Well, anyway. I trust you've read Parts One and Two of my bathetic tale of Winter travel. "When it rains it pours," goes the old expression, meaning when things go wrong, things keep on going wrong, or get worse.
Get worse it did, my Monday. In Detroit, it was sunny and clear—but they'd been inundated with snow. The outer taxiing lane hadn't yet been cleared, so for a while our plane roamed the gates like the Mayflower roaming the coast of New England, forlornly seeking a port. At one point we came nose-to-nose with another jet and had to do a 180 and trundle away. Jets don't do 180s; we had to wait for that little tugboat cart, whatever those are called, to pull our nose around.
Then when we arrived at the gate, it turned out that many of the airport employees had been prevented by the storm from coming to work, and we had no ground crew; another long wait for our turn. (Those guys must have been overworked. And another hackneyed expression momentarily took on vivid life: "so close and yet so far.") Once we did get to the gate, the lights were off in the ramp and we had to exit the plane in the dark.
But I eventually made it to the gate for the backup flight (where there was a large, milling crowd), confirmed my seat (the crowd was restless), and texted S. to tell her that I was at the gate an hour early, and my troubles were over, and all was well. And while I was poking out that text, letter by painstaking letter (my fingers are too big for the iPhone 4S), the announcement came that my second flight was delayed by an hour.
As you might expect, that hour, too, turned out to be considerably longer than 60 minutes.
So finally I got to Milwaukee about 11 hours after leaving S.'s beautiful cozy house and her warm embrace. At baggage claim, my formerly new suitcase was comically battered—covered almost artistically with new scuffs, as if a set designer had done it for a movie—and the nametag—not a homemade affair, but store bought—was ripped half off and broken. The bored luggage porter had no clue how to get from baggage claim to long-term parking. It was dark by then, and it was about six degrees Fahrenheit, yet somehow it was not a dry cold. It was a bone-chillingly wet cold. I was starting to get tired by then. I trudged out to the car thinking okay, done. Good. I really have had enough now. I'm really glad this is finally over. Found the car without incident.
What could go wrong from there? Nothing, right? I was home.
...Wrong! The car, which was rimed with road salt, was stone dead! It would not blink or beep at me in greeting. The cold had stilled its willing electronical heart. And of course all the locks are electronic. The driver's door has a keyed backup but nothing else does. Standing there deep in a dimly-lit parking garage that was colder than a meat locker, wondering what to do next, I couldn't even get my battered suitcase into the trunk.
At that point, I really did start to get discouraged.
This story has already gone on too long, and I'm hoping you're feeling a mixture of sympathy along with a modicum of merry schadenfreude as well, because there really was something deeply comical about my day. Ya have to laugh. Remember that old episode of "Seinfeld" in which Jerry and Elaine are taking a airline flight? Jerry gets moved up to first class, where he leads a lovely charmed existence sipping champagne with a supermodel, while Elaine suffers the comically exaggerated slings and arrows of discomfort and frustration back in coach. My two trips were like that.
If you've ever been in a long-distance relationship, you know what it's like, and if not, then you've heard about it. The stories are true. There's genuine misery built into the situation. The two of you just want to be together, and it's painful when you can't be. I'm not superstitious, and I only believe in Karma in a half tongue-in-cheek, "My Name is Earl" kind of way. But I've decided that the two legs of this journey constitute a message from the Universe. When I'm headed toward my beloved S., all is sweetness and light, anticipation, and smooth sailing; everything is lifted on the effortless breeze of happiness and goodwill; everyone has a smile for me. And when I'm leaving her again, suddenly the world transforms into something dysfunctional and dark, worrisome, brooding, lonely, dangerous, difficult—a chaos of bungles and impediments and SNAFUs, troubles and toil. I get it, Karma (says Earl). Message received.
My trip dramatized the quintessence of the long-distance relationship, in two acts.
It took only an hour to get the car started, because (thanks, Karma!) I discovered I had Acura Roadside Assistance. Once the grubby work had been done and the car was running again, I was told I should drive for twenty minutes to recharge the battery before shutting off the car again. So I drove to my favorite restaurant, which, it turned out, was exactly twenty minutes from the airport. Did I mention that I was already too late to pick up the dogs, and had to pay for an extra day for both of them? Did I mention that the long-term parking, which I'd decided on so I could get to that doctor's appointment, cost $247? Did I mention I'll have to pay for the doctor's appointment even though I missed it? Surely I mentioned that it was snowing and the roads were hazardous?
Well, I probably don't need to tell you this, but the car wouldn't start again at the restaurant. Strained gurgling noises and pained flashing lights...not to mention my sinking heart. I was fully into fatalistic mode by that point, however. The hour it took the second "Roadside Rescue" truck to arrive was not too much longer than 60 minutes either, which I took as a positive. I have to give Acura good marks for their Roadside Assistance program. Which, I promise, I will never take for granted again.
A day of inconvenience is not a truly bad day, not compared to real misfortune. I do see the humor in all this. I arrived home just about exactly 15 hours after leaving for the airport that morning, after a net total of only a little more than two hours in the air. And then I had to drag myself out for a meaningless 45-minute drive around the countryside, because I wanted to make good and sure, this time, that the battery'd had enough time to recharge. (I do have a trickle charger, but, having just moved, I have no idea where it is.) Yes, it was snowing. Of course conditions were poor. But I relaxed into the drive and actually enjoyed it, despite the slippery conditions...I know the roads around here, and the manual in that car is better than a BMW's, I swear. Returned home, took a very hot bath, and—at last!—collapsed into my bed. Ahhh.
