phyncke

I got home too late to post this last night and was also very tired. I do enjoy travel and like to recount some of what happens while going from place to place. I grew up traveling on my own to domestic points in the US, regionally from Massachusetts to Upstate NY (Buffalo environs) and then later to Ohio (Cleveland and Youngstown area). I took planes by myself and it used to be much simpler to go from point A to point B. My parents were divorced, I was dropped at the gate and flew by myself to either parent's home when I needed to go.

So this time, point A was Seattle and point B was Oakland...and I had to go through the security at Seatac (Seattle Tacoma Airport). I love this airport and I have to say that their security was on top of things there. They checked through the carry on bags a lot more thoroughly and managed to confiscate my toothpaste and hair gel which were too big to go through. According to regulations, passengers are only allowed to bring through 3oz of such items. What made me so surprised there was that these very same items caused no problem at Oakland International Airport on my way out...and they had been carried through security in the same manner. Oakland was a lot more lax on what they let through. Different cities, different standards. I find this interesting and would further theorize that it must be like this all around the country. The TSA standards can be set centrally, the regulations handed out and distributed across airports all over the country and then these are implemented differently at each airport that you go to. My gel was ok in Oakland but not in Seatac. Ultimately this bummed me out because I will have to spend some money to replace that very expensive hair gel and today my hair looks sub-standard and a lot more frizzy than usual. I have not yet purchased my new hair product. I was able to buy a small tube of toothpaste at the airport so I could brush my teeth that night and in the morning. I was flying in so late, no stores would have been open on my way home.

Today, I had a really nice day. I am still on vacation. Our extra long furlough continues and the University is closed until January 7. Lest you think this is a good thing, I will remind you that this represents a pay cut to all employees who work there ranging from 5-10%. Our hours and pay have been reduced. Personally, I am enjoying the longer break and am trying to adjust to less money. Making less BE more is hard but not impossible.

I did various errands today toward that end...to the consignment store, to the hardware store, to the bank. People were nice in a positive, new year's, let's have hope kind of way. One woman told me I "smelled nice" and that I "had beautiful eyes". I thought that was nice. People were chatting in general and seem to be in the mood to leave 2009 behind and make the most of what is coming down the line in 2010. This is just a feeling I have as I do my daily rounds of stores, grocery, post office, consignment....places where you wait in line and have to sit with people any duration. A tempered optimism.

I am probably reading too much into what people say, but it is making me feel glad that we are in a new year and that sometimes it is good to put the past behind you and look to the future. We have a President who presents a strong positive image, a legislature that is trying to put national healthcare together for the people who need it...I just think, things are rolling and there is a lot to be positive about. Yes, it will take work but we are a country that has historically worked hard. We can do this.

Way too late here and this post came out of nowhere but these things are on my mind.

Be well...

He wrote this...


Faerie is a perilous land, and in it are pitfalls for the unwary and dungeons for the overbold. And overbold I may be accounted, for though I have been a lover of fairy-stories since I learned to read, and have at times thought about them, I have not studied them professionally. I have been hardly more than a wandering explorer (or trespasser) in the land, full of wonder but not of information.

The realm of fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords. In that realm a man may, perhaps, count himself fortunate to have wandered, but its very richness and strangeness tie the tongue of a traveller who would report them. And while he is there it is dangerous for him to ask too many questions, lest the gates should be shut and the keys be lost.


in his essay On Fairy Stories. From this you can tell that he immersed himself in his world and travelled there often. I just love that he truly transported himself there and walked among the elves.

I am making this my current reading as I want to know more about JRR Tolkien and what he thought. This is just the beginning of it but it seems so interesting to me and I thought I would share.

I never doubt I am in the right fandom for me. I find endless wrinkles to it and consider myself a traveller too.