What's been happening in your world since a few days before Hallowe'en? Doesn't Hallowe'en seem like a long time ago already? It does for me. The candy was gone within days, thanks to the hard work and effort put in by the Things, who didn't even go trick-or-treating (too old for that sort of nonsense anyhow I guess) but did find the bag stash and applied themselves to ridding the Tiny House of candy, one handful at a time.
I think I was something like 14 the last time I trick-or-treated. Is that too old? It didn't seem too old at the time. Certainly 15 was too old, but 14 seemed OK. Thing 2, who is 14 this year, hasn't made the rounds in like 3 years. We had parties in '08 and '09 but not last year, and if memory serves we MIGHT have gone door-to-door in 08, when he was 11, but I can't remember.
This was an off Hallowe'en to be sure. Oh, we decorated and put up the giant spider and such, but I didn't have a costume (no reason for one) and very few kids came by the house. Biff did dress up to hand out the treats, which did make the evening somewhat more festive, but the drizzling rain and the early dark just took the wind out of my sails, and I normally LOVE Hallowe'en.
Maybe I'm saving energy for Thanksgiving? Don't know. We are travelling ot NoVa this weekend for a quick family visit, as my older brother is going to be up there and my younger borther lives there near Mom and so my Mom wanted to see if we'd like to come up for a pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving. We, naturally, said yes. Then we realized that Biff is playing out on Friday night, so the quick trip turned even quicker, with possibly just a one-night-stay at Mom's. So, OK, fine, that's cool, because that will be a nice time and with the turkey and all we'll be coma-ed out and time will pass more slowly thereby making it feel like we'd been there much longer.
Then Monday I put Biff on a plane so he can go eat turkey with the MI family. The Things and I will turkey it up here Thursday, then I send them back to their Dad's and I come home to sit and stare at walls until Saturday when Biff comes home again.
I'm sure he's rather be flying his own airplane, but as he doesn't HAVE one yet it still makes more fiscal sense to buy a ticket to fly on someone else's plane. Too bad, really, as when you fly your own plane you can do exciting things like play 'spot the airport!' on dark nights.
Like so - Spot the airport in this picture I took coming back from Richmond Sunday evening (hint: this is Louisburg, NC)!
Did you see it?
No?
How about now?
See? Fun game! You'll have to take my word for it, I suppose, that not only IS there an airport down there, but it's in approximately the position circled and that it is remarkably visible the closer to you get to it. From about 15 miles out though it can be tricky to spot, even in the daytime. And this airport is reasonably sizable, compared with some others we've flown into! :)
Flying at night is great. The air is way less bumpy, it's so much easier to spot other aircraft, and the little yellow blobs on the maps signifying where towns are really DO look like that at night. Very helpful navigation aid, that. I'm a fan of the umbumpy air, which was a very lovely perq and really helped me, after a while, to not feel like I was about barf from sheer terror. This was, you see, my very first night flight, and I had no idea what to expect. Shit, I don't even like driving a CAR at night, and Biff's talking about being 4500 feet in the air at night, for over an HOUR? Someone hand me the Ativan! As it was, once I shook off the 'ohshitohshitohshit'-edness of it all and talked myself out of the crazy tree, everything went great. I'd do it again, is what I'm saying.
Now, some of y'all are probably thinking I'm nuts to get in a small aircraft in the first place (Hi Mom!), and you might be partially right, but here's the thing: I do NOT intend on being in the old folks home and not having interesting things to look back on. In other words, as I told Biff the other night: "I'm not going to look back on raking the yard in 30 years and think 'Oh, what a special moment that was.' " I will, however, look back on a semi-spontaneous trip to Richmond to have dinner with one of my oldest friends VERY fondly, and be proud of myself for conquering something that had caught me in a mental rictus of fear. We need to keep challenging ourselves in this life, I think, or we just kind of fade away, becoming a very uninteresting obituary at the end. While my being a passenger in a small aircraft on a short night flight won't likely make it into any memorials that might be had for me after I'm gone, at the very least it keeps the adrenaline flowing and opened up a new experience, one I found I liked and would do again.
Can't say THAT about raking the yard.
Tiff out.
Flying at night is great. The air is way less bumpy, it's so much easier to spot other aircraft, and the little yellow blobs on the maps signifying where towns are really DO look like that at night. Very helpful navigation aid, that. I'm a fan of the umbumpy air, which was a very lovely perq and really helped me, after a while, to not feel like I was about barf from sheer terror. This was, you see, my very first night flight, and I had no idea what to expect. Shit, I don't even like driving a CAR at night, and Biff's talking about being 4500 feet in the air at night, for over an HOUR? Someone hand me the Ativan! As it was, once I shook off the 'ohshitohshitohshit'-edness of it all and talked myself out of the crazy tree, everything went great. I'd do it again, is what I'm saying.
Now, some of y'all are probably thinking I'm nuts to get in a small aircraft in the first place (Hi Mom!), and you might be partially right, but here's the thing: I do NOT intend on being in the old folks home and not having interesting things to look back on. In other words, as I told Biff the other night: "I'm not going to look back on raking the yard in 30 years and think 'Oh, what a special moment that was.' " I will, however, look back on a semi-spontaneous trip to Richmond to have dinner with one of my oldest friends VERY fondly, and be proud of myself for conquering something that had caught me in a mental rictus of fear. We need to keep challenging ourselves in this life, I think, or we just kind of fade away, becoming a very uninteresting obituary at the end. While my being a passenger in a small aircraft on a short night flight won't likely make it into any memorials that might be had for me after I'm gone, at the very least it keeps the adrenaline flowing and opened up a new experience, one I found I liked and would do again.
Can't say THAT about raking the yard.
Tiff out.
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