Entries this day: arrived-in-sugarland good-morning-in-seattle hanging-out-with-ma on-time-for-flight-to-iah

arrived in sugarland

(written 22:12 Friday 04 October 2019 CDT)

Ma and I chatted while waiting for Nico to arrive and clear customs. Fun chatting with her and nearly finished solving the latest NYT crossword puzzle. I can see how it would be a good way to keep the ol' left brain sharp.

I chatted with the nice driver of the shuttle bus as she drove us to the IAH parking lot a couple miles away from the airport. I asked if she could drive us to Sugarland (an hour away), and she said, "just let me get some gas first.." I love that quick wit!

Ma drove us to Sugarland via Google Maps and then drove us to the grocery store 600 meters away before heading on her weekend adventure.

Nico and I bought food at the grocery and went through the self checkout lanes and chatted with the clerk there who had no other customers. "Are you busy??" I jokingly asked her. I asked her for the codes on various produce I had bought, but all the items were to be scanned! I was like, "you kids have it so easy! When I was a boy we had to memorize all the codes..."

At the end, I was like, "where's the discount button?" and she said there wasn't one, but if I had a Kroger card, I would get a discount. Sweet! Aw man I should have used my card with Nico's checkout as well; I don't think he got one.

On the way out of the parking lot, I said HI to a woman locking up a nail salon shop. I ran up to her, "oh please just one more customer??" and she laughed saying she had just come back to get her back pack.

I love that I can banter with clerks here so easily. Cannot often do it in Tokyo.

Walked back to the house and now in my own room, with own adjacent bath!

good morning in seattle

(written 09:53 Friday 04 October 2019 PDT)

This morning Colleen woke me up at 6:40 as I hoped to leave by 7am for the airport. I was shocked to know Ryan had already left; I didn't notice him at all while I was sleeping.

I am grateful that Colleen woke me up after I had not set an alarm or anything; I was just able to conk out asleep last night and she handled all the details.

Traffic was super smooth toward the airport and smooth experience from baggage check-in out on the curb to quite polite TSA agents in through the gates. Thank you, SEA-TAC!

hanging out with ma

(written 22:26 Friday 04 October 2019 CDT)

Ma came to the baggage claim area to wait for me! We took the subway (subterrainian electric vehicle that ran on rails that looked relatively light) to the hotel and got some food there. I marveled at the size of the portions, but there was no in-flight meal so I finished what we ordered.

The veggie burger tasted somewhat like raw meat. Not sure if I would have enjoyed it if I thought it was real meat.

Ma and I did some real talk about when she and Dad divorced, so that was nice.

She told me about a play that Jon is in, where his character actually sits in the audience and interrupts the play near the end.

That sounds amazing, so I hope I can watch it sometime.

I am tired and writing this while sleepy; I am going to take a shower and go to bed. I do not have wifi access yet, so will have to take care of that in the morning.

on time for flight to iah

Yay Colleen for adulting me safely to the airport! As we gave huge hugs at the drop off area, we joked about adulting and I asked her to let me know if she figures it out!

Great to see a snippet of her life in Seattle.

I wrote bye to Colleen as I was on the jetway, but it did not go through because apparently no wifi there.

Flight departure prep now.

09:31 Friday 04 October 2019 PDT

The in-flight TV system had to be rebooted or something, and it was neat to watch as each seat's TV got a separate DHCP connection to the server. I could see them slowly progressing from front to back of plane.

There are some sisters on my row (spread across the aisle) and their mom in seat diagnally in front of me. Sisters had some sort of hand signal communication which brought back memories.