i can haz cheezburger? on dis plane??!?

the more i fly the more i appreciate small airlines and small airports.

i know those of you with the fly-over state mentality won't believe it, but minneapolis st. paul is an actual big city (prince came from there...maybe that'll help you?) with a genuine international airport, completely stocked with asinine security personnel. i mean, they're not as bad as those at o'hare (fuck. o'hare. seriously.), but they are fully as unpleasant as those at seatac.

that is, in the main terminal.

being dropped off for the homeward trip after my recent unfun absence, giant signs at the Main Terminal directed us to the Junior Miss Terminal for my airline du jour. on the road between the two, the traffic dropped by 75%. i glanced out the rear window as we pulled up to the building and could've sworn i saw a badger.

i was wrong, of course.

it was a woodchuck.

from setting foot through the front door, it took me a mere 7 minutes to collect my boarding pass and clear security. at Tplus ten minutes, i had a G&T, an internet connection and was about to order a quesadilla twenty feet from my departure gate.

but the biggest surprise came on the plane, when the flight attendant handed me a cheeseburger.

oh sure, i had heard them mention a cheeseburger during the post pre flight announcement, but i assumed they were joking. or hadn't caught the price. or had misheard completely. i was ready to believe anything rather than that they were actually going to hand me a warm and tasty cheeseburger and not ask me for any amount in exact change. yet, that is what they did.

ok, really the cheeseburger wasn't _that_ tasty. i mean, come on, it was microwaved for heavenssake and ultimately fell somewhere between 7-11 and work-refrigerator-vending machine on the Nuked Cow Patty scale.

but it was a meal. on a plane. handed to me by an airline employee. who was smiling.

which i feel pretty sure must violate some FAA regulation somewhere. someday they will lay down the smack with extreme prejudice. and there will be no more smiles, cheeseburgers, or woodchucks. and in their place will be mandatory security pat downs for people who've reserved their tickets less than 24 hours before traveling, internet fees, and general bitterness and despair.

but, until they find out: nom!

On the day you die, your inbox will still be full

and, in case you wondered, yes, you will be getting sales calls.

anyone can see we're together

both my mom and sister are interested in the fact that i got a minor touch of (well-hidden) sunburn whilst enjoying the outsideyness yesterday. they want me to snap a picture, because this is a rare event due to my quarter share of hungarian blood. also, due to both of their utter lack of the touch of the Hun, i suspect they want to gloat for once.

my sister has been told she'll receive such a shot in return for a picture of her finally-beginning-to-look-pregnant self. i turned mums down cold because of her refusal to record a recent reportedly spectacular bruise.

if i know how to do anything, it's hold a grudge.

speaking of,

apparently i have an impending letter from an uncle who- sigh. ack. how to make this short?

he was an ass at my father's funeral. in my mom's house, 2 days after the man died, this uncle sat at mom's kitchen table drinking folgers and being an ass.

why? well, because my dad was an ass, if you want the truth. and he'd particularly been an ass in the prep for _his_ father's funeral.

(as someone quite dear once told me someone once told him, anger is contagious. and apparently so is assholeishness. and possibly everything else that starts with an "a". i'm looking at you, anthrax.)

so i've grudged it against this uncle person for nigh on 11 years now. a light grudge though, frankly, that has mostly faded into lazy habit and consists largely of not seeing or contacting him. and this would not be noteworthy in any way if he did not happen to live quite nearby. in a city that rhymes with "gederal hay". if certain bruised people could keep their mouth shut, i imagine no one would be any the wiser on this unsettled score.

but now this letter. sigh. whether he apologizes or explains or rails it's really... not worth the trouble to me. i've not lost anything. we were never close before. he was a once yearly glimpsed relation. certainly not part of my chosen family. after this much time, make up or piss off, either way, it's a irritation of less interest to me than my minor sunburn.

(which i share now, by the way. no grudge against you, dear reader. i like you.)

either way, though, i expect the letter will make me feel bad. practically a certainty, as i already feel bad at the mere idea of the letter.

stupid letter. i hope the postman eats it.

brushing up on your small talk, part whatever

me "what he needs to remember is how much worse he could have it."

co-worker who needs a nickname "he could be breaking rocks in the sun."

me "he could be making friends in the shower."

c.w.n.a.n. "don't drop the soap."

other co-worker who needs a nickname "oh, it's not _dropping_ the soap that's the problem."

c.w.n.a.n. "just don't go after it."

o.c.w.n.a.n. "yes. once you drop it, it's gone."

me "this soap is dead to me."

we got puppets

last night was the first time in a long time i did not walk out of the theatrrr struggling with a bag of puppets -

puppets are portable!

- for the delightful reason that the puppets are done, yo. sigh of relief.

(i wish i could say the same for the masks. but they are this close () to being in a similar state of AllDoneOcity.)

don't trust your soul to no backwoods southern lawyer

i was northbound on 15th, heading away from the heart of beautiful downtown ballard, driving home from TECH when this happened.

everything suddenly went dark. dark dark. navy dark. everything. even the traffic signals took about a minute to recover to emergency power. it was eerie.

and worrisome, as i live in ballard.

fortunately for me the outage ceased about a block from erik the half a house. so i was able to nuke myself some beefaroni and watch an hour or so of jane eyre before sacking out.

(hey, it's tech, we're lucky that i'm bathing.)