The Hilton Garden Inn, a very large hotel in the midst of a ghetto of very large hotels, about a 15-minute shuttle bus ride from O'Hare Airport, was perfectly nice, and obviously quite adept at dealing with hoards of stranded airline passengers with no luggage (I had a travel toothbrush and toothpaste in my little cosmetic bag, but was very grateful for the complimentary deodorant). Once again, as had been the case for two days at the beginning of my trip, I was without my things.
I had purchased a sandwich at the airport, because I didn't know if there would be a restaurant at the hotel (there was). I heated the toasted sandwich in the microwave in my room, ate it staring at the television, took a hot shower, and went to bed in my underpants, the first time I've done that since I can't remember when. But I'd spent the whole day in my clothes, would be spending all of the following day in them, so really didn't feel like spending the night in them.
I woke up about two hours latter and, unable to get back to sleep, decided to go downstairs to the Business Center -- i.e., room with computers and printer -- that I'd noticed earlier. There I looked up the bus service that runs a shuttle between Boston's Logan Airport, and the bus/train station in Portland. I printed out my ticket, and the schedule, seeing that I would catch either the 8:35 p.m., or more likely, the 9:35 bus, depending on when, exactly, my plane got in. Note that the trip lasts about 2 1/2 hours, so I would be getting to Portland very late indeed, and would still have to get to the airport, dig myself out of the snow that had accrued in the six days I had been gone, and then drive the hour to my house.
Very luckily, I thought to go back to the Business Center the following morning, after having the buffet breakfast that was o.k. but hardly worth $16, and check on the status of my 4 p.m. flight to Boston. Couldn't believe what I read there. It was not yet 10 a.m., but already the flight was predicted to be four hours late leaving its point of origin (Bozeman, Montana) due to "servicing." What the hell does that mean? What kind of "servicing" results in knowing that the plane is going to be four hours late beginning its trip? Sounds like they needed to bring in a new plane altogether.
The important point here was that if I were leaving Chicago as late as 8 p.m -- four hours later than my flight was supposed to leave -- there was no way I could catch even the last shuttle bus of the evening for Portland. So, heaving a great sigh, I returned to the airport earlier than I had planned, got into yet another endless line, and begged for mercy when I finally reached an agent. The young woman, clicking away at her keyboard, said, "Well, there's an earlier flight, at 1:15, with one seat left..." "I'll take it!" I cried.
And so I did, arriving in Boston just too late to catch the 4:35 shuttle. However, the next bus to pull up, which was the shuttle to Concord, New Hampshire, offered to take me to South Station (train station), as there was another bus leaving for Portland from there at 5:15. I got a real change in my luck, when this bus driver actually managed to overtake the shuttle to Portland at the next terminal, and pulled in front of him to box him in, so I could get off, trundle back and climb on board. I'd made the 4:35 shuttle after all.
I thought my luck had really taken a turn for the better when the woman I sat next to offered to give me a ride to the airport, once we reached Portland. However, this very sweet lady proved to be even more addled than I am. First she wasn't sure where she'd parked -- we wandered up and down lanes of cars, until she spotted hers -- then she thought she had a shovel in her car, but as a matter of fact she didn't, so we were using our booted feet and gloved hands to clear away the snow piled up behind and on top of her car. Then when we finally arrived at the exit gate of the parking lot, she couldn't find her ticket. "I know I had it in my mouth!" she exclaimed. "Then we started clearing off the snow, and I don't know what I did with it..."
It was finally found, we finally exited the lot, and then spent a bit of time getting lost, while she tried to "get her bearings." And I was thinking how if I 'd just walked straight out of the station and into a waiting cab, I would have been at the airport clearing off my own car by now...
We did at last reach the airport where, to my ecstatic relief, my suitcase was waiting for me. (The day before good ol' Farrell Williams had told me: "We can't get you to Portland tomorrow, but we can get your suitcase there.") I spent about 15 minutes shoveling out my car -- at least I had a shovel! -- and then I fled, positively fled, for home. Which I arrived at 21 hours later than I should have, 32 hours after I arrived at the airport in Colorado Springs.
At last, end of story.
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Travel Saga, Part III
O.K., yes, there was a big storm that hit the Northeast the day I was trying to get home to Maine. This is actually another reason -- besides the incompetence of United Airlines --that I have sworn off Christmastime air travel. There is virtually always a bad storm right after Christmas, that strands millions of travelers trying to get home. In 2010 my brother was prevented from getting home to New Mexico in a timely fashion by a true New England blizzard (see Note of December 31, 2010). But I guess we all hope against hope that somehow a miracle will protect us from the inevitable.
I had been watching the weather channel at my sister's house, but was hoping the worst would have passed by the time I reached Chicago's O'Hare. My plane left Colorado an hour and a half late (do United's planes ever leave on time?), but I wasn't worried, because I had a 3 1/2 hour layover in Chicago. But when I got off the plane, and sought out a Departures board, I was shocked to see that my flight wouldn't just be delayed in leaving, but had been cancelled. Because of Weather. What did I do now? I really had no idea. I asked the first United agent I could find who was not otherwise engaged; he checked his computer and said, with the usual United indifference, that yes, the flight was cancelled.
"But what does that mean for me?" "It means you'll have to overnight in Chicago, and take a flight out tomorrow." When I asked how I arranged that he directed me to Customer Service, which was of course clear at the other end of the concourse -- I walked there in a daze, envisioning myself spending the night trying to doze in an airport chair -- and where I found myself at the end of an excruciatingly long line of people, most of whom were on their mobile phones, either calling family/friends or the airlines, trying to make their own rearrangements while waiting to reach the agent.
