To the moon, troll, to the moon!

During the cold war, JFK claimed to have gone to the moon. He got congress to spend billions on his moon landing and pretended america landed there, convincing congress to give him billions, the fakeness of the landing is well documented.

It seems to me that this liberal moneybags, that he took these billions for personal use, or maybe gave them to the USSR (we all know he was soft on communism)

Perhaps his death was similarly staged in order to keep his billions or keep congress of his case.

December 11, 2008

“How I Spent My Winter Vacation”

I was up at the ungodly hour of 0215 in order to catch a flight that left at 0600. * yawn *

Since I had planned to take my time going to the departure gate, I wasn’t worried about what was to come. Of course, I wasn’t really awake. However, I got through Security with the loss of a new bottle of body lotion, and some wounded pride.

Since McCarran is so familiar to me I had no trouble finding the departure gate, and looked forward to the trip, even though I am a “white knuckle flyer” in the best of times.

I had a window seat and was watching the ground below as well as the on-board progress screen. The snow on San Francisco Peak (AZ) stood out like a sore thumb, and as we flew over eastern Texas, I could see water from lakes, bayous and rivers. I had no idea the Wetlands extended so far. All at once, I understood the humidity of the area.

We landed in Atlanta (the penalty for booking “late” during the Christmas Season,) and my connecting gate was three gates away. I couldn’t believe my luck! I found a seat where I could watch the monitors and a lady to my left began a conversation with me. “Where are you going?” she asks. “To Little Rock,” sez I.

“Ah. Then you are in the wrong place! It has been changed to Gate E-9!” Wha..? OK. My “suitcase” has wheels, so I’m good to go! I start off down the concourse, following the signs, and hating every minute of the moist air that was pouring into my lungs. WARM moist air.

I walked as fast as my long legs would carry me and found me at the doorway of a shuttle, heading for the Gate that awaited my presence. Little did I know, the trip to said gate was underground ~~ can you say claustrophobia??? I finagled a seat and knew I was sweating (sorry ladies! “glowing”) under my coat, but there wasn’t much I could do.

The E-Gates were just as far away from the A-Gates as E is from A…translated into feet and yards. The concourse was set up like a T with multiple crossbars, numbering from one to 30+ on either side. Ugh. I hurried to E-9 and just barely sat my sweating body down on the floor when the flight was called to board. The first hour of the flight, I was still trying to cool off. The plane was cold so I didn’t take my coat off and it took forever to get my body into a “normal” state. The worst was over. I was in Little Rock!

As I went down the concourse, I saw my son, leaning against a pillar, with a big grin on his face. It was so good to see him! We were going to pick up my grandson after school, but we had some time, and I was starving, so we went to Arby’s. As it turned out, we were too late to get him at school; he was already on the bus. That meant we had to go to his house to wait for him. And we did. It was a sunny day, and though the sun was setting, it was still bright. The wind was cold!

Within about 15 minutes, the bus showed up, and three kids got off the bus ~ the shortest one was my son’s son. I held my arms out and he ran across the lawn to me. The bigger kids took their time, but I got hugs from them, too! That was my reward for enduring the mix-up at Atlanta.

(I told my son if I ever have to go through Atlanta again, make me dead. It’s an AWFUL place, and I think only three people in Atlanta aren’t on Delta’s payroll.)

From there, we went home for a quick tour of the house, to drop off the luggage, for my son to change clothes and then we headed for Cozy Mel’s. it was pretty neat, with lots of blue, red and yellow along with traditional central American décor. The food was excellent, and the waitress found at least a dozen reasons to come back to the table and talk to my son. * snort *

When we got home, we went into the movie room and watched a DVD I hadn’t seen but wanted to: “Cast Away.” Ohno. Plane crash. The next day we watched another movie with Tommy Lee Jones about a prisoner transport. Plane crash. Upside down in a river. Before I left, we watched “Iron Man” which had lots of splody things, including helicopters. My son and I looked at each other and just began to laugh! It was way too funny!

In the movie room, he has a loveseat with dual recliners, but one of them is broken, and he has to get his hand under it to extend the leg rest. I learned I could NOT get out of that chair without his help, and he would laugh every time. Sometimes, he would watch me struggle, laugh a lot, and then give me a helpful shove.

I had given Sam some “electric” socks with little trees on them that lit up when he moved, and he just couldn’t take them off! Friday morning, he kept coming into the living room (I was sleeping on the floor) to see if I was awake, and every time he did, he would wake me up! Poor baby. I finally got up and gave him the hugs he wanted.

Saturday we shopped a little for food and Christmas, and that evening, we went to the church for the Christmas Party. It was a lot of fun, and my son seems to be quite well liked. He has three families he is “responsible” for, to see if there is anything they need, and he bought baskets, made cookies, gave them each a DVD and a bag of M&M Peanut candies and a little Christmas tree ornament. Then we went to dinner. Someplace. And came home to watch more movies!

