Easter 2015.

We ate waffles with Supriya this morning. Then, she met some more family.

We ate dinner at my mom's and dad's. It was lovely. I made a cake.

[this is not all of the family. my mom, for instance, is curiously not in this selection.

but it is some of the family. also, these are not, in all cases, the best pictures of said family 

members. just fyi.]

We watched The Good Wife, which: whoa.

windstorm = dust storm = crazy vistas.

The day is done.

(and also I wrote this poem.)

The flight path.

Recently, I realized that we live pretty much directly under a flight path for Salt Lake International Airport. I realized this, because I spent much more time outside, a lot of it looking up, evidently, especially in the mornings and the evenings.

This reminds me of the time a few years ago, when I made an unfortunate wrong-airport ticket purchase on my way back to American from Scotland. This error necessitated the hiring of a driver to take me from Gatwick to Heathrow, which, by the way, is not as simple as it sounds. Pro tip: don't do that. I did, however, get this benefit: the driver, who knew the back roads of that small city, Heathrow, like a native, showed me how the planes stacked up, waiting to land. Even in the sick winter haze, I could see more than ten planes in the air, lined up, waiting waiting waiting for the signal to land.

This evening on my walk, I saw as many as four planes in a holding pattern, right above me. If we lived a few miles further north, it would be awful--so much noise and so constant--but where we are, we can see the planes clearly without too much engine roar. Holding holding holding, then each in its turn, surging forward. Then the next one, and the next.

Holding, holding, holding. Then the next, and the next, and the next.

I won't spell it out for you--that would be gauche--but this is a metaphor.

Well, hello. For better or for worse, I'm back.

Travel, for real.

So, despite a truly ridiculous amount of sulking when I found out I would not be going to AWP this spring (alas, I want to pout afresh! but no, I shall bravely carry on--), I am in fact traveling across America this spring. Just not to AWP.

I will be traveling with a large and representational and therefore perhaps high maintenance? group from my college to a large and official and therefore perhaps a bit high stress? conference in Philadelphia. We will be taking off at a ridiculous hour on a Saturday morning, have brief layovers--what I would, if I had booked the travel myself, have decided were unrealistically, terrifyingly, connecting-flight-missingly brief layovers--read "dashes through unfamiliar airports"--going both directions, and I will be staying four nights.

In my travel algorithms, this means

• clothes that will make a possible nine point five outfits, because sometimes you need to choose.
• six pairs of shoes, because you can't possibly accurately predict the precise shoes you might need, when in a foreign land such as Philadelphia.
• various grooming products that I cannot live without I am so not joking!
• scarves, obv.
• pocket money to run to the drug store (oh, I have already researched the drug store nearest the hotel, yes I have.) for stuff I will have no doubt forgotten, such as my toothbrush perhaps.
• important reading material, plus
• magazines.
• laptop,
• iPod,
• chargers galore, and
• other stuff I can't bring to mind right now, but any one of which forgotten might make the trip an utter disaster.

Oh, and also I still have to put together my presentation.

So the real question is this: carry on? or check?

I am, as the above list no doubt screams  implies, a checker. Yes, I know you have to pay the fee. Yes, I know they lose your luggage sometimes--indeed, my luggage has been lost once or twice. Yes, I know it adds time (which is money!) to the torturous hours you have already spent in airports.

But I loathe the wrestling of luggage in the tight space of the aircraft. I loathe other people doing it around me. And honestly, I loathe the idea of doing without a single thing that I may need to feel comfortable, put together, myself, when I am so very far away from home. It is already making me a little crazy. Currently, I am considering the following options:

Plan A: carry on. For this eventuality I bought a bunch of little empty travel containers of various shapes/sizes/capacities. Pare down my clothes, etc. to the bare minimum. Try not to act squirrelly and rookie-like at the TSA security extravaganza.

Plan B: carry on. Buy almost all grooming products when I get there, at the drugstore I have researched. Wasteful, but you don't have to struggle with the little bottles, quart-size ziploc bag, the suspicious grillings of the TSA personnel, etc. Worth it, possibly?

Plan C: check. Like a sane person. Seriously.

In a French airport: a consideration.

Yesterday I got on the airplane. But first I stood in a really, really, really long line. And then I bought a heavy magazine, by which I mean a magazine full of pages. But before I bought the magazine, I packed a lot of things, like striped shirts and jeans, and two heavy books, by which I mean books full of pages. And I also charged batteries for things like my camera and my laptop. So, while I was standing in a really really really long line before I bought my magazine and before I got on the airplane, I was full of things: contemplations about whether I had packed the right things, and whether there would be internet on the airplane (no), and all the things I hadn't finished and whether I should worry about them, and the thought that I would be on an airplane facing an unknown dinner and many many many hours in a window seat.

All this precedes my arrival this morning at the French hour of onze heures in Charles DeGaulle Airport. Whereupon I had to figure out precisely where my connecting flight was, but then had several hours to cool my heels. But first I had to stand in a really, really, really long line with my laptop and two heavy books and not my heavy magazine which I left on the first flight, but even so, all that stuff had attained a specific gravity that was somehow heavier than when I left Salt Lake City. Maybe because of the hours on the long flight in a window seat.

Well, when the heel-cooling started, I was able to obtain for you the following observations:

• airport food is expensive, but there is some good airport food in a French airport. But it is expensive. I had a baguette with crevettes et pamplemousse et epinards and some spreadable fromage. And that, ladies and gents, mesdames et messieurs, was a pretty good airport sandwich. But the exchange rate!
• the French--speaking now about the entire culture, history, arts and design and economy --have some pretty impressive luxury goods. Some of which you can buy at the airport, but whoa. The exchange rate! not to mention the original cost of things!
• pastries.
• macarons. (I am not a fan of eating the macaron, but I think they are adorable and very, very pretty.)

It is possible to lose track of what's going on in a French airport when you have hours to cool your heels and you've previously spent many many many hours on a trans-Atlantic flight in a window seat and--I think this goes without saying--not enough sleep, plus the steward guy kind of woke you up by shoving a heated-up bagel in your face because you have the special, aka ovolactovegetarian, meal. For instance, you might think your flight is leaving from one gate because that's what the kiosk robot told you when you got off your trans-Atlantic flight at onze heures, French time.

But then, after the heel-cooling and the light dozing in fits and starts you did because of all the aforementioned, you might drag your heavy bag and your heavy self to another display to decipher that your heel-cooling locale is, in fact, not your actual gate. So then you depeche-toi to your actual gate, and get on your airplane, and despite the fact that they're speaking French over the airplane's intercom and that the crew seems to be, in fact, bona fide French, the flight is sans amenites. Nary a pastry nor a baguette with jambon, nor a macaron (I think this goes without saying).

But this is, paradoxically, not so bad. Because the lack of amenities means that, for the first time on this trip, you sleep. For the whole flight. Two hours of excellent airplane French-inflected sleep.

It's almost a cliche.

Dog park bonus--