After I'd been waiting about 20 minutes in the line, a woman came through encouraging us to go to the Customer Service stations at either Concourse C, or Concourse B (I was currently in Concourse F). She insisted there were "no lines there." I was skeptical about this -- could just see myself taking the 10 minutes or so it would take to get to either place, only to have to stand in yet another long line -- but finally made the decision to take the shuttle to Concourse C. There, sure enough, there was a line. It was shorter, but moved very slowly. When it was finally my turn, I got the incredibly bad news that they probably couldn't get me to Portland before Sunday. SUNDAY! It was 6 o'clock on Thursday! This was just so impossible for me to process that I went into a form of shock. All I could do was stare at poor, patient Farrell Williams and murmur, "I can't do this."
Quite simply, I have reached a point in my life when I am unable to handle this sort of curve ball being thrown my way. I have never been the most flexible, or resilient, of people, but I think I would have to say that these qualities may be at an all-time low. The Aging Body Syndrome? Or just a psychological withdrawal from the inevitable slings and arrows of outrageous fortune? I don't know, but there it is, another argument against air travel, which is full of curve balls these days.
This United agent worked with me for a very long time, trying to get me home sometime on Friday. I will say right now that he was the only United employee I encountered on either of my trips who impressed me with his courtesy, his patience, his frequently-expressed concern for my plight. Re that last: people need to hear that their situation is sympathized with -- it's like needing a good bedside manner from your physician. You don't just want the cold hard facts, you want sympathy.
But I couldn't get it through my head why people like myself who had tickets for today, couldn't get home before people who had tickets for tomorrow. "Why can't you bring out another plane, to transport all these people from today?" I wanted to know. Farrell patiently explained that it wasn't just a matter of more planes, that there was a limit on how much traffic you could put up into the air, into the various air lanes. This actually made a little sense to me, although I still felt (and still feel!) that the airlines, and air traffic control, should be prepared for these kinds of situations with just such emergency traffic, to keep thousands of people from spending days trying to get home, when they were expecting it to take them hours.
And despite my dismay at my own plight, I could look around and see lots of people I sympathized with even more, especially people traveling with small children. And it was the holidays: lots of people traveling with small children, on their way back from Grandma's house. Imagine having to cope with the news that it could be a couple of days before you reached your destination, with no luggage, but two tired toddlers on your hands.
Ultimately the best Farrell could do for me was get me on a 4 p.m. flight to Boston, whence, I knew, I could get a shuttle bus to the bus/train station in Portland, whence I could (presumably) get a taxi to the Portland jetport. Farrell then placed the phone call to the service that arranges accommodations for stranded passengers; I picked the one whose discounted charges I felt this Starving Librarian could afford (my delay ended up costing me an additional $138, since I also had to keep myself fed for an extra 21 hours, and anything you buy to eat in an airport costs at least $10). Farrell explained to me that because my overnight was the result of weather, something over which the airlines had no control, he could not offer me full payment for my room, but only a discount coupon. Yes, well.
And the fun still wasn't over...
I had been watching the weather channel at my sister's house, but was hoping the worst would have passed by the time I reached Chicago's O'Hare. My plane left Colorado an hour and a half late (do United's planes ever leave on time?), but I wasn't worried, because I had a 3 1/2 hour layover in Chicago. But when I got off the plane, and sought out a Departures board, I was shocked to see that my flight wouldn't just be delayed in leaving, but had been cancelled. Because of Weather. What did I do now? I really had no idea. I asked the first United agent I could find who was not otherwise engaged; he checked his computer and said, with the usual United indifference, that yes, the flight was cancelled.
"But what does that mean for me?" "It means you'll have to overnight in Chicago, and take a flight out tomorrow." When I asked how I arranged that he directed me to Customer Service, which was of course clear at the other end of the concourse -- I walked there in a daze, envisioning myself spending the night trying to doze in an airport chair -- and where I found myself at the end of an excruciatingly long line of people, most of whom were on their mobile phones, either calling family/friends or the airlines, trying to make their own rearrangements while waiting to reach the agent.
After I'd been waiting about 20 minutes in the line, a woman came through encouraging us to go to the Customer Service stations at either Concourse C, or Concourse B (I was currently in Concourse F). She insisted there were "no lines there." I was skeptical about this -- could just see myself taking the 10 minutes or so it would take to get to either place, only to have to stand in yet another long line -- but finally made the decision to take the shuttle to Concourse C. There, sure enough, there was a line. It was shorter, but moved very slowly. When it was finally my turn, I got the incredibly bad news that they probably couldn't get me to Portland before Sunday. SUNDAY! It was 6 o'clock on Thursday! This was just so impossible for me to process that I went into a form of shock. All I could do was stare at poor, patient Farrell Williams and murmur, "I can't do this."
Quite simply, I have reached a point in my life when I am unable to handle this sort of curve ball being thrown my way. I have never been the most flexible, or resilient, of people, but I think I would have to say that these qualities may be at an all-time low. The Aging Body Syndrome? Or just a psychological withdrawal from the inevitable slings and arrows of outrageous fortune? I don't know, but there it is, another argument against air travel, which is full of curve balls these days.
This United agent worked with me for a very long time, trying to get me home sometime on Friday. I will say right now that he was the only United employee I encountered on either of my trips who impressed me with his courtesy, his patience, his frequently-expressed concern for my plight. Re that last: people need to hear that their situation is sympathized with -- it's like needing a good bedside manner from your physician. You don't just want the cold hard facts, you want sympathy.
