![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Well, after a lovely weekend in Brooklyn, I left for the Boat Basin Cafe at 79th Street to meet my friends Ed, Elena, Shira, Ken, and Kevin (plus Shira and Ken's too excellent daughters). We sat out in the sun and ate and talked and had a lovely time. Then, after a brief pitstop at Barnes and Noble to get a book for Avocado, I headed off to Grant's Tomb, the traditional bus-stop for the camp bus, to pick up the far-ranging girl.
Bus due: 4pm. Plane leaves: 7pm. Time to get to JFK airport from Upper West Side: about 1 hr 15 minutes. Doable.
And then chaos intervenes, as it must and does. Bus arrives at 4:20. Ten minutes of milling around getting Avocado's stuff, passionate hugs to people. Still manageable. Then onto the subway. Get to 42nd Street where I discover, sort of by accident, that the E train (which goes to the airport) has been diverted. Run to get another train (which will require another connection). Find it, take train. Doability window receding, but where there is life, there is hope. Fortunate connection from 7 train to E at 74th Street/Broadway stop in Queens. On train. Going to be tight, but we'll make it.
Next up: they're doing weekend construction on the E line. We are stuck between stations for what seems like an eternity (probably less than ten minutes). I resolve that, at the next stop, we'll get out and take a cab. We do, and the nice cab driver gets us to the airport (and our terminal) in 10 minutes, but that window of doability is just about shut. And of course, in the Keystone Cops movie that takes over at times like these, we have to run from what looked like the place to get our boarding passes to the right place which was closed, then run around the corner to an actual desk. And the check in display tells me that our flight is closed, so sorry, no checking in. I make a noise of despair. Behind me, Avocado is panting and weeping. And then a nice United attendant asks if she can help me. Within a moment she has called the gate, got us boarding passes, and started running us through the security line and off to our gate, where we dash--shoes barely on because we are sprinting so hard--to get on the plane. Unfortunately our original seat assignments have been given away so we're not together (Avocado pouted, but hey, we're on the plane!). Seated, belongings stowed, we sit back, watch the "what to do if the plane is attacked by gremlins" video, the plane begins to taxi...
...and returns to the terminal because a fire sensor in one engine is not working, and they can't fly without it. We're going to switch to a new plane as soon as it comes in. I am filled with grim hilarity, but this also means we can eat something other than a turkey wrap purchased from the airline. So we deplane; Avocado and I have an expensive but really good dinner near our gate (yes! really good food at an airport; who would have thought?) and are loaded back onto the new plane for a quiet, uneventful flight back to SF, only about two hours later than it would have been. Groggy, we get off the plane and are heading for ground transportation when I realize that some of the cards I had in a pocket have slipped out. Nice United gate attendant runs back to the plane, finds them, hands them over, and we are, at last, good to go.
And there is the Spouse in the car, ready to hug our gangling girl (she grew again, dammit. She's taller than I am) and take us home.
We're a three human household again, rising early enough so that breakfast and lunch can be generated. I don't doubt that by 7pm tonight all three of us will be soggy and hard to light
Bus due: 4pm. Plane leaves: 7pm. Time to get to JFK airport from Upper West Side: about 1 hr 15 minutes. Doable.
And then chaos intervenes, as it must and does. Bus arrives at 4:20. Ten minutes of milling around getting Avocado's stuff, passionate hugs to people. Still manageable. Then onto the subway. Get to 42nd Street where I discover, sort of by accident, that the E train (which goes to the airport) has been diverted. Run to get another train (which will require another connection). Find it, take train. Doability window receding, but where there is life, there is hope. Fortunate connection from 7 train to E at 74th Street/Broadway stop in Queens. On train. Going to be tight, but we'll make it.
Next up: they're doing weekend construction on the E line. We are stuck between stations for what seems like an eternity (probably less than ten minutes). I resolve that, at the next stop, we'll get out and take a cab. We do, and the nice cab driver gets us to the airport (and our terminal) in 10 minutes, but that window of doability is just about shut. And of course, in the Keystone Cops movie that takes over at times like these, we have to run from what looked like the place to get our boarding passes to the right place which was closed, then run around the corner to an actual desk. And the check in display tells me that our flight is closed, so sorry, no checking in. I make a noise of despair. Behind me, Avocado is panting and weeping. And then a nice United attendant asks if she can help me. Within a moment she has called the gate, got us boarding passes, and started running us through the security line and off to our gate, where we dash--shoes barely on because we are sprinting so hard--to get on the plane. Unfortunately our original seat assignments have been given away so we're not together (Avocado pouted, but hey, we're on the plane!). Seated, belongings stowed, we sit back, watch the "what to do if the plane is attacked by gremlins" video, the plane begins to taxi...
...and returns to the terminal because a fire sensor in one engine is not working, and they can't fly without it. We're going to switch to a new plane as soon as it comes in. I am filled with grim hilarity, but this also means we can eat something other than a turkey wrap purchased from the airline. So we deplane; Avocado and I have an expensive but really good dinner near our gate (yes! really good food at an airport; who would have thought?) and are loaded back onto the new plane for a quiet, uneventful flight back to SF, only about two hours later than it would have been. Groggy, we get off the plane and are heading for ground transportation when I realize that some of the cards I had in a pocket have slipped out. Nice United gate attendant runs back to the plane, finds them, hands them over, and we are, at last, good to go.
And there is the Spouse in the car, ready to hug our gangling girl (she grew again, dammit. She's taller than I am) and take us home.
We're a three human household again, rising early enough so that breakfast and lunch can be generated. I don't doubt that by 7pm tonight all three of us will be soggy and hard to light