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Home, home, sweet, home
...and a very happy cat who won't stop grooming me.
The trip from DC to Atlanta passed quickly, as the guy next to me was a talky guy and was interesting, so we chatted the entire way. Which was good, because it kept my mind off the turbulence - not much, but you have to understand that whenever I fly, I hold the plane in the air through sheer force of will.
I come by the phobia naturally: back in 1985, as some of you may remember, there was a huge crash at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. A Delta plane took off, got caught in wind shear, and crashed just off the end of the runway.
My family and I'd flown out of that airport to Seattle four hours previously. On Delta, as I couldn't forget, because every traveler's first question for the next three days was "Did you fly Delta?" I haven't flown Delta since, not because I've avoided them but because I usually fly out of Houston or DFW, which are hubs for United and American, so I tend to fly those most of all (that is, when I'm not flying British Airways to the UK XD).
The flight home in 1985 wasn't fun - I got so incredibly sick that I thought I was going to throw up the entire time, and my grandfather was afraid, during our layover in Salt Lake City, that we wouldn't make the connection. And I usually get sick right before a flight now - thanks to Imodium and Dramamine I can control it, but it doesn't stop me getting stressed out. It's gotten better through the years, though; I no longer need the Dramamine, and I can occasionally fly without the Imodium. :) But if we hit turbulence, or fly through a thunderstorm, it gets bad and I have to work to keep myself from panicking. (The worst flight I was ever on was a puddlejumper from DFW to College Station, the last plane out before they closed the airport for thunderstorms. Constant bumps. I really should have just rented a car and driven - it's a 4-5 hour drive and would have been MUCH easier on my nerves.)
I'm guessing because the planes fly a lot higher now, that we don't hit turbulence as much, since most of my flights have been pretty good. And large planes are even better - flying 777s overseas have so far been the easiest flights, probably because I don't get so claustrophobic.
Anyway, with all of that, when we were boarding the plane in Atlanta and the gate agents said "Please board as quickly as possible, as we'd like to get out before the storms hit," you can tell I was praying my subconscious hadn't picked up on that. :D But we sat in the plane for an hour and a half because they closed the airport due to lightning danger for the ground crews, which made everyone around me grouse, but me ever-so-thankful because I did NOT want to take off into a thunderstorm. And they waited until the line of storms had blown east, which made the flight home smooth and clear. Yay.
Got in, transferred my worrying and panic to whether my bag had made the connection, then to whether I'd get to my car in the parking lot, then divided it between worrying that my apartment had been broken into and whether I'd left enough food and water for the cat.* But all was well, and my cat was happy to see me. She'd brought her pink fuzzy thing that she drags around when she wants attention to the door, so I'm wondering if she was indulging in a little magical thinking - "if I drag the pink fuzzy thing to the door and meow, will she hear me and come home?" It made an appearance by the side of the bed this morning, so she obviously wanted more attention when I was dead asleep. XD
Plans for today: go out (terrifying the cat, I'm sure) and buy caffeine, food, and kitty litter. Then come home and sit on my ass and read and pet the cat.
* I had. She only drank half the water and ate about half the food, so she was perfectly fine, just bored and lonely. I'd have gotten someone to come in a couple of times and play with her if I'd known I was going to be gone this long.
The trip from DC to Atlanta passed quickly, as the guy next to me was a talky guy and was interesting, so we chatted the entire way. Which was good, because it kept my mind off the turbulence - not much, but you have to understand that whenever I fly, I hold the plane in the air through sheer force of will.
I come by the phobia naturally: back in 1985, as some of you may remember, there was a huge crash at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. A Delta plane took off, got caught in wind shear, and crashed just off the end of the runway.
My family and I'd flown out of that airport to Seattle four hours previously. On Delta, as I couldn't forget, because every traveler's first question for the next three days was "Did you fly Delta?" I haven't flown Delta since, not because I've avoided them but because I usually fly out of Houston or DFW, which are hubs for United and American, so I tend to fly those most of all (that is, when I'm not flying British Airways to the UK XD).
The flight home in 1985 wasn't fun - I got so incredibly sick that I thought I was going to throw up the entire time, and my grandfather was afraid, during our layover in Salt Lake City, that we wouldn't make the connection. And I usually get sick right before a flight now - thanks to Imodium and Dramamine I can control it, but it doesn't stop me getting stressed out. It's gotten better through the years, though; I no longer need the Dramamine, and I can occasionally fly without the Imodium. :) But if we hit turbulence, or fly through a thunderstorm, it gets bad and I have to work to keep myself from panicking. (The worst flight I was ever on was a puddlejumper from DFW to College Station, the last plane out before they closed the airport for thunderstorms. Constant bumps. I really should have just rented a car and driven - it's a 4-5 hour drive and would have been MUCH easier on my nerves.)
I'm guessing because the planes fly a lot higher now, that we don't hit turbulence as much, since most of my flights have been pretty good. And large planes are even better - flying 777s overseas have so far been the easiest flights, probably because I don't get so claustrophobic.
Anyway, with all of that, when we were boarding the plane in Atlanta and the gate agents said "Please board as quickly as possible, as we'd like to get out before the storms hit," you can tell I was praying my subconscious hadn't picked up on that. :D But we sat in the plane for an hour and a half because they closed the airport due to lightning danger for the ground crews, which made everyone around me grouse, but me ever-so-thankful because I did NOT want to take off into a thunderstorm. And they waited until the line of storms had blown east, which made the flight home smooth and clear. Yay.
Got in, transferred my worrying and panic to whether my bag had made the connection, then to whether I'd get to my car in the parking lot, then divided it between worrying that my apartment had been broken into and whether I'd left enough food and water for the cat.* But all was well, and my cat was happy to see me. She'd brought her pink fuzzy thing that she drags around when she wants attention to the door, so I'm wondering if she was indulging in a little magical thinking - "if I drag the pink fuzzy thing to the door and meow, will she hear me and come home?" It made an appearance by the side of the bed this morning, so she obviously wanted more attention when I was dead asleep. XD
Plans for today: go out (terrifying the cat, I'm sure) and buy caffeine, food, and kitty litter. Then come home and sit on my ass and read and pet the cat.
* I had. She only drank half the water and ate about half the food, so she was perfectly fine, just bored and lonely. I'd have gotten someone to come in a couple of times and play with her if I'd known I was going to be gone this long.
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Yay! You're home! Your cat is happy!
(And sorry about the phone call ... it was too silly. I was with smillaraaq at Sakura Matsuri downtown, trying to get my husband on the phone to talk about dinner plans, and after failing to get him on his regular cell phone, found what I thought was his Blackberry-phone number on my incoming calls list ... only it wasn't.)
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