Flying commercial

Pardon the link instead of an embedded video, but you might enjoy this CNN clip about the rich and mighty who are being reduced to – flying commercial instead of on private jets.  Which covers the JetBlue ads aimed at that new customer base. Note to self: fly somewhere on JetBlue soon, just because.

Last Saturday, before I’d heard of the JetBlue ad campaign, I was working a shift as a volunteer hospitality Ambassador at DEN. Wearing the white Stetson and other gear, acting as kind of a talking directional sign and otherwise answering questions and trying to be helpful to the public out there. It was a pleasant day. People heading home after ski vacations, youngsters heading out for spring break trips.

As I watched all the folks moving through the place that morning, I wondered how many of that day’s commercial passengers would have been flying on private jets this time last year. But they, or their company, or their father-in-law, had given up the plane. Of course, one keeps those thoughts to oneself.

But there was this middle-aged couple, she carefully made up and sporting an ankle-length fur coat.  That sight caused me to contemplate during the next quiet moments: if one simply must take a big long fur coat on a commercial plane trip, what to do with it? Wear it, and look like a poseur who would be flying private if you really had that kind of money? Check it and risk a theft? Stuff it in your carryon bag, leaving no room for anything else?

Better yet, my advice if you’re coming to Colorado: get a full length down coat and stay just as warm without the bother.

Random

Habits. I have lots of bad ones. I used to have a blogging habit but I lost it over the winter.

Before I rush off to face the day, after remembering to do my stretches now that I’m old enough to *need* them every day, I’ll share this “Headnote of the Day” from the legal publishing empire, West:

Where defendant had argued that commission of the crime in the manner asserted by the State would have been foolish, prosecutor was properly permitted to argue that it is nowhere written that a criminal has to be smart.

Marshall v. State, 438 N.E.2d 986 (1982

Could this be the rebirth of my blogging habit?

Dinged

Okay, I’m going to edit this, now that another day has passed and I’ve gotten over my old grouchy self. It was just an epic bad day at a poorly managed corporate dining spot in a chain hotel. I wish I could be funny about it. Maybe another time or another SNAFU. What follows has been edited from the original rant.

It’s just as well I wasn’t very hungry Thursday at lunchtime. My lunchtime companions were fun, and I’m glad I joined them to honor Pete on his upcoming retirement.

But the restaurant?  Epic FAIL.

Eight of us originally ordered, and two showed up a little later. Orders were right off the menu, nothing persnickety requested. The orders were delivered not all at once but in a definite straggle, and one of us who was sitting with a view of the kitchen saw his plate sitting under the hot lights for awhile before finally being brought to him. Eventually everyone had plates in front of them.

Except me. Our waiter approached me and said, she was so sorry but she hadn’t “entered” my order (the Embassy Suites is of course all computerized) and she needed to know what it was.  A couple of minutes later she was back at my shoulder to say they were preparing my order now, and when I asked how long, she said “three minutes.” My friends offered to share their food with me, but I declined. After all, mine was due in three minutes, right? I got involved in the conversations, then finally looked at my watch again. Nearly 15 minutes had passed since the “three minutes” statement. No food. No wait person.

I looked over at the kitchen and saw, sitting under the hot lights on the pickup counter for completed orders, a burger plate. Our wait person was engrossed in some business at another table. Another restaurant employee who’d helped serve us walked back and forth in front of that burger plate as I watched. But didn’t touch it.

So, dear reader, I got up, walked over to the kitchen, picked up the burger plate and brought it back to the table myself.

It had sat on that counter under the warming lights so long that the slice of cheese on one side of the open faced burger? Was drying out at the edges.

I wish this was the end of the saga. You should be so lucky. Hell, we all should have been so lucky. There was another saga of confusion and delay about giving us our checks. Separate checks, which our server had offered us. It took maybe 20 minutes and as with the food there was an erratic distribution of checks to some of us, then a long wait for the rest.

During the check situation I told a manager who was working the computer with our server (ours wasn’t the only table with a check issue), about all the problems with my order. All he said was sorry, not even pausing in his work on the computer.