But I couldn't get it through my head why people like myself who had tickets for today, couldn't get home before people who had tickets for tomorrow. "Why can't you bring out another plane, to transport all these people from today?" I wanted to know. Farrell patiently explained that it wasn't just a matter of more planes, that there was a limit on how much traffic you could put up into the air, into the various air lanes. This actually made a little sense to me, although I still felt (and still feel!) that the airlines, and air traffic control, should be prepared for these kinds of situations with just such emergency traffic, to keep thousands of people from spending days trying to get home, when they were expecting it to take them hours.
And despite my dismay at my own plight, I could look around and see lots of people I sympathized with even more, especially people traveling with small children. And it was the holidays: lots of people traveling with small children, on their way back from Grandma's house. Imagine having to cope with the news that it could be a couple of days before you reached your destination, with no luggage, but two tired toddlers on your hands.
Ultimately the best Farrell could do for me was get me on a 4 p.m. flight to Boston, whence, I knew, I could get a shuttle bus to the bus/train station in Portland, whence I could (presumably) get a taxi to the Portland jetport. Farrell then placed the phone call to the service that arranges accommodations for stranded passengers; I picked the one whose discounted charges I felt this Starving Librarian could afford (my delay ended up costing me an additional $138, since I also had to keep myself fed for an extra 21 hours, and anything you buy to eat in an airport costs at least $10). Farrell explained to me that because my overnight was the result of weather, something over which the airlines had no control, he could not offer me full payment for my room, but only a discount coupon. Yes, well.
And the fun still wasn't over...
Monday, December 31, 2012
Travel Woes Saga Part II
Of course United lost my suitcase. Or, to be more precise, they failed to put it on the plane. When I arrived at my final destination of Colorado Springs, and went to retrieve my suitcase from the carousel, 't'weren't there. There was another, exactly like mine -- I even pulled it off the carousel, thinking it was mine -- but the name on the tag was not Normancamp (airlines can't do hyphens). Later, when there was no sign of another big, dark blue bag, and no one had yet claimed this big blue bag -- and all the waiting passengers had faded away -- in desperation I unzipped the case and took a peek inside. But no, those thick, nicely folded sweaters were definitely not mine. And yes, it was time to get in the Lost Baggage line. Anyone who has had this happen will know how my heart sank.
This was at about 2 p.m. on Sunday. The woman said the earliest the suitcase would be in was 8 that night, but by the way she said it, I knew the bag would not be in until the following day, if then. (At the time she wasn't even sure where the case was; all she could say for sure was that there "was no record of its having left Portland.")
In the event, I didn't get my suitcase until 9 p.m. on Christmas Eve, but which time I'd missed the church service my sister, brother and I were supposed to attend together (I'm not a religious person at all, but my two siblings are, and attending a Christmas Eve service with them was something I had actually been rather looking forward to, especially as Ellen's church goes in in a big way for beautiful music -- but they went while I waited for the suitcase to be delivered), and had to go to the lovely Christmas Eve dinner at the very nice Broadmoor Hotel -- something we'd all been looking forward to -- in an outfit cobbled together from odds and ends from my sister's closet and jewelry box.
This latter development was especially upsetting for me. My life pretty much fits into the Never-Goes-Anywhere-or-Does-Anything category -- certainly I never go anywhere where I get to Dress Up, which is actually something I enjoy doing -- and here was my big chance, and the outfit I'd carefully put together...which included a new pair of black velvet pants I had painstakingly hemmed the day before leaving, and a red glittery top that I love but never have occasion to wear...it was lying in my suitcase, on some delivery truck that had supposedly left the airport at 1 p.m., but as of 5:30 p.m. when we had to leave to make our dinner reservation, had still not put in an appearance.
I made numerous irate phone calls during the course of the afternoon/evening -- a very pleasant aspect of Christmas Eve, needless to say -- to the inevitable 800 number with people with heavy East Indian accents assuring me that they would be glad to check on that for me. Finally, when we returned from our dinner at almost 9 p.m., and the bag had still not been delivered, I called and told the fellow, "In a town this size they could have delivered 200 suitcases in the 8 hours that have expired since I was first told my bag had left the airport and was on its way to the address I had indicated." The fellow went away to "contact the baggage delivery service," came back and said someone from that company would "personally deliver the bag to me within 10 minutes." I went outside in the freezing cold and walked up and down in front of Ellen's garage to keep the motion-activated light coming on so that no one could miss the big address numbers on her garage. When this fellow in a private automobile showed up I was astounded, expecting a delivery truck. He told me he'd personally "rescued" my bag from the delivery truck (no doubt because of all the calls I kept making), and seemed to think I should be mighty grateful. "I've been waiting 8 hours for this bag to be delivered!" I exclaimed. "Well, I'm sorry, ma'm, but we had over 700 parcels to deliver. And some people have been waiting weeks for their bags."
WHAT?! I had assumed that what was being delivered were however few (one would hope) suitcases United had managed to lose in the past, say, 24 hours. I had figured maybe 50 or 60 bags, tops. But Bag.com was delivering bags that had been shipped, rather than just bags that weren't on the baggage carousel when they were supposed to be. 700 of them! God only knows when I would have received my bag, if I hadn't been the proverbial squeaky wheel.
Since these two recent trips of mine, with all their various problems and frustrations, I have discovered that United has a terrible reputation for baggage handling, flights not being on-time, and customer service in general. Now I find out! Well, now I've seen it all up close and personal, and the disgusted letter is on its way to United CEO Jeff Smisek.
And we haven't even gotten to my homeward connecting flight being cancelled, and my having to "overnight in Chicago."
This was at about 2 p.m. on Sunday. The woman said the earliest the suitcase would be in was 8 that night, but by the way she said it, I knew the bag would not be in until the following day, if then. (At the time she wasn't even sure where the case was; all she could say for sure was that there "was no record of its having left Portland.")
