I was quite pleased with myself for getting to JFK nice and
early, despite the E running local, so I couldn’t be too angry to discover the
pre-check line wasn’t open (why would you open pre-check at J-F-effing-K on the
23rd of December, I mean really) but that didn’t mean I was happy to
have a guy try to upsell me on Clear while I was there. I’m usually a sucker
for spending money to make things easier/faster/closer but every so often
something sticks in my craw and that thing happens to be airport security. I
was wearing slip-on sneakers (um, they look cooler than that sounds?) but
because one TSA agent hadn’t told the other that I was pre-check I had to go
back and take the dumb shoes off and go to the end of the line and none of what
happens in that “security screening” area makes ANY sense to me. I brought my needle
case with me so as not to risk being needle-less at any point and I can’t even
COUNT how many potentially deadly objects I was allowed to bring on board but
my stupid slip-on sneakers needed proper scrutiny for SURE and so I guess there
is a reason I don’t work for the TSA. It’s also a good thing that I don’t as I am
not sure I would be able to handle those people who have packed all their
belongings in their 47 pockets, except, of course, for their full-size bottle
of shampoo, and while they laboriously empty those pockets they also want to
argue about whether or not that 32-ounce bottle can come with them. Who packs
that much shampoo and no conditioner?
Somebody made a joke once about how airports are completely
lawless places—you can drink a beer at 11 am, if you’re tired you can just go
to sleep on the floor—and though it was hardly 1 pm sure enough there were some
people powering through Buds with bourbons back and I even saw someone asleep on
the AirTrain platform in Terminal 2, which, dude, there are MUCH nicer places
to crash. Terminal 4 is practically a resort.
I was back in NYC for a little over a week before heading
out on a Tour de Family. I got to see a couple of friends while I was home, the
kind of friends that can make me laugh until I cry. I also snort-laugh when I
really get going which occasionally seems to startle people sober and I
apologize if I have ever killed your buzz by turning out to be part horse.
G and I went to the natural history museum and there were
dinosaurs made out of fir tree branches which was pretty cool but then some
morons had named them “Dot” and “Spot.” Like are you even TRYING? (This is Dot.)
There was also a very excellent holiday tree decorated
exclusively with origami and I was quite entranced, even though there were eels
involved.
G and I have a mutual “friend” who went through an origami
phase and we were both super excited to share this origami news with him despite
the fact he was absolutely certain not to care at all as he’s been out of the
origami phase for literally years now. G is a millennial so she had managed to take
and caption and share pictures before I had even gotten started and I was very
angry with her for scooping me so this is my holiday card you are welcome.
I also went out to the Jerz to visit with the Gs, who I have
known for lo these more than twenty years and while we’ve been sitting around
drinking beers/wine and yakking away for pretty much that entire time it never
gets old.
So that Malcolm Gladwell has done a couple of episodes of
his podcast about things sport people do that they shouldn’t. E.g., the entire
W/NBA should be shooting free throws underhand. Losing hockey teams should pull
their goalies with something like eleven
minutes left, not the one or two
that is the accepted norm. Football teams could win two-ish more games a season
(a season!) if they stopped punting on every fourth down. Gladwell gets all
worked up about this and it’s fun to picture him sitting alone in a recording
studio shouting about how Shaquille O’Neal could have truly been the best
player of all time but he’s not wrong: despite clear, scientific evidence as to
what works and what doesn’t there is something about refusing to acknowledge
that evidence that makes us such adorably flawed, ignorant, stubborn, and miserable
human beings.
That said, there are some decisions for which there is
little science to use as a gauge so you just gotta go with your gut and I have
no regrets at all about saying yes to the Tour de Family because the road show
includes my 18-month-old niece. I expect to spend the entire trip skulking
around in the background with my knitting and a glass of wine and leave it to
June to do the heavy lifting, and in return I will eventually teach her to knit
and to drive (these are my two transferable life skills). My sister may not
take me up on the driving thing since she was the 11-year-old I left home alone
when I used to take my parents’ car out at night, in secret, but realistically
how long can those psychological wounds last? She had to know that me saying “Don’t
tell ANYONE or you’re DEAD” was an empty threat—if my parents came home
unexpectedly it would have been the missing
car that clued them in and she wouldn’t have had to say a word.
Club Crackers!! and missing cars. :D
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