Journal of a Sabbatical

May 5, 2001

home again home again jiggety jig

Today's Reading: Fresh Air Fiend by Paul Theroux, A Long Desire by Evan Connell

Today's Starting Pitcher: Paxton Crawford

And the luggage goes round and round... We're all captive on the carousel of time ... uh, the airport... The final leg of my journey went alarmingly well up 'til the very end at Logan Airport. Yup, I had no mad dash to the connecting flight at JFK - I even had time for a bagel and coffee at Au Bon Pain and to buy another book (the horror of a flight without reading matter is unthinkable) - and the flight took off on time. The flight attendant informed us our checked baggage would be on carousel B. It wasn't. I stood there watching the carousel not go round and round because there wasn't a single piece of luggage on it. Two Spanish-speaking women from my flight were standing there looking confused too. Finally a garbled staticky announcement said the luggage from our flight would be at carousel C. You might think this is right next to carousel B, but you would be wrong. Carousel C is way the heck on the other side of the American terminal at Logan. The two Spanish-speakers looked confused and I tried to tell them "say" , which is about as close as I could come to C since I don't actually speak Spanish.

At carousel C, nothing is happening. An airport employee is sitting reading the Herald. I ask her if the governor has had her babies yet (she's expecting twins - and however historic this may be for Massachusetts there has been remarkably little coverage of it in the international press abroad). She hasn't. The woman is very pro-Gov. Swift though. She thinks she'll prove women can have it all. Still nothing on Carousel C. A woman approaches me and asks if I was on the flight from Bangor. Nope. They told her carousel C too. A baggage handler comes by and says they've assigned two flights to the same carousel. Still no baggage.

Finally exactly two bags appear on the carousel, mine and the lady from the Bangor flight's. The Spanish-speaking ladies are still waiting for their luggage when I go to find the cab that is supposed to be waiting for me. He's there and was just about to call his dispatcher to say I hadn't shown up. And the painted ponies go up and down...

So, the governor has not had her twins yet, the Red Sox have gone to bullpen by committee since closer Derek Lowe has continued his slump, and the cashiers and baggers at Wild Oats are all wearing sombreros for Cinco de Mayo. Happy Cinco de Mayo everybody.

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