In the event, I didn't get my suitcase until 9 p.m. on Christmas Eve, but which time I'd missed the church service my sister, brother and I were supposed to attend together (I'm not a religious person at all, but my two siblings are, and attending a Christmas Eve service with them was something I had actually been rather looking forward to, especially as Ellen's church goes in in a big way for beautiful music -- but they went while I waited for the suitcase to be delivered), and had to go to the lovely Christmas Eve dinner at the very nice Broadmoor Hotel -- something we'd all been looking forward to -- in an outfit cobbled together from odds and ends from my sister's closet and jewelry box.
This latter development was especially upsetting for me. My life pretty much fits into the Never-Goes-Anywhere-or-Does-Anything category -- certainly I never go anywhere where I get to Dress Up, which is actually something I enjoy doing -- and here was my big chance, and the outfit I'd carefully put together...which included a new pair of black velvet pants I had painstakingly hemmed the day before leaving, and a red glittery top that I love but never have occasion to wear...it was lying in my suitcase, on some delivery truck that had supposedly left the airport at 1 p.m., but as of 5:30 p.m. when we had to leave to make our dinner reservation, had still not put in an appearance.
I made numerous irate phone calls during the course of the afternoon/evening -- a very pleasant aspect of Christmas Eve, needless to say -- to the inevitable 800 number with people with heavy East Indian accents assuring me that they would be glad to check on that for me. Finally, when we returned from our dinner at almost 9 p.m., and the bag had still not been delivered, I called and told the fellow, "In a town this size they could have delivered 200 suitcases in the 8 hours that have expired since I was first told my bag had left the airport and was on its way to the address I had indicated." The fellow went away to "contact the baggage delivery service," came back and said someone from that company would "personally deliver the bag to me within 10 minutes." I went outside in the freezing cold and walked up and down in front of Ellen's garage to keep the motion-activated light coming on so that no one could miss the big address numbers on her garage. When this fellow in a private automobile showed up I was astounded, expecting a delivery truck. He told me he'd personally "rescued" my bag from the delivery truck (no doubt because of all the calls I kept making), and seemed to think I should be mighty grateful. "I've been waiting 8 hours for this bag to be delivered!" I exclaimed. "Well, I'm sorry, ma'm, but we had over 700 parcels to deliver. And some people have been waiting weeks for their bags."
WHAT?! I had assumed that what was being delivered were however few (one would hope) suitcases United had managed to lose in the past, say, 24 hours. I had figured maybe 50 or 60 bags, tops. But Bag.com was delivering bags that had been shipped, rather than just bags that weren't on the baggage carousel when they were supposed to be. 700 of them! God only knows when I would have received my bag, if I hadn't been the proverbial squeaky wheel.
Since these two recent trips of mine, with all their various problems and frustrations, I have discovered that United has a terrible reputation for baggage handling, flights not being on-time, and customer service in general. Now I find out! Well, now I've seen it all up close and personal, and the disgusted letter is on its way to United CEO Jeff Smisek.
And we haven't even gotten to my homeward connecting flight being cancelled, and my having to "overnight in Chicago."
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Christmas travel woes
My Christmas travel plans were laid waste in the way I'm sure many of you out there have experienced at some point, but I never had. Obviously I've been lucky, but my luck ended in such a way that I've sworn never to travel at Christmastime again, at least by air, and never to travel by United Airlines, if I can possibly help it. That latter promise to myself may be harder to keep, since United is practically the only airlines that services the Portland Jetport (as it pretentiously calls itself). Continental used to fly in and out of Portland, but has now been eaten up by United. U.S. Airways supposedly services Portland, but my flights, which were all originally listed as U.S. Airways flights, were in fact United Airlines flights; U.S. Airways would seem to be just a front for United. (The industry has become incredibly complex and confusing, as to who owns whom.) Delta does service Portland, but its tickets are always considerably more expensive than United's. Caught between a rock and a hard place here.
At first I thought things were going to go better than they did for my trip to Colorado Springs at the beginning of December (when I went for a week to look after my sister who was about to have hip replacement surgery). On that trip, on the way down to Portland, I was driving through rain that was, as a matter of fact, ice. I kept screaming, "I can't fucking SEE!" Twice I had to pull over -- barely being able to see to pull over -- and scrape ice off the windshield. It was scary as hell.
But after that unpropitious start, the trip went o.k. Well, until the return trip, when the plane from Colorado Springs was two hours late leaving (we were informed first, after quite a wait, that "your plane is now leaving the hanger," then that it "has had to return to the hanger for servicing," and finally that another plane "will be replacing your original plane."), resulting in my having to run like hell to catch my connecting flight in Chicago, sure that I was going to miss it, and then being treated very rudely by two of the crew, who didn't seem to think that an obviously no-longer-young woman gasping for breath while trying to learn if her plane had already left, called for any kind of courtesy or concern. But other than that...
This time I had a beautifully clear, if extremely cold, night to drive through. I left in plenty of time, was not feeling rushed or tense in the least. But then...
First, there wasn't an indoor parking place to be found at the "jetport." I drove 'round and 'round that parking garage, to no avail; I was stuck with outside parking. And since I knew it would snow sometime between then and my return, I could just see me, at 11:30 at night, after my long trip home, shoveling out my car (which is exactly what happened).
