Return to California
Dec. 24th, 2021 06:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aI had to pack so many socks. So many socks. A pair for every day of the week. Eight pairs! That's like a month's worth of socks in Hawaii, and I wear socks a lot compared to the average resident, because I don't like to walk in wet grass in my slippas.
Jackets. So many jackets too. My rain coat (which is usually in Julie, mainly used up at Kokee). A light jacket for hiking (which hasn't been worn in two years). A heavy pullover (definitely not worn in two years). My flannel shirt (which I actually wore in the last few cool, wet days in Hawaii, mainly because I was reminded of its existence by our upcoming trip to the Bay Area).
At the airport yesterday I was hauling our suitcase and a box packed with Christmas presents (and a few of my shirts for padding).
At agriculture inspection they asked, "What's in the box", which they pretty much never do, but I later decided was maybe because cardboard boxes were a common method for trying to smuggle fruits and vegetables out of Hawaii.
(I never understood why there's agriculture inspection leaving Hawaii, not entering, because it seems like we'd be worried more about getting pests into our protected ecosystem.)
"Presents," I said.
Then when we were standing in line, the Alaskan Airlines people were super helpful. A guy ran up, grabbed my box and tossed it up by the counter while we got our bag tags (box blocks?) and waited to go up to the counter.
I don't understand why, but they scanned all of our tags that we'd just printed out and checked our IDs, which seemed weird because we were already checked in. Probably new security theatre from TSA.
Then, after we were checked in, the Alaskan Airline staffer ran over, grabbed our suitcase and box and carried them to the bag drop-off.
Wow. Make mine Alaskan.
We boarded the plane first, as usual, because of Kimberly's bad foot, and while I was fighting to get her scooter's handlebars down a limping old man scuttled past us.
He was grumbling about the masks, saying "They cause more problems than they know."
He'd clearly been doing his "research". By which I mean he was an ignorant idiot.
Of course, he sat in First Class.
Not unhappy he was so far away. Because he sounded like someone stupid enough to be unvaccinated.
Rather to my shock, at takeoff time we were told we weren't leaving because ten passengers hadn't made it through security yet.
I always though locking-the-doors-ten-minutes-prior-to-takeoff meant locking-the-door-ten-minutes-prior-to-takeoff, and I mean c'mon, Lihue is *not* a hard airport to get through. We took 15-20 minutes today, even with dropping off our luggage, and our TSA-pre only saved from stripping down and then getting dressed because there was no TSA line when we got there. So if they were late today, they were really not trying.
But, the airline waited, and a family of 10 eventually straggled in, and we were off maybe 15 minutes late.
No biggie, and I'd say they're going to say "Make Mine Alaskan", but they actually had the exact air of privilege that I expected when they sauntered in and started making disgruntled noises about the lack of space for their carry-ons.
Thankfully we were seated at least half a dozen rows from the obligatory screeching child, required on any flight of 4 hours or more.
I was a bit distressed that they're no longer checking temperatures at the airport.
The guy behind us was snuffling like his nose was jammed with mucus.
The girl who sat in our row (No more airplanes to Hawaii laid out with just two seats to the sides!), kept popping her gum that she chewed obsessively and had troubles keeping her mask over her nose.
Yeah, flying is a bit stressful now. That was certainly one of my stressors heading out, because I don't want to get trapped in the Bay Area with COVID, especially not with a likely needy cat at home.
But, I was double masked, Kimberly was double masked, and everyone else was masked even if old first-class Trumpist has delusions about what we don't know about masks and even if nose covering is apparently optional from time to time.
(Thinking about splashing out for First Class on the way home so that we *can* have two seats without anyone else with us.)
Face recognition software doesn't work very well when you're wearing a mask.
(I kept having to open my Galaxy pad by hand on the plane.)
Almost no one leaned their seat back the whole flight.
Are Alaskans more polite than Hawaiians (and Europeans, given the miserable tightness of so many flights to the continent)?
We landed, we met Bob, we got back to San Martin. we had a tasty casserole.
The house is a little chilly, but our house in Hawaii has been chilly for a few weeks, with gray weather and lots of rain. So, not so different, other than the looming cold I can feel just outside the windows.
My dad sent us a picture of Lucy eating around 6.30pm yesterday.
She looked at the camera with a betrayed looked on her face.
(Meanwhile, today, she was accepting chin rubs and looking contented, her normal people forgotten.)
Today was a full day.
We breakfasted. We watched a documentary on Sparks. We lunched. I helped my mom figure out why she was seeing her mail have someone else's name on it. (It was a bad Contacts entry, definitely not my first or second guess.) We walked Zeke and Joy out at the loop. (I ended up wearing the light jacket and the heavy pullover. It's cold outside!) We played Boomerang Australia. (I won 130-129-128-120, but I was the only one to have played it before.) Shrimp dinner is coming up.
