Sandy's First Blog

My apologies to our readers for my not getting into this blog stuff as soon as I would have liked, but here you go. This first one was written only a few days ago in the Newark Airport when we did not yet know we would get here okay and that ... well, the trip would get better after the initial surprise! glitch.

I used to say that the hardest thing about travel was getting off the couch, but, given the start of this trip, I would like to modify that statement: the hardest part is getting to the airport, especially when you realize that you have no Plan B. In other words, if I don't get there in time, Lee has no idea what to do. We had no backup plan; we just had Meet at The Airport.

So, to get ready for this venture, I go the clothes washed; the gifts chosen; made arrangements to have the office plants watered,  and for the house and cats to be tended by my dear friend John. And a few days before I left, when the plumber finally came and saw what he did, I even turned off the water to the house and put in stores of bottled water for the cats along with food and litter. I had taken care of everything, or so I thought.

But when on a national holiday at 6.30 a.m. I got in my car to drive to the airport--everybody else I know either asleep or, DUH, having a holiday in their holiday-- a light on the dashboard came on: the engine coolant level. And it made a noise.

This was on a car with a history of electronic quirks: for a while last fall for about a month, before The Great Rain, the sunroof opened whenever I opened the driver's side window. And then it just stopped happening.

So there I was. Which way should I bet? Was this yet another electronic quirk or the more serious problem that the owner's manual said it was? The local weather was supposed to be as hot as Vietnam, but ... well, what exactly does the coolant do and well, how important is it, really? Is it like air conditioning that you can live without if you have to? The owner's manual made it sound life or death. The engine coolant was not the same as my boyfriend Mr. A.C. in Vietnam--nice but I am not going to die, necessarily, without the cool air.

Everybody I knew who had not left town was not an early riser. So I called a cab. (The ride to the airport was expensive enough that I think there might be some virtue in MV's looking at our providing the occasional ride to the airport at the end of the semester, not just at the beginning of the semester.) But it got me there.

And I live to tell about it.

On the bright side: I wrote the first draft of this blog at gate C121 at Newark Airport. Since then, I have learned that my cats are fine, my family is fine, my friends are fine. The car just sits there and so be it. The damage was only monetary except for a pretty frazzled nerve or two there for a while. I will have to get the Jetta to the dealer when I get back--without it exploding, I hope, or whatever might happen--but okay.

So here I am. Outside the sun is just bleaching and  it's hotter than wherever you are (trust me).  I am in  a place with a lot of bang for the traveler buck; a place where the eye never rests; a place that tells you, "Look, look", a place of movement and energy, a place where I sometimes have no idea what is going on but I do pretty well anyway, all things considered. Usually, anyway.

Since this is a blog and not some big Official Essay, let me offer more than one conclusion here, Dear Reader,  in keeping with the abundance--the heat, the light, the greenery, the traffic, the noise, the smiles, the everything-- here in the tropics. You choose:

Sometimes adventure comes to you.

Sometimes adventure starts at home.

It's always good to have Plan B even if you think there is absolutely no need. (That thinking that there is no need may be hubris, plain and simple.)

And to wax philosophical: a poet once had a speaker in his poem say, "I am a part of all that I have met," and that is true, and it is also true that all that I have met is part of me--even the freakin' Jetta and the @#$%^ engine coolant light.

Thanks for reading and please post if the spirit moves ...