Run!

First domestic trip within the US and almost missed the darn flight :) That was a good lesson learnt - never ever schedule an early morning flight again :) Reached the airport for checkin at 7.20 for a flight at 7.50! Hows that for being prompt ;) To say that my jaw dropped when the lady at the counter said that I was late by a minute for checkin and that I couldn't get on the flight is an understatement. More like being jerked alert in class when you were blissfully half asleed with not a care in teh world :)

And then it nearly hit the floor when she said she could reschedule me for another flight for a hundred bucks. That was so reassuring to hear first thing in the morning! I guess my appearance was such that she took pity and decided to take a chance at letting me board the same flight. After the gratuitous acceptance of two akkas of northwest, I made it into the plane just in time for the air-hostess to exclaim, well you made it just in time. She closed the door after I stepped in. Well atleast this wasn't the first such experience. Wasn't much unlike the other night searching the trichy bus stand for a bus to madurai at 2 in the morning with an uncle. Anyway, settled in and promptly dozed off. Up at 6 is tough :)

A sudden realisation later when i was wide awake and realised i'd slept all of 40 minutes and had more than two hrs to wile away. Had I not been in such peach of health when i travelled to the us, I would have been mightily bored trying to spend the nearly 27 hrs. Dozing off helped, thanks to cold n fever. Never have I taken such a view of such struggles :)

However, in all of these moments of high strung drama one had to admire that God is indeed generous to have positioned members of the opposite sex charmingly favourably disposed to strike a conversation zuerst on the bus when I was expressly thinking of ways to kick my own behind for oversleeping and then much later on the flight. Providence that she was german and I could speak in that language with someone after years? He does move in mysterious ways :) Wish I can make a trip to that country later on. Pipedream as of now.

At times, when you'd rather be left alone and spend time contemplating, you'd tend to notice little things that are hardly given a moments thought. Kids jumping up and down crying 'mommy, mommy aeroplane' when at the huge glass windows in the airport. Such unbridled excitement with big shiny things never ever leave you. And kids like this, remind you of them should you do so.

Of course, when theres good, theres bad. For a journey that would cost all of 30 bucks, the taxi driver propositioned to drive me there for 300. He was from delhi. Enuff said. Our autowallah budhi never seems to leave us. But years spent in madras deciphering the hints that the autodrivers give when trying to fleece you, does give you a certain knack of smelling anything fishy.

All things said, there are pleasures in life to be enjoyed. Such as driving down the highway in a mustang at hundred. An SLR would be a higher pleasure though. One more thing in the to-do list in life I'd say.

Been immersing myself in the Masters music for a while now. When I build my own house later on, in which I'll build a library, I'll devote an entire shelf for the Masters work! Promise.

-- The blackberry is awesome to note down stuff :)