But for now I accepted the unavoidable, and trundled my suitcase inside. Where there was a line at the United counter, but not too formidable a line. However. That line did not move one iota -- or by one single person -- for twenty-five minutes. There were two groups of people at the counter -- a group of young men traveling together, and a family with a child in a wheelchair -- and they both obviously had problems, which took forever to be resolved. And as a matter of fact the problems for the family were not resolved, since they finally moved away from the counter looking grim-faced, while the father yelled at the agent behind the counter "You're stranding a whole family! And you don't even care!' He was a moment later threatening loudly that what they were going to do was call the newspapers, which led me to suspect the problem had to do with the child in the wheelchair. It was very unpleasant for every-body, and unfortunate for the family.
During all this time I couldn't fathom why no agent had been assigned to take care of everybody else, while the two problem groups were dealt with. There was one fellow up there doing absolutely nothing but watching. Was he in training? Was this the right time to have someone just standing and watching? When the problem groups had at last been dispatched, and we were inching forward, one of the agents came out from behind the counter, undid the guide cord next to the woman behind me, and indicated she should move to one of the free kiosks. I looked at him in astonishment and said, "Excuse me, but I'm in front of her. And there are people in front of me!" Why on earth hadn't he gone to the person at the front of the line? He looked at me blankly, replaced the cord, went back behind the counter and spent the next 10 minutes typing away at his keyboard, helping absolutely nobody.
In a nutshell what I saw that early morning was the biggest display of disorganization and incompetence I've ever seen at an airlines counter. By the time I reached the only agent who seemed to be doing anything, he spent an astounding amount of time plying his keyboard, without any apparent result. He finally told me he was not going to charge me for my bag (I was paying cash, so could not do it through the kiosk), because he'd "tried twice, and it wouldn't take." He then, finally, handed me my boarding pass, after writing a big S on it, and saying he was having to place me on Standby basis. "What?!" I all but yelled. "I have a confirmed reservation!" "Yes, but it's a matter of time; you are now in danger of missing the flight." "I've been standing in this line for 40 minutes waiting for the line to move," I sputtered. "Yes, well I'm sorry, you're going to have to run."
So once again this no-longer-young woman had to run, down to the escalators, up the escalators, through Security (where, fortunately for me, there was no line at all), back down the stairs to the gate area, and then the whole length of said area, to the farthest gate, making one breathless stop at a shop to buy a water, because I must have water to drink, and of course Security makes you throw away your bottled water so you can't use it to bomb the plane. I was beyond pissed.
And the worst was yet to come, Had I But Known.
At first I thought things were going to go better than they did for my trip to Colorado Springs at the beginning of December (when I went for a week to look after my sister who was about to have hip replacement surgery). On that trip, on the way down to Portland, I was driving through rain that was, as a matter of fact, ice. I kept screaming, "I can't fucking SEE!" Twice I had to pull over -- barely being able to see to pull over -- and scrape ice off the windshield. It was scary as hell.
But after that unpropitious start, the trip went o.k. Well, until the return trip, when the plane from Colorado Springs was two hours late leaving (we were informed first, after quite a wait, that "your plane is now leaving the hanger," then that it "has had to return to the hanger for servicing," and finally that another plane "will be replacing your original plane."), resulting in my having to run like hell to catch my connecting flight in Chicago, sure that I was going to miss it, and then being treated very rudely by two of the crew, who didn't seem to think that an obviously no-longer-young woman gasping for breath while trying to learn if her plane had already left, called for any kind of courtesy or concern. But other than that...
This time I had a beautifully clear, if extremely cold, night to drive through. I left in plenty of time, was not feeling rushed or tense in the least. But then...
First, there wasn't an indoor parking place to be found at the "jetport." I drove 'round and 'round that parking garage, to no avail; I was stuck with outside parking. And since I knew it would snow sometime between then and my return, I could just see me, at 11:30 at night, after my long trip home, shoveling out my car (which is exactly what happened).
But for now I accepted the unavoidable, and trundled my suitcase inside. Where there was a line at the United counter, but not too formidable a line. However. That line did not move one iota -- or by one single person -- for twenty-five minutes. There were two groups of people at the counter -- a group of young men traveling together, and a family with a child in a wheelchair -- and they both obviously had problems, which took forever to be resolved. And as a matter of fact the problems for the family were not resolved, since they finally moved away from the counter looking grim-faced, while the father yelled at the agent behind the counter "You're stranding a whole family! And you don't even care!' He was a moment later threatening loudly that what they were going to do was call the newspapers, which led me to suspect the problem had to do with the child in the wheelchair. It was very unpleasant for every-body, and unfortunate for the family.
During all this time I couldn't fathom why no agent had been assigned to take care of everybody else, while the two problem groups were dealt with. There was one fellow up there doing absolutely nothing but watching. Was he in training? Was this the right time to have someone just standing and watching? When the problem groups had at last been dispatched, and we were inching forward, one of the agents came out from behind the counter, undid the guide cord next to the woman behind me, and indicated she should move to one of the free kiosks. I looked at him in astonishment and said, "Excuse me, but I'm in front of her. And there are people in front of me!" Why on earth hadn't he gone to the person at the front of the line? He looked at me blankly, replaced the cord, went back behind the counter and spent the next 10 minutes typing away at his keyboard, helping absolutely nobody.
In a nutshell what I saw that early morning was the biggest display of disorganization and incompetence I've ever seen at an airlines counter. By the time I reached the only agent who seemed to be doing anything, he spent an astounding amount of time plying his keyboard, without any apparent result. He finally told me he was not going to charge me for my bag (I was paying cash, so could not do it through the kiosk), because he'd "tried twice, and it wouldn't take." He then, finally, handed me my boarding pass, after writing a big S on it, and saying he was having to place me on Standby basis. "What?!" I all but yelled. "I have a confirmed reservation!" "Yes, but it's a matter of time; you are now in danger of missing the flight." "I've been standing in this line for 40 minutes waiting for the line to move," I sputtered. "Yes, well I'm sorry, you're going to have to run."
