Ninety minutes to Narita airport, aboard Japan Airlines flight 75, and I enjoy a rejuvenating few moments of peace.
![[ Japan Airlines Flight 75. ]](http://www.lightfantastic.org/gallery/albums/200104/03plane.thumb.jpg) | |
![[ Honolulu International Airport Gate 29. ]](http://www.lightfantastic.org/gallery/albums/200104/03wait.thumb.jpg) |
Being so far away from the action, and working collaboratively rather than alone, it was like trying to build a model ship in a bottle. Blindfolded. Using chopsticks. With someone else jumping around inside the bottle.
Once again I was struggling to get home before midnight. Once again, I ate far too many late night dinners (often pizza from the grumpy night delivery crew at the Pizza Hut on Hotel Street) with my equally frazzled coworkers. I would go three or four days without seeing Katie conscious. Jen was understanding but understandably miffed, especially when our seven-year anniversary (April 1) came and went with lots of thoughtful gazes, but little fanfare.
But we persevered, Jen still hugged and kissed me goodbye (and seemed to mean it when she said she'd miss me), and the fact that I'm on this plane demonstrates that once again, the show will go on, and we harbor hopes for another successful gathering.
The fact that I'm on this plane alone, however, demonstrates something else entirely.
On Friday, our Programs Manager (of two months) left us. It was rather sudden. We're talking 13 minutes notice.
In all the scenarios and contingencies we'd identified and discussed over the past two months, I can honestly state this was one development absolutely no one was expecting. Even the coolest of the cool among my coworkers were stunned. It was good news for her, but bad news for us, akin to losing our coach five minutes before the Superbowl, or our pilot just before landing.
She and I — but mostly her — were in charge of tracking the multitude of logistical issues, ranging from the layout of the main stage at the Opening Plenary to the presence of flower arrangements at the registration desk. And she and I were to be the "early strike" team, the first to hit the ground in Tokyo to set up our on-site office, get the lay of the land, and make sure all the computers worked and all the logos and signs were hanging right.
Now it's just me.
And.
David. Former coworker and friend David. Fellow Type-A Workaholic David. Hailing all the way from Case Western University in Cleveland, in the middle of a semester, just because he's a nice guy David. Thank god.
David is perhaps one of the only coworkers in recent memory to have survived an extensive tour of duty in our office and not leave vowing never to have anything to do with us again. (We're not particularly evil, but to keep things running we shamelessly tap the very soul force of the staff, and recovery takes a while.) He is a logistics veteran, the man famous for having our operational office cleared out and packed away in trunks somewhere between the salad and fruit cocktail of the closing luncheon.
He had offered a few weeks ago to come just to help out, knowing that our office had a high concentration of meeting virgins, and we took him up on it. We were joking then that he would regret it, but after he got our frantic call on Friday, we were sure of it.
So thank god. When I land in 75 minutes, he'll be there at the airport, having just gotten in from Cleveland an hour before. He's been fully briefed, and given the many past conferences under his belt, and the absurd fact that I — the office runt, the ruffled student geek — am also by comparison now a veteran, everything will be under control.
At least, as much under control as they ever are.
I think I've mentioned a few times before that I hate flying. That hasn't changed.
But I tell you, of all the flaming balls of fire in which I could envision a sudden, messy death, I would much prefer being engulfed in a ball of fire with a charred Japan Airlines logo on it. And, truth be told, I was decidedly less nervous about this trip than I have been in the past, and in fact, had only a mild flush of panic upon take-off.
I think I'm experiencing first hand the truth that limited but constant exposure to the root of one's phobia is the best way to combat it. I've gone from a rock-bound dweeb who never thought I'd leave the islands to a rock-bound dweeb who's traveled quite a bit, and clearly I had to start adapting or find another job. I'm not anywhere near comfortable with air travel, but I think sometime in the last hour I've finally bumped it up above trains as a preferred mode of long distance travel (which is significant, especially since I've never ridden on a train.)
Knowing that this is a single, non-stop flight, and remembering the last trip to Singapore where Tokyo was only the halfway point, eases my mind. So does knowing I'm on a great airline, on a new plane that even has its own personality — it's named Reso'cha, and is accented throughout with overly cute Polynesian-esque symbols and artwork.
(And they just passed out a Reso'cha Bingo Card. "Original prize offered to the winners." Rock on.)
I'm glad I got to the airport early. Three hours makes for lots of sitting in uncomfortable seats, sure, but it also afforded me the pick of any seat on the plane, and on the advice of the ticketing agent, I shunned my usual bulkhead choice for a main exit row.
So here I sit, next to the lavatories and the spiral stairs to the upper deck, looking into the pointy-ended Business Class section and its big TV screen, with the next permanent object ahead of me placed more than six feet away… on which is seated a stewardess who asks me every 15 minutes if I need anything. This beats staring at a plastic wall any day.
The food is great. Not quite Indigo, but it'd beat Zippy's (and most other airlines) any day. Of course the service is almost frighteningly pleasant and attentive. We've gotten three rounds of hot towels, and a snack of tasty somen and mango paste. (What is it with the Japanese and fruit in blob form?) And of course, there's the in-flight bingo game.
(Drat, I didn't win anything.)
And now the female flight staff is walking slowly up the aisles holding giant colorfully painted frames in front of them, looking through them the way a little kid pretends he's on TV with a cardboard box. "Souvenir photo?" she just asked. Tempted, but no thanks.
This seven hour flight, fortunately, didn't drag on. The butterflies in my stomach are taking it easy, fortunately, and the service and staff antics helped too. But I think I succeeded in making the most of my time in the air, which is new for me (he said, blathering on).