Yes: I was eventually handed a bill, in full, of $15.47 for my burger and iced tea. No comps, no discounts, just the damned bill.

Which I stood in another line to pay up at the register. I handed our waiter my bill and a twenty. She gave me back four ones.

Yes, dear reader, I even got shorted on the change. But by then I was so late getting out of there to get back downtown for meetings, I said not a word and just left.

I’m so glad I got to get together with that group – even if most of them were camera-shy – that in another day or two I will be laughing at the debacle that was my actual lunch.

It probably was the universe’s way of telling me I should have ordered a chicken caesar salad instead of a burger.

But if you’re ever in Denver? Remember that name. Diazza.

Perhaps it will be my next home page

I rarely visited this site even before 2001. But now?

I’m so chuffed by this, so relieved that perhaps after all we are going to grab our Constitution before it falls irretrievably over the edge into oblivion, and feeling so unexpectedly engaged with policy issues – that www.whitehouse.gov could be my new home page.

Oh. No. Did I just write that I am “engaged with policy issues”? Please. I’m too old to turn into a policy wonk. I find policy wonks dreadfully tiring to talk with – well, in fact one pretty much listens to them, the talking goes pretty much one way.

I have a lot of housework to do today. I can sort this out in my so-called mind while rustling clutter, busting dust and scrubbing a couple of bathrooms’ worth of crud into oblivion. Not to mention moving three big bookcases – after emptying them.

Aretha

January 20:
Sitting on the sofa
Puppy on my lap

Just me at home with him
watching the sleek new HDTV
with count the wrinkles resolution

Sun pouring onto us this morning
and the Rockies in the distance

From somewhere
was it dusty country Oklahoma
nearly 60 years ago

From somewhere
was it sultry 60’s Houston
middle school in a buckle of the Bible belt district

From somewhere
surely the place – as Molly Ivins said -
that I realized they were lying about race
and wondered what else they lied about too

From somewhere
was it my early 20’s working learning
law school at night
Or my late 20’s moving up to Colorado
standing up in court
conferring in the jails
with clients in assorted shades

From somewhere
it was my personal soundtrack in college: Aretha’s LPs

From somewhere
it was eighth grade class where we read
the United States Constitution aloud, every last word -
and discussed it

From somewhere
it was the place in my heart
those complicated chambers belonging to my father
whose journey ended too soon long ago

From somewhere
came a lump into my throat this morning

It only went away when Aretha started singing
it dissolved into tears down my face

So-called real life

Maybe I’ve run out of things to write about? Or at least things to blog about?

Nah. I refuse to entertain the idea.

But it has been awhile since I posted anything. Since I just had to share what’s on my tiny mind with all of you out there on the innernets.

And I’m not entirely sure why.

Mostly I think it’s because of my so-called real life away from this keyboard. I endured a few weeks of energy-sucking, body-dragging and mind-impairing sickness, and recovery therefrom. Respiratory virus followed by sinus infection, all accompanied and survived by an annoying cough. Something like my normal energy level returned after New Year’s, and I’ve been playing catch-up since then. With work and also at home.

No worries, it hasn’t been all work and no play. I’ve been updating my television situation here at the condo. This time of year it’s so cold here that I stay indoors and watch a lot of TV, and anyone who watches much TV has known for a long time about the change next month to digital over-the-air signals.

On Saturday, I donated to Goodwill the 8 year old 27″ flat screen Sony CRT, in all its hulking wonder, thanks to a neighbor who helped me hoist it into the back of my car. Yesterday, I brought home from Costco a sleek new 37″ Vizio LCD HDTV. I easily set it up in the living room, hooked up to my trusty old digital cable (SD) box and also to the building rooftop master TV antenna. For more than week now, my little bedroom 20″ LCD TV has had a digital converter box buddy by its side, because it’s 4 or 5 years old and needs the box to get the digital over the air signals through the building antenna system. Soon I will have cable service added in the bedroom and upgraded in the living room to HDTV with DVR.