So once again this no-longer-young woman had to run, down to the escalators, up the escalators, through Security (where, fortunately for me, there was no line at all), back down the stairs to the gate area, and then the whole length of said area, to the farthest gate, making one breathless stop at a shop to buy a water, because I must have water to drink, and of course Security makes you throw away your bottled water so you can't use it to bomb the plane. I was beyond pissed.
And the worst was yet to come, Had I But Known.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
A clash of cultures
Our book club at the library read a delightful book last month: Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, by Helen Simonson. We all loved it, for numerous reasons, not least of which was the Major himself. To a large extent he's your rather stuffy, very old-fashioned British curmudgeon (who is at pains to remind people that "It's Major, actually," rather than Mr.), but who proves himself time and again a decent, kind person, and who evolves, in a positive and believable way, over the course of the book.
I was especially charmed by the love affair that develops between the Major and Mrs. Ali, the widowed Pakistani lady who runs the local bit-of-everything shop. It's nice to watch the unwinding of a believable, but still romantic, relationship between an elderly gentleman (he's 68 which, we folks in our 60s have to face, no longer qualifies as "middle-aged"), and an emphatically middle-aged lady. Especially appealing is the way it is made clear that both loved, and miss, their first spouses, and that their love for one another comes gradually, preceded first by respect, and liking. And yet, for all that, it includes a wonderfully exciting "escape" from the clutches of Mrs. Ali's very conservative relatives-by-marriage; the Major proves himself a true romantic hero, more or less despite himself.
Less believable is the relationship between Mrs. Ali's ultra-conservative nephew, and the free spirit he managed to get pregnant, despite his puritanical views. While you can see how he might have been attracted to the wild and saucy young woman, despite himself, what she could have seen in this rigid young man, fanatical in his devotion to his religion, is never made clear. But the problems of the Muslim culture trying to cope with the larger British culture, and vice verse, certainly contribute to the interest of the story.
We also had trouble with the Major's son, who is so unrelentingly materialistic and opportunist, so thoughtless, that we had a hard time seeing how the kindly Major and, from the snips and bits readers get about her, his apparently very nice first wife, could have produced such a son. This led to an interesting discussion in the group about how you may do your darnedest by your children, but the result may still not be what you would have hoped. But what-ever disappointment one might feel that your child didn't grow up to be a successful doctor/lawyer/ Indian chief -- didn't seem to be able to figure out "what he wanted to be when he grew up," never quite managed to get that college degree, kept having to come home when he'd lost another job -- it would surely be much more distressing to realize your child was rude, selfish and insensitive to the feelings of others. Never having had children, I can't speak from experience, but it seems to me the latter situation would have me feeling much more the failure as a parent.
The group agreed that another of the things we liked about this book was simply the charming way it was written, how the author put things. A few examples:
As Mrs. Ali hesitates over mailing a letter to her relatives in the north of England, a letter she doesn't really want to send: "He held his breath as she stood for a moment, letter in hand, her head curved in thought. He had never imagined so clearly the consequences of mailing a letter -- the impossibility of retrieving it from the iron mouth of the box; the inevitability of its steady progress through the postal system; the passing from bag to bag and postman to postman, until a lone man in a van pulls up to the door and pushes a small pile through the letterbox. It seemed suddenly horrible that one's words could not be taken back, one's thought allowed none of the remediation of speaking face to face."
Or at an outrageous country hunt, that goes horribly awry: "A great splashing on the pond indicated that many ducks had made it through the barrage and were quarrelling over their options like politicians. In a matter of minutes, Morris would bang the oil can again and send them all aloft to repeat their suicidal mission."
When the Major presents two roses to Mrs. Ali, before they leave for the dinner dance which will also go horribly awry: "'Is one of those for Grace? I could put it in a vase for her.' He opened his mouth to say that she looked extremely beautiful and deserved armfuls of roses, but the words were lost in committee somewhere, shuffled aside by the parts of his head that worked full-time on avoiding ridicule."
And I loved his thought on American television, while trying to shore up his courage to meet his son's new American girlfriend: "She would no doubt make his prior reticence out to be some sort of idiocy. Americans seemed to enjoy the sport of publicly humiliating one another. The occasional American sitcoms that came on TV were filled with childish fat men poking fun at others, all rolled eyeballs and metallic taped laughter."
Ain't it the truth.
All quotes from Simonson, Helen. Major Pettigrew's Last Stand. New York: Random House, 2010.
I was especially charmed by the love affair that develops between the Major and Mrs. Ali, the widowed Pakistani lady who runs the local bit-of-everything shop. It's nice to watch the unwinding of a believable, but still romantic, relationship between an elderly gentleman (he's 68 which, we folks in our 60s have to face, no longer qualifies as "middle-aged"), and an emphatically middle-aged lady. Especially appealing is the way it is made clear that both loved, and miss, their first spouses, and that their love for one another comes gradually, preceded first by respect, and liking. And yet, for all that, it includes a wonderfully exciting "escape" from the clutches of Mrs. Ali's very conservative relatives-by-marriage; the Major proves himself a true romantic hero, more or less despite himself.
Less believable is the relationship between Mrs. Ali's ultra-conservative nephew, and the free spirit he managed to get pregnant, despite his puritanical views. While you can see how he might have been attracted to the wild and saucy young woman, despite himself, what she could have seen in this rigid young man, fanatical in his devotion to his religion, is never made clear. But the problems of the Muslim culture trying to cope with the larger British culture, and vice verse, certainly contribute to the interest of the story.
