Got sick, thought I needed to cancel my Tuesday flight to a red state to spend Thanksgiving with in-laws. The good news was that an x-ray showed I didn't have kidney stones.
The bad news was that Expedia rated my flight as having above average CO₂. Also, the x-ray showed degenerative scoliosis. Coming soon, slow death by skeletal implosion.
Tuesday
The good news was that I had only a half hour between the time my flight from SFO landed, and the time I thought my connecting flight from Charlotte was scheduled to depart; so — a 15 minutes run through the airport, scoliosis and all, pulling a rolling backpack with computer bag attached. Surely they would stop boarding 15 minutes before takeoff, but when I arrived, panting for breath, the agent gave me a wry smile and ushered me onboard.
Reflection beyond good and bad. The plane did not taxi the runway until 20 minutes after I'd fastened my seatbelt, so my heroism was pointless. Need to use my head more as my bod degenerates. But do love my little runs.
The good news was that with my new speech-to-text app, I was able to carry on an actual conversation with sister-in-law after she picked me up at the airport. For the first time, I could appreciate the full extent of her cancers. Not that she thought the topic was pleasant, but hope she felt heard.
The bad news was that I had to fight down an impulse to tell her about my experience of waking up mid red-eye flight with uncanny music filling my head: swell, subside, repeat, each cycle building toward some shattering transformation. How weird would she think that was? She couldn't possibly have known what it meant, and that would make two of us.
We got to her house, I proclaimed myself rested and ready to socialize, and then fell asleep by the pool. She covered me with a blanket and let me be.
Wednesday
Good news from my disabled sister, who texted to say that she'd successfully completed day one of her mission to feed my cat Ruth while I was gone. Her horizons have expanded considerably in recent years, and she's very proud to be a cat sitter.
Bad news came that evening, after the rest of the household had gone to sleep. Subsequent text exchanges revealed that my sister had locked herself out of my house. Drastic measures were needed to prevent Ruth from starving. The locksmith option seemed unlikely because it was short notice on a holiday, so tried rescheduling my return trip. More bad news, the Expedia 800 number stopped understanding keypad entry after texting me a security code, and their website crashed after I clicked the Change Reservation button. But they could accept new reservations, and $500 bought me a return flight at 3 pm on Thanksgiving. There'd be time to protest the additional charges later.
Thanksgiving
Reflection beyond good and bad. Over breakfast I told my sister-in-law and her husband about my precipitous departure, and they sternly told me to engage a locksmith instead. Now that they'd insisted on it, it only make sense; for these next few days, I belonged with them. Went online, made phone calls. Someone agreed to rekey a lock, provided that I text him a picture of my driver's license and pay $500. A popular holiday price evidently.
The good news was that with time freed from air travel, I could claim my spot in the living room in front of the huge HD TV, and enter a holiday mood. Over 99% of my yearly TV viewing takes place in that very room, time enjoyed immensely. One of the best parts of that is a practice I call Rate the Commercials, which is just as it sounds.
This year the commercials seemed shorter, and that they'd forsaken narrative for a whirl of images unrelated to the promoted product. Citi Bank and AirBnb were two notable exceptions, both featuring little stories about Santa's adventures in the modern world. The point was Santa lives? They weren't really about product either.
In the end first place went to one of the quickies, an ad for Pork Favor Spam Tacos. Something about the audacious verbal energy of the concept. And the closing image of a guy lost in the aftertaste did shove the spam experience in your face.
The bad news was that Pork Favor Spam Tacos resonates with the Trump experience, and Topic A at Thanksgiving dinner was the dark new world we anticipated come January 20. My sister-in-law's husband was impatient with despair, admonishing us to be determined and discreet in sheltering those who found themselves in the President-elect's crosshairs. "Deal with it," he snapped. My sister-in-law bowed her head sorrowfully; their neighbors' Trump lawn signs had already made her feel dealt out.
The good news was, there we were, four of us around the table, including another brother-in-law. Family together. Each of the others was coping bravely with worse health challenges than degenerative scoliosis. Maybe their examples would help. Also, my sister-in-law is a gourmet cook. The mostly classic main course was roasted turkey breast, biscuits, cruciferous vegetable melange, and yams, washed down with Guava Goddess kombucha tea, and flan for dessert. Talking food instead of politics was a happy change. The cook told us that her secret to making flan is the all-important pan, and that she wanted a new one for Christmas. Her husband is especially fond of duck skin crackers.
As he is of football. Miami would play Green Bay that evening, and he told us about the drama surrounding the Dolphins star quarterback, the native Hawaiian Tua Tagovailoa. Tua's already had 3 concussions and with one more he'd start retirement early, likely with brain impairment. Risk it, for the sake of his $100 million contract? Or retire early on purpose, intact.
Was it bad news that Miami lost, 30-17? Or good news that Tua got up quickly when he got off a pass before being tackled? Or was that bad news too, compared to say, a broken arm, that would force retirement but spare his brain? Miami was trailing 27-3 in the 3rd quarter, when Tua's passing got the Dolphins a touchdown and a two point conversion. When they got the ball again, they moved down into touchdown territory, stalled, and then missed the field goal. I stopped watching. In my heart, all I'd wanted was for Miami to win, and Tua to be the hero.
Friday
The news news was that America sees America as great in the same way again. As in first in boyhood, then again in old age. The Lone Ranger and Davy Crockett shows on the Grit channel were the first TV experiences of the morning. The Lone Ranger wore tights and a mask; rescued a white man who was tied up, his trembling flesh outlined by arrows shot by menacing Indians; befriended good Indians; rode off into the sunset after discovering an underground cavern filled with golden treasures, to be distributed to the deserving. Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier, led white men with guns on a massacre of Indians armed with bows and arrows; a timid, bloated, soft white man, who had tried to stay aloof, stood rebuked by his courage.
The good news, in the self-image department, was that I didn't lounge around dwelling on American legends, wasn't a total free loading house guest. That evening I treated for dinner at a waterfront restaurant. My blackened flounder was excellent.
The unexpected news over dinner was that my sister-in-law and her husband announced they'd decided to pull up stakes and move to a village in the south of France, much favored by musicians and artists. They called it their backup plan, although they didn't say what had made them decide to activate it. It shouldn't have come as a surprise. They've devoted much of their retirement years to world travel, and their house is filled with little treasures from Africa and South-east Asia. Still, it felt like two more people receding into the distance.
Saturday
More unexpected news before leaving to board a 2 pm flight. My sister-in-law presented me with a photo album containing baby pictures of my wife Jean, and of the family as it was then. Jean passed in 2013, we hadn't talked about her much this time, and then there she is, with round red cheeks in her first Halloween costume. There they are, my father- and mother-in-law as a young married couple in the 1950s, both with advanced degrees, determined to start a family even after their first child died in infancy. There he is, Jean's grandfather, a thin sallow man wearing a double-breasted suit, who doesn't seem to quite emerge from the shadows. By all accounts her granddad led a violent, impoverished, heavy drinking existence. Her dad escaped from that cramped world by getting scholarships, and eventually he also got a Ph.D. in Chemistry from a prestigious university. After he married Jean's mom, granddad was indicted for homicide, and her mom and dad paid for his defense attorney.
As American a story as the Lone Ranger, in its own way.
The planed landed in Charlotte with less than a half hour before the connecting flight was scheduled to depart … no wait, that's the time the flight is supposed to start boarding! Doubtless the story of my arrival too. I ran through the airport anyway, pulling my luggage, unabashedly for the hell of it.
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