well, it's one of those times again.

I've been traveling, which always causes me to become pensive. (By the way, the whole lay-off thing last October ended up being a blessing in disguise. I got a new job working from home, and every 6 weeks or so I have to travel.) So as I said, I was traveling this week and it got me thinking. Airports have always been noisy places, but these days they seem especially noisy. Not only do you have the announcements over the loudspeakers, and the rumble of the jet engines, but now you have loud cellphone-talkers, larger crowds of people, and poorly disciplined children. Not to mention all the talking heads on the plasma screen TV's spewing news of deadly bird-flu, elevated terror alerts, and growing numbers of American fatalities in a foreign war that America doesn't even understand. Of course, that's the news you'll catch if you're not distracted by the celebrity news ticker at the bottom reporting Brangelina's pregnancy, right above the stock ticker reporting the plunging stock prices, next to the Pacific, Central, Mountain and Eastern time displays, coupled with the current temperature in every major American city.

Sensory overload, much?

This trip I must say, was better than some. The cellphone talkers weren't as obnoxious as usual, the children were more well-behaved, and passengers didn't bring nearly as much shit with them as they usually do. I didn't get an opportunity during auto-check-in to check my suitcase, so I gate checked it. But I think there was plenty of room in the overhead bin to bring it on board for once! Oh well. I never gate checked anything before. I had visions of us pulling away from the gate and seeing my little red suitcase sitting precariously at the edge of the jetway like a vacationer that just missed their cruise. But sure enough, when I walked up to the carousel at baggage claim later that night, those rubber mudflaps opened right up and spit "Ol' Red" out of it's gaping maw and into my eager hands.

The trip TO the airport earlier that day was not without incident, I'm afraid. From NJ, on my way to Newark Liberty, I took 95 NORTH, as I was told to follow the signs for the George Washington Bridge. I learned, however, that there is a certain point at which you no longer need to follow those signs. Long story short, I ended up at a toll booth and $6 later I was cruising across the GW Bridge which deposited me into the Upper West Side of Manhatten. Now, all I had to do was turn left onto 178th Street, drive 1 block, and turn left again to get back on the bridge. But I couldn't even do that properly and without getting honked at. I pulled up behind the car in front of me, stayed inside my lane, and let people turning right go before I turned left. But apparently in NYC you're supposed to straddle the lane, crowd around the car in front of you instead of waiting behind them, and ignore what you've ever learned about giving people turning right the right of way. (That does explain the mystery surrounding behavior at the grocery checkouts in South Florida) So I drove a whole quarter of a block in NYC. Poorly. But NYC hasn't seen the last of me!

I'll be back.