Of course, I worked. I finished up writing the brief biographies of our 90-plus esteemed speakers for the Japanese emcee, which took a heap of time, and sorted out other files and made HTML tweaks to make it easier to update the website from Japan (if I find a free moment during the meeting). I re-read the agenda for the umpteenth time, trying to memorize where what session was (we're split between two hotels, a decision that will plague us something fierce for the next six days), and prepped for the few internal meetings I'd have to attend.
I napped. Briefly. It felt good.
Then, I read a John Grisham novel. The whole thing, cover to cover. In one sitting. All 440 pages of "The Bretheren" (and 14 pages of the non-legal new "Painted House") inside of three hours.
It was the first time I'd picked up a novel before a flight, and now I wish I'd done it every time. It's absolutely preferable to suffering through whatever movie happens to be playing (although it was "O Brother Where Art Thou" today, which I might have enjoyed). Frankly, as voracious a reader as I was years ago, it's been way too long since I took the time — or had the time — to enjoy an actual book. My life has lately been filled with short articles, news magazines, and of course web sites, things in small bits and bytes. Even though it was Grisham, it was like tearing into a steak after years of defrosted meatballs.
(Pretty rough turbulence now. Type, Ryan, just type and ignore it...)
I liked it. Three judges in a low-security prison running a nationwide scam, and a hapless senator picked by the CIA for the Oval Office. Timely, almost believable, funny, easy (but not empty) reading, colorfully detailed but with a thoroughly understandable plot — not an ounce of the flowery legalese I was expecting. The ending seemed a little rushed, and there were few ridiculous moments, but I liked it.
On the way back I should nab two books.
Who am I kidding? I'll probably be passed out for most of the flight.
What else is there? What other bits of news have I left to rot while work consumed my life? Not that many of the forgotten tales would be very interesting, but I always hate it when I fail to plug things into this obsessive history of my little world.
Well, we registered Katie for preshool again, this time a KCAA campus, the advantages over Montessori being a year-rould program, included meals, and pick-ups as late as 6:30 p.m. Oh yeah, and it's much less expensive. She starts in June, at which point Jen will have to get full-time work, but seeing as how a handful of her supervisors have been offering her positions (some with commission) as it is, I don't think it'll be thar hard.
Both Jen and I love everything about having her home with Katie all the time — I swear a warmer, happier, secure kid there has never been — but we know that preschool is what she needs right now. Not for any structured education; at the rate she's going, she'll be reading books in kindergarten (like my brother and I were) while her classmates are figuring out the letter 'B.' She needs it for the simple exposure to other kids... as slimy and evil as they can sometimes be.
The urgency with which she wants to interact with other kids whenever they cross her path makes it clear she is a very outgoing, social animal, very much unlike her parents, and she has to explore that. And while the idea of any institutional primary education, public or private, now scares me, we've got a couple of years left to investigate the once-absurd homeschooling option.
Also, Jen and Katie will finally again visit Jen's parents in Florida in a few weeks. Everyone's ecstatic — there's a light in Jen's eyes I haven't seen for a while — and now I know it'll be worth it.
Given that we're still more than two grand in debt from their last badly-scheduled trip (more than a grand each round trip during peak season), I'd emphatically but regretfully insisted another visit was basically an impossible dream for the near term. But I know Jen is very close to her parents, that they hold Katie as the brightest star in their sky, and that it's basically unfair that geography and fate keeps them so far apart (especially when my parents can see her on a moment's notice). So when Northwest posted both a special Hawaii fare and a "kids fly cheap" deal a few weeks ago, we pondered deeply and ultimately jumped at it.
Not a bad deal — $1,100 round trip for the both of them, close to half of what it could have cost. Jen's parents and I are splitting the bill, and I'm sure we're both spending money we don't have. But compared to all the other things that could leave us eating Mac & Cheese for a few months, this doesn't hurt at all. I can feel the smiles on both ends of the country.
Katie will see Disneyworld. They'll also go up to Virginia to meet Jen's brother, his wife and their son — Katie's only cousin — for the first time. And they might even hook up with Jen's grandmother, which would be in all ways wonderful.
I, meanwhile, will live like a bachelor for three weeks. I plan to be as unproductive as possible, which admittedly differs little from my usual routine, except I won't feel guilty about it.
Any other tidbits before this turbulence breaks me? Um. Can't concentrate. Let's see.
Both the HSTA (public school teachers) and UHPA (university faculty) are poised to strike, potentially a historic shutdown of all education in Hawai`i, mostly because Governor Ben clearly carries grudges to the bitter end. It might throw off my current semester, but after eight years, what's an extra month or two? Greg was in town for his sister's wedding, but sadly we never hooked up. Rich Walker, famed photographer, is also in town on a more permanent basis, but I've yet to join him for a promised swill session. And I have additionally failed to hook up with the only other person in my entire graduating class who wondered whether we were having a ten-year reunion at all in 2002, and am beginning to fear the answer is no. Oh, and this past weekend, just as the stress of my trip was getting to me, Jen, Katie and I made it to the gorgeous restored Hawaii Theatre downtown to join dad and Gayle (and her family) and see Colon (formerly Pure Heart) and the Makaha Sons in concert. It was a fundraiser for Mental Health Kokua, and it was beautiful and energetic and hilarious... just what the doctor ordered.
Gotta shut down. Otherwise I'll just start typing gibberish, sprinkled with colorful but rude language.
Not that it wouldn't be entertaining...
Written en route at 2 p.m. Tokyo Standard Time on Wednesday, April 4, 2001. Automated datestamps now reflect only when entries are posted to the site, often after some delay.
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