On the road again

Headed out of town for a few days ... and because of this traveling mindset, I need: cash, a new article of clothing, a very eye-candy-rich and mildly interesting magazine (usually I end up with O Magazine, but not always), and hard candies in my purse. I wonder why those are the things I always want. When did I start this list? College? It's always the same list now, anyway.

The cat knows something is up and is being as big a pest as she can be. Cats are a lot like young children - no verbal ability, but an infinite capacity to act out any nervousness vibrating in the air. And I have the window wide open (which tempts the aformentioned feline to put her rump in my face as she walks across the desk to sit in the open window). The rain is making that sound I love. It sounds like surf. The creek flowing in the background blends in with the rain on the already soaked grass and leaves and driveway gravel. This is a very juicy day.

Random thoughts occur as I get myself ready to go. I'm glad luggage got wheels on it, for instance. Three decades ago, there was much schlepping of the stuff inside airports. And I didn't have to remember to pack my nail file in my checked luggage either. The bad airline food was free, and they still served Lilliputian bags of honey roasted peanuts. And I swear to you, the seats were larger and there was more leg room, and this is crazy-making because the people were (on average) smaller.

Air travel has lost nearly all its romance since the days of Cherry Ames, Flight Nurse and that other book ... um ... Vicki Barr. Yeah. Her name was Vicki Barr. The Airlines sent letters to the young ladies who qualified for training, telling them not to get permanent waves before they came. If they graduated and got hired, the airline would pay for the permanent waves. (It took me several years to figure out what a permanent wave was.) Cherry and Vicki were in a box of books a neighbor gave me once. Her daughters (they were really old - ten, maybe fifteen years older than I was) had outgrown them long before, and she was cleaning out her basement, and I was the beneficiary of her flurry of home organization in that already thoroughly organized house. I loved those books - and didn't realize that they were seriously outdated even then.

The romance is gone from the airports, planes, and stewardesses ... but that cannot be the sole reason I have only about an hour before I have to leave and I have not even opened a suitcase to pack yet. Maybe it's the rain.