Rocky Mountain High

have been in denver working all week. i don't have to tell you that the land south of the city is on fire. driving along the highways there, ash falls on your windshield like snowflakes. evacuated homeowners stand along high curves watching firelines. on my flight into denver from chicago i heard a man on his cellphone telling his mother that he hadn't made it home in time to get anything out of his house. it all made me wonder what kind of mad person builds a fire in a forest during a ban? is it a deliberately evil person, or just someone who thinks they are more important than the rules? someone who thinks they will be careful, and that the ban is really meant for those people who would let things get out of control? so much property destroyed. i was very sad.

on my flight home, though, i was just irritated. i flew ATA at the last minute, and i won't make that mistake again. on the way there, i thought it was bad enough that they were delayed on the chicago-denver leg by an hour. ha! the flight back to chicago from denver was delayed by 2 hours. when we got to chicago, we landed in concourse F and had to walk to A for the connecting flight, which was on the other side of the airport. no train or shuttle. after waiting at the gate in A for an hour or so, they announced a gate change. back to concourse F. the same gate that we had landed in, as a matter of fact. after a collective sigh, we all trudged back over. forty minutes or so after this plane should have taken off, the fellow at the gate said that the chicago-denver flight was even later than us and so they had to give them our plane. so they came over to our gate, and - guess? - we went back over to theirs...in concourse A. after the nine miles we had walked and the cumulative 4 hours in delays, you would think they would have kissed our asses when we got on the plane. you would be wrong. this was the most psycho bunch of flight attendents i have ever experienced. you know how on southwest flights the stewards sometimes made jokes out of the announcements and its funny? these were like the flight attendents that failed the southwest tryouts. when they were doing the safety demonstration and asked us to direct our attention to the front, after a few moments the girl snapped "for those of you still reading, please put your books down and direct your eyes to the front. if we crash you will be glad for this important information." i'm sorry, but i was under the impression that "crash" was a very bad word to use on the plane. kind of like BOMB. a few minutes later she came out with this gem: "i repeat, all cellphones and pagers should be off and stowed at this time. we WILL NOT take off until you comply with this direction. i'm serious." but the most ridiculous bitchy remark of the night was when we pulled up to the gate in philadelphia, and she gave the standard - "your only indication that it is ok to stand up is that the seatbelt light is no longer illuminated." as the plane reaches the gate and STOPS, everyone unclicks the belt and one man stands up. the flight attendent picks up the microphone and screams "SIT DOWN!" the moment the man sits, the seatbelt light goes off, and she says "ok, you can stand up now." there is a sort of gasp, and everyone files off the plane. we are all stunned as we leave the flight from hell.

Saturday 15-Jun-02