Of course the only part of all that hoo-hah that was at all necessary, was the converter box for the little bedroom TV. The other upgrades were just because I wanted to. And had accumulated the cash to do it.

The over-the-air HDTV programming I’m watching on the new big TV? Just amazed me. I got it working just in time for the AFC championship game. Wowzer. And more importantly, I have HDTV here in time for tomorrow’s inauguration of our next President. I plan to watch that here at home and go downtown afterwards.

Today, it’s unseasonably warm here. Not a time to pound a keyboard indoors. My wonderful dog needs a walk and so do I. Back to real life, the parts of it that don’t happen at the iMac.

The old me is fine, thanks.

OK, people, I read or hear one more iteration of “New Year, New You” and I throw a hissy fit. The world has been warned.

They can keep whatever “new” version of me it is that they want to sell me. In a package of makeup, or a new outfit, or “body-firming” undies, or some other product.

I’ve spent several decades working with, and on, the old me. And she’s just fine, ticking over pretty well, and not in need of being traded in on a new me. Sure, regular maintenance is important, and the occasional major tune-up, plus paint and buffing, but the old me isn’t going out on the lot with the other trade-ins just yet.

If you understand what I’m saying here and feel the same way about the old you, I think you will enjoy this piece just out in The New Yorker.

Unless you traded your funny bone to the devil for a pair of  lifetime-guaranteed-firm thighs. In which case I fear you may post it on the front of your fridge. As an action plan. Which would frighten me very much, so please take it down if I’m going to come over to your house. Thanks.

Full text below the fold in case the link goes kaput.

Checked.

Oh, dear, I am getting bored and boring.

With no one to blame but myself.

I’m going to dodder and drool and babble right here in full view of the innernets. If you keep reading? You have been warned.

Yesterday was bracketed by medical checkups as the first and last things on the calendar.

Hearing test first. My hearing loss – not very bad – hasn’t worsened since last year. I’m still a “borderline” case as to whether hearing aids would be a good idea. I’ve booked a consultation next week with the hearing aid center at my HMO to review my options.

Both audiologists who tested my hearing – last year and yesterday – were very helpful and I left each session with new knowledge. The main point is that if you need hearing aids, the sooner you get them the better. I’ve seen people near and dear to me who didn’t get hearing aids until they were well into their 70’s and their hearing loss pretty serious, and noticed that they didn’t seem to like their hearing aids or benefit much from them. Sad. As I understand it, the concept of “use it or lose it” applies to our hearing too. If we go too long with a lot of loss and then try to correct it with hearing aids our bodies may not be so good at handling the restored inputs. Or something. And there’s the hassle factor: there’s a period of at least several weeks in which new hearing aids will need to be adjusted, re-adjusted, and generally twiddled with by the provider, to get all the settings just right. I know at least one person who didn’t deal with that very well when older but might have handled it better ten years earlier.

I also learned that in the last couple of years, the hearing aid technology available to customers has made huge jumps ahead. Both audiologists said that three years ago my hearing loss wouldn’t have put me in the “borderline” category because back then the available hearing aids wouldn’t have been worth the trouble for it. And finally, my suspicions were confirmed: there are a lot of aggressive sales tactics that can really rip off consumers in the hearing aid world. Our state which is pretty much last at the party to regulate anything (still doesn’t license private investigators, for pete’s sake), actually sat up and took enough notice to pass some laws about hearing aid sales, so I guess the situation must have gotten pretty mucky. I have heard, for example, that the big ads in the newspapers offering “buy one get one free” for hearing aids, are sellers offering older types of aids and not the newer and better kinds.

There will *not* be TMI here about the rest of my medical situation, except that things look fine. And my doc shared with me the good news about Vitamin D that he learned at a recent conference, which I think has also gotten some publicity. it helps older people with several health issues. He recommends 400 IU per day. When I got home I checked my multivitamin bottle. I’m getting 500 IU a day of D just from that. I’m good.