Good to have some quiet time away (mostly) from problems of pandemic and away from the stresses that we'd had at home in recent months. And good to see family that we unexpectedly hadn't seen in 2 years(!).
Jackets. So many jackets too. My rain coat (which is usually in Julie, mainly used up at Kokee). A light jacket for hiking (which hasn't been worn in two years). A heavy pullover (definitely not worn in two years). My flannel shirt (which I actually wore in the last few cool, wet days in Hawaii, mainly because I was reminded of its existence by our upcoming trip to the Bay Area).
At the airport yesterday I was hauling our suitcase and a box packed with Christmas presents (and a few of my shirts for padding).
At agriculture inspection they asked, "What's in the box", which they pretty much never do, but I later decided was maybe because cardboard boxes were a common method for trying to smuggle fruits and vegetables out of Hawaii.
(I never understood why there's agriculture inspection leaving Hawaii, not entering, because it seems like we'd be worried more about getting pests into our protected ecosystem.)
"Presents," I said.
Then when we were standing in line, the Alaskan Airlines people were super helpful. A guy ran up, grabbed my box and tossed it up by the counter while we got our bag tags (box blocks?) and waited to go up to the counter.
I don't understand why, but they scanned all of our tags that we'd just printed out and checked our IDs, which seemed weird because we were already checked in. Probably new security theatre from TSA.
Then, after we were checked in, the Alaskan Airline staffer ran over, grabbed our suitcase and box and carried them to the bag drop-off.
Wow. Make mine Alaskan.
We boarded the plane first, as usual, because of Kimberly's bad foot, and while I was fighting to get her scooter's handlebars down a limping old man scuttled past us.
He was grumbling about the masks, saying "They cause more problems than they know."
He'd clearly been doing his "research". By which I mean he was an ignorant idiot.
Of course, he sat in First Class.
Not unhappy he was so far away. Because he sounded like someone stupid enough to be unvaccinated.
Rather to my shock, at takeoff time we were told we weren't leaving because ten passengers hadn't made it through security yet.
I always though locking-the-doors-ten-minutes-prior-to-takeoff meant locking-the-door-ten-minutes-prior-to-takeoff, and I mean c'mon, Lihue is *not* a hard airport to get through. We took 15-20 minutes today, even with dropping off our luggage, and our TSA-pre only saved from stripping down and then getting dressed because there was no TSA line when we got there. So if they were late today, they were really not trying.
But, the airline waited, and a family of 10 eventually straggled in, and we were off maybe 15 minutes late.
No biggie, and I'd say they're going to say "Make Mine Alaskan", but they actually had the exact air of privilege that I expected when they sauntered in and started making disgruntled noises about the lack of space for their carry-ons.
Thankfully we were seated at least half a dozen rows from the obligatory screeching child, required on any flight of 4 hours or more.
I was a bit distressed that they're no longer checking temperatures at the airport.
The guy behind us was snuffling like his nose was jammed with mucus.
The girl who sat in our row (No more airplanes to Hawaii laid out with just two seats to the sides!), kept popping her gum that she chewed obsessively and had troubles keeping her mask over her nose.
Yeah, flying is a bit stressful now. That was certainly one of my stressors heading out, because I don't want to get trapped in the Bay Area with COVID, especially not with a likely needy cat at home.
But, I was double masked, Kimberly was double masked, and everyone else was masked even if old first-class Trumpist has delusions about what we don't know about masks and even if nose covering is apparently optional from time to time.
(Thinking about splashing out for First Class on the way home so that we *can* have two seats without anyone else with us.)
Face recognition software doesn't work very well when you're wearing a mask.
(I kept having to open my Galaxy pad by hand on the plane.)
Almost no one leaned their seat back the whole flight.
Are Alaskans more polite than Hawaiians (and Europeans, given the miserable tightness of so many flights to the continent)?
We landed, we met Bob, we got back to San Martin. we had a tasty casserole.
The house is a little chilly, but our house in Hawaii has been chilly for a few weeks, with gray weather and lots of rain. So, not so different, other than the looming cold I can feel just outside the windows.
My dad sent us a picture of Lucy eating around 6.30pm yesterday.
She looked at the camera with a betrayed looked on her face.
(Meanwhile, today, she was accepting chin rubs and looking contented, her normal people forgotten.)
Today was a full day.
We breakfasted. We watched a documentary on Sparks. We lunched. I helped my mom figure out why she was seeing her mail have someone else's name on it. (It was a bad Contacts entry, definitely not my first or second guess.) We walked Zeke and Joy out at the loop. (I ended up wearing the light jacket and the heavy pullover. It's cold outside!) We played Boomerang Australia. (I won 130-129-128-120, but I was the only one to have played it before.) Shrimp dinner is coming up.
Good to have some quiet time away (mostly) from problems of pandemic and away from the stresses that we'd had at home in recent months. And good to see family that we unexpectedly hadn't seen in 2 years(!).