Meanwhile, the world goes on....

[days_unfolding]

I'm back in San Jose.

Airport security confiscated two of my lighters in the Portland airport. Apparently there's a limit on how many lighters you can carry with you. (I hadn't realized how many lighters I had with me, but that's beside the point.) I wonder what exactly you're supposed to be able to do with more than two lighters that you can't do with two lighters.

I was really pissed. I asked them where this rule was documented, and they said that the airlines were supposed to tell you what the rules are. (They don't.) I walked away, but almost came back to ask them for a receipt. I was writing letters to the airline in my mind asking them to reimburse me. (Yes, I know, the cost was negligible, but it was the principle of the thing.)

Then the phrase "if this is the worst thing that happens to me, I'm lucky" did some good. Of course, worse things have happened to me. I took a deep breath and let it go. Given that I can fume about stuff like this for quite some time, I'm pleased.

There was a cute kid at the gate in the Portland airport. It looked like she had just learned to walk; she was still a little unsteady on her feet. She was toddling all over the place, and her mom would retrieve her, and she'd toddle off again. She toddled over to me, and I smiled at her.

She grabbed my boarding pass. Somehow, I managed to get it away from her without tearing the pass or upsetting her too much. Her mom apologized, saying that she seems to make a beeline for whatever she's not supposed to get into. I was thinking about how to a toddler, the world must seem like one giant "no!"

She came back and tried for my boarding pass again (I wonder what the appeal was?), but I was quicker than she was. Her mom corralled her, but when she looked at me, she'd go "gah!" and wave an arm. Clearly, I was the person with a really cool toy -;)

It's a measure of how into Portland I was that San Jose looked really strange to me when I landed. I'm already planning my next trip on Portland--where I'll stay and where I'll go--and also mulling over the fact that it looks like it's tough to find a place to live in the Nob Hill area.

You do not have to be good
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile, the world goes on....
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

-- Mary Oliver, as quoted in Seasons of Grace by Alan Jones and John O' Neil.

Meanwhile, my responsibilities are waiting. Random somehow scratched his eye; it looks awful. It didn't seem to warrant going to the emergency vet, but I'll see if my vet can take a look at him tomorrow. (So much for sleeping in -;)

I'm being called for jury duty.

Comments

[platofish.livejournal.com]

I've found Portland to be one of the places, if not the place I feel most a home. If I could, I would go live there in a heart beat.

[days-unfolding.livejournal.com]

I felt surprisingly comfortable there. I almost felt like I had been there before but had forgotten it.

[days-unfolding.livejournal.com]

New Orleans is my all time favorite place in the US. I don't think of it as a place to live because there are no tech jobs and there's a fairly high crime rate. But the ambiance in the French Quarter is wonderful: small streets and old, funky buildings. The people are great: solicitous without being pushy. It's a great place to people-watch.

Glad that you liked the quote!

[sunshine-two.livejournal.com]

I've seen the one lighter rule documented somewhere but, I can't remember where ;)

[days-unfolding.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I'll have to go look for it.

[rillifane.livejournal.com]

I know how you feel about the lighters. I loath petty, officious little government functionaries, all of them, in other words.

There was a time (even before the 9/11 mess) that I was so pissed about so called airline security that I used to carry a copy of the relevant Federal regualtions with me and demand to be shown where the alleged regulation was.

[days-unfolding.livejournal.com]

Where did you get the regulations?

I thought about refusing to leave until they showed me the rule in writing, but I had a plane to catch....