Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Getting to Amsterdam. Or, gearing up to fake normalcy while aviating.

I love to travel and hate to fly.

From the outside, though, I'm pretty sure I look like a totally normal human traveler.

My bag is in my trunk and my car is parked up the street from my office. So I can't obsessively add and remove things from my bag up to the very last minute.

I just have to run over to CVS and get necessities like prenatal vitamins and M&Ms, Snickers, and such.

My travel days are super unhealthy. I avoid eating vegetables, so as not to produce a noxious, toxic cloud of evil on the plane. I eat a lot of sweets in case the plane crashes.

I'm sure this hugely fucks with my blood sugar and really helps calm me down not one bit.

But what can you do, especially when you can't turn to pharmaceuticals? Breathe and breathe some more, probably.

And then I'll drive to my parents' house and leave my car and Betty will take me.

So I'm set.

While I absolutely can't wait to get to see Maude and her little family, I'm dreading the flight. I spend travel days with a swirly stomach. I get all twitchy and clenchy about getting to the airport with enough time.

I get in the plane and immediately think, you know, if we're going to crash, it would be so much better sooner than later.

Because how much would it suck to spend the last hours of your life stuck in a big metal box with a bunch of strangers? Much better to just get it over with before all that.

I also prefer to travel with someone I love, or at least like, because of course I don't want to die alone. Especially if you're plummeting to your death over the ocean.

I've been told this is a terrible, selfish approach.

And now! Now to ice the cake, there's swine flu!

When I had just gotten past freaking out about geese and airplane engines.

I give geese dirty looks every time we pass them now, though. I've disliked them since childhood, when a friend had very mean bitey geese in his yard.

And then to realize that those fuckers can just fell a plane? Puts them high on my Loathe List.

But back to the matter at hand. The networks are all swine! flu! frenzied! and I'm trying not to be. I realize that statistically speaking, it's highly unlikely.

The problem, though, with not being a math person, is that you tell yourself this, but the numbers don't actually mean anything to you. So until someone breaks them out - you know, in the same way they told me that at my age I was more likely to be killed by a terrorist than get married - it doesn't really hit home.

But then I have to figure, well, hell, I did actually get to my age and beyond, and managed to get married and knocked up even.

Which I was going to say meant that statistics were working in my favor, but actually, it's the opposite of the prediction and so really, what does this mean in terms of being felled by one thing or another?

Assuming all goes well, and we avoid the geese of death and various and sundry possible airplane defects and the path of the predicted pandemic, I'll land tomorrow morning in Amsterdam and waddle on my merry way off to Maude and Dan's.

I've asked Nick to guest post tomorrow (and, of course, into eternity, if need be). But current plan is to survive the trip and have fun and get Maude to take my tummy shot on Friday and just generally have a great time.

Days like today, I'm sure you're glad you only know me in cyberspace. No?

Anyway. Hugs to all of you!

22 comments:

  1. Have a fantastic time and know that, if you did tragically perish in a horrible plane crash, I would bring Nick casseroles until he found himself a new wife.

    Love your guts. Please don't die.

    xo

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  2. Love traveling, hate flying - I'm totally with you on that! I'm glad that I am at least not the kind of person that lets my fear of flying stop me from seeing things, I'm glad you are too. Have fun, be safe, don't die.

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  3. Freckled just made me giggle. But doesn't Nick already have the 2nd wife set up? The house in the country and all that?

    Have fun on your trip!! Maybe Maude can take more pics, so we can live vicariously and see a bit of Amsterdam? Or maybe the tummy pic could show Amsterdam in the background?

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  4. Have a wonderful trip! And I'm going to borrow your plane trip as an excuse for ME to eat all kinds of sugary things. I'll work on the rationale, later.

    Days like today, I'm glad to hear that someone shares my opinion of adult geese (the baby ones can't really do anything, and are kinda cute).

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  5. geese are creepy. We had one that lived by the lake in our neighborhood. It would sit on this piece of PVC pipe that stuck out of the ground (it looked like an egg that was buried in the dirt, if you can imagine that) and it was such a nasty filthy bird. It would honk at you if you go within 12 feet of its "egg" and flap its wings and run you off. Needless to say, some of the neighborhood boys found tormenting the goose to be a very fun extracurricular activity.

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  6. Hugs to you, too! Have a wonderful time!

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  7. Have a great trip!

    I think that you need to look at your situation like this: odds are you won't win the lottery twice in your lifetime. If getting married to Nick was your first lottery, dying in a plane crash or getting swine flu is your second lottery. The one you won't win because you already won the first lottery. Yes? No? It makes sense to me.

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  8. Have a blast, darling. We'll miss ya.

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  9. But what about the airports? You gotta love the airports, right? Have fun!!!!! BIG HUGS to YOU!

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  10. Have a wonderful time! Enjoy the candy-and-trashy-magazines aspect of the day.

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  11. Sometime in the last few years I've calmed down some about flying. I even occasionally forget to freak out about a takeoff or a landing. (VERY occasionally, but still.) Maybe it's something to do with traveling with the little one? Too busy to worry?

    Now I mainly get all freaked when other people have to fly. Especially my mom, who goes twice a year to visit her mom. It makes me feel all tragical every time.

    But mainly: YAY for this trip! You are going to have such a good time!

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  12. please not only *survive* the trip, but enjoy it muchly, and take many pics :)

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  13. Have a great trip! I've never been to Europe but can imagine I wouldn't like being on a plane for so long and would inject sugar like crazy. Yay - guest post from Nick. Only 1 or a few though. Then Lisa returns safe and sound with stories from Amsterdam. Have fun!

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  14. Big planes usually don't have problems with geese. They just chew 'em up and spit 'em out. Since you're not flying a Piper Cub to Europe, you should be fine.

    Make sure you use a dramatic Amsterdam backdrop for your tummy shot. That'd be a picture to remember.

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  15. Not true at all! I'd totally love to know you in real life :) Have a great trip, Darling!

    Oh, and my new favortie phrase is "geese of death"! I'm still chuckling at that one liner :)

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  16. i didn't realize you get prenatal vitamins at CVS, i assumed this was a prescribed thing, huh. guess that shows how little non-preggo people know about pregnancy.

    and i was watching the national nes the other night when they were talking about "bird attacks" on planes... they made them sound like terrorists during the entire article. funny stuff.

    safe travels! i'm sure you'll come back filled with foreign hilarity!

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  17. You are safe from swine flu. I promise. Have a fantastic, geese-and-all-bird-related-nastiness-free trip!

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  18. omg, your eat whatever whenever you fly rule would so not work for me, since i'm a flight attendant lol! I still like it none the less though. Have a blast in Amsterdam!

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  19. Geese of Death..too funny. I fly occasionally for work and am never completey comfortable with it. To me its just not natural. The big cylindrical metal thing in the sky just should not be there really.
    Anyway keep your guts around a bit longer because I do so enjoy your posts and Nick I am sure, needs your crazy ass in his life now.

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  20. Have a fabulous trip, and yes- keep breathing. It's good for the baby.

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