I also ordered the Consumer Reports top rated pedometer, after reading the first part of the most sensible book about diet that I’ve picked up in a long time. Winters here are cold and I hate being outside in serious cold. My daily physical activity has approached “corpse” level – believe me, Jasper gets short walks with me and most of his romping at day care.

I’m steeling myself to unpack that gadget, set it up, put it on and read the awful truth.

Pray for me. Even if I can’t hear you.

Thanks. You have a safe and happy new year, OK?

Happy New Year, Chilly (or Diva)

I think a nice new home is in your immediate future.

And on behalf of the human race, I can only offer apologies for what some unknown lower-than-a-snake-belly total waste of space did to you before you were found and rescued.

Feel good story for Boxing Day

Also known as December 26, or the day after Christmas. The Denver Post featured Buckley on the front page. The good news: he’ll continue to hang out at the State Treasurer’s Office.

I take it back

I don’t really hate Christmas. Although I think I already said that it’s not Christmas I hate, just the gross commercialized culture of excess and frenzy that comes with it these days.

So, it happened again to me this year. The annual miracle of the Christmas spirit. Right on schedule, the morning of December 24. I had no more gifts to buy, but some left to wrap. And errands to run.

I cranked up some favorite Christmas music. My favorites change a little. This year the most played Christmas song on my iPod is this one:

Followed by “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas,” featured below.

With the music going, I felt my old cold grinchy heart start to warm and melt. Sang along to the iPod, practiced singing harmony to “Silent Night.”

Hopped into the car, with iPod music blasting, practically danced around Costco. Sang to the checkout staff and thanked them for working Christmas Eve. They must be trained to deal with crazy people; they were unfazed.

Was it me? Or were most people I saw in Costco on Christmas Eve *not* all stressing out this year?

Home again, had fun wrapping the presents, all for the little kids in the family. Was sure I wouldn’t make it in time to join the family at church, even called to say so. Figured as I headed out for their part of town that I’d hope to find a coffee shop nearby open, to sip and read for a while till they could get home and let me in. But the magic of Christmas slipped the old Subaru right down the freeways and into the church parking lot to a space across from the family’s van, and ushered me into the church two minutes before the service started. Everybody squished down and made room for me in the row.

So I got to have my annual misty-eyed Christmas Eve service experience at their church, which really piles it on and surpassed itself this year. I think the only thing left is to actually bring in live animals for the manger scene, so I wouldn’t miss next year’s service for the world. Despite the lingering cough from my recent sickness I sang pretty well, and cried during the final candle-lighting in the darkened church. And managed not to splash candle wax around when I blew out my candle afterward.

Nice eats and gift exchange back at the cousins’ after church. Four little kids, two sets of young parents, their grandparents on their dads’ side, two great-grandparents, and assorted loose cannon cousins. Including moi. So many gifts that expressed the love and involvement all these people have in each others’ lives, along with lots of giggles, laughs and squeals among the wrapping-ripping. Some of which was from the kids. A toy horse was the gift of the night for one of the girls, a toy rifle for one of the boys.

After the gifts, the electric Christmas tree lights were turned off, room lights doused, and the little candles in heirloom German silver holders on the tree branches were lit, for all of us to enjoy for a few minutes. That’s what trees looked like way back when.

Christmas day, after Jasper got a nice walk, I worked a morning shift as a volunteer hospitality ambassador at the airport. Lots of family reunions, Santa hats, people with antler headbands, hugs, smiles, even people thanking me for being there. Basically as a talking directional sign – yesterday I was mostly at the spot where people ask directions to their baggage claim carousels. There being 19 of them, I don’t have every single bit of info memorized but fortunately it’s not too hard to steer them the right way. And they give us a cheat sheet too.

Then it was home again, to rest my feet for a while. Then back out to the cousins’ for a nice dinner with most of the family. A quiet time to chat and laugh with the people who’ve known me all my life, or whom I’ve known all their lives, as the case may be. And they put up with me anyway. Bless them.

Long live Christmas. I hope you all had some miracles too, especially the miracles of comfort and joy.