We also had trouble with the Major's son, who is so unrelentingly materialistic and opportunist, so thoughtless, that we had a hard time seeing how the kindly Major and, from the snips and bits readers get about her, his apparently very nice first wife, could have produced such a son. This led to an interesting discussion in the group about how you may do your darnedest by your children, but the result may still not be what you would have hoped. But what-ever disappointment one might feel that your child didn't grow up to be a successful doctor/lawyer/ Indian chief -- didn't seem to be able to figure out "what he wanted to be when he grew up," never quite managed to get that college degree, kept having to come home when he'd lost another job -- it would surely be much more distressing to realize your child was rude, selfish and insensitive to the feelings of others. Never having had children, I can't speak from experience, but it seems to me the latter situation would have me feeling much more the failure as a parent.
The group agreed that another of the things we liked about this book was simply the charming way it was written, how the author put things. A few examples:
As Mrs. Ali hesitates over mailing a letter to her relatives in the north of England, a letter she doesn't really want to send: "He held his breath as she stood for a moment, letter in hand, her head curved in thought. He had never imagined so clearly the consequences of mailing a letter -- the impossibility of retrieving it from the iron mouth of the box; the inevitability of its steady progress through the postal system; the passing from bag to bag and postman to postman, until a lone man in a van pulls up to the door and pushes a small pile through the letterbox. It seemed suddenly horrible that one's words could not be taken back, one's thought allowed none of the remediation of speaking face to face."
Or at an outrageous country hunt, that goes horribly awry: "A great splashing on the pond indicated that many ducks had made it through the barrage and were quarrelling over their options like politicians. In a matter of minutes, Morris would bang the oil can again and send them all aloft to repeat their suicidal mission."
When the Major presents two roses to Mrs. Ali, before they leave for the dinner dance which will also go horribly awry: "'Is one of those for Grace? I could put it in a vase for her.' He opened his mouth to say that she looked extremely beautiful and deserved armfuls of roses, but the words were lost in committee somewhere, shuffled aside by the parts of his head that worked full-time on avoiding ridicule."
And I loved his thought on American television, while trying to shore up his courage to meet his son's new American girlfriend: "She would no doubt make his prior reticence out to be some sort of idiocy. Americans seemed to enjoy the sport of publicly humiliating one another. The occasional American sitcoms that came on TV were filled with childish fat men poking fun at others, all rolled eyeballs and metallic taped laughter."
Ain't it the truth.
All quotes from Simonson, Helen. Major Pettigrew's Last Stand. New York: Random House, 2010.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Wonder Woman Meets Spiderman
I just returned from my first comic con, i.e., Comic convention. My brother, the cartoonist Bob Camp, invited me to join him at the Doubletree Hotel in Portland this weekend, while he did his comic con thing. Bob attends these events, which take place all over the country, to make a little extra cash. He sits at his table prepared to draw sketches of Ren and Stimpy, the animated cartoon characters that made him rich and famous, or anyway moderately famous, back in the early '90s. It amazes me that people are still interested in that psychotic dog and incredibly stupid cat, but apparently the series developed a regular cult following, still going strong after all these years; for these people, Bob is a celebrity.
It also amazed me to sit and watch Bob whip out these sketches, while the people who were paying for them stood and watched his every move. And he assured me that the two or three or four requests an hour he was getting "was nothing" compared to some of the comic conventions, where he is drawing nonstop for six to seven hours. Incredible stamina, it seems to me, on top of the talent and concentration required to produce the sketches themselves.
Bob has done so many other things since Ren & Stimpy, which was, after all, twenty years ago; but this remains his biggest claim to fame, and is what gets him invited to these things.
I wandered around the room at one point, just to see what else was happening. There were a number of cartoonists like Bob, available for drawings on demand, as well as having examples of their work for sale, from poster-sized to post card sized, even printed on the front of T-shirts. A lot of the artwork was macabre to downright gruesome. But what there was much more of was merchandise. People selling everything from vintage comic books (lots of those, though Bob told me that at other conventions that aspect is huge), to toys, to comic-related collectables. There were also plenty of people strolling around in costumes representing favorite comic characters. The whole thing struck me as weird, but harmless.
Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the whole experience was the breakfast we had this morning with two of Bob's fellow artists. Interestingly, both of these guys know Bob from back in the days when he was drawing for Marvel Comics, in New York City, before he moved into animation. The inevitable "claim to fame" of one of them, Rick Parker, is that he produced all of the artwork for the comic book offshoot of the Bevis and Butthead T.V. cartoon. If any characters are less appealing than Ren & Stimpy it is surely Bevis and Butthead! And a lot of Rick's work these days I would have to put into the macabre-to-downright-gruesome category I mentioned above. And yet, Rick is an extremely nice fellow! It would seem he just has an...interest-ing...take on the world.
In fact, one of the things he said, and Mort Todd, the other fellow having breakfast with us, (claim to fame: Cracked Magazine, and more recently, Tales from the Crypt comic series) chimed in in agree-ment: when they were kids, their mothers were always asking them why they didn't draw pretty pictures, nice pictures. But pretty and nice just struck these guys as boring, uninteresting.
Though I'm glad to have experienced one -- and am especially glad to have had the opportunity to spend time with my brother, whom I see so rarely -- I can't say a comic convention is my kind of thing. But then, I've never been into comic books -- except for maybe Betty and Veronica, when I was about 10 (much too nice for Rick or Mort or brother Bob, I'm sure) -- nor cartoons, particularly. I enjoy animated features like Shrek or Ice Age (on which brother Bob worked) or The Lion King as much as the next middle-brow person, but the cartoon shows that appear on television just strike me as a total waste of my time. The Simpsons has never seemed anything but stupid to me, -- and I've never found stupid amusing -- and I've already indicated my feelings about Ren & Stimpy (though most of those show do have their amusing moments), Bevis and Butthead, and the macabre to downright gruesome stuff that seems to be so popular with many folk these days. But the people who produce these things really are all artists, creative people eager to make something, even if it's not nice, or pretty. More power to them.
