Book Commercials & Misanthropic Observations

Wow! Has it really only been 2 days?

I left on Friday morning to fly out to Philly and visit my brother, Alex, and his wife, Kaui, for about a week. I would have blogged about how excited I was earlier, oh wait I did - IT JUST NEVER PUBLISHED THROUGH BLOGGER.

Things I was greatful for on the trip out here:

• Patient and kind security guards – no kidding. They were really nice even though I am one of the worst at getting through that gate in a timely manner. I had no idea makeup is now considered a liquid to be separated from your bag.
• The ticket- Alex turned in some frequent flier miles to get me out here. That was really generous, I know they could have easily used them to go to their time-share in Aruba or something equally fun.
• In general friendly fellow travelers. I had my pony tails petted by a very flamboyant man in his 20’s who just thought I was “the cutest thing”, I learned all about someone’s 2 new adopted daughters, his job, his recent fiasco trying to get home after a flight cancellation, and his wife’s new job. My seat mate (this plane was so small my carryon had to be checked after all. There were only 4 seats across and 19 rows in this puddle jumper) was such a large man I felt sorry to see him in that little seat. He just sort of spilled out into my seat and I was grateful to be small, so that maybe there would be a little extra space for him. I scootched to the left as far as I could to help him not feel like he was crowding me and then asked him about his tattoos. He happily chatted the whole rest of the time.
• I was so happy to see Alex.
• His car is one of those square things with huge windows and I could see everything on the drive home. I told him this was a perfect car for alligator alley in Florida – that stretch of highway through the swamp in which there are alligators along the side of the road. That was one of my favorite car trips ever and I would do it again in heartbeat, especially in Alex’s car.

I’ll have to continue this later- I’m more interested in visiting than blogging. My story includes a trip to musicians friend and a gift for paul, a wild night out. See video here. Some old friends, a new friend, Cecelia – Note: Gregg fuchs, I have an LA real estate agent for you. She was very kind to keep checking on me last night as I had a terrible sort of stomach flu. I would have much rather been downstairs with everyone else. They were playing the PS2 version of American Idol. It sounded like so much fun!