 15 hours in the air but thanks to the internet and friends on facebook, I was prepared. I had my eye mask, my noise cancelling headphones, my compression hose, my crossword puzzle book, the travel cribbage board and cards, my Nook all charged up with two new books, my computer (on which I’m writing right now), my iPad. I had my moistened face wipes, my face lotion, my mini Kleenex, my extra chargers for all the tech toys. I also had stuff for Al that he would never think of in a million years but I knew he would be happy to have: his eye mask, his noise cancelling headphones, his compression hose, moistened face wipes, chargers for whatever he might need charging. Oh yes, and the comfortable sports warmup pants he asked me to bring at the last minute because he hadn’t even thought of that.
And food – lovely homemade turkey and avocado flatbread sandwiches, Cuties oranges, hard boiled eggs, nutrigrain bars, freshly cooked teriyaki broccoli (it would have gone bad in the fridge). I barely managed to jam this all into my backpack and another cooler bag and couldn’t wait to meet Al and transfer over some of this crap to an extra carryon I had also packed. To say I had reached the weight limit on my ability to carry stuff is an understatement.
Only one problem. My flight from Orange County was about to take off when the pilot said we were grounded on orders from SFO air traffic – apparently the ceiling was too low in SF. (I don’t even know what that means in SF. The ceiling is always low). Not knowing what might happen, we were told to deplane. This turned out to be twenty to thirty minutes I couldn’t afford with a one hour layover between this flight and the long haul to Hong Kong.
We were off the plane about twenty minutes when – we were told we were going. Back on the plane. We will be there in 50 minutes. No problem, that will be 12:55, plane leaves at 1:20. I can make this. Ask my kids or read the blog about the time we made it seconds before the doors closed. You only have to get ON the plane, it doesn’t matter how close you cut it.
I didn’t. We arrived on the new schedule and….waited for a gate. By this time Al and I were texting – he was on the plane. He was telling me exactly how to get to the new gate. We texted back and forth helplessly as the doors closed and he had no choice but to go on without me. Not before he told me the USA Rugby team was on the plane. To those of you who are not familiar with the physical specimens known as rubgy players, I was robbed…