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How much do I care?

Blog kitt decided around 13:25 on 6 June 2007 to publish this:

I'm sitting here at the airport, waiting for the passengers from the previous flight to disembark from the plane I will board in ten minutes. To my right is the line to board the plane in the first boarding group. To my left is a short but growing line of people also in my boarding group.

Between these two lines is a woman with sense. She recognized the people sitting in the chairs by the window were actually in the first boarding group line. Rather than walk down the aisle between these rows of chairs, one of which my butt is sitting, she has chosen to stand at the end of the row of chairs, forcing everyone else who shows up for this boarding group to line up behind her.

And that line is growing.

Yet, there are empty seats around me.

Looking at the other boarding lines, I realize the flight will be full and even if I board at the and of the first group, I will get a good seat, one where I am on the aisle and can get up to use the lavatory, without interupting my temporary travelling companion's sleep. Or game. Or reading.

I am tempted to gather my two bags, my two very heavy bags, and move farther to my right, allow these people access to these empty chairs around me.

I stand up to move down a seat.

But, to do so means I jump in line in front of the other passengers around me, the ones who were here before I was and who should have earlier dibs on the good seats, than I.

I sit back down in my original seat.

Yet, is there really any difference between row 14 and row 15? Do I care if the ten people to my immediate left board before I do?

Maybe I do. I stand up.

Maybe I really don't. I sit back down.

The woman at the end of the row of chairs watches me, amused. She doesn't move.

No. No, I really don't care. The flight lands at the same time, whether I'm in row 12, 17 or 25, as long as I have an aisle row.

Any other row, and the flight takes an eternity.

Winning the argument

Blog Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 15:24 on 20 February 2007

Two Fridays ago, Kris and I went to Seattle and visited with Ben, Lisa and Jake. Ben, at one point, showed us Jake's Michelin Man legs and arms, where his baby fat rolls jiggled and folded. At some point soon, Jake will hit his second baby growth spurt and lose all of the jiggles. Until then, however, Ben is showing it off.

On Wednesday night last week, at communal dinner, I mentioned we had journeyed north and seen Jake, and wasn't he just the most adorable butterball? Beth commented that, look, everyone has a line on his arm, just above his elbow, where his roll of baby fat made a permanent crease in the skin. No, really, look, look.

We all looked, and sure enough, we all had those lines. Sure, some were really faint, almost invisible, but still there.

So, today on the drive from the airport with Kris and Heather, we talked about this fact when Heather and I were catching up. When I said everyone has this crease, here, look, look, Kris chimed in, "No, not everyone."

Well, the man with less than 4% body fat could be right, but I wasn't going to admit it any time soon. I pulled up his shirt sleeve and tried to find his crease. "It's there," I insisted, looking.

We found Heather's really fast, and mine was findable. Kris' not so much. "Well, it's there."

"No, it's not."

"Yes, it is. You just can't see it."

"If I can't see it, doesn't that mean it's not there?"

"There's a subcutaneous crease that isn't visible from the surface. So, yes, just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not there."

"Okay."

"Okay? That's it? I won the argument? I can't believe you're giving up that easily."

"You used 'subcutaneous' in an argument. How can you not win?"

Heather piped up from the back seat, "You two are such geeks."

QotD: Dreamy

Guest Post Blog Instead of being asleep at 15:59 on 8 February 2007, vickib created this:

vox.com is shutting down. This is a post from Vicki's vox.

What did you dream about last night?

I dreamt that we were traveling to China - Eric, me, and the 3 kids, although they were all teenagers. The plane was leaving at 2:22 am and we didn't get out of bed until ~ 1:30. There was about a cup of milk left in the refrigerator. Chris drank that and Kitt and BJ were putting small items in their bags. Like one pair of underwear! Everyone was moving in very slow motion and I remember remarking that if we didn't get going we were going to miss the flight (!!!). Then someone checked to see if the flight was delayed. It was! And that's when I woke up.

I wonder how that trip turned out! :)

Curse of the Amazon Prime

Blog Posted by kitt at 15:19 on 2 February 2007

The worst possible retail ploy to hit the bottom line of my bank account balances has to be Amazon's Prime service. First they lure you in with a free three month subscription to the service: sign up for free second day delivery for three months. After three months, there's no way you can't continue the sercice: you're addicted on the inexpensive prices for items you can afford to wait two days for.

Worse, if you order late at night, which actually is not only the only time I have during my frantic days as of late, but also the time of least resistance and possibly of worst judgement, Amazon will treat that day as one and your order can be your hands in less than 36 hours.

Yeah, if that's not one of the longest sentences on this page, I'd be shocked. Not technically a run-on sentence, but still one a high school English teacher might cite when deducting points.

Heck, I'd deduct points for that one.

Right after I deduct the next chunk of change and hand it over to Amazon.

If I had a job there, would they pay me in books?

QotD: Don't Worry, It'll Heal

Blog kitt decided around 15:08 on 19 January 2007 to publish this:

How many bones have you broken? Yours or someone else's?

Six ribs, one collar bone and one toe, not necessarily in that order, and only 2 of those breaks weren't from ultimate frisbee.

The last breaking was two years ago. I was smooshed by Ben at a practice, a few weeks before Sectionals. My account of the day:

QotD: Reflecting on September 11th

Blog Posted by kitt at 16:07 on 12 September 2006

What are your personal memories of September 11th?

It's four in the morning, and I'm woken by the sound of someone outside, going through the trash bins in the neighborhood. Tuesday morning, a good four hours until I need to wake up and all I can think about is how annoyed I am at the sure to be homeless person who is rummaging through my recyclables, pulling out the ones with the California deposit.

This annoys me, and I call the police. The non-emergency line has a pleasant voice. I give my details, my address, what I'm hearing, yes, they will send a car out to talk to the person, do I know which direction he's heading?

I stumble back to bed.

Four hours later, the alarm goes off. Jumbled words blare from the speaker. Unintelligible words. Without thinking, without worry, Kris reaches over and smacks the snooze button. Nothing registers for him. I hear a few words.

Four minutes later, the second alarm goes off. It is silenced just as quickly as the first.

Five minutes later, the snooze ends and the first alarm and Kris reflexively reaches to end the noise again.

"Wait," I ask. "See what's going on. That's not normal talk."

He rolls over and looks at me. What wasn't normal about the alarm, his eyes question, but he rolls out of bed anyway, and stumbles to the livingroom to turn on CNN. We have cable because he needs his ESPN. We have a television because he needs his baseball. I wanted neither, but he prevailed on that topic.

Kris returns five minutes later.

"You need to get up. New York is on fire."

I ask him what he means, as I struggle to wake fully. What is on fire? What happened? What's going on?

He doesn't know. It's bad. It's in New York. I need to wake up now.

I wake up.

At the end of the day, I wonder what the homeless person with my cans and bottles is doing. Did he know the enormity of the day? How could I have been so small, calling the police on a person doing what he needed to survive? What a petty act of mine, having the police talk to someone for taking cans, when five thousand people died so horrifically.

The images of the jumpers.

The homeless person stealing cans and bottles.

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