One year old

Happy birthday to a happy, friendly little guy who was born on Christmas Eve last year.

You’ve been worth it, dude. I hope we have a lot more Christmases together.

Now, go out, locate a nice guy for me. And fetch.

I want a hippopotamus for Christmas

But I bought a llama instead.

In honor of my family, via the Heifer Project.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Did he really say bazillion?

Yes, right there on page 1 of the Denver Post:

“The black box has a bazillion different parameters on it. They will hone in on what went wrong.” Mike Boyd, aviation analyst, on the voice and data recorders, above, that have been sent to National Transportation Safety Board headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Gosh, isn’t it great when our local papers bring us the benefits of specialized expertise?

Only, perhaps, if they were laced with recreational substances

Of all the total stupid backassward fatuous IDIOCY I have read in the course of a long and wasted life, something I saw today online may have taken the all-time award for Stupid Backassward Fatuous Idiocy.

Some clueless airhead who is either a lower-than-a-snake-belly liar, or has had all his or her taste buds surgically rendered inoperable, or has a serious personality disorder involving totally deadened pleasure receptors in every square inch of his or her no doubt unappealing body, has actually written and posted THIS, on the MSNBC website, no less, in an article explaining how dieters can “trade up to healthier treats”:

Skip it: Chocolate chip cookies

234 calories, 13.6 g fat per three cookies

Scarf it: Fill your cookie jar with 100% Whole Grain Fig Newtons and you can feel good about having a helping. A three-Newton snack (165 calories, 3 g fat) nets you 80 percent less fat than three chocolate chip cookies; plus, their 3 g of fiber will leave you feeling fuller.

You save: 69 calories, 10.6 g fat

That is so wrong.

First, if I actually ate three Fig Newtons either whole grain or partial grain, I would save the entire 165 calories because after managing to choke them down I believe I would, well, not keep them down.

Second, and maybe this should be first: who the hell could possibly believe that anything, much less something as creepy as FIG BLOODY NEWTONS, which does not contain chocolate, could in any way, shape or form, be a substitute for a chocolate chip cookie?

Finally, I will concede that under certain circumstances incompatible with my personal situation, a FIG NEWTON might be considered a treat. And one might “feel good” after consuming one. Or three. See the title of this post.

Srsly, ppl

At least a dozen years ago I volunteered for a Saturday airport emergency preparedness exercise. Involving a simulated plane crash, a real airline flight crew, real emergency responders from the airport and surrounding agencies, the Red Cross, you name it. I was one of the “passengers” and the organizers made us all up to look appropriately injured.

It was a cool-to-cold clear fall morning as we assembled, got our makeup (moulage) applied, and eventually took our seats in the aircraft. It was an old 707 which was parked out by a hanger and had been stripped of its engines, etc. I took a seat in the first-class area near the front.

We sat for a little bit, then the flight attendants grabbed bullhorns and called out that we’d crashed, and we had to evacuate.  I headed for the closest exit, which was in front of me, but the flight attendant there in the aisle yelled to us, “this is blocked, you have to go back!” So we turned and went down stairs (no chute in this case) out onto the concrete around the plane. We were guided away from the aircraft and then sat and laid down to wait for the first responders.

It was so quiet. So very quiet. And it seemed like such a long time until we heard the first sirens. It couldn’t have been very long, really, but my God it seemed like a lifetime. And nobody was hurt, nothing was burning, it was just a beautiful day out on the north end of a major international airport next to a big hangar.

I remember bits of the rest; I got evacuated by helicopter to Denver Health in midtown, then took a loonngg bus ride back out to the airport with the others who’d been transported there. (Note: if you get hit, shot, knifed or run over in Denver, you *want* to be taken to that ER, believe me.)

