Traveling is FUN!

You probably don't know, unless you communicate with me on Twitter or IRL (Twitter-speak for "in real life"), that about a week ago, I booked a flight from Cali to Florida, for a visit with Daddy, to help him transition through his best friends' departure (they're snowbirds, about to move back to Canada), and also to help him deal with some health issues. More about that later, if there is progress to report (and he's okay with me reporting it).

So YESTERDAY, at Dawn's Tramp Stamp o'clock, with electronic confirmations of flights/rental car/routing to Daddy's safely tucked into my phone, and one big to-be-checked bag plus two carryons, Stephen walked with me to the North Hollywood Red Line subway station and said "good-bye" for however long this trip will be.

From there, I traveled without incident by subway to "our" Union Station (doesn't every big city in the world have a Union Station?), to catch my "Flyaway" shuttle bus to the airport.

The bus trip was not without incident. About halfway, or maybe 2/3 of the way to the airport, we all hear a THUD in/near the back of the bus, followed by a male voice calling forward, "um, driver?". Looking to the back, we see a body on the floor in front of the last seat/row. The man says "I think she passed out" and a woman from near the back crouches down and starts asking standard First Responder questions, like "Are you all right?" and "Can you hear me?"

I'm sitting directly behind the driver, who keeps calling back, "is she awake?" and "is she okay?" to no avail. I feel badly for the driver, who may have some training related to this, as a customer service rep, but primarily her job is driving folks to the airport. Can't delay the route for 20 people just because one is passed out! Not on LA highways, at least!

So I called to the back, "Is she breathing?" because I can see the woman is beginning to loosen the fallen woman's outerwear (several layers of jackets, from what I could see, because LA at dawn is still pretty chilly). First Responder Chick calls back "she's breathing", which allows all of us near the front of the bus to breathe a little easier, and I relay that info to the driver, so she can breathe a little easier. The driver finds a little pie-piece stretch of road to park the bus in (between the highway and an off-ramp), which gives her an opportunity to assess the situation for herself.

Things being what they are (which, at this point, who even really knows?), the driver returns to her seat and gets us to the first terminal. When she stops, she sort-of tells everyone on the bus that we're at the first terminal, and if your stop is anywhere near here, you might want to go ahead and disembark, since she didn't know how soon she'd be continuing the route. I think the general consensus was "how do I know how near MY terminal is?", but for me, it was good news. I could see that Southwest was the very first stop, so I got my stuff and headed to the terminal. As soon as I could find a uniformed officer of any kind, I indicated that someone on the Flyaway bus needed medical assistance.

End of the incident, at least for me. Sorry if that sounds cold, but there wasn't anything else I could do, and I had a flight to catch, and really, the only person on the bus who might be delayed was First Responder Chick, since it sounded like Passed-Out Woman actually worked at the airport (not sure how she was able to use Flyaway, unless they have a deal for employees). Ennyhoo, not that it was ever in my hands, but now it was definitely outta my hands.

Made my way to my gate, got on my plane, got a text from Stephen asking if I'd boarded yet (just now, yes), settled in, and we were off! The only "incident" on that first flight was a general chastisement/goading by the flight attendant to get me to say "PLEASE". Good Times! ... and yes, after I "got" the message, I had a convo with her (and the other flight attendants) to Thank Her for the goading. There is never a reason to neglect our manners. ... well, maybe there are plenty of good reasons, but certainly not when asking for a particular thing from a nothing-less-than-pleasant customer service rep! So again, Good Times! Thank you for flying Southwest, and thank you for saying please and thank you!

Second leg somewhat uneventful, except for the fact that I managed to snag a SECOND-ROW AISLE SEAT but had to put my carryon in the overhead above row 6. Yikes. Seatmate was very chatty with both of us on the row, and I'm cool with that. Window dude was going on a cruise, his first time ever on a boat. Middle chick was visiting her daughters, who both live in Orlando and are planning to never give her grandbabies!

I spent most of that leg coloring. I follow Jenny Lawson's blog, and I own her books, including her 3rd one, which is called You Are Here, and is, in essence, an adult coloring book. I had pre-ordered it, so when it was delivered, I gently read through it, put it in a tote bag to carry with me on set or wherever (with a set of colored pencils that I'd abducted from Stephen's coloring collection), and then never started coloring, for fear of "messing it up". Yesterday was the day I began adding color to Jenny's doodles.

Seatmate kept commenting on how pretty it was (thanks, seatmate), and we also talked about Anxiety, Depression, #TheBloggess, #TheBloggessTribe, and adults who color, and where to get appropriate coloring books and supplies. So my first page of coloring is still a #WIP (work in progress), but here's what a two-hour flight reaps:

still need to finish all the "doodly" parts, but I'm not unhappy with THIS.

Arrived, waited at baggage claim for an interminable time, got my shit together and headed over to Enterprise. Loaded up the car, and couldn't figure out which of the electric controls would put the gas pedal in reach! But the rental dude had paired my phone with the car before escaping back to his rental counter, so I actually had Daddy on big speakers while I searched for all the right buttons to push. Got the seat adjusted. Got the mirrors adjusted. Found my way OUT of the parking garage, and the airport, and on some unknown road.

Daddy had sent me a "best" route out, but I also rely on Waze navigation, which was having a difficult time figuring out how to get me from MY APARTMENT to Daddy's. Seems the "incident" here was communication with the GPS satellite(s?). I'm not still at my apartment, Waze. Get a grip!

Waze did, eventually, get a grip, and I made it to the Publix parking lot, where Daddy met me with a gate pass to get into his gated community by car. Yay! Safely arrived, we caught up a little, and Daddy kept trying to curate me through his personal art collection, even though I kept saying "save it for daylight. I wanna look at all the art in the daylight". He finally relented, and we went our separate ways for slumber.

...more to come, I'm sure. For now, yesterday is gone. On to today, and tomorrow, and beyond!