Sunday was church of course, and there was a cold rain with lots of wind. It didn’t look good to me, but I was out of it, for sure. Sunday was also the day we had to give Sam back to his mother, so we met at Cici’s Pizza and ate. Again. Sam’s sister, Cami, came along (15) and she was pretty funny. I really enjoyed her. After we were ALL stuffed, we went back home and watched MORE MOVIES!

Monday, my son went to work, and I snoozed most of the day, trying to ease the angina caused by the marathon in Atlanta. I don’t think we went out that night, choosing to eat at home. But I can’t remember what we ate! Tuesday, I was supposed to go with him to work, meet his co-workers and boss, and take a tour of the golf course, then have lunch at the clubhouse. He got ready for work, picked up his phone, and saw that a message had come in the night before, while we were watching movies. I said, “Don’t come in!” He responded, “Nah, that’s not it. It’s something else, I’m sure.”

It told him not to come in because the roads were closed. WHAT? We looked outside and everything was covered in ice, and snow was coming down. There wasn’t much we could do. The entire state came to a stop, including the nearby air base. Not much to do so we watched more movies! And baked more cookies! And ate at home.

The next day, the roads were clear so he decided to give me the tour of the golf course. After a tour of the maintenance barn and offices, we got into his John Deere golf cart, complete with plastic “windows” that zipped up, and off we went. Some of the paths were snowy and some still had ice. We were headed for the clubhouse, which marked the halfway point, and it was up a little rise. We got about three feet from the top and started to slip backwards on the ice. All my son could do was try to control the slide, which didn’t work, as we slid to the right towards a tree-filled gully.

SMACK! We stopped. The front end was on the ice path and the rear end was stopped by two fairly good-sized rocks. My son got out and was going to move the cart onto the path, pointed downhill. I said, “Get me out of here, and I’ll help you.” Right. My left foot touched the ice on the path and I fell out of the cart, onto my knees!

We rocked the cart sideways, and finally got it pointed in the right direction. My son drove back down the path, turned around and took a running start at the little hill. We made it! Right into the parking lot of the clubhouse, which was where we wanted to be. But no one was there!

He finished the tour and we went back on the road, since the golf course was also one of those with homes around the course. From there, we went to ToysRUs and got something for Sam, and went to lunch. Then home, where he made preparations for the two dinner guests for that night.

Sometime during that day or the day before, my daughter called from Vegas, saying McCarran was closed because of snow. BWA-HAHAHAHAHA!! Three inches of snow. The airport authority had to borrow three plows from Mt. Charleston, as well as some from California, in order to clean off the runways. Knowing it wouldn’t last very long, we headed for the airport next morning,

While in line, I was told I had to go to Memphis, then Atlanta, then home. I’m thinking this is for the next day, because of McCarran. Later that morning, Delta called, saying my flight from Memphis was confirmed for the next morning, going to Atlanta. WHAT?

I pressed all the right buttons and got a real person who said my flight to Atlanta from Memphis was, indeed, for the next day. I said, ohno…that’s not the way it’s going to work. I have health problems, and if I had gone to Memphis, I would have had to sleep at the airport, or my son would have had to make the drive and gotten a hotel room for us.

They finally got me a flight out on Friday, but knowing what I went through in Atlanta on the trip in, I asked for a wheelchair in Atlanta. I got it. When saying goodbye to my son, I was constantly on the alert for service members and wherever possible, I told them “thanks for serving America.”

Now it was time to get down to business. Little Rock National Airport has nuthin’ on McCarran! As I started to go through Security, the Duty person said, “Congratulations! You have been selected to be searched, prodded, tangled, felt-up and have your baggage gone through with a fine-toothed comb for no extra charge! Step to the right!”

And they did. I got the body scan, the body feel, the body x-ray, the body search. My baggage was torn apart and I was told anything that couldn’t fit into a little plastic envelope couldn’t go. I was left to repack and redress and wander in a daze to the gate that was already stifling with body heat, body odor, rudeness and idiocy. GAH!!!

At last we were airborne, courtesy of TWA: Teeny Weeny Airline with Two Wobbly Aircraft. Atlanta was sounding pretty good….

I was wheeled to a shuttle bus and the bus drove over three miles to get me to the gate I needed. I was transferred from the shuttle to a golf cart with a suicide driver, and it took almost 10 minutes to get to the gate. But I didn’t have to run, I didn’t have angina and I wasn’t late.

The plane was, however. It took over 45 minutes to load and since it was an airbus, I was, (naturally) stuck in the center of the center row of seats. There was a drunk to my right and a sleeper to my left, and I couldn’t get out. We were an hour late getting into McCarran, and when I stood up to get out of the seat, my legs hurt my so badly that it almost took my breath away. I decided that rather than take the wheelchair, I needed to walk to baggage claim where my friend was supposed to be waiting. My calves hurt the entire time.

But I walked. And made excuses to walk where I didn’t have to, and by the time I was home three days, the legs finally quit hurting. Now, of course, I have nothing but good memories!

In two years, I’ll try it again!

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