It also amazed me to sit and watch Bob whip out these sketches, while the people who were paying for them stood and watched his every move. And he assured me that the two or three or four requests an hour he was getting "was nothing" compared to some of the comic conventions, where he is drawing nonstop for six to seven hours. Incredible stamina, it seems to me, on top of the talent and concentration required to produce the sketches themselves.
Bob has done so many other things since Ren & Stimpy, which was, after all, twenty years ago; but this remains his biggest claim to fame, and is what gets him invited to these things.
I wandered around the room at one point, just to see what else was happening. There were a number of cartoonists like Bob, available for drawings on demand, as well as having examples of their work for sale, from poster-sized to post card sized, even printed on the front of T-shirts. A lot of the artwork was macabre to downright gruesome. But what there was much more of was merchandise. People selling everything from vintage comic books (lots of those, though Bob told me that at other conventions that aspect is huge), to toys, to comic-related collectables. There were also plenty of people strolling around in costumes representing favorite comic characters. The whole thing struck me as weird, but harmless.
Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the whole experience was the breakfast we had this morning with two of Bob's fellow artists. Interestingly, both of these guys know Bob from back in the days when he was drawing for Marvel Comics, in New York City, before he moved into animation. The inevitable "claim to fame" of one of them, Rick Parker, is that he produced all of the artwork for the comic book offshoot of the Bevis and Butthead T.V. cartoon. If any characters are less appealing than Ren & Stimpy it is surely Bevis and Butthead! And a lot of Rick's work these days I would have to put into the macabre-to-downright-gruesome category I mentioned above. And yet, Rick is an extremely nice fellow! It would seem he just has an...interest-ing...take on the world.
In fact, one of the things he said, and Mort Todd, the other fellow having breakfast with us, (claim to fame: Cracked Magazine, and more recently, Tales from the Crypt comic series) chimed in in agree-ment: when they were kids, their mothers were always asking them why they didn't draw pretty pictures, nice pictures. But pretty and nice just struck these guys as boring, uninteresting.
Though I'm glad to have experienced one -- and am especially glad to have had the opportunity to spend time with my brother, whom I see so rarely -- I can't say a comic convention is my kind of thing. But then, I've never been into comic books -- except for maybe Betty and Veronica, when I was about 10 (much too nice for Rick or Mort or brother Bob, I'm sure) -- nor cartoons, particularly. I enjoy animated features like Shrek or Ice Age (on which brother Bob worked) or The Lion King as much as the next middle-brow person, but the cartoon shows that appear on television just strike me as a total waste of my time. The Simpsons has never seemed anything but stupid to me, -- and I've never found stupid amusing -- and I've already indicated my feelings about Ren & Stimpy (though most of those show do have their amusing moments), Bevis and Butthead, and the macabre to downright gruesome stuff that seems to be so popular with many folk these days. But the people who produce these things really are all artists, creative people eager to make something, even if it's not nice, or pretty. More power to them.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Here we go again
November 8th, the date of the first snow storm of the season, here in central Maine. We woke up to about two inches of the white stuff on the ground this morning. But the temperature had already climbed above freezing, so the sporadic precipitation had turned to rain. Indeed, at 10:45, when I was out there clearing the roof of my car, and the windshield, I was being pelted by raindrops. By the time I left work for home this afternoon, at 3:45, the snow had disappeared from all the streets, though it still lay on many lawns, with blades of grass peeking through.
Mainly what it was was cold, as it has been for the past couple of days. Overcast, and very windy, the wind out of the northeast. Yes, a good old-fashioned Nor'easter, which we don't really get all that often. But when the weather comes at us from that direction, in off the Atlantic, you'd better have on a good warm coat, a warm scarf around your neck, gloves on your hands. I did, as well as slacks and winter boots, but could still feel the cold.
Of course, farther south, in New York and New Jersey, they were dealing with the same kind of weather, while still in recovery mode from last week's Storm Sandy. People who had just recently gotten power back, found themselves without it again. We've been very lucky here in Maine; neither storm hit us that hard, or had anywhere near the repercussions.
I have to admit, I'm not eagerly anticipating winter weather. I've been here in Maine for only seven years, had to shovel out for only seven winters, but already it's beginning to seem old. Imagine those folks who have lived here all their lives -- 30, 60, 80 years! That's a powerful lot of shoveling...
Mainly what it was was cold, as it has been for the past couple of days. Overcast, and very windy, the wind out of the northeast. Yes, a good old-fashioned Nor'easter, which we don't really get all that often. But when the weather comes at us from that direction, in off the Atlantic, you'd better have on a good warm coat, a warm scarf around your neck, gloves on your hands. I did, as well as slacks and winter boots, but could still feel the cold.
Of course, farther south, in New York and New Jersey, they were dealing with the same kind of weather, while still in recovery mode from last week's Storm Sandy. People who had just recently gotten power back, found themselves without it again. We've been very lucky here in Maine; neither storm hit us that hard, or had anywhere near the repercussions.
I have to admit, I'm not eagerly anticipating winter weather. I've been here in Maine for only seven years, had to shovel out for only seven winters, but already it's beginning to seem old. Imagine those folks who have lived here all their lives -- 30, 60, 80 years! That's a powerful lot of shoveling...
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