Tag: scranton

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Dad Blogs Family Life in these United States

Sleeping in a strange bed…and loving it!

(Posted last night around 9 p.m. apparently right before the raccoons took up breeding right outside the house up in a tree)

image So I’m up here at TrishaTruly’s place, and after a relaxing evening of smoked Gouda cheese and a nice red wine whose name my foggy brain cannot recall, I am purt-near pooped. I must admit that I do miss my boys and hearing them on the phone asking, “Where are you daddy,” just about made me get all teary eyed  (just about).

I didn’t plan on blogging at all on my trip, but I happened to check and I know that Trisha has wireless here on the old homestead. So, I just have to get her crypto key before I can get online…something I’ll hit her up for tomorrow.

But, I noticed something on my trip up today: My first plane from Atlanta to Newark was your typical 80-passenger jet. I sat next to a very nice lady who was all dolled up (with pearls). She was a flight attendant coming off of vacation and flying back home to Newark. The other attendants on duty were also nice and well-dressed and overall, it was a decent flight.

And…then…I walked down the runway in Newark to catch my flight to Scranton, PA, only to find myself walking back down some stairs onto the tarmac in order to get on a Dehavilland Dash 8. If you haven’t flown one of these little gems, it’s a dual prop plane that seats about 50 passengers.

And I noticed something that perhaps isn’t applicable worldwide, but which certainly deserves more study:

The quality of the flight attendant is directly proportional to the size of the plane

Yes folks, apparently in the airline industry, SIZE MATTERS!

Whereas with my larger plane from Atlanta to Newark, the crew was nice and neatly pressed; however, the lone attendant on my journey from Newark to Scranton (home of, “The Office”), the flight attendant looked as if she’d woken up late, pulled on last week’s uniform and then had a couple of shots of bourbon on the way into the airport.

Anyway, just something I noticed.

Tomorrow, I meet the oft-quoted “D”, who is Trisha’s Beau and we will drink more wine and eat red meat. A healthy evening if ever I had one. In between all of that, sinuses permitting, I hope to get some sort of workout over at my sister’s house so that I don’t slide even further into being a fat blog of a husband and father. If we get bored, Trisha has offered to lend me one of her rifles so that we can go shoot critters and if I get good enough, perhaps when I get home I can stake out my front lawn in hopes that my turf-destroying mole will stick his scruffy lil’ head above ground long enough for me to shout, “FREEZE GOPHER” and take a pot-shot or two before the cops show up.

Hey, a guy can dream!

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A Boy's Life Dad Blogs Family Life in these United States

The Family (You Don’t Remember) Resemblance

 Weekend in PAI returned Sunday from a trip to Pennsylvania—Honesdale, PA to be exact—where I was visiting my maternal mother and my sister (oh ok, half-sister). Honesdale, in case it sounds familiar, is the sight of the parade at the beginning of the Gina Davis, Samuel L. Jackson flick titled “The Long Kiss Goodnight,” where Gina Davis plays a lowly-housewife jolted out of her hum-drum life only to find that she’s really a top-notch assassin with repressed memories. I give it two thumbs up.

At any rate, I made the distinction that this is my maternal mom because as many of you know (as if there were many of you) I’m adopted and have a caravan of family pieces scattered around the U.S. like goldfish crackers are scattered around the backseat of my truck. My maternal mom, lovingly self-referred to as “Bio-mom,” is a 50-ish aged woman enjoying a rebirth now that she and her husband (also father of my two half-sisters) have gone separate ways. She has a new boyfriend, a new hair-do, and has lost a number of pounds and has apparently sent them packing down here to Atlanta where they were delighted to find a DNA match for a new home around my waistline.

I did a lot of face studying while I was there this time, which is what one does when one looks nothing like anyone in their immediate family. And as one restauranteur my Bio-mom knew remarked upon meeting my sister and me, “Her…I see the resemblance, him, not so much. Must take after his father.” After which I simply sat and enjoyed the momentary noise of the crickets chirping outside until my Bio-mom filled the silence with, “He does.” Said restauranteur felt suitably embarrassed and beat a hasty retreat.

But it’s true, I don’t really look like my mother. I mean, perhaps there is some resemblance, but nothing like there is between my full brother or my two half-sisters so I really have no one to compare myself to.  Which I suppose is kind of good, unless I ever want to know what my hair will do by the time I’m 50 (I’m already going silver so I have a pretty good idea).

The weather turned nice and fallish just as I arrived and my mother and I suited up and took the bikes out on about a 15-mile jaunt. We kept up a pretty good clip actually, stopping a couple of times for a scenic break (the picture at the top is one break we took). I also got a couple of good workouts in at my sister’s house where her husband has set up a gym fancy enough to rival most hotels I’ve stayed at. So all in all, I felt good about all the wine and cheese I ate while I was there.

Monday morning I dropped by an old bosses’ office to say hi and I mentioned my weekend to him. Knowing that he is a recreational biker, I also mentioned that I rode about 15 miles this weekend. Then, as a courtesy, I asked how his weekend went and then I listened with increasing agitation as he explained how he did a 100-mile cross-mountain bike race up in the North Georgia mountains. Ah well, I guess I did ask.

I wonder what time the gym opens in the morning…