Airport musings~

Sitting in Houston's Airport-- Bush Intercontinental-- I face a sun setting over the fin of a grounded Continental jet. There's a football game on TV and Bruce has moved closer for a better view.

I'd rather watch people. An odd lot us humans, but interesting, and nice-- for the most part-- all with a tale, each the lead actor in a drama written only for him-- or so he thinks.

Nobody here looks ominous in anyway. All the random "beepers" were pulled aside and screened further. All water bottles have been confiscated from those who didn't know water was a liquid.

We're safe, those of us waiting for flight 686. It's the weather that may pull a cruel twist with the storm that is due to arrive in Boston while we're only half way there. Or an invisible virus someone harbors.

A mother-of-three adjusts her load. She's determined to stuff a pacifier in the baby hanging in a sack from her front. Her toddler tells her his tummy feels better now and they can go to Texas after all.

"That's good," she says wryly, "because we're in Texas."

I watch a depressed looking woman pull a carry-on slowly down the concourse. She pastes a phone to her cheek, expressionless.

A trio of flight attendants strides professionally by. Each is dressed the same, but the skirt on the bleached blonde-- orange lipstick and possibly botoxed lips-- is three inches higher than the other two wear theirs.

I watch an older couple with their granddaughter. Why do men age so much better than women? Older men-- grey, wrinkles, little paunches-- always come out ahead of women with the same features.

There's a couple with a carry-on bag that wouldn't hold much more than my son's basketball sneakers. In it their dog is curled like a cat and drugged into near oblivion for his flight.

"Can I take a picture," I ask. "She's adorable."

"She's a he," Mr. tells me.

"Sorry," I say as if I've offended a parent with a newborn. "The bow threw me off.

The dog's fur was combed off it's face and fastened with a bow.

"It's a masculine bow." The man smiles.

It's not, but I say, "Yes, like a bow tie," and smile back.

His wife, so fashionably thin she looks like she could curl up in a carry-on herself, doesn't make eye contact. I think the dog is hers. I decide she's a snob.

When we board, dog couple is in first-class where the dog has more room to dream his drugged doggy dreams than I do in my second-class seat where I scrunch for the journey home.

An uneventful landing in sleety snow, a cold dark ride home, and then bed-- four feet narrower than the one we slept in the night before, but the cat's curled between us purring in delight.

Home, sweet home.
~~~~~
James Bond, with two double bourbons inside him, sat in the final departure lounge of Miami Airport and thought about life and death. ~ Ian Fleming