Ever since then, people, I really do pay attention to the emergency instructions when I get on an airplane. I note where the emergency exits are, in front of me and behind me. When I fly I don’t wear flip flops, fancy dress shoes, or any clothing that I can’t climb, bend, crawl, and run like hell in. I remind myself that if we get into any emergency evacuation situation the ONLY valuable thing I had better try to take off that plane is my own sweet ass, and there’s nothing in my carry-on bag that I’m willing to die for. I usually put my main ID including passport in a pocket. And figure that anything on my notebook PC that hasn’t been backed up? I’d better be able to live without.

I swing between preferring an aisle seat for the ability to get out immediately for routine (bathroom) reasons and in any emergency, and quaking at the thought of being brained by some idiot’s overstuffed carryon luggage falling out of an overhead bin above me, which is less likely if one’s in the window seat.

The lessons of that Saturday are so well-ingrained that I don’t often think of it. But I did this afternoon when I read this piece in Newsweek by a passenger who was on Continental 1404 in Denver last night.  The headline: “A sudden, terrible stillness.” And I remembered the quiet, lying on concrete waiting for sirens, with time to realize that this is how it happens, only often in the dark, in the rain, in deep cold or awful heat, after a car wreck or a plane wreck. The reporters and photographers get there after the emergency crews, the flashing lights and sirens, so we always see the vehicles, the uniforms, the flashing lights, in the news coverage. What we don’t see on the news is before that, between the crash and the response. The stillness, the isolation, that awful waiting when you are praying that help is on the way.

Seriously, people, I enjoy flying, I believe it’s safer than driving, and yet I don’t show up in flip-flops and silly clothes for it. I can only hope and pray that if I am ever a passenger in a commercial aircraft incident that’s survivable, the flip-flop quotient on that particular flight will be really really low.

Wonder if I can still change my travel plans

Thailand’s new foreign minister has described the recent hijacking of Bangkok’s airports as a lot of fun.

Seriously.

And like a fool I chose to reschedule my Thailand trip to late March 3 weeks ago. When because of all the FUN they were having over there in Bangkok – so much fun there were no flights going in or out – our trip couldn’t go as scheduled. I could have chosen a trip to another destination, but I stuck with Thailand

I wonder if it’s too late to change my mind?

Freecharge at the Denver airport

Denver International Airport (DEN) has several banks of charging stations for electronic devices (phones, notebooks, laptops, PDAs, cameras, whatever) located on the concourses (as opposed to the Main Terminal Building).  They are marked with “FreeCharge” signs. There’s no cost for their use. Here are a couple of pictures.

Details of where to find them:

A Gates aka A Concourse or Concourse A, 2 locations:

• East side, between Gates A44 and A46.
• West side, between Gate A38 and the center core.

B Gates aka B Concourse or Concourse B, 4 locations:

• East side, between Gates B56 and B58
• East side, between Gates B45 and B47
• West side, near Gate B38
• West side, between Gates B25 and B27

C Gates, aka C Concourse or Concourse C, 2 locations:

• East side, near Gate C44
• West side, exact info to be provided later or just look for it.

Also in the C Gates area, at some of the Southwest Airlines gates on the East side, there are small freestanding counter-height tables – some with stools, some not – with electric outlets which are available at no cost.

(This just updates some information I posted several months ago, minus irrelevant blather.)

Skid, crash, tweet

Another news story covered via twitter. See http://twitter.com/2drinksbehind. The saga starts with the tweet that reads “Holy fucking shit I wasbjust in a plane crash!”

HFS, that’s my airport. God, I am so glad everyone got out of the plane. (Continental flight 1404 from Denver (DEN) to Houston (IAH), went off runway into ravine on takeoff at 6:18 p.m. last night. Our local TV news is now giving us pictures of the plane sitting upright, covered with firefighters’ foam that looks like snow. But isn’t. DFD says the fire was intense but apparently didn’t get into cabin until everyone was out, nobody got burned.)

I was out there yesterday morning for my volunteer shift. Noticed it was windy as hell when I left, but that was six hours before the accident.

It’s bad enough that evil winter weather all over the rest of the country is messing up airline flight schedules. This accident has caused closure of half of DEN’s 6 runways for several hours, although I hear now that 1 or 2 of the 3 West airfield runways have been reopened, meaning that 4 or 5 of DEN’s 6 are again in operation.

