STUMBLING, BUT ON THE ROAD AGAIN
Tuesday and Wednesday were a blur. Tuesday morning I finally had to pack. But before that I went to the Village Barber Shop in Swannanoa to trim my beard and the sides of my head. I couldn’t tell if my pre pandemic barber was there or not. This one had a full beard but he still talked the same way. Already with him in the other barber’s chair was a guy in his 50’s with a prosetic leg who said he was just there to talk shit. Another guy with a pistol strapped to his waist came in and that is what they did, talked shit. But mostly they talked about gardening, which all of them did on the side. They talked in Swannanoese about their various pieces of equipment, the power of their various engines and how they gardened. It was all about another world, a social bubble very different from my own and I was left out of the conversation. Shorn for $15 I went home, but before packing I decided to sew buttons on the two pairs of pants I would be wearing without a belt for the next month. It was much more difficult than I thought it would be, not having done it for 60 years. In Kathe’s knitting room I found needle, thread and a button. But it was harder than I thought to get the needle through the right hole so my first attempt fell off half way through. The thread also seemed too weak but on the second try the button stayed attached though I was dubious about how long it would last. I needn’t have worried, I had sewed the button two inches from the button hole. So I gave up and packed frantically.
Vicki Collins, my next door neighbor cheerfully drove me to the airport after no on else was available. And after that it was the succession of airports and overpriced airport meals and squeezed in plane rides for 12 hours that I have on every trip, but with one difference. This time I took a powerful ambien sleeping pill once I was belted into my seat from Charlotte to Dublin. Amazingly I had a center row, 4 seats, to myself, something I had always dreamed about, so that I could stretch out and go to sleep. Sadly, in my old age I sleep better in a recliner and I was already in a recliner. The ambien didn’t kick in until after a pasta dinner but from then on I was out cold until they woke us up for juice and coffee before landing in Dublin. After sitting in Dublin at the gate for an hour I took an alprazalam sleeping pill, the one the doctor said was good for short flights, and again I was zonked out until Geneva. The problem this time time was that I wandered through the endless Geneva airport like a zombie, unable to wake up and barely able to focus until I got through and Craig, Todd’s brother in law, met me. But for the rest of afternoon I just couldn’t wake up sleeping on and off until dinner time.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 