Short Night
On the road again, this time for a short weekend visit to my mom in Perrysburg (Ohio) before heading to Atlanta Sunday to work for the week. My mom has a tree in the basement that she wants me to haul upstairs to assemble, as well as some lightbulbs to screw in, smoke alarm batteries to replace and storm-damaged window well covers to re-settle. I think she might want to visit with me briefly as well.
As always before I depart on one of these junkets, it was a busy week last week. Of course, we were fortunate that we suffered no effects from the rainstorm that devastated a lot of folks just to the south of us. I suppose if I looked hard enough, I could find something to fix, but the only thing I’ve noticed is the south-facing doors have swollen enough to make them hard to open. I skated right out of town without dealing with any of it, though.
So, I took a red-eye flight from Seattle to Detroit, departing at 10 pm and arriving just before 5 am Eastern this morning. Although I had a comfortable window seat that should have been perfect for sleeping, I just couldn’t doze off, and ended up reading several articles in the New York Review of Books. I finally “slept” for about an hour, maybe less, and the drive down from Detroit was kind of bleary.
Like me, my mom’s not a “morning person”, and I’m having a little mercy on her by hanging out at a coffee shop in downtown P-burg until a reasonable hour, like 9 or 9:30. I’m kind of tickled to see that the shop, which I’ve patronized a few times over the last couple of years when I’m here, is still in business, as the “downtown” is Victorian-picturesque, but sort of moribund. And I really need an ass-kicking espresso right now.
I can never sleep on planes. But I would have guessed that a guy like you who’s traveling all the time would be able to conk out when necessary. Guess not. Have two espressos. Sounds like you’re going to need them.
Enjoy your week in Atlanta, Phil. Better you than me! I don’t know how you deal with those red eye flights. Whenever I go out west and have to fly back overnight, I’m a bleary-eyed beast for days afterward.