I’m heading to Phoenix for the holidays. Wanna have coffee?
Usually I try to organize a meet-up whenever I visit my daughter. This time around I plan two such get-togethers:
Wednesday, Dec. 28, from 9:30 a.m. to noon
Saturday, Dec. 31, from noon to 3 p.m.
(Note: Originally I’d said “9 a.m. to noon.” But that was before I realized/remembered that the restaurant doesn’t open until half an hour after that. D’oh!)
Yep, both times can be awkward: the Wednesday one because working folk may not be able to make it, and the Saturday one because New Year’s Eve. Still, I can offer two good reasons to be there.
Planning to visit family and/or friends later this month? An app-based “shipping community” called Roadie could help you make the trip more profitable, or at least help pay for gas and tolls.
This app-based “shipping community” currently has more than 25,000 drivers in all 50 states. The premise is pretty simple: You sign up as a driver and wait to see if anybody wants you to deliver something to where you’re going.
Kind of like Uber or Lyft, except that drivers are transporting cargo rather than people.
How much can you earn? A surprising amount, actually.
My trip to Phoenix went as smoothly as a red-eye can, for which I am grateful. Both flights were completely full but no one was a pig about overhead bin space and thus the planes left on time.
No crying babies, either, although several of them were nearby. I even slept for the entire flight – thanks, generic Benadryl* caplet!
The winds were with us from Anchorage to Seattle, and we made it in about three hours. As I walked into the terminal I checked a monitor and realized my next flight was leaving from the same gate. Easy enough.
I ate the breakfast I’d packed** (buttered roll, apple), walked around for a while to get my legs working, and then got back on the plane and went back to sleep. About two and a half hours later I was on the ground in Phoenix.
The captain announced the temperature at 79 degrees. Manageable, I thought. But by mid-afternoon, when my daughter and I went out in search of FinCon16 clothing, it had got a lot hotter.
Hot enough that I thought, “This is definitely warmer than 79.” But since desert heat is a tricky animal, I had no way of knowing it was 102 degrees. That is, until my daughter checked the weather.
Just as northerners chuckle at those who find 30 degrees so cold, no doubt Phoenix residents would snicker at my discomfort. “Oh, this isn’t hot. Wait until it hits 112!”
Dreading being seated next to or near a baby on your next flight? You should probably be just as concerned about the adult passengers. Recently I’ve read two accounts of teen-aged girls (one of them an unaccompanied minor) being molested by adult men at 35,000 feet.
As we used to write from the city desk, “Police said alcohol was a factor.” Then again, plenty of people drink on planes and don’t grope strangers. Liquor may break the chain and free the beast, but only if the beast was already there.
Some observations about the town of Valdez, Alaska, where the 24th annual Last Frontier Theatre Conference is winding up:
Coming into town were greeted by one of those temporary electronic signs, the kind that road crews put up. However, it wasn’t advising us of “ROAD WORK NEXT FEW MILES” or “ABRUPT EDGE MOTORCYCLES USE EXTREME CAUTION,” however.
No, this warning included the phrase “GRIZZLY BEARS MOVING THROUGH TOWN.”
Sad to say, I have not seen ursus arctos horribilis myself. Kind of hoped to do so, from within a vehicle moving past said critter. But I did hear about someone whose yard was monopolized by a mama grizz and three cubs for several days.
Finally she called Fish and Game to beanbag ’em out of there. She was tired of not letting her own kids go outside to play, lest they become Scooby snacks for the charismatic megafauna next to the swing set.
The first was a misrepresentation and the other a lie of omission. Since May 12 I’ve been on the East Coast, but I couldn’t tell my dad or my readers. To do so would have ruined the surprise 80th birthday party we’d planned.
When he recently asked if I’d be coming back East any time soon, I prevaricated. Since he reads my blog and follows me on Facebook, I couldn’t suggest meet-ups with Surviving & Thriving readers in Manhattan or South Jersey. What, and ruin the surprise?
And it was a surprise, especially since his 80th natal day took place back in March.
Got travel plans for Memorial Day weekend? This week’s giveaway will make your trip through security a lot more affordable.
These little bags are always hugely popular, and for good reason: Who wants to pay $1.29 for the one-ounce tube of toothpaste that will get you and your carry-on bag through security?
But toothpaste isn’t the only thing in this bag. Here’s what the winner will take on his/her next trip:
(Note: This was written Saturday evening. Thanks to a tech glitch, it wasn’t published when it should have been. Oops.)
It’s snowing, finally – just in time for spring equinox. About seven inches are on the ground right now and it’s still coming down madly.
Earlier today the neighbor across the street had a pair of preschoolers working on the front steps with little kid-sized shovels while he attacked the driveway with a snowblower.
The children loved it so much that once the steps were clear they were out in the front yard, shoveling paths to nowhere. Just being able to fling the snow around was fun, I guess. It’ll be interesting to see if they find it fun a few years down the road or whether they’ll be moaning and griping: “I shoveled the steps last time! It’s his turn!”
Me, I’m just happy to be sitting upright. On Wednesday I came down with the intestinal bug that’s been making its way through (as it were) half of the city. Today I was able to tolerate solid food (rice, dry toast, yogurt, applesauce) during the day. In a little while we’ll know for sure whether I’m healed, because I had some of the turkey that DF roasted: hot, juicy and deliciously worth the relapse risk.
So far, so good: I’m sipping tea and watching thick curtains of snow silvering the night sky. DF is lying on the couch, also watching the picture window as though it were the most engrossing movie in the world. He was so hypnotized by the weather that he almost forgot to preheat the oven for the bread he’d left to rise.
A few days ago it was in the mid-40s and yards, while not green, were at least not white. Today it looks like December, not March. If this keeps up the Easter Bunny will have to wear bunny boots.
Feels like I just got here. Where has the week gone?
Tomorrow (Saturday, Feb. 27) is the Surviving and Thriving meet-up at the North Point Mall food court in Alpharetta, Ga. I’ll be hanging out there with my laptop from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m.
But I’ll definitely put it aside if you drop by — and since I don’t have a smartphone to stare at you’ll have my undivided attention. No checking e-mail or tweeting about the soft pretzels. I promise.
I’m heading to Phoenix for the holidays. Wanna have coffee?