Before I leave this story I have to show you something. This is just a record snapshot, not a photograph—I was not able to make a photograph of it*—but the edge of the storm out over Lake Michigan was just astonishingly, fantastically beautiful to behold. You can only get the merest sense of it from this:
As we reached the edge of the cloud cover the sun itself was blocked from view by the heavier, higher clouds, and the intense golden sunlight emerged from below, reflected off the Lake. For five minutes the view changed with every few seconds we traveled. It was otherworldly; it hardly seemed like the planet I know, but like some other planet or some science-fiction Shangri-La. I didn't make much of an effort to look at it through the camera—I just watched it, wonderingly. A sight to behold.
And that brings to mind yet another hackneyed old cliché—a hopeful one this time, about silver linings.
Mike
(Thanks to S. for a lovely visit, and no, I do not blame her for the trip home.)
*We were speaking about Fraenkel Gallery books the other day, in the "Plot Thickens" post—one of their books I have, a very elegant production filled with highly enigmatic photographs, is called The Unphotographable.
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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:
Mark: "This is the reason I won't have a long distance relationship. Well…that and the fact that my wife won't let me."
Mike replies: You laugh (I did too), but actually one of the problems of LDR's is that they "read" emotionally like affairs—intermittent periods of pleasure punctuated by longer spells of distance and detachment. It takes longer to get over the infatuation period, longer till you get to that important "first fight," and longer to settle in and learn what it's going to be like to be together long-term. All of which tends to prolong rather than shorten the inherently unstable, intermittently painful LD situation. (All this is according to a psychoanalyst friend, not just me...I'm no expert myself.)
Steve Rosenblum (partial comment): "You don't get one drop of sympathy from me about your travel saga—you are most obviously in love! The other stuff is just trivial background noise in comparison. Love can get you through a whole lot of plane delays. Congratulations!"
Mike replies: Actually, I'd go through the same thing every trip, both ways, if the reward were two weeks with S.
David Lee: "Note taken Mike. I am a pilot and I promise I will never start a PA with those words....
"Type I fluid is de-icing and type IV is anti-icing. It shouldn't take that long because as soon as the anti-icing process starts, countdown for takeoff also starts. Depending on the conditions, we have a short time before ice and or snow starts accumulating again. Once airborne, the aircraft anti-ice takes care.
"I fly for a living and I love it, but the mindset to do photography is exactly the opposite of the mindset for flying. Sometimes is difficult for me to leave the the room in a layover and start thinking as a photographer again. Hard to explain, but as a photographer I like to be on a passive mode, just walking without an established route and not thinking about what comes next, just looking."
Mike replies: Thanks David. I'll change the term in Part II. Seems to me we did take off very soon after the green coating (type IV anti-icing) was applied.
Kathy: "I think it was the oxymoron, "beautiful southern tier", that that tipped me off that it was love. Eventually you'll be taking the one-way trip to Niagara Falls after which, if Mark Twain is right, you get to settle down in North Tonawanda to raise a family. Welcome to New York. You could do worse."
R. Edelman: "Glad you got back safe and sound. I am sure you understand why doctors charge for missed visits. It is not just the lost income, but the loss in fixed overhead. My office also has a policy to charge for 'no shows,' but it is not for the full amount of the visit. And the fee is waived if the patient is a long-standing and reliable member of the practice, or if there is a good reason, such as a hospital admission, family emergency, vehicle broke down, and even travel delays. Calling ahead to cancel is always a good idea if this can be anticipated and if it is possible to do so. The policy is there to keep 'no show' abuse to a minimum, not to punish loyal patients. So I would ask your doctor for a reprieve on the 'no show' visit, or at least a discount. After all, we have all been there, and we like to get, and give, a break when possible."
Earl Dunbar: "Hello Mike. My name is Earl. Really.
"I'll leave the karma discussion for later, one hopes in person.
"I know it's terribly, horribly unfair, but being in close proximity the Finger Lakes, on Monday I simply stayed put and worked from home via VPN, as did my wife. We had les chats et les chiens to keep us company and I was able to make that extra steaming mug of Lapsang Souchong, sourced from Tea Source. (A hat tip to Ctein for turning me on to Tea Source—what a treasure!)
"Funnily enough, I once had a long distance (OK, relatively short distance,) relationship with a lovely woman near Ithaca, and even though the visit intervals were five days, it seemed longer.
"I do recall the 1977 blizzard, and a follow-on nor'easter in January of '78. Traveling from Wallaceburg, ON to the US Midwest, I saw cars spin out in front of me on I-94 in Michigan. Not nearly as harrowing as your travels through Ohio, but the images remain. I now make sure I always drive an AWD vehicle and have Honda Care."
Pritam Singh: "You've written an enjoyable read, tribulations notwithstanding, thank you."
Mike replies: You're welcome, and I'm glad to hear it. I never know if people will enjoy these longer first-person essays or not...my basic idea about them is that one every now and then can't hurt.
now, and I have It's What I Do for the Kindle app and also in hardcover. In this case I'm going to recommend the hardcover. It's a compact, solid, well-made book printed on good paper, and the numerous color illustrations integrated into the flow of the printed matter are particularly well done.
(from Tasmania, Australia)? This is one of the best as far as I am concerned."
keeps the edge in fine shape. Cheap? Yep! Effective. You bet. Bragging rights? Who cares?"
with a short bolster, and no slip handle."
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($22), which allows you to steep the coffee in the filter holder for 2–4 minutes before draining. I pourover using a 
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($95) that allows for temperature setting, as well as a less expensive 
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or glass carafe version
by Terrence Pitts and Manfred Heiting costs only $12.33...and that's for a big 9.4 x 12.4-inch, 224-page book, which must rival the record ratio for great photographs per penny. I can't vouch for the repro quality, but if you don't like it, you can make yourself look magnanimous by donating your copy to a local school library and not be out more than the cost of a few Starbucks' Caffè Mistos.
