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Good morning from Massachusetts
Apr. 6th, 2012 09:40 amThe headline says most of it. I was very nervous about flying for the first time in three years. Security has been rumoured to be a pain at airports, and I was also flying with insulin in cold bags. Plus, I had to leave the house in rush hour, which didn't make me feel any better.
However, Fate smiled on me, it seems. I packed on Monday and Tuesday, and made lists, which I crossed out when I'd completed each item. The only thing I forgot is a non-Masonic bow tie.
I took the Heathrow Express after getting to Paddington on the Underground. I only had to carry my suitcase down one flight of stairs, and my backpack was not too heavy, so I made it without incident. When I dropped my suitcase off at Terminal 5, it was 19 kg, which is four kg under the limit, thus leaving me lots of room for all the things I need to buy here and carry back with me.
The gate that the plane left from was almost the furthest away from the centre of the terminal you can get. I had paid to select a wider seat than normal, the only drawback being that it was almost at the rear of the plane. It was worth it, though. More legroom, only one neighbour (who hardly impinged on my consciousness), and only two screaming babies. Watched "The Iron Lady", which I thought good, although Denis Thatcher appearing all the time as a hallucination to Lady Thatcher was kind of unnerving.
I had asked for the diabetic meal, and it was surprisingly good. Chicken paella, a roll and salad, and (I think) rice pudding. They kept after me to have wine or liquor, and I refused and asked for Diet Coke, which they ran out of by the middle of the flight. Then an hour before landing at Logan, they handed me a sandwich, labelled "Chickpea Paté and Tomato". It was surprisingly ungood. I had to ask for a coffee to choke it down.
Decanting at Logan was very slow. The Indian lady across the aisle kept getting up and swinging her capacious handbag around, clobbering me in the head. Being long-suffering, I didn't make a fuss. Immigration was slow (as I was almost the last to get into the queue), and when I got up to the agent he did ask more questions than usual: how long have you been away (18 years, said I. Oh, you live there! he said.), what do you do (rather than explain everything I just said "Retired"), why are you here ("Visiting relatives").
And then there was the luggage carousel. Apparently they were examining the bags more thoroughly as they dribbed and drabbed onto the carousel. The non-US citizens line was also travelling more slowly, so the carousel was full of unclaimed-as-yet baggage. A woman agent was taking bags off the carousel and piling them up to make room. Sod's Law meant that mine was one of the last bags to come up the ramp. Out the door into the wide US world.
My brother and sister were waiting outside the airport in a parking lot for my call that I was out of Immigration and Customs and ready to be picked up. My mobile phone took forever to connect to the network, but I managed to call and duly got picked up.
My friend Fraf, who is the local-colour columnist for the Marblehead town newspaper, called and suggested that we take a ride around town to look at all the ugly new buildings that are going up. There are a lot of new McMansions on Marblehead Neck, most of which are pretty ugly and just show that, zoning laws or no zoning laws, there is no accounting for taste. I still haven't been downtown to see the scars left by the demolition of the old YMCA (now a parking lot) and the old movie theatre and First National Store (now a building site). Must try to do that this afternoon.
We went out to dinner in the evening with my brother's girlfriend, whom I have never met in person but only spoken to on the phone. She is very nice—a much better match with my brother than his ex-wife ever was. We went to the big Chinese restaurant in Salem, which never ceases to amaze me. You get Chinese tea without asking (you always have to pay for it in the UK), they bring rolls and butter to the table (just bizarre), and the meal is so big that you can never eat the whole thing. I got orange chicken, and the amount was absolutely stupefying. We took about 1/2 of it home and that's lunch, I think.
We went food shopping for Easter. Lots of ham, onions for creamed onions, dip stuff, cream cheese with olives, the whole nine yards. Her adopted son is Korean—quite a hottie, if I do say so, and quite straight. He's a nurse; his girlfriend is Filipina, also a nurse. I believe there is a daughter as well but am slightly unsure. I'll meet them all on Easter.
Jetlag is minimal at the moment, barring being awake at 5 am. I've hooked my netbook up to a full-size monitor and keyboard and mouse, and use LogMeIn to connect with my computer in London. So I've not had to accumulate thousands of emails on the servers while I'm away; I can download them to London from here. I haven't gotten the WiFi password here yet—my brother is not computer-savvy so I'm unsure how to get it. I think that his girlfriend's son might know.
