Travel Tales and the Big Party

I returned from my 4 day jaunt back east to Wilmington DE via Philadelphia. My sojourn in Wilmington was unremarkable except for the chaos I encountered at the local Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet that I stopped at for dinner one night. Orders were misplaced, orders were mis-filled, orders were late...I only mention this because this mirrors what happens at our local KFC also when we go there. The only difference between the two places are the accents of the workers. Maybe all KFCs are this way? The truly comment-worthy events happened on the flight back to Burbank. The flight stopped in Dallas and even though the destination was Burbank all of us Burbank bound fliers had to get off the plane with our stuff and then re board. Do you think they do this just to irritate the traveling public? But, this still isn't what I am commenting about. Actually I have two things to comment about. First are the poor travelers afflicted with the slow disease. Not only do they lumber down the isle of the plane but then when it is time to stow their steamer trunks over head they must (in this sequence) 1. look at the overhead compartment; 2. look at their trunk (repeat 1 & 2 at least twice) 3. stuff the trunk in the compartment; 4. shove the trunk futilely trying to fit 10 lbs into a 5 lb sack; 5. turn the trunk sideways; 6. pat the trunk as if to say to it 'don't worry, I will be sitting just below you'; 7. stare at the item, fixing the location in the traveler's mind so it can be located when the plane lands; 8. stare at the seat that the traveler's bottom will be occupying for the next several hours; 9. touch the bag again (optional: shove the bag some more); 10. try to close the cover over the bin. 11. give up and sit down. Version 1.1: stand up and repeat steps 9,10,11. The WHO and the CDC should give up worrying about the swine flu and develop an inoculation for the traveler's slow disease. There seemed to be an alarming outbreak of it on my flight on both legs of the journey!! The second comment relates to the Army reservist on the flight in his ACUs who got the full court In The Army By Association treatment. He only has himself to blame for traveling in ACUs but he did score a free meal from the friendly flight attendant (the other FA was the mean one - it reminded me of the nice cop/bad cop routine from the movies). What is In The Army By Association treatment? This is where the soldier hears from both men on either side of him the reasons why they were not able to join the military (they really, really wanted to, but..) but, since they do not have their own stories to tell, they told the stories of other people that they know who were in the military. This went on for at least an hour. It got so bad that the young woman next to one of the guys telling the second hand tales started in with her second hand military tales! I mean, it is bad enough when you are telling your own fibs about your service, but when you repeat someone else's yarns....give me a break! I bet that Staff Sergeant was ruing the day that he thought that traveling in ACUs would be a no-brainer.

Friday night was the BIG PARTY at Vogeley estates. This was Craig's high school marching band and color guard end of band camp pool party and it was held at our house! The stakes were enormous for Craig's standing in the band and the school. If it was a flop, he was a ruined man. If it was a success, well let's just say that his stock would be listed as a buy on the school stock exchange. Kurt being the most excellent brother and bonvivant realized that the plans needed to be juiced up and raced out to purchase tiki torches, super soakers, nerf balls, floating toys for the pool and appropriate dips for the chips. Kurt's touches were just what was needed to make the party a success. Over 60 kids showed up. They are all reasonably well behaved, polite, and kept the damage to a minimum. The noise level was high, the food was consumed in massive quantities, and I had to add water to the spa and pool twice to compensate for the water splashed out. The band director and his wife spent most of the party on-site and complimented us on: 1. Craig; 2. our other children; 3. our dogs; 4. our pool, house and back yard; 5. our parenting skills. After all of that we were ready to agree to pool parties once a month. Pretty much at the scheduled end time of 10 p.m. the kids started heading home, thanking us for the party and telling Craig that he has a cool pool and it was a good party. At 10:30 Craig had to go in the back yard and ask the last couple who found that the swing for two and the tiki lights provided just the romantic atmosphere if they were going home or what? Way to go Craig!

The next morning we left for Laguna Beach and the Pagent of the Masters...more on that later.