Last Saturday morning, we celebrated friend Sue's birthday with breakfast at the Steveston Hotel, which is just like what you would expect an old hotel in an old fishing village (which is what Steveston used to be, of course) to be.
Kelly, Donna and Sue
Donna, yours truly, and the birthday girl
(see what happens when you get a little sunshine after all that rain? You forget not to take pictures facing into the sun!)
It was such a lovely day in Steveston that Donna and I decided to continue the day walking around, enjoying the sunshine, the breeze, the tourists everywhere....
That evening, I went off on my own to see the United Players doing Room with a View by E.M. Forster. I used to see these guys often, but in recent times, they have been doing too many restoration comedys, and too much Chekov - and we all know how much I love Chekov (not). Anyway, a colleague of mine had seen this production and said it was the best thing that they had ever done. I'm not sure I would go that far, but it was lovely, and it was good to be back.
My friend John (the bridge player and jock, two descriptives I'm sure you don't often see in the same sentence) wanted to share Pacific Sprit Park with me - he was appalled the other night when I told him I had never been, even though it is adjacent to the University of British Columbia, where I went to law school. Anyway, Sunday was another glorious day, and so we went for a two hour hike, up hill and dale. I even stopped someone on the trail to take our picture, knowing that some of you would not otherwise believe I had been there!
It was a fine hike - carefully chosen not to strain my definitely-non-jock capabilities, and followed by a delicious lunch at the near-by golf club!
Then, home to pack, and Monday after work, I headed for the border and Seattle. The idea was that Mariah and I would have a bite to eat, and then I would grab a few hours of sleep, before getting up at the crack of dawn to fly out to New York. Well, the bite to eat part went well; the sleeping, well, not so much. I should have known better; I can never sleep before a trip. No, I am not a nervous flier; I just always think that I am going to sleep through my alarm (it has been known to happen), so after a few hours I just got up and knit, and at 3:30 A.M. headed for the airport!
So far, so good. I didn't get lost on the way to the Park 'n' Fly (I have been known to do that too), parked, got the shuttle to the airport, got through security before they got crabby, found coffee, discovered that the plane to Chicago was on time .....all is well, you might think. You would be wrong. When we landed in Chicago (okay, I admit it, I had to have a slice of Chicago pizza for lunch - and it was good, too!), I found that the plane into Newark was delayed - indefinitely - because of bad weather in Newark, torrential rain, winds, fear of a tornado (a tornado? In New York? Who ever heard of such a thing? There may not be global warming, but there certainly is climate change!). As it turns out, we were only two hours late getting off the ground in Chicago. That's when the fun started. After circling around Newark for what seemed like forever, we landed - in Pittsburgh, because they closed the runway in Newark!
Really, I won't bore you with all the details (the only thing worse than living through a travel nightmare is reading about it!); the long and the short of it, both fellow passengers and crew (god bless Southwest Airlines) were good natured, and we finally landed in Newark at 11:30 P.M. Even given the time change, it was a hell of a long day.
But, at the end, friend Alison was faithfully waiting at the airport. Alison and I used to get into a hell of a lot of mischief together in New York when we were in our 20s, but hadn't seen each other for - wait for it - 35 years, and a lot has happened between then and now. But that, my friends, is a story for another day.
No comments:
Post a Comment