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Monday, December 01, 2008

This turkey wasn't pardoned

I now accept that the pumpkins are gone. But it was difficult accepting that the turkey walked the Green Mile and ended up in the roaster.

This is my clever way of saying that I can't believe Thanksgiving has come and gone. Christmas was nipping at its heels long before the wishbone was snapped and wished upon. Now I have to prepare myself for blinking and watching Santa Claus hightailing it down Santa Claus Lane as he and Rudolph beat a hasty retreat towards what is left of the North Pole after Al Gore's pie charts catch up with it.

Life does seem measured at times in holidays. When I was a kid, Christmas took forever to come. Now it seems as though I barely put the Elvis tree back in the box and it is time to resurrect the King and Blue Christmas yet again (if you are new to this blog and don't know about the Elvis tree, you soon will).

But I should at least give Thanksgiving its due. Our trip to Boise seems a blur now. Travelling with a two-year old and a three-month old baby doesn't leave much time for leisurely reflection when you are in the eye of a moment. I have to say, though, one of the highlights of the trip was watching my daughter run up to my 83-year old mother screaming, "Grandma, Grandma" and leap into her arms. The last time EM saw my mother was last Thanksgiving. But we show her Grandma's photo often and she was primed to see her again. It was one of those Hallmark moments for sure.

I also enjoyed taking my daughter to the pool at the Cambria Suites in Boise. It was kind of our father-daughter outing each day. She clung to me as we bobbed around the pool and pointed where she wanted me to go with her. I cherished the time, because I figure I have very few years left before she is cannonballing into the pool like the rest of the kids and I'll be demoted to spectator as my daughter spreads her little wings.

For now I really enjoy my baby bird just bopping around the nest.

Normally, I'd write this kind of stuff in my daddy blog, but I have a nut job lurking there right now and I'd rather not give him more material to fixate on.

Flying around the holidays continues to live up to its nightmare reputation. The flight to Boise was uneventful other than an asshole airport security person making my daughter cry because she had to put her bunny through the screening machine. The nasty woman deserves the minimum wage they pay her to intimidate two-year olds.

It was the flight home that was a nightmare. The flight was full and overbooked. They loaded us on one plane and then unloaded us and moved us to another plane. They moved our seats around and separated me from my family. The flight attendants were rude and unsympathetic. We were delayed about an hour. When we arrived in Seattle, two of our suitcases arrived with us, but Roan's car seat didn't.

It was a typical airline experience.

We are sticking around for Christmas. EM is old enough to know about Santa, presents and trees. It should be a memorable Christmas.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on surviving the holiday travel nightmare. Some people get a little power hungry when you put them in a uniform...shame on that airport security officer.

Sorry to hear about the whack job on your Daddy blog. Been there, done that. We need to start a shame file. I've got two stalkers for the first two spots :)

Time said...

RA,
I just hope the nut doesn't find Dizgraceland or things will get ugly...well, uglier than normal.

R. said...

Damn. If the airline had of lost our car seat while we were traveling we'd be SOL since it was our only one and we used it in our car to get back home.

So is it lost, lost or on a tarmac in Japan or something?

Time said...

R.
They didn't tell us where the car seat went on vacation. They let us borrow one to get home and then they delivered it to us late that night.

On the bright side, I wrote an e-mail to the airline complaining and they actually wrote me a letter apologizing and gave us discount codes for $50 off for each of us the next time we fly.