The only downer here is that my brother's dog, Mickey, is 14 years old and infirm. He pads around, eats a bit, barks very little, and has cataracts. I don't know what my brother will do when Mickey gets to the point of being so ill that he has to be put to sleep. Time to go watch BBC World now.
However, Fate smiled on me, it seems. I packed on Monday and Tuesday, and made lists, which I crossed out when I'd completed each item. The only thing I forgot is a non-Masonic bow tie.
I took the Heathrow Express after getting to Paddington on the Underground. I only had to carry my suitcase down one flight of stairs, and my backpack was not too heavy, so I made it without incident. When I dropped my suitcase off at Terminal 5, it was 19 kg, which is four kg under the limit, thus leaving me lots of room for all the things I need to buy here and carry back with me.
The gate that the plane left from was almost the furthest away from the centre of the terminal you can get. I had paid to select a wider seat than normal, the only drawback being that it was almost at the rear of the plane. It was worth it, though. More legroom, only one neighbour (who hardly impinged on my consciousness), and only two screaming babies. Watched "The Iron Lady", which I thought good, although Denis Thatcher appearing all the time as a hallucination to Lady Thatcher was kind of unnerving.
I had asked for the diabetic meal, and it was surprisingly good. Chicken paella, a roll and salad, and (I think) rice pudding. They kept after me to have wine or liquor, and I refused and asked for Diet Coke, which they ran out of by the middle of the flight. Then an hour before landing at Logan, they handed me a sandwich, labelled "Chickpea Paté and Tomato". It was surprisingly ungood. I had to ask for a coffee to choke it down.
Decanting at Logan was very slow. The Indian lady across the aisle kept getting up and swinging her capacious handbag around, clobbering me in the head. Being long-suffering, I didn't make a fuss. Immigration was slow (as I was almost the last to get into the queue), and when I got up to the agent he did ask more questions than usual: how long have you been away (18 years, said I. Oh, you live there! he said.), what do you do (rather than explain everything I just said "Retired"), why are you here ("Visiting relatives").
And then there was the luggage carousel. Apparently they were examining the bags more thoroughly as they dribbed and drabbed onto the carousel. The non-US citizens line was also travelling more slowly, so the carousel was full of unclaimed-as-yet baggage. A woman agent was taking bags off the carousel and piling them up to make room. Sod's Law meant that mine was one of the last bags to come up the ramp. Out the door into the wide US world.
My brother and sister were waiting outside the airport in a parking lot for my call that I was out of Immigration and Customs and ready to be picked up. My mobile phone took forever to connect to the network, but I managed to call and duly got picked up.
My friend Fraf, who is the local-colour columnist for the Marblehead town newspaper, called and suggested that we take a ride around town to look at all the ugly new buildings that are going up. There are a lot of new McMansions on Marblehead Neck, most of which are pretty ugly and just show that, zoning laws or no zoning laws, there is no accounting for taste. I still haven't been downtown to see the scars left by the demolition of the old YMCA (now a parking lot) and the old movie theatre and First National Store (now a building site). Must try to do that this afternoon.
We went out to dinner in the evening with my brother's girlfriend, whom I have never met in person but only spoken to on the phone. She is very nice—a much better match with my brother than his ex-wife ever was. We went to the big Chinese restaurant in Salem, which never ceases to amaze me. You get Chinese tea without asking (you always have to pay for it in the UK), they bring rolls and butter to the table (just bizarre), and the meal is so big that you can never eat the whole thing. I got orange chicken, and the amount was absolutely stupefying. We took about 1/2 of it home and that's lunch, I think.
We went food shopping for Easter. Lots of ham, onions for creamed onions, dip stuff, cream cheese with olives, the whole nine yards. Her adopted son is Korean—quite a hottie, if I do say so, and quite straight. He's a nurse; his girlfriend is Filipina, also a nurse. I believe there is a daughter as well but am slightly unsure. I'll meet them all on Easter.
Jetlag is minimal at the moment, barring being awake at 5 am. I've hooked my netbook up to a full-size monitor and keyboard and mouse, and use LogMeIn to connect with my computer in London. So I've not had to accumulate thousands of emails on the servers while I'm away; I can download them to London from here. I haven't gotten the WiFi password here yet—my brother is not computer-savvy so I'm unsure how to get it. I think that his girlfriend's son might know.
The only downer here is that my brother's dog, Mickey, is 14 years old and infirm. He pads around, eats a bit, barks very little, and has cataracts. I don't know what my brother will do when Mickey gets to the point of being so ill that he has to be put to sleep. Time to go watch BBC World now.
