trip's start

Daniel's IM

SFO to LAX

LAX to EWR

Saturday

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Friday 20 May 2005

06:45

I'm up. Bags. packed. Family breakfast.

08:00

I'm leaving the house. The kids pose with me in our front yard.

What I see through our front gate. Neither of the kids wants me to leave, but I've explained the difference between trips one wants to take and the ones that must be taken.

I was going to walk to the 16th Street Mission BART station, but I'm running a few minutes late, so here comes a train at the Castro MUNI stop.

A few minutes later the SFO Millbrae BART train arrives.

A panorama of the highway as seen from the train. Usually we're on the highway, looking for BART trains.

The kids' favorite treat spot: the Daly City Krispy Kreme. Were Isaac here he'd be jumping up and down with joy.

We arrive at the SFO International building.

09:51

I'm sitting on the floor by gate 61, terminal 3, American Airlines, SFO (San Francisco Oakland) airport. I've just swapped my ticket for a seat in an exit row with a PowerPort electrical outlet for my PowerBook. Yea! That's a bit of good news, although I'm so tired that I will probably sleep for a good chunk of the flight. I'm doing a backup to DVD right now, as my attempt to mirror the disk failed early this morning. My fault for waiting until the last minute for that sort of thing.

10:19

Imagine that; the guy next to me is also using a PowerBook. First time *that's* ever happened to me on a flight. It's nice. He just showed me a commercial for a deoderant which included people jumping out of buildings onto buses, cars racing around on two wheels, and a bunch of commuters hanging from a helicopter's struts. So far, so good.

We pull away from the gate.

10:45

We're airborne. That's SFO below us (at left) with Crystal Springs (where water has filled in the break made in the earth by the San Andreas fault, at right).

11:00

I'm sipping coffee and eating the pastrami sandwich breakfast I bought in the airport. (This morning I shared a bit of the breakfast table with the kids, but I ate only one waffle.) I visit the head, returning just as the seat-best light is turned on due to turbulence. American Airlines coffee is rather good; a pleasant surprise. Time to hit the head.

My seat does have a PowerPort, and I'm wondering whether the gate agent gave them to me on both legs. Obviously the 50-minute flight to LAX is less important to me than the 5-hour flight to EWR. We'll see.

Said Daniel this morning, in response to me asking how he's dealing with Mom's illness and decline:

well....yesterday I was driving through Ibiza and I thought....in all houses someone was born and someone was dying...so why not my sister????

There's this poem, you see, called Allen Ginsberg Dying, which has in it some lines particulary resonant to me:

There is nothing to do about it
He is dying the death that everyone dies

11:25

Heading over the Los Angeles valley, towards LAX.

We're at Los Angeles International (LAX) airport.

previous

next