Sorry, air-traveling people, looks like delays and cancellations all over the place this weekend.

Today’s favorite tweet

What font are you?

Find out here.

I’m Times New Roman.

Gadgets that make you look like a jerk

Check out this MSNBC article.

I so agree!

Today’s best tweet

From expat-erin. Whom I do not know, online or IRL:

Not sure that this was in his contract

Jasper seems to be thinking about calling his agent to ask if the hat was part of the deal.

Wish I knew who created this

Whoever you are – thank you!

EDITED to add this link to Thomas Friedman’s wise words about this very unwise government bailout of the Detroit Big Three automakers. What buggy whip factories were to the early 20th Century, Detroit’s auto industry is to the early 21st.

Full text of the above display add is below the fold if you can’t read it in the graphics.

Ickiness

There’s a very good post in Slate about the lunatic fringe obsession with Barack Obama’s citizenship.

But still. After reading it I feel like I touched something icky. Or like I used to feel after conversations with a couple of people who were (diagnosed) schizophrenic. Like I had slipped a few bubbles off plumb myself.

(And please, don’t go calling me bigoted or unsympathetic, I  am honestly reporting the aftereffects of talking with someone who, for instance, believed that when JFK was running for president he promised the guy’s grandparents that he would order the federal government to establish a Catholic youth sports camp system. Among other interesting things. Of course I know those things aren’t true, but the conversations can get bizarre no matter how well you manage to keep them on track. And when they are over? I kind of had to shake it off for a minute, after visiting someone else’s never-never land.)

Rescheduled

Finally. The tour company called. They can’t get us into Thailand for our tour as scheduled (later this week), and now we’re scheduled to take that trip in March.

The political protesters are moving out of the Bangkok airports, which will eventually reopen for business as usual. I hope. I understand that PAD, the group that moved from occupying Government House to shutting down the airports, has the backing of the country’s elites – businesses, academics, the royals. I wonder if PAD may have overstepped that support when it seized and shut down the airports, which has had a huge negative effect on the nation’s businesses of all kinds.

On the other hand? Maybe the country’s elites are totally OK with the mass confusion and economic destruction that the airport seizures caused. It’s certainly true that neither the armed forces nor the police showed any real interest, enthusiasm or competence in either preventing the airport takeovers or ending them, or even keeping the masses occupying the airports from growing. Apparently because they understood that PAD is backed by the royal family, among other very important entities.

I hope I haven’t made a big mistake in keeping the booking for Thailand instead of selecting a tour of another country. The Land of Smiles isn’t likely to be stable politically in the near future, but its political uproars have been internal matters, not involving widespread violence or hostility to tourists. I hope that remains true.

Dog in the moment

Cold and snow have come at last.

Jasper loves to run and romp in the snow. He plays with it, he plays in it.

At my end of the leash, load of dull thoughts: iffy status of Thailand trip, things that must be done today, things I’d like to do instead, tomorrow’s schedule, state of health, unresolved issues of all kinds, memories, hopes.

At Jasper’s end of the leash, just the moment. Curiosity. Joy. Sniff the snow, sniff the grass, run leaping fast across the snow on the lawn, stop and sniff, look back to mom, run faster mom, let’s go down that way, stop to look at man walking on sidewalk, shake off snow, see man with dog and run toward them half block away hitting end of leash fast, come on mom, now stop to sniff again, look back at mom, run fast up all those steps to the front door. Stop wait for mom.

Wonder if I’m at the end of a leash held by something too big for my little mind to encompass. Wonder if I can let go and be just in the moment, safe on the leash.

Don’t tell Jasper

There’s a shih tzu with her very own blog. And occasional serious attitude problems.

I think she’s on Twitter too.

Sounds like way too much work.

I’m just not feeling the love here

(Sign displayed at closed-down and occupied Bangkok international airport, BKK, by People’s Alliance for Democracy (Thailand) which has seized it.)